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Creative Writing Institute

gckatz

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These guys look...quality. Here's one of their examples of "good" writing:

He had never seen such blue eyes. Azure blue. No, ocean blue. Duck-egg blue? Whatever, they were paralyzing. Alex stood a head taller than Lilly’s five feet, two inches, and ogled as the curvaceous blonde wiggled her way down the sidewalk.

https://www.creativewritinginstitute.org/
 

Elle.

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Masses of writers on twitter are boycotting this contest as one of the rules is no profanity, smearing, violence or LGBTQ stories, which is pretty infuriating.
 

Maryn

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Oh, it's those people. I stand with the boycotters. The contest lumps LGBTQ human being-type characters in with graphic violence and sexual content--and doubles down when challenged.
 

rgroberts

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Oh, it's those people. I stand with the boycotters. The contest lumps LGBTQ human being-type characters in with graphic violence and sexual content--and doubles down when challenged.

Yeah, no. The implication there is stunningly awful. I had to go read it on their website to believe anyone could be so obliviously bigoted.
 

frimble3

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I wonder if they'd make an exception for a story about characters who curse while assaulting LGBTQ characters?:sarcasm
 

gckatz

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Obviously, the bigotry is the most important issue, but it's also worth noticing that they just don't seem like they're any good at teaching writing. None of them have studied English, creative writing, or pedagogy at all; only two of them have apparently ever written anything, and all their stuff is self-published. (Which is perfectly legitimate--but it's also no proof of their skill as writers.) None of them apparently have any experience with traditional publishing at all. Their writing tips are middle school-level stuff, like "delete all adverbs." And despite being around since 2014, they don't have a single testimonial from a student.

Always carefully vet writing classes, workshops, and craft books. Remember that literally anyone can hang out their shingle and call themselves a creative writing instructor.
 

Polenth

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Oddly, it turned out that the person running this (Deborah Owen) was following me. I can only imagine she randomly followed everyone with "writer" in their bio or she'd have realised I was one of those icky QUILTBAG types. I hadn't realised she was a bigot, but I unfollowed once realising. I do wish bigots would check who I was before following though, as it'd save us all time.
 

Thomas Vail

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In addition to the dreadful writing and the bigotry, the advert for the flash fiction contest (62KB image) looks to me as if it's violating all sorts of trademarks.

What exactly is that thing in the middle? It looks like the silhouette of a pickle on a stick, or something.

*edit*
Whoops, I forgot to be more than just snarky. It's celebrating their 10 year anniversary of what? Since as mentioned upthread, they've only been around since 2014?
 
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Helix

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What exactly is that thing in the middle? It looks like the silhouette of a pickle on a stick, or something.

*edit*
Whoops, I forgot to be more than just snarky. It's celebrating their 10 year anniversary of what? Since as mentioned upthread, they've only been around since 2014?

It's a quill, I think. Or possibly a corndog.
 

frimble3

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Always carefully vet writing classes, workshops, and craft books. Remember that literally anyone can hang out their shingle and call themselves a creative writing instructor.
And that, for some, the act of crafting sales pitches is 'creative writing' in itself.
 

hester

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Holy hell. I found out about this on Twitter.

Besides the quality (ahem) of the line gkatz posted, I question any pub that lists profanity as a "genre" (not to mention the bigoted grossness of their LGBT exclusion policy).
 

ctripp

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Noticed on Amazon the Institute has self published Anthology’s of themed short stories from the woman named as “head judge” and the woman running the institute, along with numerous “other Authors”. Don’t see any listed that are recent. Now, I’ve no way of knowing if these writers had subbed to previous Institute contests or were taking the courses, OR subbed for the anthology directly. Can however guarantee none of those themes was LGBTQ :)
 

novicewriter

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It's a quill, I think. Or possibly a corndog.

Yes. It looks like a quill to me, too, probably to represent "writing."

I wonder if the Harry Potter series might've had some influence, bringing quills back into popularity; when I was younger, I think I remember a few fans mentioned buying them and taking pics. I got one from a craft store; it was interesting to try to write with one, the way people used to, a long time ago.
 
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Filigree

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Off topic, but I cringe whenever I see 'writing quills' with the feather still on. Real scribes trim theirs. Less messy.

The excessively 'sanctimonious Christian' vibe, the unprofessional language, the hints of vanity/scam...nope, not a site I'd ever recommend.
 

Morgan Skanderbeg

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As far as the writing contest is concerned, I have no issue with it saying "no LGBTQ theme". To me this is talking about the genre, in the same way that it says "no horror", "no sci fi", "no romance", "no erotica" and is banning pretty much everything in the planet. From writing contests I have seen, they usually go the other way, saying that it must be on this theme, as opposed to banning things. I really think it's a stretch to suggest it is bigoted based purely on that. They do allow gay characters, just not LGBTQ theme. It's probably redundant since they've already banned romance and erotica and since LGBTQ theme is going to be either romance or erotica, and they could have worded it better.

As for the overpriced writing courses, it does sound dodgy. I didn't even look at that.

Entering the writing contest seems reasonable, if you can think of something that fits. A non-violent burglary in which nobody gets hurt maybe? I'm not sure what's left. Do I tell the true story of when two teenage boys broke into our shed and stole a pair of shoes? That's about all that's left.
 

novicewriter

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...Do I tell the true story of when two teenage boys broke into our shed and stole a pair of shoes? That's about all that's left.

