John’s Reviews > On the Teaching of Creative Writing: Responses to a Series of Questions > Status Update

“Talent can’t be taught, but it can be awakened—by reading, by contact with other talents, by exposure to an environment where the expression of talent is valued and encouraged.”

“You don’t go out and and ‘commit experience’ for the sake of writing about it later; and if you have to make notes on how a thing has struck you, it probably hasn’t struck you.”

“Young writers should be encouraged to write, and discouraged from thinking they are writers.”