Reply to Bad Art Friend

Forum Index » Entertainment and Pop Culture

Reply to "Bad Art Friend"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]PP above, I agree with this. Grub Street has to fire the CMs who participated in the abusive chats, revamp HR, hire an ombudsman, and have public results of an investigation. The Times will never fix their culture, ever. Post Judith Miller, the Times unofficial posture is, “don’t hate us because we’re beautiful.”[/quote]

I doubt GrubStreet is going to do much self-reckoning. Same with the NYT. [/quote]

NYT definitely won't. They don't care and think they are right no matter what.

One thing about Grubstreet though, is that it has a weirdly parasitic relationship with the many unpublished and hobbyist writers who take classes, attend events, buy the books and publications of the teachers and leadership, etc. Basically, people like Dawn Dorland.

I've been in organizations like this before. People spend A LOT of money on classes and other things with the organization (there is always merch). Partly people do it because they derive value from these things. I'm sure plenty of people learn things in Grubstreet classes. But orgs like this are also selling access to a community. By taking classes you get to know to know other writers, including members of the staff. If you do it long enough you wind up rubbing elbows with people link Ng, for instance, which would be a huge selling point for a lot of people. You go to panel discussions and conferences, you become "friends" with writers you admire, you feel like you are part of something even if you, personally, are not publishing much.

I would have to assume this incident has impacted that relationship. It only works if the organization values and respects these people. It's a weird balance. Many of them may not be particularly talented writers, for instance. But they are helping to support the writing of others (many, many litfic writers basically make it work financially by teaching a lot) as well as the organization. So you can't be too dismissive of the fact that a lot of these people may never get published. You need to value people for who they are, for things like their dedication, their attitude, what they contribute to the community. If you only respect the best writers, the organization can't support itself.

But what happens if that community feels had? If they suddenly suspect all their writing teachers and "friends" might be sitting around making jokes about how bad they are, or worse, might be stealing things they wrote to incorporate into their own work, to mock it and to mock them?

If I were a student at Grubstreet, I would be taking my money elsewhere for the time being. And I'd be looking for a change in leadership, real repercussions for the people who behaved unethically and immorally, and a clear public stance against bullying and plagiarism. But I'm not, so I don't know what they think.[/quote]

I think you are right. And fairly or unfairly, this reflects on other writing programs as well. The unpublished who watch this will wonder what their instructors are doing behind their backs. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics