Forum / On the Sorry Situation at the Center for Writers, USM, and the Mississippi Review

Gary Percesepe
Jul 15, 11:18am

ok, fn community, gather round--

with rick barthelme's approval, and because there is a lot of buzz around what is happening at MR (Mississippi Review) a once proud lit mag that many of you published in or aspired to publish in--

here are two links from the local hattiesburg paper meant to INFORM you--i mean, this is not like an official call to action, ok? i am just posting this so you can see what's going on, and let conscience dictate what you wanna do or not do:

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20100706/NEWS01/7060333/Center-loses-its-director

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20100715/NEWS01/7150351/Center-for-Writers-future-still-up-in-air

be sure to read the "comments" posted, particularly on the first article, as there are hilarious goings on, with english dept faculty apparently (allegedly) taking on daffy names, and others responding in kind--fun for all!

on a more somber note--

rick barthelme is one of the finest writers of his generation (for fictionauts who do not know his work, go here and follow the links to "shopgirl" http://blog.fictionaut.com/2010/01/07/line-breaks-shopgirls-by-frederick-barthelme/

but he is also one helluva administrator, who build a solid program at usm, making this dreary mess all the sadder--

you may use this space to post expressions of support, to lament, to listen to that oft veiled cry of justice (what ought to be done, what does justice require of me/of us?) or whatever else you wanna do here--ANYTHING BUT USING THIS AS A SPACE TO ORGANIZE A COORDINATED RESPONSE,BECAUSE WE ARE MERELY INFORMING YOU HERE, NOT REQUESTING THAT YOU DO ANYTHING.

for myself--i can only say that rick is a friend, a fellow writer, and an editor--he is one of our own.

he deserves better than this, after all he gave to usm, and to MR.

my heart is broken.

Darryl Price
Jul 15, 12:04pm

This sad state of affairs has its ground in the grand thud of money.Money protects money over all else and at the expense of any human life forms unlucky enough to get in the way. That's not to say that it can't be used as a force for good. It can. It has. But it's also been the biggest excuse in the world for a certain bit of the population to act like it's okay to hurt people deeply and terribly if there's money to be earned or saved in the process.The problem with this kind of cold thinking is of course when you are supposed to be representing something else besides the money, like educational opportunity or the cultural values of a community instead.Don't get me wrong. Nothing wrong with money. We all like it to some degree.We certainly all need it to survive. But have we as a society made it king?

Elizabeth Hegwood
Jul 15, 12:04pm

Thank you, Gary.

For those of you that read the comments, I apologize in advance for my fish Paulie and his OCD.

This is a terrible thing that has happened, and I don't yet know what else to do with how I feel about it except to sing my support from a mountaintop if I could and also to keep writing.

James Robison
Jul 15, 12:07pm

More than The New Yorker reflected Ross, Thurber and White, The Mississippi Review was Rick's literary journal. I know Rie was an imperative component in the production and so was Steve, and Angela but none would argue that the Review was Rick. The Review's look--elegant and artistically informed--reflected its bias towards the high modern and post modern and neo post modern as well as its awareness of how the visually succinct and witty and sometimes profound may compliment works which aspired to those qualities. I aspired to appear there. That the Review took my work was a validation available nowhere else. I want the Review to continue only to the degree that Rick and Rie do. Like the USM program, however, there will be an irreparable devaluation. We'll know another death, another hole in punched the battered world, but this one for no goddamned reason at all except stupidity.

Vallie Lynn Watson
Jul 15, 12:31pm

I graduated with a PhD from the Center for Writers a year ago, and last week accepted a University creative writing position. The first person I called was Rick, because it never would have happened without his teaching and example. It IS heartbreaking that future C4W students won't have the opportunity to learn from him.

Mike Young
Jul 15, 01:06pm

This is awful. FB is a giant.

Darryl Price
Jul 15, 02:59pm

They take a guy who's doing a great job and making a real difference and put him out rather than do the right thing, or come up with some other creative solution. They don't bother to think they just knee-jerk react and when the fallout begins to happen they'll be the first ones to point fingers. Where's the guts? Where's the loyalty?Where's the role modeling? Where's the shining example? Where's the love for our young people and our revered teachers? Where's the content of our character?

