Writing About Writing Programs

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

I’ve been feeling pretty unwell this week (but my doctor says I do NOT have swine flu, and for that I am grateful). I nearly missed Louis Menand’s review-essay in The New Yorker, which centers on that old question: Should creative writing be taught?. But my ever-thoughtful mother, knowing that I haven’t been reading with my usual clarity, pointed it out to me. (Thanks, Mom!)

And online, there’s more.

I can’t help wishing Menand had said at least something about low-residency programs–I’ll have to see if the new book he writes about in this piece (Mark McGurl’s The Program Era) focuses on them at all.

In any case, it’ll be interesting to see the letters to the editors on this one….

The Wednesday Web Browser: Getting Paid, Conference Recap, Poetry@Harvard

by Erika Dreifus on
2

The Renegade Writer presents The Freelancer’s Guide to Getting Paid.
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Missed the BEA/Writer’s Digest Conference? Check out the link-rich roundup.
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My alma mater‘s been on my mind a lot lately, and I was perusing its Web site when I found this new beta offering: Poetry@Harvard, which offers “a vital nexus of poetry-related courses, library collections, events, organizations, publications and pedagogy at Harvard University.”

News from the Nieman Narrative Journalism Program

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Another recession casualty–I received the news via e-mail over the weekend:

Dear Friends of the Nieman Narrative Journalism Program,

I write to tell you of the Nieman Foundation’s decision to suspend the Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism and the Nieman Seminar for Narrative Editors during the 2009-2010 academic year.

This will disappoint those who have participated in the conferences in the past and who anticipated attending another narrative gathering in the spring of 2010. This difficult step reflects the foundation’s need to make a major reduction in spending for the next fiscal year, beginning in July.

The annual conferences, which were attended by hundreds of journalists and writers, were part of our strategy to establish the Nieman Foundation as a leader in supporting the value of long-form storytelling.

Our commitment to narrative will continue through the narrative writing class offered to Nieman Fellows and our online Nieman Narrative Digest. The site is now updated bi-monthly and features notable narratives, interviews with authors, essays on craft, a narrative lexicon, useful links for writers and other resources.

I also encourage you to visit our Nieman Journalism Lab, Nieman Reports, and Nieman Watchdog Web sites for industry news, tips and inspiration.

Thank you for your wonderful support of our narrative endeavors.

Best regards,
Robert H. Giles
Nieman Foundation Curator