Blood, sweat, tears. Perhaps not blood, but certainly sweat and tears. This was what was required to get the new Masters in Creative Writing at Rhodes University off the ground.
The programme is only the second such dedicated Masters programme in creative writing to be accredited in South Africa.
The new Masters degree is offered in the Institute for the Study of English in Africa (ISEA), and was officially opened at a function held at St Peter’s Campus on Friday 4 February. Also in attendance were Rhodes’ Deputy Vice-Chancellors, Dr Sizwe Mabizela and Dr Peter Clayton.
Eight candidates have been selected from 22 who qualified for this initial programme. In addition to completing a full-length work, the students participate in an intensive coursework programme and maintain a reflective journal in which they chart their progress and engage theoretical aspects of the writing process.
It was Vice-Chancellor Saleem Badat who ratified the University’s initial financial contribution to establishing the programme. “The only reason I am here tonight,” he said in the opening lines of his welcome to the students, “is because of a question I asked the ISEA, ‘How will the R100 000 we put into this course benefit the University?’” The reply came that, to start with, there would be a cocktail function to open the course the following week, and why didn’t the VC come and see for himself?
Professor Laurence Wright, who is programme coordinator for the course, added that demand for the degree is vigorous, and that next year when the programme will introduce a part-time option, the competition for places will be even stronger. “Creative writing is growing in universities across the world,” he said. “People feel a need to explore the complexity and richness of their lives and societies in different ways.”
Support for intuitive writing at tertiary level is vitally important, said course co-ordinator Robert Berold. “This kind of programme will add a valuable new dimension to artistic and intellectual life at Rhodes, and we look forward to the contribution our students will make to the South African and international literary scene.”
Secretaries of the Invisible gather
“How do you choose which book to write? Out of all the hundreds of possible books that you could write, how do you choose one?”
Oliver Cartwright, one of the eight students in the new MA in Creative Writing at Rhodes wanted to know the answer to his question. He posed it to poets, novelists and scriptwriters at a course introduction meeting held this weekend at St Peter’s campus, and waited patiently for the reply. Not one, but many came.
“How do you choose your shirts when you go shopping?” asked drama lecturer and scriptwriter Anton Krueger in reply.
“I wait for Christmas,” said Cartwright, smiling. After the laughter died down, poet Brian Walter mused, “The shirt finds you.” Writer Paul Mason had the same idea, “I hate to sound like a sufi poet, but the book finds you.”
Krueger, Walter and Mason are among eleven teachers who will be guiding the MA students through the first semester of their course aimed at reading creatively, writing spontaneously and finding their own voice. Other teachers include Joan Metelerkamp, Mxolisi Nyezwa, Silke Heiss, Jeff Peires, Hazel Crampton, Mzi Mahola, Paul Wessels and Russell Kaschula.
Programme coordinator Professor Laurence Wright quoted South African author JM Coetzee in his contribution to the topic. “The writer is a ‘secretary of the invisible’,” he said, hinting that writers often feel responsible to forces beyond their conscious apprehension. Wright has spent four years getting the new programme off the ground, no mean feat in a country where the importance of the arts and the humanities are seldom adequately acknowledged.
“I want to quote a line from a poem by Robert Berold,” said poet Joan Metelerkamp, in her contribution to the question of what to write. “What was that line again?” she asked Berold, who runs the coursework component for the degree. After a brief battle of ‘you say’ ‘no, you say’, he hesitantly reminded her of the line: “When you really don’t know, an angel arises.”
The advantage of the coursework element of the MA is that students are given solid feedback and supervision in order to improve their writing. From early on the programme, students begin work on a full-length project under the guidance of a creative supervisor.
What more could a writer want than a year dedicated to learning the craft, under the guidance of published writers who can share the essence of their own practice? Or as the students learned in their introductory session: to allow the essence to select you.
Most writers have to face these challenges alone. But Berold does not believe it has to be this way. “We need communities, we need friends. I need writers around me,” he said. Once a writer’s book has chosen them, writers need not go through the challenging process of completing a novel, collection of poems or short stories in isolation. Offering this skilled support is one of the major aims of the new programme.