Writing professors debate line between creativity, peril
Since Va. deaths, a new awareness of violent fiction
The Northeastern University student had numerous ways to resolve the conflicts faced by his characters in his short stories. Every time, with no apparent motivation, they committed murder.
The excessive violence unsettled his English professor, Samuel J. Bernstein, and so did his "somewhat scary" behavior in class. But Bernstein, concerned about breaking the trust student writers maintain with their professor and peers, did not alert a superior. He discussed the student with his wife, and kept an eye on him throughout the term.
If Bernstein were to encounter the student again, like many of his colleagues at Boston-area colleges, he would act differently and with more urgency because of the disturbing writings of Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people, then himself, at Virginia Tech nearly two weeks ago. But they would face a tough decision about whether to take concerns about a student to colleagues, a dean, or a counselor. As professors of creative writing, they want to foster artistic expression and challenge young writers to take risks. Not every story with violence indicates a troubled student.
"What if I'm discouraging the next Shakespeare?" asked Bret Anthony Johnston , director of creative writing at Harvard University. "I can't ban conflict. It would undo the fabric of fiction writing."
Professors must temper their new level of awareness and not overreact, said Suzanne Matson, an English professor at Boston College.
"The workshop has to be a space of imaginative freedom," Matson said. "But certainly you can't go forward from a tragedy like Virginia Tech and not be changed by it in some way."
Cho's shootings reminded J.D. Scrimgeour , coordinator of creative writing at Salem State College, of a student he taught in an advanced writing class in Indiana. The student seemed to underestimate the implications and consequences of violence. When his classmates discussed their interests, the young man discussed guns and their capabilities. Scrimgeour said he talked to the student and explained that a general audience may not accept his work or ideas. But it was a tricky situation, because the student had not done or said anything that suggested he posed a danger to himself or others. "At least for the next few years, I'll be thinking a little more carefully about student writing that seems troubling, that refers to violence," Scrimgeour said.
A number of professors said that there is no form or checklist for identifying signs of mental illness in students' writings, and they have to handle each situation on a case-by-case basis.
"College students, especially creative writing students, are supposed to be eccentric," said Leslie Epstein , director of the creative writing program at Boston University, in an e-mailed response to questions. "The window between eccentricity and mental instability is a narrow one. There may be genius on one side of the pane of glass, actual insanity on the other. Figuring out the difference is not a matter of policies and rules, but of nuance, delicacy, sensibility."
Cho's video confession, which dominated television news broadcasts after the massacre, exemplified much of his writings: It lacked appropriate metaphor and the aesthetic distance, control, and detail one would look for in an artistic piece, some professors said.
"It was kind of a grievance, " said Frank Blessington , an English professor at Northeastern who teaches fiction and poetry writing. "He seemed to be talking to himself."
Violent material does not alarm professors, but the way the material is executed can raise red flags. Gary Goshgarian , who teaches horror writing at Northeastern, said by examining the structure a student uses, he can usually distinguish between a writer who is trying to create the mind of a psychopath and one who is sorting through a disturbed fantasy of violence. In literature, he said, there's typically some redemption, or poetic justice, at the end.
"What I saw in Cho's writing was hatred and rage," said Goshgarian, who read two of Cho's plays online. "It was not literature. It was not a creative effort. It was a 'Dear reader, this is my hatred. Look at it.' "
Sean Keck , an editor of a Boston College literary magazine, said he has received student submissions that have caused him to wonder about the psychological well-being of the writer.
"But we try to keep in mind that things are written from a persona," said Keck , 21. "Speakers are not authors."
Keck joined six other English majors Thursday afternoon in delivering 15-minute readings from their senior portfolios as part of the college's annual Arts Festival. The students, who are concentrating in creative writing, were celebrated for their commitment to becoming skilled writers and editors.
After reading a collection of poems, 22-year-old Laura Hopps said she was not concerned that Cho was an English major, or that his perversions surfaced in his work. "I think his hobby as a gun enthusiast was more alarming than his work in creative writing," Hopps said.
April Simpson can be reached at asimpson@globe.com. 