Alice La Plante

I didn't have a class with Alice La Plante until my final semester, in Work In Progress. I wish I didn't have a class with her at all. By the time I came into her clutches, I was beginning to chafe against the SFSU Creative Writing department's slant on writing, and Alice aggravated that chafing into a full-fledged rawness. She is very focused on revision, even obsessed with it. She actually mapped out in class her view of the creation of a story, which included upwards of 30 revisions as a first step. I think she was exaggerating to make a point, but considering a story unworthy of peer review until it's undergone multiple revisions seems arbitrary to me. (Some stories need multiple revisions before they see light, others don't. There is no uniform rule that fits every story--this is art, not mathematics.) Alice also had a very specific vision for the type of writing she was interested in. I think that's crucial to being a good writer, but it can be contrary to good teaching if you aren't able to see past your own aesthetics. Alice didn't seem to be able to do that. I honestly feel that some of the grades she gave me reflected her opinions of my writing more than her acknowledgement of my compliance with the assignment goals. By the end of the semester I felt like we were butting heads on artistic issues, which is fine from a peer standpoint but incredibly frustrating in a student-teacher relationship, where the teacher has the power to grade you, and where the teacher allows her opinions of your views to influence her grades. By this point in my writing career I had already developed my own artistic ideology, and I was having success with it (I found out later that I'd published more stories than Alice during the year in which I had her class). Spending a semester with Alice, and being disciplined and graded poorly because of my views on writing, was infuriating, and left me with a sour taste for SFSU's Creative Writing Department in general. Because of that, I chose not to pursue an MFA at SFSU.

I am currently taking Alice's class, and so far, am very impressed. She took the time to review everyone's portfolio in depth and type an entire page of comments. I feel she is really interested in helping us become better writers by unlearning bad habits, learning how to "workshop" in a constructive way, and re-vision our pieces. Unlike a lot of teachers, her interest seems to be in giving us needed direction, instead of lecturing on topics that she finds amusing herself. She is a favorite in the program, and I can see why.

Alice has a way of stripping down elements of craft and explaining them so you realize you never really understood them before. She is funny, straight-forward and highly intelligent and creative. Her writing exercises are new and compelling. She does not try to coddle or pamper her students, but she is honest and fair.