I'm a writer, I'm an award-winning writer,
all of this stuff, but I've never
actually taught. And I get invitations a
lot to come and teach from different
colleges around the world. And I've now
spent a week working with 13 really
smart, really bright, really motivated
young writers. And I've been talking to
them about short stories, talking about novels, talking about television, about
film, about graphic novels, talking to them
about journalism, and talking to them about
the business of writing—things that can
go wrong, things that can go right, how
you can survive as a writer in the world.
Today: the business of writing. It's a
huge thing and it tends to make the
difference between actually successfully
being a writer and being something else. I've been impressed by how good they are
as writers. I've been impressed how
willing they are. I will say to them,
you know, "If anybody here can do a 300-word short story by tomorrow let's, we'll look
at them first and I'll try and write one,
too. And next day everybody turns up;
they've all written a 300-word short
story and all of their short stories are
good. And I felt: good; this is, these are
smart kids and they're incredibly
willing and they're incredibly
enthusiastic. But the thing that
impressed me most about working with
Bard is the absolute lack of bureaucracy,
the ridiculous ease with which things
happen and fun and delightful things happen.
