DeScribe

Birch doesn't sugarcoat much about Australian writing in this - it's a refreshing (and slightly depressing) look on what it takes to be a writer through the university system. An extract:

Ramona Koval: How do you explain to people in classes that maybe none of them will ever publish anything?

Tony Birch: Well, I explain that very quickly. Probably the best way to explain it is to be quite honest and personal, so that…I think, since I’ve taught creative writing full-time, I’ve published about 13 or 14 stories now. I would have had that many rejection slips, of the same stories often. So I’ve had stories published that have been to a couple of journals and been rejected…with good advice on why they had been rejected.

So I tend to say to students, firstly, if you’re going to be a writer, for most writers in Australia, rejection comes with the turf. So that, for your life of being a writer, often you’re having your work rejected as much as it is published, and you have to understand therefore that it’s a lifelong journey and, as clichéd as that sounds, I think it’s true.

Then I talk about, more particularly, if you have a dream of publishing a great novel, that that is more unlikely, and the ability to get a novel published in Australia is very difficult. Jokingly, but with some experience, I say they’ve probably more chance of publishing a novel if they commit a major crime, go to jail, then come out and publish a novel afterwards.

So I emphasise it but, in a way, I suppose, Ramona, I don’t want to be negative in the sense of ‘don’t do this, this is a mistake’, because the other thing that I try and emphasise about creative writing is that it is part of a…in my view, and it sounds idealised in a way more corporate world or a corporate approach to universities, is that I see it as…within a tradition of a liberal arts degree, that by doing creative writing and reading writers and trying to write themselves around particular issues, that in fact they will learn many things about themselves and about the world which are not just about becoming a published writer.

The rest of the interview is at:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/bwriting/stories/s1430412.htm