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Posts Tagged ‘practical’

How One Writer Supports His Art

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 12, 2023| 5 Comments »

Photo: Vincent Tullo/The Guardian.
Tony Tulathimutte won the Whiting award for his first novel, Private Citizens. To support his writing, he gives workshops that have launched other writers.

The other day I heard a watercolor artist talk about having an MBA and an investment career before switching to art. Several people in her audience noted that most painters don’t have such a good foundation for income and often support themselves with more menial jobs.

A recent interview in the Guardian shows a Brooklyn novelist finding a still different way to support his art.

Isabel Slone writes, “The list of past guest speakers at Crit, the writing workshop that author Tony Tulathimutte runs out of his Brooklyn apartment, reads like a veritable who’s who of 21st-century literary greats. … And while Tulathimutte describes himself as ‘literally just some guy’ on his website, he’s won an O Henry award, and former students like Beth Morgan and Rax King have gone on to earn lucrative book deals and win highly prestigious prizes.

“Tulathimutte, 39, founded Crit in 2017 after winning the Whiting award for his first novel, Private Citizens. While he had previously taught courses at Sarah Lawrence College and the University of Massachusetts, and led workshops for indie companies like Sackett Street Writers, these gigs came and went.

“Running his own school seemed like a more sustainable way to make a living while maintaining his career as an author (Tulathimutte announced the sale of his second novel, Rejection, earlier this year). According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, writers and authors earn on average $69,510 a year, while an alarming Authors Guild survey showed that its members drew a median income of $6,080 in 2017, down 42% from 2009. …

“Crit accepts nine students per session. They meet twice a week (Wednesdays and Fridays) over the course of two months. Spots cost $800, netting Tulathimutte approximately $30,000 per year. He supplements his income by accepting freelance writing assignments and visiting-faculty positions. He is currently a thesis adviser at Brooklyn College.

“In the six years since Crit’s inception, Tulathimutte has managed to build not just a successful side hustle, but a thriving community of writers. He hosts book swaps, parties, even a dedicated Slack channel where alumni can chitchat, form casual writing groups and perhaps land a connection to the agent or editor who will launch their career.

“Guardian: What was the impetus for founding Crit?
“Tulathimutte: I just thought I could design the class I would have wanted to take. Most MFA programs function more like book clubs or discussion groups, where people are reading your work and giving feedback. I try to do formal pedagogy in the class, so I came up with 16 lectures breaking down different aspects of craft and process, such as ‘What is plot? or ‘What is dialogue?’ Students find the career-oriented class especially of interest because [practical matters] very often get neglected in the academy. It’s the last class of the course and it goes on indefinitely. My record is 11 hours and 45 minutes.

“Why is it important for you to teach practical skills like money management?
“Most working writers I know slap together a bunch of different sources of income. On the side, I take visiting faculty gigs, pitch articles, freelance as a novel editor and writing consultant, and shoot author photos. Plus, there’s the very occasional windfall from book-related things like speaking engagements and selling foreign rights or film and TV options.

“I teach students how to cobble together different income streams to create something workable. Usually I talk about whatever grants, fellowships, residencies, contests, funded MFAs and other things I think are worth applying for, but I’ve also talked about Roth IRAs, eligible tax deductions from writing income, speakers bureaus, negotiating freelance rates, loan forgiveness programs and so on.

“Does it feel harder to make a living as a writer now than it did in the past?
“It’s definitely harder now, with so many media companies and publication venues folding and ever fewer places to publish book-related content. …

“Crit students have landed 12 book deals to date. What about your classes gives them a competitive edge?
“I think that a lot of my students would have succeeded just fine eventually. I could point to some writers and say, ‘I introduced them to their agent,’ to others, ‘I made X and Y notes on their manuscript,’ but who knows if that increased or decreased their selling prospects. …

“How have you managed to get the word out?
“In the beginning, my only marketing strategy was to ask a couple of my more famous friends, like Jenny Zhang [and] Carmen Maria Machado, to retweet me. The slight bump in visibility was enough to get a handful of people signing up for the first few classes. After the first year, the balance shifted to 50/50 Twitter and word of mouth. Now it’s almost entirely word of mouth.

