{"id":1748,"date":"2012-04-13T14:03:37","date_gmt":"2012-04-13T18:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=1748"},"modified":"2014-01-28T16:01:26","modified_gmt":"2014-01-28T20:01:26","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-october-17-1980-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-october-17-1980-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair: October 17, 1980"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"Hall-to-McNair-10-17-1980\"<\/a>\"Hall-to-McNair-10-17-1980\"<\/a>\"Hall-to-McNair-10-17-1980\"<\/a>\"Hall-to-McNair-10-17-1980\"<\/a>\"Hall-to-McNair-10-17-1980\"<\/a>\"Hall-to-McNair-10-17-1980\"<\/a>\"Hall-to-McNair-10-17-1980\"<\/a>\"Hall-to-McNair-10-17-1980\"<\/a>\"Hall-to-McNair-10-17-1980\"<\/a>\"Hall-to-McNair-10-17-1980\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[Click image to view]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

17 October 1980<\/p>\n

Wesley McNair
\nBox 43
\nNorth Sutton, NH 03260<\/p>\n

Dear Wes,<\/p>\n

Good to hear from you. I fully understand your wish
\nto leave Colby-Sawyer. I think you may have picked a very
\ndifficult time to move. Do not burn any bridges! \u2026I do
\nnot mean that you should not be looking, and my recommendation
\nwill go out today.<\/p>\n

Still, I have a number of observations. I suspect that
\nmost other places would be no more stimulating then Colby-Sawyer.
\nColby-Sawyer has a pleasing sort of faculty. You would have
\nbetter students at many other places \u2013 but of course you would
\nvirtually never, in twenty years of teaching, have what we
\nmight reasonably call a \u201cgood poet.\u201d And you would surround
\nyourself with a whole lot of bogus professionalism, the wretched
\nhustlers of the academy \u2013 who prevail at Dartmouth, Michigan,
\nArizona State, etc.\u2026 But not nearly so much at Colby-Sawyer.<\/p>\n

Second, it is well known that it is virtually impossible
\nto get a job in writing right now, unless you have three or
\nfour books, and preferably a Pulitzer Prize. I am almost
\nserious. Everybody looking for work now has an M.F.A. I
\ndon\u2019t think you need an M.F.A.! I don\u2019t think an M.F.A. means
\nanything. But probably it means something to Deans.<\/p>\n

And then, because there are so many small presses and
\nsmall publishers, lots of people apply for jobs saying that
\nthey have published nine books, seven, thirteen\u2026 And in a
\nsense they have.<\/p>\n

There are also good people, with books, with M.F.A.\u2019s,
\nlooking for work. It is really a terrible time. It is also
\na terrible time in mathematics, physics, etc. But creative
\nwriting is one of the worst areas right now, because of the
\nfrantic overproduction of M.F.A.\u2019s in the last fifteen years.<\/p>\n

Third, or fourth or whatever it is\u2026do try, if you are
\nlooking for a new job, to get something that includes the
\nteaching of literature. The swamp<\/span> of the creative writing
\nindustry, in this country, consists mainly of illiterate
\nlizards who cannot teach literature at all because they
\nhaven\u2019t read anything. To be isolated with them in a \u201ccreative
\nwriting department\u201d is a fate worse than teaching in a room full
\nof sub-literate young ladies, which is what you are used to.<\/p>\n

2\/<\/p>\n

[X] I was at Arizona State last autumn and I think it is
\nin the swamp all right. Still, anything might be welcome
\nrelief, and a good change, so I would not try to argue with
\nyou about taking the job if you\u2019ve got it. But I suspect
\nthat there will be two or three hundred applications for it,
\nand that most of them will list books, and that some of them
\nwill really<\/span> have published two, three, or four books.<\/p>\n

I am being discouraging! I don\u2019t want you to expect
\ntoo much\u2026 But I am not trying to get you not to try \u2013
\nmuch as I would prefer it if you stayed in North Sutton!<\/p>\n

That is nice news about the Magazine Verse book. Jane
\nhad a letter from them too. In the letter to her, the man
\noffered no money at all. Did he offer any to you? She is
\ngoing to ask him for some. And then if he won\u2019t give her
\nany, she will probably let him have it for free.<\/p>\n

I have learned to ask: does the ink-manufacturer donate
\nthe ink? Does the paper-manufacturer donate the paper? Is
\nthere absolutely no sum whatsoever to the secretaries typing
\nthese letters? To the editor himself?<\/p>\n

There will be more poems in more places before very
\nlong, I do believe. Peter Davison wrote a very sweet letter
\nof rejection \u2013 and I would predict that he would take something
\nwithin a year. I don\u2019t suppose I should make such predictions!
\nBut I wouldn\u2019t be surprised\u2026<\/p>\n

Oh my goodness, the foliage is fantastic.<\/p>\n

Love as ever,<\/p>\n

Don<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\n

Editorial note about this letter:<\/em><\/strong><\/span> Included with this letter is Hall’s letter of recommendation for McNair’s job search, accompanied by other letters written by professors from Bread Loaf, and from Dartmouth College, where McNair took courses in American literature, history and art during 1971-72, sponsored by a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.<\/p>\n

See the letter of recommendation Hall wrote for McNair here<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n

\n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Click image to view] 17 October 1980 Wesley McNair Box 43 North Sutton, NH 03260 Dear Wes, Good to hear from you. I fully understand your wish to leave Colby-Sawyer. I think you may have picked a very difficult time to move. Do not burn any bridges! \u2026I do not mean that you should not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2206,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35324,596,42965,35504,42976],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1748"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2206"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1748"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11650,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1748\/revisions\/11650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}