Sir Andrew Motion has hit out at critics of creative writing courses and those who claim that students cannot be taught to become authors.
The former Poet Laureate said that no one criticised musicians or actors for honing their talents and the same should be true for professional writers.
More than 50 universities now offer MAs in creative writing, and there are hundreds of other diplomas and postgraduate courses that give hope and training to would-be authors.
Some of Britain’s best-known writers and novelists, particularly the younger generation, are products of these courses, and growing numbers of “big names” teach them.
Sir Andrew, Martin Amis, Philip Hensher and Giles Foden all lecture on university creative writing courses, attracting students who pay thousands of pounds for the experience.
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Yet some authors and literary experts are concerned that the preponderance of courses is resulting in formulaic writing, and that it may become increasingly difficult to get a book deal without such a qualification.
David Lodge, the eminent author and linguistics expert, said that the qualities needed by a writer could not be taught. Ellah Allfrey, deputy editor of Granta magazine, which publishes new writing, said creative writing courses were largely positive because they taught discipline and how to take criticism.“Some courses are better than others,” she said. “One potential negative is if publishers become lazy and look only to creative writing programmes, rather than putting energy into searching for talent elsewhere.
“There’s a certain style of writing that you can recognise now that comes from creative writing programmes and sometimes, if the programme is clearly focused on getting students published, there’s a danger of them writing with an eye fixed on what’s going to work commerciallly.”
Analysis by The Times shows that the popularity of such courses has infiltrated literary prize lists. Whereas 20 years ago creative writing qualifications were almost unheard of, being a graduate of a prestigious course now appears to be a springboard to success.
Of 89 authors on the shortlists of the Man Booker Prize, Orange Prize for Fiction, and the Novel of the Year and First Novel categories of the Costa Book Awards in the past five years, almost one in five had an MA in creative writing, or a very similar qualification from a foreign university, and two taught the subject. Many went to the University of East Anglia (UEA), considered to be the most prestigious course. It was the first of its kind in Britain,established in 1970 by Sir Malcolm Bradbury, the writer and academic, and Sir Angus Wilson, the novelist.
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Eight of the finalists for the Orange Prize for Fiction in the past five years have done a master’s in creative writing. They include Lionel Shriver, who won the prize in 2005 for her novel We Need To Talk About Kevin. She later said: “I have always felt a little queasy about majoring in creative writing. Theoretically, I think it’s better for a writer to get educated in something with more intellectual content, such as history; but I needed an audience, which college provided.”
The T. S. Eliot prize-winner will be announced this weekend. Seven of the ten poets on the shortlist teach creative writing at universities, including Christopher Reid, who won the poetry category of the Costa awards last week.
Sir Andrew used to teach at UEA and now does so at Royal Holloway University. He said that when he took up his post at UEA there was a great deal of suspicion about the value of such courses: “People who had no qualms about RADA, or the Royal Ballet School, or the Royal Academy, were wont to say that writing couldn’t be taught ... and implied that this sort of tutoring was a form of cheating, like taking steroids if you were an athlete.
“I still occasionally meet people who take this line ... but the idea has taken root that writing can be taught as well or badly as acting, painting and dancing.”
Prize pupils
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— UEA alumni include Ian McEwan, Sir Malcolm’s first student, who went on to write Atonement
— 12 of the 17 shortlisted writers with a master’s in creative writing are women and 7 attended UEA
— The 17 include Tash Aw, Diana Evans, Tahmima Anam, Nikita Lalwani and Tom Rob Smith — all contenders in the Costa First Novel Award since 2005. Tash Aw went on to win the category with The Harmony Silk Factory
— Adam Foulds, shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize, Anne Enright who was on the shortlist in 2007 alongside Ian McEwan, and Kazuo Ishiguro, who wrote The Remains of the Day and was a finalist in 2005, completed the MA in creative writing at UEA