In a collegiate setting, the concept of
writing genre fiction seems absurd. That is something that you shouldn't do
if you want to be taken seriously as someone contributing to the academic
welfare of a university. Back when I was in college, I had an up close experience with this very concept. Mary Bly, who rights under the pen name of Eloisa James, was coming to East Carolina University to share her expertise as a both a NYT bestselling romance author and as a Shakespearean authority. Mary Bly shared with me that it was difficult to politically balance the opinions of her English colleagues with her more private life as a bestselling author. Even though she was successful in both the academic and popular world, she has to keep these two worlds separate for fear public scrutiny by her English colleagues. I assumed that if a person's writing was successful in any atmosphere that the success would be beneficial for you as writer. Dr. Bly explained to me that this simply was not the case. English scholars did not and should not be associated with popular fiction. In a way, Dr. Bly has to hide this alternate identity.
When I contacted her about coming to East Carolina to speak as a genre
author and Shakespeare authority, she had been surprised. Why would we care to
hear about both her worlds? And once again, for us to receive funding from the
English Department, we had to have an "academic" reason for her to come.
Apparently, learning how to write genre fiction and getting it published was not
important in the eyes of the university.
This was not the first time I had encountered such extreme opinions on the prospect of writing academic or genre fiction. When I took a creative writing class in college, I also was subjected to the gross reality that genre fiction was considered below the academic standard. In the creative writing class, we could not write just anything. We could not entertain the possibility of writing anything outside the bounds of a realistic fiction piece where the main character experienced an epiphany, which contributed to a turning point in that person's life. So even in this supposed creative free space, we as writers were not free. We were constrained by a set of unspoken morals dictated by the English Department.
Today, these experiences came full circle for me as a writer. I wondered about this dichotomy between genre writing and academic writing. I spoke about my creative writing experiences in my oral history. Nicholas was my partner, and we discussed the concept that academic writing is safe for us at the university. We have set rules and expectations for a particular piece of writing. Yet, in genre writing we who are so confident in our skills as an academic writer only shyly and rarely offer up a piece of creative writing for criticism. We mistrust our years of writing because there are no hard and fast rules for genre writing. Somehow, genre writing is more personal. This led me to ask the question, "Is genre writing "beneath" us or is it that we as academics are scared and uncomfortable at the thought of a more personal criticism?"
THANK YOU. I think the current movements in education (or I should say outside of education but none-the-less influential; I'm looking at you Common Core...) have devalued creative writing, fictional writing, etc, and it is shameful. If our brains cannot create, cannot imagine, how can we aspire to ingenuity?
ReplyDeleteAnywho, your point resonates with me.
Ashley, your post reflects some of my thinking from today! Tonya, Kendra, and I were discussing our fear of writing creatively, especially if it is fiction, because we are so comfortable with our academic voices.
ReplyDeleteI struggled with some of the same balancing as the Shakespeare professor in my undergraduate career. As a double-major (English and history), I was constantly being pulled between my two worlds. My English professors affectionately harassed me about not losing my soul or my ability to engage an audience in my history classes, while my social science professors joked about me not being able to make an analytical argument with real evidence in my lit courses. While I know that both groups respected their colleagues in the other department, I could still sense a feeling of misunderstanding and maybe even condescension in their comments. My main goal now is to get people - students, teachers, anyone - to understand that while disciplines may have differences, especially when it comes to writing expectations, those disciplines depend on one another in order to function, to make meaning, to contribute to the world around us. Hence, my inquiry project...
Ashley! This is the most awesome question! I so love this line of thinking. I was rereading tonight my short attempt at sci-fi writing from the fall and thinking I am going to take that up again this summer perhaps. It was the most wonderful experience to use creative fiction, particularly sci-fi, to create a story that pushes boundaries around sexuality, gender and dominant narratives. There is a fantastic and exciting history in women's studies to use science fiction as a vehicle for political imagination. So I guess I am saying that it seems that the lines between genre fiction and academic writing might be conceived as quite blurry.
ReplyDeleteI think I'm guilty of sometimes thinking that one genre or another is more worthy, more "literary" (whatever that means), more writerly, even though as a reader I enjoy lots of different genres. And yet, I think I still have that mindset of "Oh I'm just reading this as mindless escapism, this is just fluff, I'll get back to reading serious stuff later on." I wonder why I put genres in these different zones in my mind. Lots of food for thought, thanks!
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