Word: writer
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Somewhere between the hack writer living off the slicks and the "divine afflatus" genius penning prose lyrics incomprehensible to all but himself, lies the elusive middle road that all young writers spend their apprenticeships trying to find. Occasionally, a guide appears who can help fuse the sometimes contrary desires for literary expression and cash returns. It is the growing realization that the best of these guides are the writers themselves that has called John Ciardi to the Briggs-Copeland assistant professorship of English Composition...
...students in English A-1, Ciardi is just about the perfect writing coach. Affable, sincerely interested, seldom contesting his students' aims but dealing with their methods and treatment, Ciardi's criticism of the short stories that make up the bulk of the courses is often a formulation of the writer's own vague misgivings, and hardly ever clashes with the writer's own standards and opinions. Ciardi tries to steer his students down the middle road. Personal standards are indispensible; but on the other hand, the "purpose of writing is to be read" and prose must be communicative...
...debunk the notion, ("a hangover from romanticism") that all writing is the produce of the divine word alone. The artist must create from within, the says, but it can't be done until techniques becomes habit, and devices spring up automatically. Craftsmanship is the key to the successful writer's trade. Only when the apprentice learns the craft and chooses his weapons will his message, no matter how great, be heard. "But no real prose talent is going unpublished," he says...
...logic of giving course credit for the thesis is clear: original work in one's field should be a distinctive part of the honor candidate's scholastic career, and such work would be seriously impeded when the thesis writer must also carry a regular course load at the same time he should be busy with research. This is clearly recognized in fields which have tutorial, where the honors candidate may obtain course credit for taking tutorial. In fields where there is no tutorial, the work of producing a thesis is even more difficult, because of the lack of guidance...
Hoffman had another appointment just about ready to announce. He had picked Clinton S. Golden, onetime machinist, vice president of Phil Murray's United Steelworkers, writer and lecturer on labor problems and labor adviser to the U.S. mission to Greece, to be ECA's adviser on labor affairs. The two most important appointments-deputy administrator and ECA's ambassador-at-large were still to be made...