Student writers learn from the pros

For serious writers of fiction, as Mona Simpson calls them,
taking a crash course in writing is not nearly enough to become a
real writer.

But if there was such a course, Simpson’s English Seminar
180.2, titled “Literary Study for Short Story Writers:
Finding Your Own Mentor, Dead or Alive,” could be it.

“Part of what you want to know when you’re a student
is not only the philosophy and aesthetics, but you want to know
what it’s like to be a writer,” said Simpson, a UCLA
creative writing professor. “Is it viable to you? Does it
seem tangible? What other jobs does the writer have when
they’re in their 20s?”

Offered once a year, the class meets on Tuesday evening every
week this quarter for three hours for students to discuss reading
assignments, engage in writing exercises, and share their writing.
But perhaps the most interesting facet of the class is that the
students are afforded the opportunity to mentally, as well as
literally, step out of the classroom every once in awhile.

The UCLA Hammer Museum, which offers a number of reading series
featuring professional writers, is the site where Simpson’s
class meets several times a quarter to gain insight into the
writing process. “Some Favorite Writers,” a series
organized and handpicked by Simpson herself, provides a private
Q&A with the writer and the class before the reading takes
place.

“It’s not like going to read at a garden club, or a
regular show when the host hasn’t read their books,”
Simpson said. “There are so many book clubs that seem very
marginal to literature, but students care about literature and
writing, so they’re going to ask questions writers are happy
to talk about. It’s a good match.”

The class’s first meeting this quarter took place outside
of the classroom and was spent attending a reading by renowned
fiction writer Robert Cohen, author of “The Organ
Builder,” “The Here and Now” and “Inspired
Sleep.” Cohen also teaches creative writing at Middlebury
College in Vermont.

“I enjoyed the session quite a bit,” Cohen said.
“I was very impressed with (the students). They asked all
sorts of intelligent and challenging questions. Others noticed
certain patterns about the work and had questions about the
approach. Every writer gets a boost just from sitting with
intelligent, earnest, thoughtful people who have read their work.
Anyone who comes into Mona’s class is going to be delighted
by that process.”

But the process in question doesn’t deal with writing
assignments and field trips alone.

Simpson said she pushes her students to engage diligently with
their writing on a regular basis and uses the classroom sessions to
expose them to authors who explore a variety of themes. The course
load itself is no less than regular English classes offered in the
department.

“I’m giving them a barrage of writers,”
Simpson said. “I’m encouraging them to find writers
whose method they can relate to. We’re starting out with what
kind of ideas work, where writers get the ideas that they do, and
what sort of changes they make when they take them from
life.”

However, students aren’t instructed to copy a
writer’s style, but rather to be influenced by it and gain
insight into their own writing process.

“We’re skipping over centuries and
continents,” Simpson said. “Denis Johnson, Faulkner,
Deborah Eisenberg, Hawthorne.”

During fourth week of this quarter, for example, Simpson and her
students discussed the subject of time and the different ways the
week’s stories considered time. Simpson asked her students to
methodically work through the stories’ themes.

“Do they use flashbacks? Are they all set in one time
period? Do they flash forward? What is the purpose of past and
present? I don’t have my students copy the style, but I have
them emulate a technical aspect,” Simpson said.

Academic focus aside, the fact that the class steps out of the
box of a university classroom model is an activity that lends
itself favorably to the reality of post-university situations that
a regular classroom can’t train writers for, Cohen said.

“A lot of what happens to writers has to do with the life
of the writer,” he said. “How does it feel when nobody
out there is waiting for your next story, and you have to come up
with your own motivations and your own structures outside of any
institutional umbrella, then what do you do? It’s hard to do
that in college because you still have this structure. You still
have people telling you to turn this in on time,” Cohen
said.

“Mona is also very attentive to the long-view
stuff,” Cohen added. “She gets the students comfortable
with talking about these life issues and takes them to try to get
them to see it as a location rather than an academic
course.”

In addition, Simpson asks on the course Web site that all
prospective applicants be “serious writers of fiction”
and, during the course of the class, asks students to divulge how
often they engage in the creative process outside of school.

“To be a serious writer of fiction is to be somebody who
is doing it regularly, somebody who cares about it greatly and
thinks this is something they want to continue doing,”
Simpson said. “From the title (of the course), I wanted it to
seem different from scholarly courses. There is definitely a
practical aspect of writing. It’s a way of life, and I want
to emphasize that.”

Students have been very receptive to the model of the class.

One example is Rowan Wood, a third-year art student who is
taking Simpson’s seminar this quarter and plans to pursue a
master of fine arts in creative writing and art after graduating
from UCLA.

“Getting insight with established professionals rather
than peers … can offer things that an average writer
can’t,” Wood said. “Rob Cohen talked about his
life as a writer and habits as a writer, and Mona gives a lot of
insight into her own life. I like to ask her about her habits as a
writer, and it’s nice to have a model, so to speak, that one
can refer to for reference and give reassurance and learn how to
become a better, professional writer.”

The next classroom field trip will be on Dec. 12 with Chang-Rae
Lee, also part of the “Some Favorite Writers”
series.

As for guidance for becoming a professional writer after
graduation, Simpson offers her own personal advice.

“What it takes to get into a college these days is almost
antithetical of what it takes to be a writer,” she said.
“There’s not one way to do it. Some people go to
writing school, some go on a merchant marine ship, and some join
the Peace Corps ““ whatever is going to inspire you and help
discipline yourself to write as a daily practice.”