A Note About Workshop

The Workshop is a critical component of any Creative Writing Program, at both the undergraduate (Bachelor of Fine Arts) and graduate (Master of Fine Arts) levels.

Just as students in visual arts programs receive studio critiques from peers and professors, and students in the performing arts engage in practicums, rehearsals, and exams, creative writing students submit their work for feedback from other students and teachers. It is a space in which a writer may further refine an artistic vision, experiment with new approaches to material, and hone their own literary sensibilities through constructive criticism to and from peers. The Workshop also entails a fair amount of risk for both writer and commentator and is, therefore, a space of mutual vulnerability.

The Workshop format is not perfect, and like all established systems there have long been problematic structural elements, especially as regards writers from historically marginalized groups. Currently, it is undergoing a necessary transformation as students and professors think about ways to make the space more sensitive to ideas of privilege, racism, misogyny, homophobia, American exceptionalism, and other issues of bias. Everyone should think deeply about questions of agency and inclusivity.

Holly Mason Badra (MFA '17), Associate Director of the Women and Gender Studies Program, delivers an annual session for new students on Cultural Dexterity, especially in the context of an MFA program.

No two Workshop professors will lead the class in the same way and much depends on the genre being studied. Faculty ask students to be patient with different pedagogical approaches. Some professors employ a traditional workshop model, asking the writer to remain silent for the duration of the Workshop discussion. Some ask for a cover letter so that a writer may outline intentions with a piece. Others allow for comments on the final page of submitted work, or at the end of a Workshop session. They are sensitive to ways in which the Workshop might perpetuate the element of feeling silenced (which is different from a writer actively choosing silence), and they hope that you will talk to your professors or program director if you feel that this has happened. At the same time, faculty ask that you understand the importance of perspective in considering your own work, and the ways in which it is useful to hear how readers react to what you have created on the page. Precisely because the Workshop is a space of vulnerability, it should also be a generous space. Personal information will be shared; character sketches, plots, and other content may well spring from personal experiences; political perspectives may differ; religious beliefs will vary; educational backgrounds will be diverse. Faculty urge you to direct comments at the writing submitted, and not at the writer. Our community expects both faculty and students to be mindful when a writer’s identity enters the conversation. We want all student writers to have the agency to decide if they want to continue a conversation that speaks to their identity or to ask that the conversation be redirected in a more appropriate or comfortable direction. If a faculty member or peer notices a conversation that seems to attack, criticize, demean, or unsettle a writer, they should feel empowered to either speak to the issue and/or ask the writer being workshopped if they’d like to move on.

Entering into a creative writing Workshop is also like entering into an unspoken, but agreed upon, contract: you—the writer/student—receive critical and constructive feedback from your peers in exchange for your delivery of similarly thoughtful and helpful feedback to every other writer/student in the Workshop. Failure to do so is a breach of this contract and could impact your grade in the course. As with all studio-based arts programs, ongoing creative and critical conversations are an important part of artistic growth. While students are encouraged to keep conversations alive with peers and faculty, ours is a small community and we urge tact. The rise of social media and the existence of online literary communities have become part of our creative world, but we would ask that you do not use these as platforms to air specific grievances. Please respect the Workshop space and each other.

Most of all, we hope that you can find in your Workshops opportunities to explore, create, and grow as a writer. The work you present in them is the closest approximation to your creative life after your degree; the Workshop is empty space waiting to be filled by you, the writer.