From CBSnews.com:
Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university’s English department, said she did not personally know the gunman. But she said she spoke with Lucinda Roy, the department’s director of creative writing, who had [Cho Seung-Hui] in one of her classes and described him as “troubled.”
“There was some concern about him,” Rude said. “Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it’s creative or if they’re describing things, if they’re imagining things or just how real it might be. But we’re all alert to not ignore things like this.”
It chaffes my cheese that they found it necessary to come out and say the equivalent of “He wrote stories that we found disturbing.” Writers write all kinds of creepy, weird and fucked-up things all the time (see the “mystery” and “horror” sections for starters). I’ve written my share and it doesn’t mean I’m a potential nutter.
Too much distracting going on here for me to make any further coherent statement. Maybe I’ll be able to add to this post later.
ETA: Oops. It wasn’t fiction writing. It was video gaming. Thanks Dr Phil!
9 Comments
April 17, 2007 at 1:05 pm
People want to feel in control, I think, so they need to come up with these things. Oh, it’s THAT. Now we can look for THAT and this won’t happen again. We don’t have to be scared, just stay alert to THAT. It’s silly, but human nature, I guess. We’re never going to be able to predict who will go homicidally bonkers. What about Stephen King? LOL
April 17, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Well put. That’s what I wanted to get to but I had “Mommy! Mommy! Baby Holden is awake! I want to go get him!” going on at my elbow
April 17, 2007 at 1:46 pm
I would think that one would be more cued in on someones behavior, not their writing. Especially a creative writing professor who (I hope) distinguishes between an author and a narrator. You can always find these little things in hindsight.
April 17, 2007 at 3:10 pm
I can’t believe a creative writing instructor said this, and a department chair at that.
It sounds like an attempt to placate parents to me.
April 17, 2007 at 3:13 pm
I was thinking about this very thing about an hour ago. I wonder what this teacher would have done if Edgar Allan Poe of H.P. Lovecraft had been in her class?
April 18, 2007 at 7:41 am
Good thing my grade 12 english teacher never went to anyone with my “Sadomasochistic themes in Kafka” essay. I would have been shot.
And I can’t get past the fact that it’s Professor RUDE. snort.
April 18, 2007 at 8:04 am
I’m going to get slammed for this, but…
I’m not going to defend the prof for saying that – I don’t think, professionally, she should have. BUT as a writing prof I will say that when my undergrads write, 90% of them don’t have the distance to be able to create characters. Many of them don’t understand the difference between a journal and creative writing. I get lots of stories about parties, depressed freshmen, and poems about regrettable sex and concerts. It’s usually pretty clear in the workshop when someone is writing about themselves and there are usually some perfunctory comments, an uncomfortable silence and we move on. The majority of undergrad students who take a creative writing class aren’t writers and don’t want to be writers – they take it as an “easy” elective.
And yes, if a 20 year old alcoholic, clearly depressed, poverty stricken Poe had showed up in my workshop after an unhappy military service, I would have told him in class that I thought “Tamerlane” and “Evening Star” were good efforts, but after class, I would have given him the number of our counseling center.
PS “I would have been shot”, Thordora? Ick. Even S&M writers should show decorum.
April 18, 2007 at 8:39 am
The NYTimes coverage gives a bigger picture of this topic:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/us/18gunman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
April 18, 2007 at 12:02 pm
I agree w/ what you’re saying, dittman. I wanted to kind of expand it out to writers of all experience levels. I’ve found that novice writers write fantasies and call them fiction and that more experienced writers stick closer to what they know. So in my experience, the writers publishing stories and books some might call “disturbing” could be targeted as potentially dangerous. I don’t like the idea of not drawing the line between author and narrator/characters. Implying such things in relation to a tragedy like this offends me (as a person who writes fiction ranging from mystery to S&M erotica).
And thanks for the link. Good to know he was referred for counseling. Good for the teacher who opted to tutor him privately instead of kicking him out. She did right by him.