This would be for CV experience only (I can’t offer pay). I teach college comp in the mornings and am in the process of looking for someone who can come in and sub every once in a great while. I also teach a creative writing course (not at a college but at a community center) in the evenings and would occasionally welcome a guest speaker to break things up.

Again, not a way to make money but good working experience that you can add to your resume or CV.

If you are interested, you can shoot me an email at:
armand_i AT yahoo DOT com

Armand

Further in, he comments on the growing number of creative writing classes that people are taking as they pursue their dreams of being the next J.K. Rowling

“While a creative writing course might teach you a little about structure, characterisation and dialogue, it won’t teach you a thing about creativity. As a reader, I reckon I can almost always tell which writers have come through a creative writing course. Because they are the ones whose work is dry, lifeless and formulaic.”

He’s not saying anything that hasn’t already been said re: the teaching of writing. Still, it did make me think, “What am Idoing to make sure my writing is wet, lively, and random?”

If you’re teaching, what are you doing to help your students defy the formula?

Title: Curator of Poetry, George Edward Woodberry Poetry Room

BASIC REQUIREMENTS: BA and MLS or equiv.; Substantial/critical knowledge of contemporary poetry and poetics from the English-speaking world; Familiarity w/digital technology in conversion of collections/recordings; Min 3 yrs library and/or archival work exp; Basic knowledge of library systems/catalogs; standards word processing, database and spreadsheet software; OTHER QUALIFICATIONS: M.A. or other advanced degree in English or American Literature strongly pref; Digital audio workstation experience strongly pref; Strong written/oral communication skills; supervisory/project management skills; ability to work collaboratively w/wide variety of people, especially faculty/students; Exp operating analog/digital audio recording/editing/ playback equipment strongly pref; Ability to lift 40 lbs.

The Curator has primary responsibility for acquisition/preservation/access and use of collection that consists of approximately 15,000 monographs, 12,000 audio recordings, 500 video recordings, 200 periodical titles, 50 linear ft. of manuscript material, 200 broadsides, as well as ephemera, artwork and realia pertaining to contemporary poetry and poetics from entire English-speaking world, as well as poetic works in other languages translated into English; Serves as HCL’s principal liaison w/students, faculty, visiting scholars; Manages collections; in consultation w/Associate Librarian, establishes annual/long-range goals/priorities; supervises staff; manages departmental budget; supervises projects relating to collection; Develops collection through purchases/gifts; Promotes/provides access to collection through digitization; website enhancement; and public programs; Provides knowledgeable reference service to students/faculty/visiting researchers; handles requests for permission to copy/use materials; Recommends conservation/preservation measures/ priorities; Participates in developing HCL’s special collections of contemporary poetry.

The salary grade is “57″ which means the lowest it could pay would be $53,000.00 a year.

And there you have it. Perhaps a spanking new job for one of you. Keep your eye out for other academic and/or writing-relating jobs for you in your life after the MFA.

Now, I love short stories, and I spent about five years writing a short story collection, but the market for short fiction is extremely limited.

Consider the types of books you buy. Even writers are more likely to buy a novel or nonfiction over a short story collection. And (in what has become an endless refrain) short fiction journals are very fond of pointing out that more people submit to them than subscribe. (I’d like to smugly point out that in the last year I’ve subscribed to Western Humanities Review, The Missouri Review and One Story.)

I realize that the short story is a great format for workshopping. You can read an entire short story in one sitting and (unlike a novel) you can revise it over one school semester, so that’s handy. Still, should MFA programs also take into account the difficulty in getting these things published and (even if you do get published) how little it pays?

Questions:

Do MFA programs owe students any sort of assistance or explanation when it comes to marketing their work? Or are MFA programs here to make us better artists, market be damned?

Publishing for money: What are the odds of getting a screenplay published vs. a short story collection vs. creative nonfiction vs. novel? I have no idea, but I have a sense that the non-fiction market is the easiest to crack. If you want to make money, the most difficult form is poetry. Anyone know for sure?

Are my own thoughts on the short story too negative? Maybe the form will come back. In the 80′s everyone thought animation was dead- now we have the Simpsons and Family Guy and a hundred other animated shows. Maybe the short story will have a new Golden Age?

And maybe the novella will come back too!

Should MFA programs add a course to their programs in which you meet with an editor and agent and get to ask questions about marketing and submitting?

Should MFA programs be redesigned for longer courses (maybe workshops that last two years) so that people, can carry a novel the whole way through?

Should MFA programs clearly explain to fiction writers that they would be better off (from a marketing perspective) writing a novel?

Discuss please.

Thanks!

Armand (who often writes short stories)

If you have one sitting around and think it could use a refresh, submit it to the CV Doctor by June 29. Get a critique and see where that can lead you down the halls of academia. (Found via Practicing Writing)

Maybe I’ll take a stab at it myself.

