Quote of the Day (Ian Frazier, on the ‘First Creative-Writing Class’)

“Creative writing matters because the human species is hardwired for narrative. In caveman days, we sat around our fires and spun stories, just as creative-writing students today sit around seminar tables and play video games. Recently, I had the uncanny experience of regressing to one of my former selves—a caveman. There was the old campfire. Another caveman walked into the circle of light and proceeded to hold me and my fellow cave people rapt with narrative. However, I quickly stopped him. I said I thought he should interrogate the beginning of that narrative, the part with the ice bear. He left the circle of light, came back, and began again, skipping the ice-bear part. All of us sitting around the fire agreed that the narrative worked better and was much clearer without the ice bear.

“And so the first creative-writing class was born.”—American writer and humorist Ian Frazier, “Shouts and Murmurs: Creative,” The New Yorker, May 27, 2019