Creative writing programs are designed on the theory that students who have never published a poem can teach other students who have never published a poem how to write a publishable poem. The fruit of the theory is the writing workshop, a combination of ritual scarring and twelve-on-one group therapy where aspiring writers offer their views of the efforts of other aspiring writers.

It’s a good read for anyone who wants to teach writing or anyone who wants to dump money into a writing program. However, at times, Menand offers a limited view of how creative writing classes operate in order to prove his point–until eventually coming around to defend a rather flimsy reason for such programs, i.e. “I don’t think the workshops taught me too much about craft, but they did teach me about the importance of making things, not just reading things. You care about things that you make, and that makes it easier to care about things that other people make.”

Several questions are raised. For instance, do writing programs actually make writers great or are they simply attended by great writers? To my knowledge, after almost a decade of teaching creative writing, the only professional writer to come out of my class… was me. Hardly a prestigious alumnus. But then, the other question: is the point of a creative writing program really to produce professionals? Is it publish-or-perish?

I believe my class made good writers better. The great writers didn’t need me; they’ll figure it out on their own. And as for the terrible writers, if I made them slightly more conscious of the clutter in their work, I’ll take that as a win. In my class, we didn’t “workshop” much at all. For my high school students, I wasn’t interested in the “ritual scarring/twelve-on-one group therapy.” They already get that enough simply being in high school. I focused on clarity in their work, using Zinsser’s ON WRITING WELL as a foundation. And I talked a lot about story structure. I did this to address my two biggest concerns about young writers. (1) Students have been tricked into overvaluing adverbs and adjectives. They’re rewarded for convulted sentences. (2) Students have lost the ability to tell a story. It all comes back to my mantra (which I discovered here): “No one will ever complain because you have made something too easy to understand” and “Nobody has to read this crap.”

For my UIL Ready Writing team, I had a smaller group of students to work with. Instead of 30 teenagers in a classroom, I sat with four or five at a table in the library during lunch. They were gifted and hungry. Some of them already took my creative writing class. We moved from Zinsser to my favorite book on writing, A WRITER’S COACH by Jack Hart (Amazon | Kobo). We also workshopped like hell. It was easier to do with the UIL Ready Writing contest. They had a singular task: In two hours, write an expository essay based off a prompt that included an excerpt from literature, publications, or speeches. It was easier to show them good examples, and we could be more systematic in our efforts. There was a formula. My last year as the writing coach, we kicked ass. We placed (1st, 2nd, or 3rd) in every single tournament. And all my writers were in the top ten, every time. I told them the goal wasn’t to win, even though we did, the goal was to be better writers. Honestly, I just made them more confident and a little more self-aware of their process.

How does anyone make someone great? I think you have to find “great” on your own. I’ll settle for better.

Here’s what I had written for my 6 minutes and 40 seconds. I went off script just a few times to better accommodate the timing of each slide.

Metropolis

1.
I love that word “metropolis.” It simply means the main city of a region, but thanks to Fritz Lang and Superman the word now carries the weight of terrifying grandeur. It’s a place to behold, to cherish, to protect, to be inspired by. It’s a utopia constantly on the brink.

2.
Metropolis was a German film, made in 1927, directed by Fritz Lang. It’s a story about the distant future, 2026, when industrialists rule the city from towering skyscrapers. It was a silent masterpiece of tremendous ambition and imagination.

3.
Twelve years later in 1939, Metropolis was reborn in Action Comics no. 16 as Superman’s New York-esque adoptive home. There, Superman fought the corruption of industrialists. While Batman’s Gotham was a dire place, drawn for the night, Superman’s Metropolis was the shining hopeful city of tomorrow.

4.
From the word “metropolis,” we also get the neologism “metroplex” which is an ugly creation, a blight upon our language only possible from the demented brain of a copywriter on deadline. Which is what happened. In 1971, the North Texas Commission wanted to promote the region and DFW Airport.

5.
So, Harve Chapman of Tracy Locke stitched together this word from the Greek “metropolis” and the French/Latin word “complex,” the lyrical and the utilitarian, to designate what had been known as Dallas-Fort Worth. I hate “metroplex,” but I love “metropolis.” And Dallas is the metropolis of my childhood imagination.

6.
Superman needs Metropolis to be “super.” Nothing happens in Smallville. I grew up in Smallville, a town 25 miles from Dallas called Mansfield. Actual dirt roads connected my town to other cities. By contrast, Dallas was a place of adventure, this large, loud, bawdy, thriving pulse of humanity.

7.
In the 80s, my dad would take me to watch the Dallas Mavericks. Reunion Arena had the aesthetic of a parking garage. The stark, boring usefulness was endearing. Even the location of Reunion Arena said: “Come for the game, then go home.” There was nothing around it.