“How do you manage to convince people like Jonathan Franzen to visit your class?
“I email them. … Jonathan Franzen was a massive get, obviously. He asked me to moderate one of his book launch events for Crossroads in 2021 and after the event I asked if he’d like to guest and he said yes. I just figure there’s no harm in asking.”

More at the Guardian, here. No firewall. Can’t agree it’s harder now. Read New Grub Street.

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Brazilian Literacy Innovator

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 8, 2021| 4 Comments »

Photo: Radio TV Suisse/ The Literacy Project.
This is the poster for A is for Angicos, a documentary about an inspired literacy innovator in Brazil.

I was listening to the radio show the World the other day and was impressed by the story of the late Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. Most remarkable — and practical — was the way he approached the problem of adult illiteracy. Respectfully.

Carol Hills produced the report.

Some 60 years ago, Brazilian philosopher and educator Paulo Freire had a bold idea: teach 300 people in a poor, remote town in Brazil to read in just 40 hours of classes.

“His literacy experiment was not only successful — it was hugely influential around the world.

“Freire is best known for his groundbreaking book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, first written in Portuguese in 1968. The book was later translated into multiple languages. …

“Freire, who died in 1997, was one of the founders of critical pedagogy, a movement that promotes the ’emancipation’ of students in the classroom and emphasizes the political nature of education. This year marks his centenary. 

“Now, a new documentary looks back at the pioneering work of Freire called A is for Angicos, made by Catherine Murphy.

“The 26-minute documentary tracks Freire’s early literacy experiments in the town of Angicos, in northeastern Brazil, where Freire worked with college-aged volunteers to mobilize illiterate villagers to learn to read and write and apply that knowledge to heighten their political consciousness. …

“Murphy joined the World‘s host Marco Werman to talk about the making of her film and Freire’s profound influence in the fields of education and social justice around the globe.

“How did Paulo Freire go about his work in that first experiment in northeast Brazil? This was the early 60s, right? 

“Yes. Paulo Freire mobilized a group of college students to be sort of co-creators with him of a technique to teach literacy in 40 hours to illiterate, mostly rural adults. And they went about designing a vocabulary system together with the people they would teach and choosing what they called ‘generative words,’ which were words in common usage in that region and held night classes to use these words to spark deeper discussion about the state of their lives and the world. …

“How different was that approach from previous approaches to literacy in Brazil?

“Well, they emphatically rejected earlier adult literacy materials that used children’s books, a children’s vocabulary. They created a methodology that used words that were in common usage, a common vocabulary that was co-created with the students and that honored their knowledge and wisdom. They had words like tijolo [‘brick’]​​​​ or ladrillo [’tile’], which are construction materials, but they also used words like povo and voto, which means ‘people’ and ‘vote.’ So, they were raising issues with people about: ‘Can you vote?’ ‘Do you have an identification card?’ … And really connecting them to these sort of larger questions about their lives and sort of social justice issues and trying to involve them in becoming protagonists in their own lives and in the world around them.

“At one point in your documentary, Catherine, we hear Paulo Freire himself talk about how he thinks of education and literacy, giving people power as change agents. … What is the essence of his philosophy, Catherine? 

“Freire talks about education as a tool for transformation. He rejects what he calls the ‘banking system’ of education, which is that you’re basically just depositing information in a person. He promotes what he calls learning to read the word and the world and to create what he also calls critical consciousness and to bring people into being change agents and agents for positive transformation in the world around them. 

“In 1964, a year after the literacy experiment in Angicos. The military came to power in Brazil and it came down hard on Paulo Freire and his methods. What happened? 

“The experience in Angicos was in full course that had the potential to become a national program. [The] coup happened on April 1, and Paulo Freire was taken prisoner the very next day, he was arrested in his home on April 2, 1964, went to jail for about 70 days and was then sent into exile and lived for many years in exile before returning to Brazil.

