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Writing Groups/Workshops: Success stories?

 
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Hyeon Een



Joined: 24 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Mon May 11, 2009 6:24 am    Post subject: Writing Groups/Workshops: Success stories? Reply with quote

There is a post in the General Discussion forum about forming a(nother) writers' workshop in Seoul and it got me curious.

Are there any famous authors who started off in writing workshops? Whenever I imagine a 'great' author I always imagine them slaving away alone with a typewriter or computer or pen and paper enabled by some red wine or some drugs or driven to it by a wretched nagging woman who's torments force him to escape reality.

If a number of succesful writers do in fact engage in these workshops, what kind of stuff do they publish? Is it Dan Brown style drivel or Poe or Hemmingway or Dickens style genius? Is it pretentious poetry published in low-circulation magazines? Blockbuster multi-million-copy-selling stuff?

I know in the past a lot of famous authors have been friends, and have probably bounced ideas off of each other but I think the modern writers workshop is much different to this scenario and seems to be a 20th century invention. So, does it work? If so I'd like to know which authors became successful and benefitted from these groups.
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AmericanExile



Joined: 04 May 2009

PostPosted: Mon May 11, 2009 6:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Iowa Writers' Workshop is famous in literary circles stateside for the success it has had. You can read about it on wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_Writers'_Workshop
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Hyeon Een



Joined: 24 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Mon May 11, 2009 7:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

AmericanExile wrote:
The Iowa Writers' Workshop is famous in literary circles stateside for the success it has had. You can read about it on wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_Writers'_Workshop


That's pretty interesting. It's produced some world class writers.

It is however a graduate level program at a University. In my OP I meant to imply that I was asking about the writers' workshops which are clubs or social groups rather than graduate level programs at a major university which presumably has a somewhat rigorous selection process and which leads to an MA degree.

I'm more curious about the social groups which exist in pretty much every major city in the western world, rather than University run creative writing courses (even if they have "writers' workshop" in the name).
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RACETRAITOR



Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Location: Seoul, South Korea

PostPosted: Mon May 11, 2009 9:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Don't give graduate students too much credit. They're gullible enough to go heavily into debt for more education.
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dporter



Joined: 26 Apr 2009

PostPosted: Mon May 11, 2009 12:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhymers%27_Club
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