Continuing the Debate on Writers Needing a Degree

I have two degrees. I was brought up to respect an education.KH is a friend who thinks the literary magazines too dominated by MFAs. Since my release from prison, I ahve learned thre is a bit of arunning argument about needing a degree to be a writer.

I doubt Melissa Donovan's Do You Need a Creative Writing Degree to Succeed as a Writer? will settle the debate for all it agrees with my prejudices.

She makes a point I make to myself and have discussed with KH (and he with me):

In the world of writing, the list of successful authors who did not obtain a degree (let alone a creative writing degree) is vast. Here is a small sampling: Louisa May Alcott, Maya Angelou, Jane Austen, William Blake, Ray Bradbury, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, Edgar Allen Poe, Beatrix Potter, and JD Salinger.

I would point out other writers without a college degree: Shakespeare, Moliere, Hemingway, Dante, and William Faulkner.

But they worked at educating themselves, and Ms. Donovan makes this important point:

If you possess strong writing skills and are somewhat of an autodidact (a person who is self-taught), then you may not need a degree in creative writing. For some such people, a degree is completely unnecessary. On the other hand, if your writing is weak or if you need guidance and would appreciate the help of instructors and peers, maybe you do need a creative writing degree.

And I think there is a great deal of practicality in this paragraph. I often think I should never have taken the educational/professional path I did, but it would be hard for me to have thought of this:

If you’re planning on going to college simply because you want to earn a degree and you hope to be a writer someday, you might as well get your degree in creative writing since that’s what you’re passionate about. On the other hand, if you hope to write biographies of famous actors and directors and you already write well, you might be better off studying film (and possibly minoring in creative writing).

If you want to be a writer, write. Being a better writer may mean going to college, but it will always mean learning how the best writers worked, so your writing can improve.

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