Susan Tepper
Jul 15, 06:12pm

It's miserable news. And not just there. Marymount Manhattan College recently shut down its entire writing program. Lewis Burke Frumkes, Director of the Writing Center for umpteen years, was also out of a job. This is a worrisome trend in worrisome times.

Sam Rasnake
Jul 15, 06:32pm

Very sad for Barthelme and even more sad for future writers there.

Linda Simoni-Wastila
Jul 15, 08:55pm

Not being someone who's taken more than two college+ writing/lit classes but someone who IS in the academy (the sciences side), I can only say that the economy is gutting higher ed worse than a zombie. The climate is horrific in every school, every department, and fabulous teachers and researchers are losing their positions, or having them precipitously cut. I fear for the future of our universities. I fear for the future of American 'culture'. The bean-counters are looking at line-items, not the value of the programs (and faculty teaching them). When the world ends with a whimper, roaches and bean-counters will be the only survivors. Peace...

James Lloyd Davis
Jul 15, 09:20pm

I have this really funny story about roaches and accountants, but in the interest of good taste I'll not repeat it here.

But yes, Linda, long before the lions lay down with the lambs, there will be roaches, bean counters, and other post-apocalyptic anomalies.

Susan Tepper
Jul 16, 11:04am

Linda, you nailed it.
If admissions drop in one area, out it goes. Very bad for all art and artists.

Gary Percesepe
Jul 16, 12:52pm

Latest news from the Hattiesburg (MS) paper, about USM and the Center for Writers:

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20100716/NEWS01/7160359/Concerns-remain-for-USM-center

Linda Simoni-Wastila
Jul 16, 01:11pm

We pay our post-docs $46k. Just fyi.

Insulting. Peace...

James Robison
Jul 17, 08:40am

It isn't a money issue unless the USM dean is a bigger idiot than she sounds. Grad programs in Creative Writing have been cash cows for English Departments wise enough to use the right formula for 40 years. In fact, the great opposition to such programs generates in the cynical observation that programs accept grad students and their tuition,but gives them no viable careers after graduating. The deal is: High profile writer attracts best and brightest students from around country and world who are then used by college to teach large section Comp for free or at a sliver of the cost that a tenured faculty member would cost. I paid a small fortune to go to Brown and study with John Hawkes and taught a creative writing section--essentially free, or even, one might say, I paid the university to teach for them. At Brown, Hopkins, Iowa and USM, the formula works because so many grads DO enjoy success large or small. I think the rate is about the same level as for graduates of the High School for Performing Arts: not everybody makes it, but many do. But the formula breaks down when, (as at some universities I well know), there are no magnetic real-deal writer/teachers aboard, the English Department brings in CW grad students, not the writers, and all the standards slip to below carpet level. I know of a place where the grad students were reading Harry Potter, had never heard of post modern critical theory, or, and this rattles the cupboards, James Joyce. They were teaching undergraduates.

Elizabeth Hegwood
Jul 17, 09:09am

James, I can't figure out whether scale is tipped toward ignorance or malice. Keep thinking one, then the other.

James Robison
Jul 17, 10:28am

Ignorance or malice?
I promise you, it is both. After so many years in or near academe, I can assure you that administrators and English professors regard writer/poets on a faculty as either wonderful resources or enemies to be destroyed.

Elizabeth Hegwood
Jul 17, 11:05am

Sure, yeah totally get that impression that both are at work. I guess what I meant was who was which or something. There is so much said by then that is irrelevant, it makes me wonder.

Sad.

Susan Tepper
Jul 17, 11:14am

What is most troubling to me is that art always gets boiled down to the "superflous."

When an era is long dead and buried, it is the ART that endures and informs.

This world (and its microcosims) are ruled and determined by people's personal agendas.
Such a pity

Elizabeth Hegwood
Jul 17, 11:55am

So, not that anyone knows and I'm sure it's an old question, but what's that whole study-lit-but-don't-create-it attitude about, anyway?

Elizabeth Hegwood
Jul 17, 01:18pm

FYI: There's a poll on the Hattiesburg American homepage regarding the mess. You may wish to vote.

Elizabeth Hegwood
Jul 19, 12:18pm

The story was reprinted in the Clarion-Ledger. The more comments there are, the more likely it'll be picked up somewhere else. That's what happened the first time. (!!) So please create a profile and leave some nice concerned comments.

Thanks a mil--

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20107180359
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