Clarion and Critiques

[lydamorehouse]

My set has been having a lot of discussion about a Twitter thread that popped up a few days ago by S Qiouyi Lu: https://twitter.com/sqiouyilu/status/1560229177915166720 that was at least partly inspired by this Tor.com article: "The Ghosts of Workshops Past..."

I never went to Clarion, so I can't comment on that experience, but I've been teaching writing with a heavy focus on "workshopping" at the Loft for over twenty years now. I have a lot to say about the Milford style, as it's called. 

If you're unfamiliar with the term Milford when applied to critique, it's got a few basic "rules." The author stays silent (the "gag rule") while the critiquers speak.  Each person reads/says their critique, out loud, and is limited by some amount of time, typically five or ten minutes, depending on the class size. Sometimes the critique facilitator will use a bell or a buzzer to move to the next person. At the end, the author gets a chance for a rebuttal, but it, too, has a strict time limit. 

This model has been under fire lately for a lot of good reasons. I've attended an Anti-Racist Workshopping lecture through the Loft (actually taught by the woman who wrote the book referenced in the Tor.com article) and I've been thinking about changes I can implement in my classroom over the last several months since. I will get to those, in a bit, because first, however, what I want to talk about is my sense that one of the big failures of Milford isn't NECESSARLY inherent in its structure, but my sense that there are facilitators, instructors, teachers, and professors out there NOT doing their jobs. 

This article from 2019, "Unsilencing the Writing Workshop" is also going around, but I could only get a few paragraphs in before I blew a gasket. The readers of this person's submission got lost in the weeds about dim sum. It's insane to me that they didn't know what dim sum is, but it is ERGREGOUS that they spent so much time debating it. Reading the description of that moment gave me flashbacks to moments like this in critiques I've had, etc., but it also triggered my inner writing instructor who would have broke into that bullshit and said, "Chad! Stop talking! This is not constructive. You don't have good friends who take you out to yummy food and I'm deeply sorry about your life, but it's time to talk to Beth about character, setting, plot, and STOP CIRCLING THIS PARTICULAR DRAIN."

And that just made me wonder, in all of this talk about Clarion experiences and critique, WHERE are the instructors?

First of all, they should be teaching people how to not do this terrible stuff.

There is mistaken idea out there (which has a corollary in writing in general) that anyone who reads can critique. (The corollary being that anyone who can string sentences together can write effective prose). Critiquing well is actually a skill set that needs to be learned with the same kind of care given to learning the craft of writing. 

An instructor should be doing a bunch of things before the first critique session, not the least of which is setting up expectations.

When I teach my writing class, I spend the first half of the class before our first critique explaining not only the nitty gritty of how it will work (like, who hands out when, how long a piece can be, what the requirements for class are, etc.,), but then also talking about expectations. Some of the expectations I tell my Loft students before they begin to write critiques are things like: I expect you to help this author write the best story that they are trying to write, not the story you would write. We talk about this one often for a long time, because it's important to understand how to meet someone where they are.  I really think that this goes a long way toward decolonizing the classroom, because if you remind students that their job is to help the writer tell their story effectively, you are shifting the focus away from some "idealized" version (which is often bland, white, middle class, MFA writing) towards a personal expression of someone's own authentic story, in their own voice. 

Likewise, I tell my students that as part of helping people tell the story they are trying to tell, I expect them to read all the genres that are handed out, even if they're not ones that they particularly like or even feel they understand the rules of. However, I tell them that they can start a critique of a mystery story, for instance, by saying "I am not normally a mystery reader..." and then try to talk to the author about the basic story things that worked, i.e., "the dialogue felt very natural," or didn't, i.e., "The description of the murder scene was confusing because I could not picture how the body was positioned and that seemed to be critical to the detective solving the crime." 

