Vernon Said:

Has anyone attended the MFA creating writing program at the Iowa Writers' Workshop?

We Answered:

Although I haven't the same input that you've had, I've always regarded this as primarily a "literary novelist" elitist hangout, insiders only and intellectually incestuous. The sequence goes: Professor A. attends the Workshop...returns to his Ivy Venue and teaches Grad Student B., who faithfully replicates stylistics of Prof. A., and thus segues into a New PhD...Newbie gets gig in another Ivy Venue and creates his own faithful coterie of clones...they busily critique each others' work, create more grad students in their image, write more of the same [mirrors facing mirrors] and the beat goes on.

If you pick up a novel which has been brilliantly reviewed [check the back cover] and find a total absence of moveable parts and a cast of characters you cannot imagine as ever being alive....go to the inside back flap and see if the writer went to Iowa. Chances are they did. Nuf sed?

Gerald Said:

Does anyone know of a good Graduate Program in Creative Writing? In Southern California?

We Answered:

http://www.ucas.com/
?dont? ?mess? ?with? ??kenny??