8.
To get to the game, my dad and I would cross a series of railroad tracks. Occasionally, a train passed and it would halt our journey. It gave the city this sense of being off-limits. I left my suburban nest, trespassing into this other world of concrete, hardwood, steel and noise.

9.
Other times, my mom would drive my friend Wim and I into Dallas for the Fantasy Fair. It was a comic book convention in downtown. One year, it took place at the Statler Hilton—which then was called the Dallas Grand. Wim and I would wander the convention floor.

10.
While my mom spent all day in the lobby, reading her romance novels, we would explore. We were surrounded by comics; these fantastic stories packed into cardboard boxes. I felt like a boy who just joined the circus. Here I decided I wanted to be a writer, a high-flying wordsmith.

11.
In high school, I cheated on Dallas with Fort Worth. Closer, more places to hang out, and, at one time, they had a better arts district—but Fort Worth could never have my heart. Too safe, too well-played, too calculated. A good town—but not for me.

12.
I wanted to go to SMU, but I couldn’t afford it. Instead, I went to a college in Commerce, Texas. Wim went to SMU, and I would visit him on weekends. I’d sleep on his dorm room floor. Yet again, Dallas was my first choice—while I was estranged elsewhere.

13.
After college, my first wife and I moved to Dallas, an apartment on East Grand. It was the happiest year of our marriage. Everything felt close. For instance, it was close to a nice neighborhood. Nearly safe. I only saw one knife fight. And I should’ve never told my in-laws.

14.
When Melissa found out she was pregnant, her parents bribed us into moving “some place safer.” We were poor, and they were not. How could we refuse? They graciously paid for the closing costs on a house in Arlington.

15.
Exiled in Arlington, longing for Dallas—where all my friends were, most who lived in Lakewood, a few miles from this theater. I visited when I felt lonely. Lakewood was the places of weddings and weekends. I wanted this city to be mine, but it belonged to them, those who stayed.

16.
Of course, Wim never left. He started Lakewood Brewing Company. He recklessly followed his dreams. Dallas, the Metropolis, does that to people. And since he jumped, I wanted to jump too. I wanted to quit my teaching job to become a writer–hoping this city would catch me.

17.
The metropolis did, in a sense. Through a series of mutual friends, I was invited to serve on the advisory committee of La Reunion. I met people who loved this city as I loved it. We wanted to bring art, beauty, and wisdom to its concrete shores.

18.
These connections led to others. And with my writing, I got a break. An editor at D Magazine saw something in my work and passed me along to another editor willing to mentor me. I quit teaching and dove into magazine writing, with Dallas as my muse.

19.
I couldn’t return, but I could endear myself. I joined D Academy. “Academy,” another beautiful Greek word from “Akademos,” named for the garden where Plato taught. D Academy would host the Big Read, attempting to rebrand Dallas as a city of readers, a city of reckless imagineers, not just industrialists.

20.
I may not live here, but this is my city, my metropolis. I lost my sense of place when my Smallville was destroyed by suburban sprawl, when my parents moved to California as I stumbled toward college, as I was displaced in Arlington. Like the lone survivor of a dying planet, Dallas, adopt me, please.

Big Read Dallas from Emily McCartney on Vimeo.

Zeus Comics (new location on 1334 Inwood Road) is celebrating it all.

May the 4th be with you! Happy Star Wars day. We have the wonderful Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) with us at Zeus starting at 10am. It’s Free Comic Book Day too! Come meet 8 other wonderful comic folk including Phil Jimenez, Stephen Sadowski, Randal Keith Milholland, Robert Wilson, Chad Thomas, David Hopkins, and Benjamin Hall! Zeus will be handing out over 5,000 free comics over the course of the day and our back-issues are half off today only!

I’ll be there with some free comics too. Come by and say hello.

Here it is: thatdavidhopkins.com/fantastic-four-sketchbook/

I have some great pieces in here from Josh Howard, J.E. Smith, Cal Slayton, Christine Norrie, Nick Derington, Andy MacDonald, Alejandro Garza, Christopher Mitten, Steve Rolston, Paul Chadwick, Kazu Kibuishi, Chuck Wojtkiewicz, George Perez, Robbi Rodriguez, Brock Rizy, Scott Kurtz, Kevin Steele, Chris Medellin, Tone Rodriguez, Chris Moreno, Michael Lark, Skottie Young, Chad Thomas, Benjamin Hall, Lea Hernandez, Brent Schoonover, Paul Milligan, Jake Ekiss, and Robert Wilson IV.

Thank you for offering your time and talent.

art by Robert Wilson IV

art by Jake Ekiss

art by Paul Milligan

art by Brent Schoonover

art by Lea Hernandez