In my class, because I teach working adults, I also tell them that they are always allowed to say "pass" when critique comes to them. What I say is, "We are all adults here. Sometimes life interferes." Then, I explain that I will never ask them why they are passing and no one else is allowed to either. I am explicit, though, that it's actually OK to use a "pass" for stories that triggered something for them or in a case where they just could NOT figure out how to tackle what was wrong in a piece. I caution them, though, at this point, that while it okay to "pass" when necessary, this class runs on the idea that you get out of the class what you put into it. So, if your critique every time is either pass or "it was okay, I guess," then you can't expect more than that from your colleagues when your story is up for review.

I also have some other expectations that I feel make the critiques run more smoothly. One is that we don't waste time on grammar or spelling errors. My class happens once a week, so people have a lot of time to read and mark-up (either on the actual paper if we are meeting in person and handing out or electronically,) and so they are allowed to red ink as much as they like on the person's manuscript. But, they can only mention grammar or spelling in passing if they feel that it got in the way of the story. It can NOT be the focus of their critique. I remind them if they are aiming for professional publication grammar and spelling are the purview of the copyeditor anyway. Editors and writers do not sweat the small stuff. 

I tell them they don't have to repeat anything six other people have said. They can just acknowledge that they had the same issue and move on. 

I always remind them of the golden rule, which, in this case, translates to: talk to someone about their writing the way you want to be talked to about yours. Always assume best intentions (that bit of sexist dialogue might have been an honest mistake or blind spot and not malicious intent, after all!) and always assume the author is as smart as you are (yes, they know ain't ain't a word, but are using it intentionally here for effect), speak to them from that place.

Then, after we talk about all these expectations, I ask them if they have questions or concerns. We set up what kind of critique environment we want together.  Often, students want to know if they can add an artist's statement on the front of their story or novel excerpt to help forestall some issues, ala, "I am writing wet Venus. I know the science is bad, but I'm going for a retro, space opera vibe..." and can they ask people to answer specific questions, like, "I am experimenting with not saying what gender Captain Xanoth is, does it work for you?" THIS IS ALWAYS OKAY in my classroom. 

Again, this was one of those things that was discussed in my Anti-Racist Workshop that I would have thought was kind of standard, which is allowing students the freedom (and responsibly) to direct the kind of feedback they're looking for by being able to frontload these questions before people even start thinking about critiquing.

Then, after all of this... and it is usually a full hour of discussion... we start talking about how to critique effectively. I talk about an approach that I learned long ago that still works surprisingly well, which is, if you have the time, read the manuscript twice. The first time, read it like you would any story. When I am marking-up stories on paper, I will use a different color ink for each read, and so my first read comments will be things like "Ah. The villain is on scene," sometimes followed by "Wait, she's not the villain... okay, are there two villains??" and the kinds of random thoughts you go through as you read. I tell my students that it may seem silly, but it can be really helpful for the author to know what people are thinking as they read, like if they are trying to guess ahead on a story with a mystery revealed, like when do they start picking up the clues. 

The second read is the red pen read. I think about how, now that I know the ending, how well that ending is reflected in the beginning (of the short story or novel chapter, if appropriate.) Now that I have a sense of who these characters are, I look at their dialogue and offer suggestions about whether or not there are ways in which that could be done more effectively to imply the personalities of those people. Like, you find out half way through someone is a doctor, maybe there's a way to signal that earlier with how they talk about certain things, etc. 

 I also require my students to write up a summary of their thoughts that follow a very specific structure: first impressions, strengths, weaknesses and a final impression. The idea here is that you have a summary! There's no way to waste your ten minutes (if you have to be on a strict schedule) floundering around trying to say something substantive.

The reason I have them start with strengths is for a reason, too. Part of learning to workshop is learning to hear what is wrong with what you've been trying to do, and I find that's impossible if you have no sense that you did ANYTHING right. If you start with the good stuff, "I loved that moment when Aunt May told Peter that she thought the secret in his closet was chiffon!" then when you inevitably have to say, "This is Spider-Man fan fic? It's never going to sell to Uncanny" that latter part lands more solidly in the author's head. Also, I think this structure helps delineate the space between unnecessarily cruel and brutally honest. If you've told someone that you really like the way they do dialogue, then it's a bit easier to have a frank discussion about that one moment of sexism? 

