A last word about the growth of creative writing courses (previous entries here and here) before their demand for paper deforests the world.
Unless compelled, the students will not read. According to Michael Wilding, who introduced creative writing at Sydney University:
Most of the people studying it and teaching it are deeply committed to writing, but many have little or no interest in books by other people. They all want to write, but have little interest in reading.? ? _ [Weekend Australian, Feb 9-10, 13]
An honorable exception, Alan Wearne at Newcastle University, will have none of that: he makes them read and what’s more limits the intake to 35. To get in there you need demonstrated talent. Elsewhere, the enrolment figures are in the hundreds, and the reading requirements slight or non-existent.
A surefire way of reducing the anxiety of influence, of course. It seems the creative writing people are adopting the educational approach favoured by our art schools from about 1970 on, with results now familiar.