The premise: Let’s imagine that MassMediaLand actually cared about writing and fiction, and things were surreal enough to support a reality TV show styled on an MFA fiction workshop. Given all that, what lascivious, pompous, greasy, hairy-chested writing instructor would be Simon Cowell? One commenter suggested Michiko Kakutani, but I don’t think she’s necessarily lascivious.

Thankfully, I can’t nominate anyone from my writing program. Can you?

Writer Stephen Elliott went a month without the Internet (the horror!). He got lost on his way to a party (no online maps), but he found his way out of an addiction to “continual bursts of small information.” A really nice read — we all have habits we wish we could break. If you feel like you could be more productive, but don’t know how, take a serious look at Elliott’s adjusted approach to going online. (Poet’s & Writers)

An English professor at VA Tech, Lisa Norris, puts it effectively:

“It is not necessarily the work alone that raises concern, but the work plus the student’s affect and behavior.�

And the article shows that the teachers and students all did the correct thing. They saw Cho’s behavior and his writing and either tried to reach out to him or voiced their concerns to others. If there’s any eventual finger pointing or hunting of witches after this tragedy, it shouldn’t be aimed at the workshop.

I would never advocate for not raising alarm if a particular student was writing troubling stories. But extreme reactions to what have turned out to be just stories, have happened in the past. The fired writing teacher and expelled student at an art school in San Francisco back in 2004 come to mind.

Now, I wonder how much the general population’s (mis)understanding of the writing process — and the creative process in general — will influence unnecessary red flags in light of the Virginia shooter’s creative writing. This story in a regional newspaper only underlines that question for me: “Great Falls schools watch for ‘red flags’ in creative writing“.

The Virginia Tech student is an extreme case, one where his behavior included stalking and extremely anti-social behavior. But imagine what damage can happen to socially marginalized students — who pose no danger to themselves or others — when they feel like they will no longer be able to express themselves in the so-called safe environment of the writing workshop.

I’m thinking out loud and online. I don’t have answers or specific ideas about what this whole thing means to creative writing in schools. I just know in tragic events of this scale, people have a tendency to react strongly, if not overreact. Maybe nothing adverse will arise. But I’ll be watching to see how this develops in the national arena.

Maud Newton has a few related links: Nikki Giovanni recalls Virgina Tech shooter

Welcome to After the MFA’s leg of TypePad’s Virtual Book Tour with Brendan Halpin. Brendan, the author of five books, is promoting his new novel “Dear Catastrophe Waitress.” If you’ve come from Rarely Likable, TypePad’s network, or Brendan’s existing readers — welcome to all.

Before we launch into this interview, I want to throw a couple thoughts into a small stew pot that seems to have heated up since this virtual book tour began over on Syntax of Things.

Some folks in the “lit blog” world think TypePad’s promo tour may be exploiting the blogs on its networks. I can’t comment on what detractors are saying, what they may have at stake, or even about any conflicts of interest there may be in TypePad asking its network blogs to promote books. I’m not on the TypePad network. And I don’t particularly consider this site a lit blog — I don’t typically review books, talk about readings, or follow all the juicy tidbits in literary criticism, publishing, etc. I like to stick to the learning and doing of writing: the nuts and bolts.

Nevertheless, the debate got me thinking about this whole project.

I haven’t read Brendan’s new book — nor any of his previous books. And, I admit, I don’t often pick up novels of the kind that “Dear Catastrophe Waitress” appears to be. Brendan says he owes a lot to the work of Nick Hornby, and I haven’t been compelled to read Hornby since “High Fidelity” came out. I guess I prefer a different cup of tea. So, why agree to interview Brendan?

In the course of our email correspondence, Brendan said something that really stood out to me: “‘High Fidelity’ is the book that made me think writers weren’t necessarily some different kind of creature from me.” This is why I am taking part in this interview.

Fundamentally, Brendan’s words have everything to do with why I spend time on my web site. Writers aren’t necessarily a different kind of creature from me — or any of us. We can learn this art. We can carve out our own little slice of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, screenwriting, and whatever else is made with words. And once you begin to learn how, you have to start producing, start putting your words, ideas, and feelings on center-stage. Brendan Halpin is doing that and I’m glad we had an opportunity to sit down and talk about writing.

Whether or not this is exploitative or shilling for books… I can’t say. From my frame of reference, we’re talking about writing, like I’ve done here, here, and here. All different writers, different subjects, different styles. But in all of the cases, I’ve come out thinking a little bit more about my writing and my goals, which makes me feel like I’ve gotten the better deal out of it.

Enough of me. Let’s do that interview…

In your podcast interview with Harold Check, you mentioned that you have made the leap into full-time writing. When did that happen and how did you know it was the right time?