I assign homework that teaches people questions they can ask themselves when critiquing for the first time. I always point them to this marvelous resource: https://web.archive.org/web/20190820204915/http://www.crayne.com/howcrit.html

If I have not gone overtime in my class, I will sometimes just go through some of the questions on Victory's list to show people examples of the kinds of things they can ask themselves while doing that second read-through.

The last thing I want to say is that MY JOB AS WRITING INSTRUCTOR does NOT stop here. You do not then get to abdicate responsibility as the facilitator or instructor. I always set up the first critique session by saying "This is the only time I will go first. I have found that when an instructor leads critique, the critique that follows is often a lot of 'ditto' because people are afraid to express opinions that run counter to the instructor's and that's actually not useful? An author needs to honestly hear everyone's impression. BUT, I will lead the first time because students need to understand the level, tone, and rigor I expect." Then, even when I start go last, I have my finger over the mute button if I need to stop someone and yell, "Chad! Enough with the micro-aggressions. You have talked enough about how you think dim sum must be 'something Asian, maybe?'  We will have a discussion at the top of the next class that explains why that's not okay. I'm sure you were just trying to find something to say in critique, but this is not actually helpful anymore. If you have something ELSE to say about the story structure or dialogue to Beth, please do. If you don't have anything more of substance to say, we are moving on to Carol..." 

THAT'S MY DAMN JOB.

If you are a signing up to be a facilitator and not a teacher, it's STILL YOUR DAMN JOB. 

It's really hard, but teaching, like critique, is something you have to learn to do well. 

Comments

[yhlee]

Not disagreeing! But Clarion West (and probably also Clarion) is a little weird in that it runs six weeks and there's a new instructor every week. When I taught at Clarion West (2018, week 3), I was given a list of the standard procedures and critiquing guidelines that would be introduced/used and told that the students would have been taught the how-to during week 1. I don't think there's any way for a later-week instructor to know exactly what happened with previous-week instructors, although the staff present for the whole workshop monitor things and ensure continuity. Whether this is a good system or not, I'm not in a position to say.

[lydamorehouse]

You attended some kind of workshop thing though, right? Did you go to Viable Paradise or whatever it's called? How did things work there?

I know Clarion has it's own problems. This is supposed to be a general critique of critiques, even though Clarion is in the title. So, yes, feel free to argue about how it worked at Clarion! I have no idea either as an instructor or a student. I never went to Clarion.

[yhlee]

I went to Viable Paradise VIII in...2006?? I'm guessing (if the first VP was in 1998 according to their website). I attended as a student. It was a one-week workshop and my parents-in-law paid for it, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to afford it. My husband took time off from work and he and his parents took care of our daughter, who was very young at the time. The instructors that year were Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Laura Mixon, Steven Gould, James McDonald, and Debra Doyle, I think. There were a lot of group activities, like a reading of some Shakespeare play - optional, but as the parent of a very small child I was so grateful to be interacting with ADULT HUMAN BEINGS that I went to everything I could. I don't remember a large-group critique in the Milford style, but there were a couple small-group critiques (like, I want to say three or four students led by an instructor - in my case one of mine was with Teresa Nielsen Hayden. I remember one of the other students gave iffy feedback on a sentence structure that I liked to use and Teresa gently pushed back that "that's a fine sentence structure" - in my memory this wasn't shaming or punitive, just matter-or-fact, but I don't know how the other student perceived it. There were also some writing exercises and assignments, which we workshopped. I loved the whole experience, but I don't know how universal it was, and this was like 15 years ago so a lot of the details are very hazy in my memory.

