[tierack]

As someone who received an MFA in creative writing I get nervous when this question comes up. I'm pleased, though, that the article matches my experience.

I think zimbabwe has a point that "the classroom rarely adds more than what students could get in a focused extracurricular group," but finding that group would be nearly impossible. Writing is a very solitary activity, and sharing unfinished work is (for the vast majority) a horrifying experience. You're not going to easily get those people together to recreate a regular (and good) workshop.

The workshop itself was pretty widely reviled by professors and students, and contact we had with writing departments elsewhere showed we weren't alone in that feeling. But I agree with the final thesis of the article that "workshops work". I'm pretty sure my stories and novel got better throughout, from criticism I received and from the sheer amount of practice I got. I ended up not writing after getting the degree (programming was more fun), but a few people I graduated with have started making names for themselves, and I feel pretty good about that. It suggests that maybe I could have if I stuck with it.

I sometimes think that a writing workshop could be nicely transferred to programming. It's been my experience that programmers are much more willing to share and accept advice on unfinished projects, and the little writing games that seem so lame to writers might translate better too.