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  X  ‘   . _   "Getting invited to Bob Hazel ’s house to have a steak dinner and
l     it ·» drink beer was a wonderful occasion. No teacher had ever
~  `_   _ ~  _   ,j   _, _ done that for us. ’ ’ —Ed Meoianahen
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  ·     himself on a desk he looks out over the slow writer. Remember, it took me 21
  g , A.   .--_    `V‘  room and grins, "I have to tell you all, years to write my first book. I’m the
{      _»       I got a good review . . . in The New sort of writer that gets OHS idea and
i         A   vs York Times, " referring to his book worries it for 20 years." He can’t
      Famous People I Have Known. "Made me remember ever starting a piece of
‘ " `i`i` `       `   " "`   `i'` `"" '`‘`` ` " feeljust fine, I’ll tell you." writing he didn’t finish. And he likes
i Ed Mcclumhcn A student asks, "Aren’t you going to for others to see what he is working
  lines he particularly likes and those he read it to us?" on—"I’m constantly bothering my
questions, Everyone is stil1_ He is the "I don’t have it," he says, "a friend friends with the last paragraph I
authority. read it to me over the phone . . . a 100 wrote."
His students like and respect him. percent positive review. The best kind When he talks about The Natural Man
Some of them have had several classes of review you could ask for." He looks he says, "I knew there wasn’t any hope
with him and plan to take more. over the room again. Then, "I got one that I would ever write another novel if
Barbara Lanham, an English graduate bad one, but it was ignorant." I didn’t write that one . . . As I used
student, says that Hall “is totally Laughter. " . . . a ‘sniffy’ kind of` to say, ‘that’s the only novel I know.
devoted to poetry and the craft. He is review." How could I write another one?’ "
really interested in finding good As a teacher, McClanahan likes to Gurney Norman says that creative
students; I think he wants to share with read student work out loud . . . back writing is experiential and that the key
good poets—he wants to keep a real to them. "It’s instructive to them from is to discover your own life experiences
community of writers at UK. someone practiced in the art of reading to create those stories. "In class we
Sometimes he’ll bring a poem to class aloud." He says that the result, for create an audience for each other. So
that he’s working on—maybe he wants him, is the tendency to "write for the we get the experience of being able to
us to see that it’s no easier for him than ear. That effects the rhythms of my create a story and externalize it and
for us." prose and has a bearing on my then have feedback from the
Hall believes that the role art plays in language when I’m writing." audience."
people’s lives is not a luxury. "I want He selects a story from a pile of Norman says that attention must be
them to see in me an involvement in art papers he brought with him and begins paid to the practice of the craft of
that is clear . . . my devotions are to read, still sitting on the desk. After writing. "I’m always able to point out
clear and un-negotiable." From Hazel reading, silence. Then he says, "I bad writing, to call a bad story a bad
and Summer he got a "precise sense of really like this passage here," and reads story . . . but I always want to be in
how important, how life changing, how it again. He criticizes and encourages the role of encouraging the student to
life enhancing the contact with discussion and then says of the story inquire within."
literature can be at a certain stage in that he hasjust read, "I like writing He stresses that students are learning
your life, how deeply it can change that takes a risk. I wouldn’t dare try to make choices, experimenting. "I tell
your life and how much for the that, but it’s good, good for you to try my students to listen to the way the
better . . . and now it’s possible in my these things now, at this stage in your world is and try to render it in prose."
role to bring young people into the career." His class is casual and friendly.
presence of great poems and great McClanahan has never wanted to be That’s important to Norman who says
stories." anything but a writer. "It’s the only "you have to have a safe atmosphere to
McClanahan also has a pleasant give thing I ever wanted to do. It’s the create. It’s hard on beginning
and take with his students. He teaches, nearest thing to a gift that I can lay students."
or leads, a class called Imaginative claim to. Ijust always wanted to put His students read their stories out
Writing: Fiction Workshop. words together. I don’t know why," loud to a very attentive audience of ,
Rushing into class one afternoon he and adds that perhaps it’s because he peers. When a student finishes reading l
explains that he is a few minutes late has an aunt who "read ceaselessly" to his work his classmates are asked to
because he hasjust had a "mysterious him when he was a child. write notes to him as "a response to his
experience with an elevator." Seating He says that he is an "impossibly story." The class members, including
 
UK 9