I agree that the instructor definitely has to teach critiquing/norms, no argument there - just, as the third-week instructor at Clarion West I literally have no idea how that was done. Aside from the summary of procedures/critique norms, I don't know how the week one instructor taught that. I believe I was told that the week one instructor would do this but I don't know anything beyond that. Students generally seemed to know the basics of how to critique and I reinforced those as I could? During my week at Clarion, besides running the Milfordy group critique sessions, I met one-on-one with every student (I read everything they had written for the workshop in the first and second weeks as well - this was optional on my part but I wanted to do it because I had the time/energy) to discuss their goals, go over what I'd seen of their writing, answer any one-on-one questions they had, etc. I also ran a one-hour optional workshop on worldbuilding, to which most of the students came. I hope no one felt pressured to attend, but I really don't know.

I don't know how good/bad the new-instructor-every-week approach is. Maybe it comes out in the wash. I had some students who had had not-great experiences with one of the previous instructors, whether that was a personality clash or what. But of course maybe some of the students that year had bad experiences with me and I just didn't pick up on it. Theoretically staff are supposed to be able to mitigate against that but then that depends on the staff and their procedures, again something I didn't have visibility into.

[lydamorehouse]

First of all, just to be clear, I absolutely did not write this with the intention of shaming you or any other Clarion teacher. I totally get feeling a bit called out by the initial Twitter post, however--Like, I would too, if I'd ever taught at Clarion. I actually agree with you that I have NO IDEA how I would walk into the third week of Clarion and have any idea how to pick-up critique other than to do exactly what you did. I wonder (and neither of us knows since I have never been a Clarion student, and it sounds like you never were either) if it wouldn't behoove Clarion to have a strong week one instructor who could invest in some of the "how-to"s of critique and expectations, etc. But how would you know that?

Did the Clarion teachers never communicate? No Slack or Discord? I suppose a lot of this was before such things, but, man, you'd think a listserv or email chain might have helped a bit.

I've heard really good things about Viable Paradise which is why I was wondering about your experience with it. (Also, full on relate to LOOK! ADULTS! I remember what that was like when Mason was little.)

[sabotabby]

Well, your workshops sound amazing.

I absolutely don't understand MFA/Milford/Clarion culture as it's much less of a thing here. But learning how to critique is a skill and it's one that I both had to be explicitly taught and that I try to explicitly teach. I think there's a lot of "well, I got taught these basic rules in high school and never developed my critique craft past that," which gets very minor mechanical edits and "you need to show don't tell," and on the other end of the spectrum there's "I want you to change your story entirely to be the thing that I like." Neither approach is particularly helpful.

The thing that taught me most about literary critique was Fred Clark's "Left Behind" deconstruction. Which is, on one level, making fun of a bad book in absolutely exquisite detail. But on another level it's looking at all the ways in which prose, plot, character, theme, and underlying ideology all intersect with each other (and fail miserably to tell a good story). Of course that's not the kind of thing you can do in a workshop or a beta exchange, but it at least taught me what to look for.

[lydamorehouse]

Oh, that's an EXCELLENT resource! I mean, it would be a fun thing to assign at some point, or at least parts of it. Does Clark's deconstruction still exist anywhere on the internet? (I haven't looked for myself yet, perhaps it is obvious.)

[sabotabby]

Oh hells yes it does!

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2015/11/05/left-behind-index-the-whole-thing/

He appears to have at some point published it in ebook form, but the link does not appear to work or I'd be buying it right now.

[kore]

Yeah, when I finally got to writing workshops (mostly grad school, but then it was SO MANY workshops) I got praise for how thorough I was! and how I was perceptive! and so on and it was because....I was really good at editing/copyediting to the point of informally charging people for it as an undergrad. I also read A LOT of critical essays on my own so I tended to read each story as if it had, you know, its own literary interpretation, not like it was a rival's exercise in a highly competitive environment. I remember reading that Left Behind analysis too, and it was great -- it's also what I would personally call a detailed literary analysis (or deconstruction, like you say) and they're miles away from "this character felt flat to me".

[sabotabby]

Oh yeah. I used to edit for a living, and part of my job was manuscript evaluations, so I got into the practice of 1) establishing the author's intent and 2) identifying the parts of the story that were working against that intent.

