'Dear Stanford': Letter 14

A Collection of Letters in Support of Stanford's 23 Jones Lecturers

On August 21, 23 Creative Writing lecturers were ‘future fired’ in a meeting with Deans, Directors, and Professors that oversee the program. Writing against the firing and in support of their teachers, students and alumni’s letters to the administration alike have received autoreplies and brief responses to their concerns. This Substack is a space for these letters. This one is from Maya Mahony (‘20), a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a high school teacher, bless her heart.

Dear Stanford University,

My name is Maya Mahony and I graduated Stanford in 2020 with an English major, with an emphasis in creative writing. I went on to get my MFA in fiction writing from the Iowa Writers workshop, and now teach high school English and am out for submission with my novel. None of this would have been possible without the mentorship and guidance of the hardworking and brilliant Jones Lecturers, who were always willing to share their wisdom with me. I was gravely disappointed to hear of the proposal to end all of their contracts and I write in support of reinstating the lecturers to their positions. While I understand the university’s desire to give young writers teaching experience through the Stegner fellowship (I benefited similarly by being able to teach undergrads while at Iowa), the creative writing minor is so very popular that there are more than enough students to go around. Also, most Stegner fellows (I have several friends in the fellowship) have already gotten experience teaching undergrads at their MFAs and join the fellowship more because of its promise of protected writing time and a talented cohort than out of a desire for lots of teaching hours. Most importantly, it would do the whole Stanford undergraduate population a disservice to deny them access to the experienced educators who are the creative writing lecturers. 

Throughout my years at Stanford and since, the creative writing lecturers have been mentors in craft and life.

Will Brewer got me to appreciate poetry for the first time in my life, and Ross Gay, the poet he recommended to me (he gave personal ‘poetry prescriptions’ to every student in his intro poetry workshop) remains my favorite poet to read. 

After seeing how passionate I was about writing in his intro fiction class, Mark Labowskie stayed late after class week after week to give me tips on fine points of craft like compressing time in short fiction. 

Nina Schloesser Tarano’s workshop on young adult fiction writing gave me insights I use to this day whenever I write a young adult novel. Her course took seriously the craft of writing a genre that is often neglected by literary circles. After the course ended, she agreed to do independent studies with many of us in the class who wanted to finish and polish the novels we had begun in that workshop. The young adult novel I wrote with her guidance is one of my favorite projects I’ve completed. 

Scott Hutchins’s advanced fiction writing workshop impressed into me the importance of selecting vivid verbs, and the power of the periodic sentence. These are lessons I use every week, whether in editing my own prose, or teaching my high school English students.

All of the creative writing lecturers approached their pedagogy with a level of care and experience not often glimpsed in a university setting, where often the emphasis can fall on research rather than teaching. The lecturers were mentors for me and many of my friends, always willing to talk about writing or offer advice on how to pursue the writing life. I feel so very grateful that I got to benefit from their teaching and help, and know that their craft lessons and letters of recommendation allowed me in the gates of the Iowa Writers Workshop to continue studying the art form I love.

I feel terrible that future generations of Stanford students might not get to benefit from the expertise, experience, care, and wisdom of the creative writing lecturers who immeasurably helped me on my writing journey. I hope that, after hearing the outpouring of community support for the creative writing lecturers, the university reconsiders its decision and retains these excellent and beloved teachers.

Respectfully,

Maya Mahony