Creative Writing Courses Are Useless: Creative Writing Programs and the Italian Literary System

Abstract

Creative writing schools and programs are weird creatures. They have been around for decades and have become increasingly popular despite their relatively recent addition to the curricula of higher education. This chapter investigates the public discourse around creative writing programs: it looks at how creative writing degrees are received both in the English-speaking world (the United States and the United Kingdom) and in Italy, and it investigates the reasons behind this reception. In the Anglo-American case, creative writing is part of university education, but this is not the case in Italy, where universities do not offer degrees in creative writing. The teaching of creative writing thus is entirely entrusted to private enterprises such as schools, associations, charities, cooperatives, and bookshops. This chapter looks at how, in Italy’s case, the reception of creative writing has been shaped by the country’s historic understanding of high and popular culture and by the position of the Alessandro Baricco, best-selling author and founder of the Holden School, the most famous Italian creative writing school. These themes are relevant to the scholarship on creative and cultural industries because they offer insights into the role of creative writing programs as mechanisms for the inclusion and exclusion of cultural workers. They also reveal the programs’ growing influence over literary production and cultural production more generally.