“He became a global figure, of course, in terms of empowerment education and published many, many books, including his most famous work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. But the fact that he was on that early, early list of the first people that they arrested is not a coincidence. At one of the previous graduations of the newly literate adults, there were some military figures present that were involved in the coup that would then happen. And seeing this, you know, upsetting of the traditional then sort of largely feudal system in Brazil in which landless peasants were learning how to read and write, registering to vote and taking an active role in changing the world around them, well, that was exactly what the coup was trying to prevent.”

I found the whole broadcast interesting. You can read more at the World, here, or listen to the program itself.

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Tech Companies Seek Liberal Arts Grads

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 20, 2017| 4 Comments »

Photo: Steve Swayne/wikimedia
The humanities are staging a comeback. May the Parthenon and the finer things it represents stand forever.

I had a liberal arts education. I studied Latin. I studied Ancient Greek. There were certainly times after college I wondered if I should have spent more time on something “practical,” if I should have gotten training that would have plunked me straight into a job.

But then again, where would I be without the richness of the humanities?

Nowadays, there is a prominent thread of educational dialogue that emphasizes the importance of training for jobs, and I get that. But as the drumbeat of practicality continues loud and clear, a new one is also making itself heard. It turns out that even tech companies are beginning to see the point of a liberal arts background.

George Anders writes at Forbes, “In less than two years Slack Technologies has become one of the most glistening of tech’s ten-digit ‘unicorn’ startups, boasting 1.1 million users and a private market valuation of $2.8 billion. If you’ve used Slack’s team-based messaging software, you know that one of its catchiest innovations is Slackbot, a helpful little avatar that pops up periodically to provide tips so jaunty that it seems human.

” ‘Such creativity can’t be programmed. Instead, much of it is minted by one of Slack’s 180 employees, Anna Pickard, the 38-year-old editorial director. She earned a theater degree from Britain’s Manchester Metropolitan University before discovering that she hated the constant snubs of auditions that didn’t work out. After winning acclaim for her blogging, videogame writing and cat impersonations, she found her way into tech, where she cooks up zany replies to users who type in ‘I love you, Slackbot.’ It’s her mission, Pickard explains, ‘to provide users with extra bits of surprise and delight.’ The pay is good; the stock options, even better.

“What kind of boss hires a thwarted actress for a business-to-business software startup? Stewart Butterfield, Slack’s 42-year-old cofounder and CEO, whose estimated double-digit stake in the company could be worth $300 million or more. He’s the proud holder of an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Canada’s University of Victoria and a master’s degree from Cambridge in philosophy and the history of science.

” ‘Studying philosophy taught me two things,’ says Butterfield, sitting in his office in San Francisco’s South of Market district, a neighborhood almost entirely dedicated to the cult of coding. ‘I learned how to write really clearly. I learned how to follow an argument all the way down, which is invaluable in running meetings. And when I studied the history of science, I learned about the ways that everyone believes something is true — like the old notion of some kind of ether in the air propagating gravitational forces — until they realized that it wasn’t true.’ …

“Considering that Butterfield spent his early 20s trying to make sense of Wittgenstein’s writings, sorting out corporate knowledge might seem simple.

“And he’s far from alone. Throughout the major U.S. tech hubs, whether Silicon Valley or Seattle, Boston or Austin, Tex., software companies are discovering that liberal arts thinking makes them stronger.  Engineers may still command the biggest salaries, but at disruptive juggernauts such as Facebook and Uber, the war for talent has moved to nontechnical jobs, particularly sales and marketing. The more that audacious coders dream of changing the world, the more they need to fill their companies with social alchemists who can connect with customers — and make progress seem pleasant.”

Lots more at Forbes showing that the humanities have practical applications (here). All good. But let’s not forget that there is more to life than the purely practical. Liberal arts can benefit people in other ways besides helping them get jobs.

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