That sounds like an interesting story, to me; I've never had that happen. My family's only had old vehicles stolen.

Months ago, there was a writer in the Share Your Work thread who said a journal published their true story based on when their bike was stolen. So, who knows? Perhaps there might be a judge or editor who might like your story and think it's unique.
 
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veinglory

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The wrote a disclaimer saying they may or may not allow gay characters on their own discretion. IMHO unless they say "no sexual orientation, experience or identity themes including heterosexual" it is bigoted. As is the explanation for why that topic is excluded.
 

Polenth

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As far as the writing contest is concerned, I have no issue with it saying "no LGBTQ theme". To me this is talking about the genre, in the same way that it says "no horror", "no sci fi", "no romance", "no erotica" and is banning pretty much everything in the planet. From writing contests I have seen, they usually go the other way, saying that it must be on this theme, as opposed to banning things. I really think it's a stretch to suggest it is bigoted based purely on that. They do allow gay characters, just not LGBTQ theme. It's probably redundant since they've already banned romance and erotica and since LGBTQ theme is going to be either romance or erotica, and they could have worded it better.

QUILTBAG/LGBTQ does not mean romance and erotica. This is the problem. It's the assumption that everyone who falls somewhere in the QUILTBAG/LGBTQ area is inherently sexual. It's this attitude that it used to object to QUILTBAG people in children's media, regardless of the context, because simply existing in the story is seen as a sexual act. This is the first sign that it's based on bigotry, because the connection was drawn that banning anything QUILTBAG/LGBTQ was equivalent to banning sexual content.

When a person tries to soften it by saying they might consider some characters at their discretion, this is an attempt to get out of criticism. But it doesn't remove the problem. They're coming from a place of viewing those characters as abnormal and something that shouldn't be there. The stories they'll take at their discretion would be ones that uphold bigotry. In other words, the "LGBTQ theme" is any story that has a positive portrayal. It's not a genre and it's not equivalent to banning a genre.

Another red flag is there's a blog post by the person running the contest saying that discrimination isn't bad. Then using a lot of examples that carefully avoid any identity-based discrimination, like trying to avoid scams. But you know what's being talked about, because the main use of discrimination is to talk about bigotry. This is another common tactic to avoid direct criticism, by using an example that isn't the contentious one, when it's clear what is actually being discussed.

There was a similar thing with a short fiction market, where one of the editors turned out to be anti-QUILTBAG. When this came out, he instead talked about stories tackling gun control, and said it'd be about whether the story normalised gun control or not. He wasn't really talking about gun control. He was talking about whether stories normalised things like gay marriage or whether they showed such things as terrible. He wanted stories that were the latter. So, yes, he would actually have taken stories with gay characters, but in a way that was not any less bigoted.

In short, bigots are very good at coming at it from around the houses, in a way that it is clear what they mean to the targets who've been here many times before... but they can argue they didn't directly say it.
 

gckatz

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As far as the writing contest is concerned, I have no issue with it saying "no LGBTQ theme". To me this is talking about the genre, in the same way that it says "no horror", "no sci fi", "no romance", "no erotica" and is banning pretty much everything in the planet. From writing contests I have seen, they usually go the other way, saying that it must be on this theme, as opposed to banning things. I really think it's a stretch to suggest it is bigoted based purely on that.

Except LGBTQ isn't a theme or a genre, it's a type of person. "LGBTQ themes" is meaningless except to mean "the thoughts and experiences of LGBTQ people and types of stories that resonate with them." It's impossible to divide the demographic from the people. And saying "we'll consider maybe letting you be in the story, but only if the story isn't too gay or anything," when straight people don't face the same restriction, is obviously discrimination.

Plus, this is a group of people that has been demonized, discriminated against, and targeted by hate crimes for a very long time, and continues to be, and this contest is just one more door slammed in the face of people who have a lot of doors slammed in their faces. Saying "Yes, I know you've been through all that, but I don't want to hear about your life experiences because they just don't interest me" is just dickish.

It's probably redundant since they've already banned romance and erotica and since LGBTQ theme is going to be either romance or erotica, and they could have worded it better.

Not at all. By far the most common LGBTQ genre is coming-out stories, a subset of coming-of-age stories. As Polenth said, the assumption that gay=sex stuff is part of the bigotry--as is the general wilful ignorance of "what could LGBTQ people possibly have to talk about except sex stuff?" But even if all LGBTQ stories were romance, it would obviously be bigoted to single out one group and say "We don't want romance, especially not if it involves your kind."
 

mccardey

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And saying "we'll consider maybe letting you be in the story, but only if the story isn't too gay or anything," when straight people don't face the same restriction, is obviously discrimination.

Yep. I mean, they can do it - but let's not pretend that's not what they're doing.
 
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Thomas Vail

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Yeah, there's not enough lipstick in the world to help that pig. If the line between acceptable or disqualified is determined by whether the name ends in -uel or -antha in 'Sam pines for Mary,' there's not an honest reason behind it.
Yes. It looks like a quill to me, too, probably to represent "writing."
That makes sense. I can see it now, sorta, but it still doesn't look all that quill like. You have to really screw up your graphical presentation for a quill used as part of the imagery in a writing contest logo to not parse as 'that's a quill.'
 
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