blackbird said:
Also, it seems to me there is a lot of general bashing of college writing courses and instructors in this thread, as well as elsewhere on this board.
I agree, and am somewhat puzzled by it.
blackbird said:
So I'll make it clear that I'm not talking about the community college level, per se, but grad-level university writing programs, and I do think there's a huge difference.
There is a indeed a huge difference, but it isn't necessarily in favor of the MFA courses. It depends on the kind of writer you are. The MFA professors tend (prepare for a gross generalization) to be literary writers with an obscure book or two and many short stories published in literary quarterlies. Most MFA programs are very sniffy about anything that smacks of genre or commercial writing.
I have found the best teachers to be in either the community colleges or the extension services of larger colleges and universities; it is here that you are more likely to find career writers who are teaching as a sideline, as opposed to those who deliberately prepared for a career in academic literature. For example, some fantastic, award-winning writers teach in the extension courses of the University of California; for them, it's a sideline, and their novels are their careers (and if their novels became bestsellers, they'd probably stop teaching).
This doesn't mean you ought to blindly sign up for whatever course happens to be available. If your basic skills need work, then almost any class will be of some value, but if you want advice on story structure and on the ins and outs of the writing business, you should look at what the teacher has written. It always shocks me to find that the majority of folks in writing workshops haven't read any of the teacher's novels. I mean, if you hate someone's books and loathe their writing style, are you likely to want that person's advice? If they've only sold books to SoarByNight Press, will they really be in a position to advise you about getting an agent?
I don't mean to get all Biblical here, but 'by their fruits shall ye know them.' The great thing about taking courses from published writers is that you can look at their work before making a decision.
(The same applies, I suppose, to online courses; but I think one can learn much more in a physical writing workshop if there is a good one available in your area.)