Why Race Doesn’t Get Addressed In Writing Workshops

“I have far too many examples of workshops in which my peers have expressed aversion to writers engaging with issues of social justice or race… In my experience of having attended a prestigious MFA program in creative writing and having finished coursework in a prestigious PhD program in creative writing, the majority of fiction writers feel that a writer should only be concerned with aesthetics and form, i.e., the territory of true, high art. Sadly, not only is this common in fiction workshops in general, but among writers of color in fiction workshops.”