I can't deal with competitiveness at all. The value of my Discord groups is that we're all lifting each other up. Which doesn't mean that people can't be brutal, but it's brutality in service of making it a better story.

[kore]

This sounds ideal! I would love to take your class.

I never went to Clarion but I sat through many workshops based on the Iowa Writer's Workshop model which is the same damn thing as "Milford". The two main things I remember are that if the first person commenting got hung up on something, no matter how small or large, everyone else would inevitably mention it, which wasted a lot of time; and, relatedly, the instructors were extremely passive. They'd take their turn after everyone had spoken and often speak for longer and with obvious greater authority, but it would be too late to influence the discussion and they almost never laid out clear guidelines the way you do.

People weren't required to show their work in any way, either with story summaries or written critiques, and sometimes participation was so minimal instructors gave time in class for people to read the story while the instructor and the writer had a one-on-one. This wasn't that satisfying either because if the instructor didn't like you/the story you were SOL. I remember getting mss back with one or two marks like "??" or "Great!" The Milford/IWW model just doesn't work in groups above ten people, I think. It's too easy for discussions to get way off-topic and if you're in a group with twenty or twenty-five members by the time everyone has had their full say (and nobody wants to be timed), it can be hours.

What I know about critiquing I learned from editing, which had a very different slant from the start because it was about querying the author about what they meant, and doing your best to try to bring out their voice and viewpoints. The focus is always on bringing out what is in the manuscript to their satisfaction, not fucking bizarre discussions about dim sum.

[lydamorehouse]

Right??

Your experience in the various workshops you attended sounds ABYSMAL. And sounds a lot like what some people are describing about their experiences elsewhere on the web. I am horrified on your behalf that the instructors were so passive.

I should have mentioned in all of this that I require, as part of my class, that the students return something written. In my online classes, I actually got a copy of it to see before it was passed on to the author, but in in-person class, I at least saw that a stack of papers was returned to the student. You GOT actual feedback that was more than "meh" in class. JFC. I am just livid at your facilitators/instructors. Grr, good critique sessions can be sooooooooooo good. I've learned so much not only teaching how-to critique but being part of an on-going critique writers' group.

Ah, well. I have no idea what the Loft is doing in terms of in-person or on-line in the future, but I'll be sure to let people here know when I am teaching again.

[kore]

I should have mentioned in all of this that I require, as part of my class, that the students return something written. In my online classes, I actually got a copy of it to see before it was passed on to the author, but in in-person class, I at least saw that a stack of papers was returned to the student. You GOT actual feedback that was more than "meh" in class. JFC. I am just livid at your facilitators/instructors.

The instructors were SO passive! It was really weird. Of course there were infamous writing workshops like the one by Gordon Lish which was emotional navy SEAL training where he tore people to pieces (especially women), but that is much more rare (and hopefully also not as condoned socially now). There was a long piece in I think the New Yorker?? about Iowa specifically but I can't find it now -- it also described that "if someone tells you that you can't make it and you believe them, you didn't deserve to" mindset. Muy macho.

Grr, good critique sessions can be sooooooooooo good. I've learned so much not only teaching how-to critique but being part of an on-going critique writers' group.

They've been so important for a lot of writers! I remember Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton took Robert Lowell's writing workshop together, and Anne Sexton was a longtime member of a very small group (her, Starbuck, John Holmes, Maxine Kumin and I think one other person) which did NOT follow the Milford method (Sexton would never be able to sit still and silent for long, lol) and the descriptions of it in her biography were fascinating. Anne Lamott (love her) talks about writing groups, too. But those are really different from a high-prestige expensive pressure cooker of a storied and very limited pro workshop.

[lcohen]

this is all so interesting and helpful to have it laid out so clearly. i know a person of color who had a TERRIBLE experience at clarion west--so terrible that they stopped writing for about ten years! i never read their fiction, only some non-fiction they wrote which was fine (i used to be a copy editor--i've seen bad writing)--it was clear and coherent but no sense of what their fiction writing might have been like, but still it struck me as a sadness that they stopped writing--that even the non-fiction was a breakthrough for them. your way sounds so much more supportive and likely to be encouraging as well as useful.

