'Dear Stanford': Letter 28

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

On August 21st, 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 alums’ letters to the administration alike have received auto-replies and brief responses to their concerns. This Substack is a space for these letters. This one is by Steven Tagle, ‘07.

Dear Stanford,

I am writing to express my deep disappointment in the university’s decision to “future fire” all 23 Jones Lecturers, many of whom have taught in the creative writing program for decades, expanding its offerings and prestige. I graduated in 2007 as an English major with a Creative Writing Emphasis, and I consider myself a product of the program, a product of the knowledge, insight, and care that the Jones Lecturers and Stegner Fellows lavished on me and my work.

Their mentorship was a major reason why I came to Stanford. As a high school student, I participated in a three-week Creative Writing Discovery Institute with lecturers Malinda McCollum, Julie Orringer, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Carl Marcum and Doug Dorst. It was my first time away from home, my first exposure to workshop, the first time I met practicing writers. Not only were they highly decorated and committed to their careers, but also incredibly compassionate human beings, refreshingly eccentric in ways I still struggled to express. They wore their accomplishments lightly and asked us to call them by their first names. Story by story, draft by draft, they gave me the guidance I craved and made me feel that my dream of becoming a writer might actually be achievable. 

I was at Stanford when many of the longest-serving Jones Lecturers were beginning to transform the program under Director Eavan Boland. In addition to fantastic fiction workshops taught by Malena Watrous and Andrew Altschul, I took a slew of innovative new courses designed by Tom Kealey and Adam Johnson like Form and Theory of the Novel, Fiction Writing for Film, and Creative Nonfiction. Those intimate seminars were among my favorite Stanford courses—intellectually rigorous, hands-on workshops that pushed me to dig deeper into myself, to experiment in different forms and learn from their masters. Other classes they developed, like Tom and Adam’s two-quarter course, the Graphic Novel Project, or Tom and Scott Hutchins’ long-running Novel Writing Intensive, are perfectly calibrated to Stanford students’ ambition and creativity, classes I haven’t seen at any other university, even at the graduate level. 

In my senior year, I also benefited from a Levinthal tutorial with Stegner Fellow Rita Mae Reese. Those coveted one-on-one mentorships were created in 2003 by Tom and program directors Eavan Boland and John L’Heureux. For a quarter, I sent Rita Mae chapters of my novel in progress, and we met weekly to discuss her feedback. That was one of my most productive periods, and more than any other experience, it prepared me for the writing life to come, as I learned to tackle a significant creative project with a talented, quietly witty writer as my guide. Rita Mae read hundreds of my pages that quarter, and when we talked about my decisions on the page, I felt she always took me seriously, treated me as an equal. After those tutorials, my classmates and I began referring to the tutors as “our Stegners”: we were in awe of them, and yet we also felt close to them, protective. It was a way of expressing our gratitude.

This was true of all the Jones Lecturers and Stegners I knew: they initiated me into a community of writers, modeling a lifestyle dedicated to writing and literature. They created a culture of support and camaraderie within the English department, championing each other’s work and championing us. That welcoming, inclusive approach to writing was not governed by the mentality of scarcity that characterizes so much of the publishing industry, and I feel so thankful to have benefited from their generosity of spirit in my formative years as a writer.

I consider the Jones Lecturers part of my literary lineage. They gave me a language for talking critically about craft and introduced me to books and authors I still admire. They were also endlessly available: Tom could often tell by looking at me when I wanted to continue a discussion after class. Shimon Tanaka and I exchanged several emails even though I never studied with him. Sara Michas-Martin helped me craft one of my first grant proposals to support my novel. I attended readings that Keith Ekiss hosted in San Francisco. Adam Johnson let me scout his home as a potential film location. And after a reading one evening, Scott Hutchins and I debated the benefits of writing novels versus films, a choice I was weighing for myself.

It’s been nearly 20 years since I graduated, but I still keep in touch with many of my Jones Lecturers and Stegners. I read their books, attend their events, and meet up with them at AWP, the annual creative writing conference. Tom’s Creative Writing MFA Handbook was essential reading when I applied to MFA programs in 2012. After I was accepted to his alma mater, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, he called to congratulate me and answer my questions about the program. Two years later, he connected me with another incoming Stanford alum.

My creative writing major has taken me around the world: to Los Angeles to work in film after graduation, to New York as an Asian American Writers’ Workshop Margins Fellow, to Athens, Greece, as a Fulbright Fellow and speechwriter for the US Embassy, and to Greece’s remote islands and border villages as a fellow for the Institute of Current World Affairs. The writing life is not for the faint of heart, and as Tom told me when I was a senior, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. It’s slow persistence in the face of constant rejection, trying to piece together enough time to create the work I want. Having taken many workshops since Stanford and taught at UMass and in Greece, I now realize how much the Jones Lecturers gifted me of their time and energy.

I’m grateful so many of my favorite lecturers decided to stay at Stanford so future writers could benefit from their wisdom and guidance. Under Eavan Boland’s stewardship, the program expanded its offerings and the lecturers took on leadership roles, not only teaching 90% of creative writing classes but piloting inventive seminars, coordinating undergraduate curriculum requirements and continuing studies courses, and mentoring incoming Jones Lecturers and Stegners. It’s no surprise that today, creative writing is Stanford’s most popular minor.

With demand for undergraduate workshops generating waitlists of over 300 students per quarter, it makes little sense to force out the architects of the program’s success. Firing the lecturers who have devoted decades of their careers to building and fine-tuning the curriculum, who are in the classroom day in and day out and deeply understand the university culture and the unique abilities and pressures Stanford students face, reveals a fundamental underappreciation of the people who have made the program so exceptional.

The Creative Writing Academic Council Working Group’s divisive rationalization that term limitations will restore “the original intent of the Jones Lectureships,” as if the current lecturers are clinging to positions meant for their younger colleagues, devalues the lecturers’ substantial contributions and ignores how much the program has grown since the lectureships were established. In reality, purging the program’s most seasoned teachers and imposing term limits will deprive incoming Jones Lecturers of crucial pedagogical support, requiring them to take on demanding courses for a limited period with less preparation, less resources, and less pay. As hundreds of outraged students and alumni have made clear, this “restructuring” will cause irreparable harm to the English department, and future students will bear the cost. I believe this zero-sum mentality, which seems like retaliation for pay raises the lecturers requested last year, is unbecoming of the program and insulting to such beloved and invested teachers.

The culture of a program is a sensitive thing, built with time and trust like all human relationships. Slowly and painstakingly formed, it must be carefully nurtured and continuously maintained. That four English professors could so easily dismantle a celebrated program over 20 years in the making challenges my faith in Stanford’s faculty and deans to act in their students’ best interests. I stand with the Jones Lecturers and urge you to remedy this colossal mistake.

Sincerely,

Steven Tagle

Class of 2007