Is it just me -- or is this kind of weird? I know teachers promote certain students all time, nominate their work for awards, recommend their work to editors, publish their work in their own publications -- but I feel like this article takes it a few steps further. It asks teachers to present a "future writing star" -- and encourages readers to vote based on reading a brief sample of their work.
Then again, it's nice they're giving space and attention to newer writers' work.
Perhaps the only way they can get such things on their pages is to package it American Idol style (sans the record/book deal prize -- cheap bastards).
What I'm really wondering is if most people are voting based on the writing sample or the photo?
The thing about being a "star" -- every time you barf leaving a nightclub or pass-out in a public place, they take your picture.
Labels: write-in campaign?
posted by RL @ 2:37 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
This makes me ill- of course they vote on the photos- the blurbs are icky and the samples are ridiculous.
Shame shame shame-
I wonder if i could get my son's work to them....
ah, the ambiguity of america.
(and will they all end up like the William Macy character in the movie Magnolia???? I was once told I 'had potential')
Well to the paper's credit, they did write this under the headline:
Then—our tacky idea—you vote on them.
I'm not sure what's more annoying, voting for writers in this American Idol way or that there's only one woman in the bunch.
Elliott Holt is a woman, so there are two out six -- but yeah, my anecdotal personal experience and second-hand knowledge of writing programs is the tendency for teachers to disproportionally prop up the male students. Plenty of exceptions and things are changing (albeit slowly).
I think it is exceptionally tacky, as promised, but in my opinion, Martin Hyatt completely trumped the others in ability. I'd keep reading that one. A couple of few of the other writers sounded a little too much like their teachers in style, especially Oates' student.
The weird thing is that so many of the writers are lauded as being "poets" or "poetic," although they are all novelists. Presumably their teachers are holding up "poetry" as the apogee of literary genius, yet there are no poets among these "stars." That in itself bespeaks a completely retarded article.
"He's a poet in the best sense of the word," so what's the *worst* sense of the word, being a poet like, well, a poet?...
Sight unseen, I was going to say I'd totally vote on the photos. Until I wanted to punch them all in the face. Well, their photo-faces, anyway.
i voted based on the picture. but, then again, i'm a pretty shallow person!
tacky meet tacky
Woah.
I never excepted to see the literary scene American Idol style.
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