Writing Workshops

Creative writing is a subset of therapy, with the same essential modalities -- except, like everything else in our culture, it comes in a stripped, dumbed down version that partakes little of the rigors of psychotherapy.

Raymond Hammond is editor of the poetry journal New York Quarterly and the related book imprint New York Quarterly Books, as well as being an esteemed poet in his own right. I recently had a wide-ranging conversation with him about the state of affairs in the poetry world.

Mikhail Iossel's creation pretty much is the international literary scene to North Americans, at least where writing workshops are concerned.

Richard Burgin has long been a mainstay in American literary circles, as five-time winner of the Pushcart Prize, editor for more than a quarter century of the award-winning journal Boulevard, and author of numerous critically acclaimed short story collections.

There are now too many literary artists, publishers, readings, salons, conferences, creative writing programs, literary magazines, and bohemian coteries for any one person to keep tabs on.

Just as the guild structure was socially conservative--and hence easily superseded when the more progressive market system, flourishing along with the industrial economy, came along--so is the present MFA credentialing system.

Myth: MFA programs are desperate for tuition dollars, so they'll admit almost anyone. Fact: Portland State's MFA (ranked #52 nationally) is a tougher admit than University of Pennsylvania's undergraduate program.

Rachel Zucker and Arielle Greenberg asked one hundred of the best-known emerging American poets to respond with a poem for each of Obama's first 100 days. The resulting anthology is very revealing.