THE BROWN SPACE: TAKING A CLASS WITH LYDIA DAVIS by Shane Jones
Read this and feel the goodness, the goodness that is Shane Jones and his words, the goodness that is bits of insight into the goddess literary genius Lydia Davis, read and feel all the goodness.
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| Lydia Davis being better at writing than you. |
Thanks for posting this - there seems to be more sadness here than goodness though. I'm especially not fond of the shared contempt (perhaps imagined) between the author and Davis towards the "spaceship story" guy. I attended one workshop (on script writing) where the leader also gave the impression that he felt sorry for himself & that he'd rather write a script. I don't even know what to say about that. I think it's the poorest teacher performance imaginable. It may of course all have been imagined only by Jones - I only ever liked teachers that gave us the impression that they enjoyed the teaching itself (with all it entailed) & I think my students do, too. I'm not sure you learn more (or less) when the teacher is (not) committed but it takes all the fun out of the process. However, my reading of the article is likely colored by my view that flash fiction is a little like writing books on egg shells. Difficult to master but when you've done it, you realize the limitations of the form (which is undoubtedly true for any form!).
ReplyDeleteYeah I for sure see what you're saying. I hadn't thought of it that way, but it makes sense. Most of the time these super writers aren't really the best teachers, I think. Probably Davis isn't much different.
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