Creative writers at OU choose to pursue different paths after graduation, but still choose to pursue creative writing and the process.
After traveling to Spain to study poetry, James Chrisman found that people took a greater interest in his choice to pursue writing than in the United States, where creative writing holds a different connotation.
“Here, it’s like, ‘Poet? How are you going to support yourself?’ ” said Chrisman, a senior studying English. “I think about this sometimes when I am walking up to campus and I’ll just have this crushing moment like, ‘Holy, f--k, what am I doing with my life? That’s my goal? To do something that I spend insane amount of times on with not only no money involved but very little recognition as well. Why do I want that?’ ”
Creative writing at OU involves poetry, fiction and nonfiction. The amount of students in the emphasis fluctuates, but on average, it tends to fall between 75 and 90, said Dinty Moore, the director of the creative writing program, in an email.
While a stigma exists within the creative writing profession, it is not present on campus, which provides resources for the students from workshops to publications for writers to be published, Chrisman said.
Upon graduation, Chrisman plans to pursue a job in publishing in New York, but if he cannot pursue writing in the way he wishes, he is considering returning to school to receive an MFA or Ph.D.
“I’m preparing myself for future employment but I am also preparing myself for what’s important to me, which is the writing life,” he said.
Eric LeMay, an assistant professor teaching creative nonfiction and a published writer, graduated from OU in 1993 with a degree in philosophy, but he was interested in teaching, “Because there is something really exciting about sharing what you’re passionate about with a room full of students who may share that passion at some point.”
Some students, such as Torri Raines, a junior studying English, are choosing to travel and teach English as a foreign language upon graduation.
“I don’t think writing is probably going to be a career thing to me but it’s really important for me to do what I am doing and learn about it academically,” Raines said. “Because this way, I have a mode of creative expression that I feel like I understand enough to do in a meaningful way.”
Chrisman is writing a novella as his thesis to transition into long form, creative writing. He wants to eventually write a novel, he said.
“I just think (about) that feeling when you’re at 300 pages of a novel and all of these things are being tied up and you have all these resonances with what came before,” he added. “There is just something incredible about that feeling that is really hard to replicate in a short story.”
Although it seems to be impossible, the final goal is to be able to look back on a work and not hate it, Chrisman said. He said he tries not to discriminate what goes on the page, especially because revising is the next step. He tends to be influenced through what he reads, but also finds the lives of the authors very interesting.
“It’s weird because you have these models and like none of their lives turn out well,” Chrisman said. “Hemingway shot himself. David Foster Wallace hung himself. Virginia Woolf walked into a river and drowned herself. Joyce died blind with a schizophrenic daughter. Faulkner was an alcoholic. I could go on, but it’s like ‘Why are these people my models?’ ”
Pain and suffering tends to be romanticized when it comes to writing, but being happy and writing is possible, Chrisman said. Trauma is not needed to be successful and good writing derives from close observation and human interaction.
Writing can be a discovery process, LeMay said. Creative writing is different from the other classes that handle a lot of information.
“When you’re writing an poem, or writing a story or writing an essay, you’ll really get this sense of discovery because you don’t know where it’s going to go,” LeMay said. “I think one of the great things I see students encounter is they surprise themselves.”
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