FRANK CONROY The Writer’s Workshop Atco, tet wah" ot came nt neon ay | yeas ago when fowa Univers. widh the bling of the Bord of Regents dele ‘expt ‘aeae” these in paral flillment of the requement twa ering ex. ‘ain advanced degrees: Qulte a al de the ime. Write a sing quae! tovand 2 PhD. in music Prine psintings fora Maser of Fine At Mount a bale for dance, forse a play for theater Despite the intl sandal ofthe academy, the des spread rapidly and is now commonplace. The words “write wotlahop” to describe shat all thove prose writers or poets were doing in all those university dass ‘may have Been chosen mote for thelveasuing overtone of caf ils, hand tala, et, than for any descrpive precision ‘Cerailywte’s waulsops sound the county eect wily diferent ssp ions about what the work should be, what he goals ae, and how proses might be measured. Some ae simply therapy eons, aterping to ese a war nung cevizonmentn which writes ae encouraged to expres terse, eae the pte tive creatine nes without fea ane ce what happens Some haves plital ages feminist ar blak ae social prot at Some have an sete agend—minialsm, reali, meticion, ec. Thee are witerswotkshops speci in honor fon daze ftion, ile’ Stion sence fiction, and soon. Thee te woithops that ‘ave almost nothing do wih wing wherethetexsazlitde more than an exc for imal seam athanis on one hand or new a channeling onthe cer. St follows ‘hatin tallng about a waters wodshop must be made ear a whose wotkahop Under dcution. tell atempéto dese my own ate Unive of tows Brey Tuesay at 430 the aftemoon {meet with about a dozen students, We ‘have al picked up copes ofthe material we'e ging to lk about—tes generated ‘bythetwostudent writers who are “up that wek-—and havezead Wem seve ies ‘over the weekend, made editorial comment in the marin, and writen Ite 10 the auhon atempsing to deserbe our reactions to the texts. These letra quite Jmporant—fist because they ae writen before any publi discussion and ence ae ‘ot comupte by what maybe said in das and second becuse they tend to be ote suppor, move somal, and sometimes more trenchant dan what the iter oF the eter might sain las. Thus fa try stom apa sing welabop, the ete, ‘which ate ead one wee ate (sine I kep them and ead them myvall sig that time), can work to cheera student up and encourage more work. ‘Weta fortwo and half hour, The author ofthe tex being examined generally ‘emans silent which some observer find sping but which encourage Iftere {a2 tension becween the writes intentions forthe txt and what the tet standing lone appears to actualy be dong ta the readers tht ea tension he wer should fsceand think abou. As wel the wees temptation o defend iso her work can readeo wasted ime Butletmebackup now, othe ist meeting when wehave no ets before us and ‘ey togiea genera sense of what think ourworkshould be announce rig say that esve the right © be wrong, Beause not to doo would severely est my shlityt0ulkat all Name fiction is complex. adgmene can be sbjecive ate ier nd rales seldom hold farther stat thatthe focus of ouratention willbe the texts and our gal willbe ‘to apand our awareness of how language functions onthe page. We wl stop with ‘etext and ess the temptation ogo tough tan talkabout the autor. Rema ‘hough and rescions wo agiven pec of wing should be aeesed tothe oon ac ‘hele and not tothe author, whose presence forte fet of uss superBuous We sxe studying the tex what the tet actual inthe than what the author might bare seated to be or thought that wa ‘The peopl in my workshop are usually nthe late ents, vty right excep ‘ional well read by modem standards ambos, nd inhale books and ee ture AS sophisticated as they are about othe people's wring they ae often ule ‘sive about ther own, balfasiming for instance that when they write els ous ‘onthe: pages and that an atackon the page aa atac.on the out yo make ‘he poin that when the soul ily onthe page the work hase past the level a hich itmakes much Sense for wt talk about Vicor hs been achieved nd the verkpases over tothe tention of students of iterate, culture, and aesthetic, We fon the ther hand (ad Tinelude mse), have more immediate goals, Were tying ‘owt beter prose and o stage through whatees we have to sugge though te doit ina no entity ancilany way we want to ge published, a confiation of ‘he value of the work and a paral autheaestion ofthe woke in the chosen tle of ter. These late passions are tty derstood a pat ofthe gence bch ‘ofthe workshop, butt soon becomes dar hatin ony the ost minima ese aretheyafanetion of the quality ofthe work Ilse separate, even somewhat ‘ically the text fom the auther and keep our atemton on the language ‘Chalkinhand goto the blackboard and suggest tat it might elf think about the relationship bersen the water ad the rade. common enor to tne ‘he following model os wansporttion exchange Whit ———+ tot fair ‘The writer creates tory and pus it into a code (language) that the tex. The reader