Aggravated Teacher is Aggravated

[cathschaffstump]

Well, my journal WAS going to be cool links to help you with writing today. Instead, I've had to get grouchy.

One of the women on the creative writing scholarship we are setting up annoyed me today. The organization in Iowa that puts on science fiction conventions, the Mindbridge Foundation has generously agreed to fund one of the five scholarships, as long as the applicant is a speculative fiction writer. That's what Mindbridge does--we have a mission to support speculative fiction in all its forms.

Enter Poet Woman. Poet Woman works part-time here at Kirkwood. She wrote an email that I would be remiss to reproduce, but essentially the implication is that spec fic writers are not as good as other writers, that they are not interested in learning what a "normal" writer is interested in learning, and that using the elements of spec fiction produce sub-standard work. The snobbish implication is that literary writing is somehow superior and less academic than good spec fiction.

Luckily, I do not believe that any of my other colleagues on this committee believe similarly, or as Mindbridge Board president, I'd suggest we take our offer of funding a scholarship back. Poet Woman asks if we will fund an inferior spec fiction writer over a better "literary" writer. The answer is no. I believe that there will be a good speculative fiction entry out there. If we don't have a good speculative fiction candidate, we'll hold the funds back.

At any rate, I present my letter to the committee. There is an attempt to educate, and I hope Poet Woman takes the time to expand her horizons and work with her misconceptions.

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Mirrored from Writer Tamago.