first came into usage some sixty years ago when Iowa University, with the blessing of the Board of Regents, decided to accept “creative” theses in partial fulfillment of the requirements toward earning certain advanced degrees. Quite a radical idea at the time. Write a string quartet toward a Ph.D. in music. Paint paintings for a Master of Fine Arts. Mount a ballet for dance, or write a play for theater. Despite the initial scandalization of the academy, the idea spread rapidly and is now commonplace. The words “writer’s workshop” to describe what all those prose writers or poets were doing in all those university classrooms may have been chosen more for their reassuring overtones of craft guilds, handmade artifacts, etc., than for any descriptive precision. Certainly writer’s workshops around the country reflect wildly different assumptions about what the work should be, what the goals are, and how progress might be measured. Some are simply therapy sessions, attempting to create a warm, nurturing environment in which writers are encouraged to express themselves, release their putative creative energies without fear, and see what happens.