[lydamorehouse]

It's shocking common for people to quit writing after Clarion. I can think of four local people who stopped writing after Clarion. And you have to be good to get it? It's not open to anyone. The selection of attendees is juried.

[kore]

Oh and as one other data point, even though UNM was in no way as prestigious or high-pressure as Clarion, when I had a spectacular mental breakdown 9/10 of the way through grad school there was absolutely no help or recourse, altho this was in the exact middle of the 1990s so maybe things are different now. I've had friends who were able to get accommodations or medical excuses from universities for mental health, but it typically took A LOT of paperwork and depended a lot on the goodwill of the administration. And a couple of friends who got that kind of "help" (typically just unpaid medical leave, with no pay, and one lost her fellowship) wound up dropping out or having their careers seriously curtailed anyway.

(And as a recovering alcoholic AND a former smoker who is now so sensitized to cigarette smoke it makes me cough, whoo, I would not have been able to attend any of those Clarion parties either. At Iowa there was always a big social scene around the visiting creative writing profs which did include boozy parties. But there's typically even fewer accommodations typically for people who don't drink, for whatever reason, than there are for mental health issues which are often BROUGHT ON by grad school but I digress.)

[lydamorehouse]

Yeah, the parties. I had a similar reaction reading that in the thread. I am not a drinker. Not for any of the reasons that make sense, I just never learned to like or tolerate alcohol of any kind so I just don't. I don't respond to social pressure very well, so I'm sure I'd be the odd person out who would look people dead in the eye when they're like, "Lyda! We're hitting the bars!" and I'd say, "Bye! Not for me!" and I'd go back to the dorm room, read my assignments and go to bed at 7 pm and would be the pariah of Clarion. (I mean, this was literally me in college.)

I'm so sorry to hear about your breakdown! That sounds rough. I would HOPE that there is better accommodations and help now, but you never know, do you?

[kore]

and I'd go back to the dorm room, read my assignments and go to bed at 7 pm and would be the pariah of Clarion. (I mean, this was literally me in college.)

This was me in most of college and grad school because I also NEVER HAD ANY MONEY. Lots of little details from that Twitter essay stuck out, like one meal not being provided, and a communal kitchen, and no food on weekends?? GOOD LUCK to anyone who has like gluten issues or food allergies, and that also adds up really quickly if you don't have any fridge or hot plate in your room at all! But clubbing is really expensive. Aaaaand....not to be That Person (lol, I have a tag that says #feministbitchsince1970) but a lot of people all crammed together in one dormlike situation for weeks on end with no break, no partner visits, no chance to get off-campus, &c &c, AND a ton of alcohol sounds like it could lead to some bad situations. I also had enough of that in college, thankyou.

I think a lot of unis now at least have policies re mental health in place, due to ADA and so they won't get sued, but a lot of it is lip service and they don't have a whole lot of actual help available. A lot of people I knew in grad school who needed counseling did it through the university's psych program, which rotated students through the psych clinic, so not only did you get people right at the beginning of their clinical experience, they typically weren't there longer than six months either. Arranging anything off-campus was typically left to the students.

[sartorias]

There's also this sense that the latest award winning Kool Kid will not only teach their coolness, but make the hirers look cool for having Cook Kid on staff. But many of these are writers who are solitary individuals and who choke in front of all those eyes.

Speaking as a teacher for decades, it's NOT the same as being a writer. You can bring craft discussions to the table, but there are lots of aspects to the classroom dynamic that are equally important, if not moreso.

[yhlee]

This is such a great point.

I went to Stanford for a teaching degree (math, not writing - context for anyone reading this) - they distinguish between content area knowledge (in this case, "how to write") and pedagogical content area knowledge ("how to TEACH how to write").

