An interesting question

A woman has sent me a question which may be of interest to others, and was certainly an interesting and challenging question to me, so I am going to print it —in part—here, along with my reply.

 Why does it seem that every author has to have a degree?  Do publishers not look at any writing unless someone has gone to some expensive university and done this that and the other thing as far as education? .... . 
 
....I love to write.  I have read over 5000 books from classical to contemporary literature.  Plus thousands of books of non-fiction.  I know what is good and what is not so good.  And I do understand a great deal about literature, of all kinds.  But every time I seek out the background of a writer I find them highly educated. 
 
.......  But if one has done any growth in the awareness department, then their mission on earth is to evolve into a better more aware and kinder person.   We are also here on earth to be "Givers."   Why are only the educated given opportunities in writing and publishing?  So many of the educated are so wrapped up in their little niches of how important they are in comparison to all the other more humble people of the world.  I do know though there are really good educated people who educated themselves in order to truly give back to the world....  
 
I do hope this is not too over the top for you  .....  I really would like a reply.  But of course I don't demand it.    Educated people know perfect grammar, I do get that.  So this does not contain that.  Sorry!  

I hope I have not done the writer a disservice by leaving out some paragraphs of a lengthy letter. Here is my reply to her:

No, your letter is certainly not over the top.  But it does make an assumption that I'm not sure I agree with—that publishers do not look at writing unless the writer has attended expensive universities and achieved degrees of various sorts.

In a writer, and in submitted work, a publisher looks only for fine writing.  In most cases that I am aware of—and this was true for me when I began—a publisher does not ask for or expect to see any academic credentials.

So a published writer, a successful writer, does not need degrees of any sort.

But a good writer DOES need, without question, to be well educated. Most writers, and you describe yourself this way, are avid readers. Reading is an essential part of a writer's life. You mentioned grammar. We all studied grammar as children. We don't need to study it again in universities. But we do need to read in order to absorb the fluent and proper use of language so that it becomes part of us, part of our own way of speaking and writing.

A clever person can write things, and be published, and paid, without being well educated; that person can write poems for greeting cards, or little stories for Sunday School leaflets, or amusing columns for local newspapers. But to be a fine writer really does require education. A writer of good literature knows Shakespeare and the Greek dramatists, and something about art, and music, and science and history and philosophy.  Madeline L'Engle could not have written "A Wrinkle in Time" if she did not know something about physics. Katherine Paterson could not have written "Jacob Have I Loved" if she were not well versed in theology.

It's easy to assume that extensive reading will provide that sort of broad education. But it would not have done so for me. I needed to be shown what to read and how to understand and analyze what I was reading. And I had to learn how all the different disciplines I studied—some of them a little reluctantly—interrelate, and also relate to individual humans. My very first book, A SUMMER TO DIE, published 33 years ago, was about a family, and the effect on the family of the death of a teenaged daughter. It came from my own experience and so I might have written it without any formal education, relying on my instinct and memory.  But in looking back on it now, i see that I incorporated Shakespeare, quoting from "The Tempest" because those lines spoke right to the heart of the people undergoing the tragedy; and I used a reference to a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, who was writing about the universality of grief; and I incorporated a smattering of botany, which I had studied only to fill a science requirement years before—because suddenly, while writing, I could see how the life cycle of growing things was a framework and a metaphor for the experience.

I could not have written THE GIVER, I suspect,  if I had not long ago studied the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, or Carl Jung.

The degree or degrees? Meaningless, really, to a writer. But the well-rounded education is vital.

And I would love to hear further comments and opinions from readers of this blog.

Comments

[Jasmine]

Lois, I think your point about learning how to think critically about literature is what ultimately shapes truly great writers. Scant few writers are born without the need for some refinement of their craft. Actually, I personally know of only one truly great writer who didn't finish college - Dave Eggers (A Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius).

[Cathy C. Hall]

Hmmm...there are those (especially those in the arts) who are naturally gifted, and may be self-taught. There are wonderful street dancers, for example, or artists, and writers who succeed without years of formal education. But that success comes from developing their craft-and this rarely occurs in a vacuum. Reading (A LOT) helps, critique (formal and informal) helps, and perseverance is absolutely necessary. But a college degree? Not so much. It just happens that many writers who have that kind of stick-to-it-ness also stuck to college.

[Emily Scheerer]

Isn't that somewhat equivalent to what Professor Bhaer says to Jo March in Little Women? He tells her to write of what she knows. If I understand your point, you are saying that writers must be well educated in order to write because they have to be writing about what they actually know, about things they have studied.

Thanks for this post and your opinion - I am a college student who had a childhood dream of writing. I've since given it up as career goal, but do plan to continue to write on the side. I really enjoy when authors post tips about writing well on their blogs!

[ojimenez]

A hint of 'resentment' is palpable in the tone of the question.

To get a sense of what it takes to become a writer in the 21st. century, read the brilliant essay by David Foster Wallace: "Fictional Futures and the Conspicuously Young"
(I can't stop using the word brilliant when I mention his work) this will shed some light, if not blind you with its eloquence, about what it now takes to write relevant fiction.

alas, of course, 'genius' cannot be taught or learned. .... don't think.

Cheers!

[Lois Lowry]

Actually, there are a number of "truly great" writers who did not finish—or in some cases ever start—college, including William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, both of whom won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

[Erika Parker Price]

This reminds me of a time when I was working in the corporate world and one of my employees told me that she wanted to finish her degree. She felt strongly that she would be unable to advance up the corporate ladder without the degree.

I surprised her by telling her that MY boss hadn't finished college either and had been very successful without a degree.

Just as is possible in writing, her education had come from a variety of different sources.

It's not the letters that matter, it's the knowledge that you gain along the way.

[Roxana]

Lois, what a treat to discover your blog. My daughter introduced me to The Giver when she was in 8th grade, how I love the loose trilogy that this book is part of.

Great ideas shared in this post. I didn't know that my compatriot Jorge Luis Borges influenced the Giver.

With gratitude,
Roxana

[Holly Rabalais]

A good education includes so much more than sitting in a classroom. My first five years of college fresh out of high school produced little education for me because I wasn't truly interested in learning. When I finally went back to college at 27 to finish my degree, I soaked up every moment and finally understood the value of those classes.

My favorite was my last English course in which the instructor posed the question: "What does it mean to be an American?" We explored works from a variety of time periods, genres, and subjects. From Kate Chopin's short stories to Jonathan Safran Foer's novel born out of 9/11 to Art Spiegelman's graphic novel based on his father's Holocaust experience, all of these works would not have been possible without the authors' educations on the subjects of their works. And while I absorbed much by reading their literature, I gained more knowledge because our instructor guided us to delve into and discuss the socioeconomic history of each story.

That said, life experience, travels, social interactions, and relationships are equally as educational, I think. You can read plenty of great literature and study history or sociology, but it's the point where what you've learned and an event in your own life intersect that creates a unique story...just waiting to be written!