Yeah. This was my first letter in Crikey.
Comments
31. Comments, corrections, clarifications, and c*ckups
Creative writing and mass murder:
Dan Willis writes : Re. "Dark days for undergraduate weirdos" (yesterday, item 2). As a recently graduated creative writing student who is proud of his trenchcoat collection (I have four), I think that Cho is really giving us in the profession a bad name. Not for the obvious problem of journos trying to draw “disturbed mind” pop-psych sound bites from his creative work, but for a larger problem: he is a really bad playwright. I mean atrocious. Everyone seems to be getting hung up on the content. They shouldn’t. They should be appalled by the wooden dialogue, hackneyed phrases and obvious clichés. They should be hammering on the doors of tertiary institutions, demanding answers for the shortfall of literary talent. There are ingenious writers out there producing cutting-edge work, and this whole mess makes it clear that the only the worst of us will get published, and that only by committing mass murder.
Jennifer Brasher writes : I could not agree more with your summary about creative thought police! Shakespeare, a mass murderer, hardly! Bryson talked on the ABC Book Club this week, about a youthful yen for murdering morons all the time in his writing fancies; and yet he's quite innocuous. Would he now be medicated for the same?
On a different note, I ate crocodile for the first time last night. It's quite tough and pretty salty, but it tastes good with sesame seeds...
31. Comments, corrections, clarifications, and c*ckups
Creative writing and mass murder:
Dan Willis writes : Re. "Dark days for undergraduate weirdos" (yesterday, item 2). As a recently graduated creative writing student who is proud of his trenchcoat collection (I have four), I think that Cho is really giving us in the profession a bad name. Not for the obvious problem of journos trying to draw “disturbed mind” pop-psych sound bites from his creative work, but for a larger problem: he is a really bad playwright. I mean atrocious. Everyone seems to be getting hung up on the content. They shouldn’t. They should be appalled by the wooden dialogue, hackneyed phrases and obvious clichés. They should be hammering on the doors of tertiary institutions, demanding answers for the shortfall of literary talent. There are ingenious writers out there producing cutting-edge work, and this whole mess makes it clear that the only the worst of us will get published, and that only by committing mass murder.
Jennifer Brasher writes : I could not agree more with your summary about creative thought police! Shakespeare, a mass murderer, hardly! Bryson talked on the ABC Book Club this week, about a youthful yen for murdering morons all the time in his writing fancies; and yet he's quite innocuous. Would he now be medicated for the same?
On a different note, I ate crocodile for the first time last night. It's quite tough and pretty salty, but it tastes good with sesame seeds...