I guess I can brag a little: last weekend, I won the Bram Stoker award for my newsletter, The Goreletter, at the Horror Writers Association conference in NYC. Although my newsletter has very little to do with teaching -- besides, perhaps, the creative writing prompts I include in each issue -- the HWA conference hosted a lecture by Tim Waggoner on "Teaching Creative Writing" which was very well attended.

[update: here's a copy of Waggoner's handout for the lecture in Word format]

A lot of writers are looking for teaching gigs (it helps to have a higher degree, of course, but as Waggoner rightly pointed out, writing is a skill and there are lots of people eager to learn it from someone who is skilled at it -- whether they have a PhD/Masters or just a few publications under their belt). I picked up a few new tricks of the trade which I thought I'd share here.

As perhaps the only other full-time teacher in attendance, I was nodding and affirming a lot of what Waggoner had to say. When asked how bad teaching cuts into his writing time, he admitted that it can really cut into productivity, but he also said that "paying bills alleviates financial stress you'd have otherwise" that would impinge on your writing. Very true. I would add that having a secure job allows me to pursue the sorts of writing I want to pursue. It gives me extra focus when I get to teach something related to my writing. I also write in the mornings, before classes. Waggoner does the same: "I write in the morning before the day to come steals it all away from me." One tip he had that I hadn't thought much about is doing snippets of writing during "between time": office hours, during student exercises, on the bus, etc.

Speaking of student exercises, Waggnoner had a lot of examples. One that I particularly liked was his notion of "being mean to a character." When young writers describe characters, they almost universally make them flat goodie-goodies who might have problems, but little psychological depth. Or they don't have enough conflict at all. Waggoner has students first write a character description, then pass that description to a neighbor. The neighbor is told to "do something mean to the character." Then they pass it back and the writer must work with the problem that's given -- often a violent one.

In another lesson, he teaches brevity. Although they're always picky about page count in essay writing, students often don't understand the need for writing tight, and sometimes roam aimlessly through a plot without thinking about what's significant and necessary -- and what's not. Waggoner brings a CD to class with the most long-winded, overtly "literary" fiction he can find and plays it to them, without any explanation. He purposely chooses the sort of stuff that would put most people to sleep. Afterwards, the lesson is self-evident: readers are impatient.

Another technique I liked: he has them write a newspaper story about "what happened" in the plot of their stories, after they've written them. This helps them to see the crux of their plots and "what's important."

Waggoner also integrates a lot of writing from personal experience into his classes, as do most creative writing teachers. He has them write about "the examined life" where they describe their earliest memories, their favorite places, and then pontificate bout what they would change. One exercise -- "write about a personal horror" -- led to his worst workshop ever, in which people began confessing all sorts of experiences and traumas...one almost drove him to the point of getting the student psychological help. I've had this experience myself, teaching "Memoir Writing" -- and yet, courses and exercises like these often do get students to tap into some meaningful vein, where the writing is as easy to mine as found gold.

If you teach writing, or if you're a writer, you might want to browse Tim Waggoner's essays online.

[Speaking of my e-newsletter: writing teachers might find my other newsletter, The Handy Job Hunter for Writers, more useful than The Goreletter. It can help with advising journalism/creative writing majors into careers.]

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