You know, I have NO idea how Clarion West chooses its instructors. I have knowledge of math pedagogy and I tutored at my college writing center and math center. My publications are a matter of public record but they never asked me what my teaching experience was?? And thinking back, I wish they had, because it's so relevant!!

[lydamorehouse]

Yes, I learned everything I know about teaching by making all the mistakes in the classroom. I don't have a teaching degree, but, like Clarion staff, I got hired by the Loft because I published a book. This is not actually a good credential for teaching, as we are discussing.

I am fortunate in that I have a professor parent who was willing to throw "discussion as teaching" type books at me when I whined about having failed to impress this or that on a student.

But, seriously, you'd think that these days Clarion might want to invest in having a workshop or two for the instructors, like we had at the Loft, on decolonizing the classroom and all that stuff. I mean, I bet the woman we had Rose Chavez is expensive, so I also actually understand why Clarion doesn't (as someone who regularly contributes to keeping them going, I understand they are not made of money.) But after this whole Twitter storm, it might be worth the investment.

[naomikritzer]

Something I was really curious about after reading Sophie's thread is what Clarion / Clarion West would do if a Week 4 teacher strolled in and said "yeah, we're going to break into groups of three so that each story gets critiqued by 5 people instead of 17, and then with the time people aren't listening to people say 'ditto' we're going to do some other things." Is the instruction your week theoretically up to you, or do they tell you, "we do critique, everyone critiques, if you want to do anything else you have to do it in the off hours as an optional thing"?

[oracne]

Speaking as a teacher for decades, it's NOT the same as being a writer. This.

[xochiquetzl]

So, apparently, my writer's group is modified Milford? in which if someone doesn't know WTF dim sum is the author can tell you. I try to discourage the author arguing with the critiquer about whether they're right or wrong. Presumably, that's their honest opinion (we also have a "don't be an asshole" rule) and their subjective opinion about your writing is as valid as the next person at the table's subjective opinion. I also give everyone five minutes so everyone (including the author) gets a chance to speak. Usually the author answers questions or asks for clarification. I also encourage people to say what they liked about the submission as well, as I've seen writers remove the cool bits along with the things people mentioned as being problems and resubmit, and that sucks.

There's a local group that I understand debates each submission until the table comes to an agreement about whether it's good or bad. I would lose my mind.

[glaurung]

The other week I had a "light dawns" moment in thinking about racism. And that is, every time I hear about something happening where my initial thought is "how on earth did the person acting racist not know that that's not a cool way to act/not how things are done?!", the answer is, they do know that saying/doing that thing is incredibly rude and harmful. But consciously or unconsciously, they *choose* to not act on that knowledge when the person on the other end is a minority/marginalized person.

So a workshop where the Asian student's story gets derailed by people not knowing what dim sum is? The exact same instructor in the same class might have quite skillfully steered the discussion for another, white, student where someone got stuck on a subcultural irrelevancy.

On the other hand, the rules of the workshop are designed by and for a culturally homogenous group of people writing homogenous stories, so as people upthread have said, the instructor might often be very passive and think it's not their job to intervene when discussion goes off the rails. When you have both happening at once, then the class is going to invevitably be a very, very negative space for anyone who isn't homogenous and isn't writing nice, safe homogenous stories. I took, um, four? writing workshop classes in my university career. Some were good. Others were fucking awful, because I was a weird nerd writing SF and/or weird stuff, and everyone else in the class, and the instructor, was busy writing/asking for mainstream fic.

[pameladean]

Thank you for hosting this discussion. Clarion and many other workshops were always my vision of absolute hell, but I had failed to really understand how very much worse it could be for people who were more marginalized than just being female and introverted and short of money makes one.

Your methods sound excellent to me. On the whole I am not going to get anywhere near any method of teaching where one is required to produce writing on a short schedule, but I think those of us who choke when provided with a short deadline are kind of out of luck if critique is considered a necessary part of the process. I could attend a class in theory with published examples, or something of that sort (I guess that's basically called a class in English literature, but most of those don't have useful examples for sff writers) but that's about it.

P.