It was a bizarre confluence of events. I sold my first novel, “Donorboy, within a week of finding out that my wife Kirsten had about six weeks to live. I figured that the advance was enough for me to live on for a year, and once Kirsten died, it would have been very difficult to return to teaching because I would have had to put my daughter into before- and after-school programs, but, more importantly, teaching well takes a big emotional investment, and I had nothing in the tank to give to my students. All other considerations aside, I didn’t think it would have been fair to my students to just mail it in. So I started staying home and making up stories to make myself feel better.

You also mentioned that the discipline of writing is nothing like the discipline of teaching. Still, how do you stay on track?

I have a pretty rigid routine that helps me. I take the kids to school, I walk the dog, I exercise, and I sit down to write. And on the days when I don’t feel like writing, I do it anyway. I have the luxury to be able to do this as a job and not have to work my writing into time stolen from other responsibilities. So that makes it relatively easy. My personality is such that I’d feel guilty if I just sat on the couch and watched movies all day. And, of course, I have bills to pay. So I just sit down every day and do it.

How do you think teaching writing would compare with teaching high school?

Well, I always taught writing in my high school classes–I taught writing electives, but even in the “regular” English classes, I always made kids write personal essays, poetry and fiction in addition to the dreaded “English Paper.” For me, teaching writing was always the most fun because there’s a clear end product, and I guess I felt like I was good at helping my students to write better. So, for me, that was always the fun part. When I taught writing electives, it was really fun for me. Having said that, I don’t know how it works in college. I took one fiction workshop class in college and it was prickly and uncomfortable as all these kids with big egos, low self esteem and pretty undeveloped talent sat around and ripped each other’s stories to shreds. So I guess it’s really important for the instructor to set a supportive tone. I don’t know if that’s easier to do in high school, or if my instructor just wasn’t very good at that. She did introduce me to Raymond Carver, though, so that was good.

Where has your writing education or training or learning come from the most?

This is going to sound hopelessly corny, but I think I learned the most about writing from being a teacher. I learned a great deal just from teaching kids how to be better writers. And as far as the literature goes, I had to reread a lot of great literature, and I’m normally not a rereader. So on my fourth or fifth reading of something, I was able to stop just reading for the entertainment value and really pay attention to how those writers were making their books work. I guess it was like the difference between being a driver and being a mechanic. After a while I really got under the hood and saw how things were working.

You’ve talked about how important music is to you. Can you finish this sentence: Writing about music is like …?

…writing about food, or sex, or anything else that fundamentally hits you in a non-verbal part of your brain. I think that verbalizing experiences that come to us non-verbally is one of the biggest challenges of writing. And it’s also easy to do badly.

What other writers do you read, appreciate, feel a kinship toward?

I’m such a sponge that I have to read stuff that bears no resemblance to what I’m writing, or else I find myself unconsciously copying it. So, I mean, I obviously owe a tremendous debt to Nick Hornby, but I don’t read him anymore because I don’t want to steal from him. But I think “High Fidelity” is the book that made me think writers weren’t necessarily some different kind of creature from me.

I am in total awe of China Mieville. His imaginary worlds are more keenly observed than my real ones. And he’s a very good writer. So much science fiction/fantasy/horror/whatever you want to call it is strong on the ideas and cringe-worthy on the writing and dialogue, and Mieville is just so good at everything I can’t even be jealous of him.

I really like Christopher Moore‘s work, and a lot of Stephen King’s. I grew up reading Stephen King, and I really admire him. I think he’s just a really gifted observer of how people’s minds work. I think he’s able to sell all the supernatural stuff so convincingly because the workings of his characters’ minds feel so real. Charlie Huston is great. I’m a huge Philip K. Dick fan. I like Jonathan Lethem and Bradley Denton. Max Brooks’ “World War Z” is probably the best book I’ve read in 2007, and Frank Portman’s “King Dork” is the best book I read in 2006.

You have five books out now and another coming soon — what’s the secret of your prolific-ness?

Well, the longest one is 308 pages. So I don’t know that I’m writing more pages than anybody else — I just happen to write short books. But I think a lot about the advice I used to give my students, which is just that you have to be fearless about writing crap. I sit down every work day and make myself write at least a thousand words. Later on I worry about if they suck, but I think it’s just so important to turn the internal editor off when you’re writing a first draft. I find it much easier to tinker with a whole lot of stuff I’ve already written than to agonize over each word before I type it.

If you were invited to become a screenwriter, what would be your first project?

I’m dying for somebody to ask me to write a sequel to the Breakfast Club. John! Molly! Emilio! Somebody, call me!

***

With that, I send you off to the next stage of the virtual book tour, over at Drive Like Hell. I hope you got something out of your time here and may I see you back again.