The Modern Writing-School Paradox: More Students, Fewer Jobs, More Glory

Jon Reiner:

Never before have there been so many teachers telling so many students how to write. This is very good for the teachers. However meager the money, teaching is a paying gig and a subsidized education. Nothing helps you understand something like being forced to explain it.

The students, though, are a mystery. The number of traditional MFA programs, undergraduate writing programs, non-traditional low-residency writing programs, online writing courses, weekend writing workshops, summer writing conferences, writers' colony retreats, private instruction classes, and How-to-Write books, blogs, and software programs has grown so colossally you'd think there is as much demand for new writers in the marketplace as there is for mobile app designers. You'd be wrong. But given the explosion of writing academies, you may be persuaded to chuck that programming job at Y Media Labs to join the monster literary salon.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at June 1, 2013 12:19 AM
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