From the ETV tape vault comes another interview from the historic Writer's Workshop. Stephen Spender observed that "Students regard reading as a kind of inferior activity which no one who is writing has to indulge in. And that's ridiculous, I think." For young writers, Spender stresses the importance of reading. When he compares the barrage of music and assorted noises in today's world with the quieter days of his own youth, he admits that the real problem is a "breakdown of concentration about anything." He talks about literature and conversation, noting that he thinks that conversation has broken down. He describes what he sees as the lack of books in homes and reading aloud. Radio has replaced going to a concert, and music is almost everywhere. Spender shares his reminiscences of other writers.
More about Stephen Spender:
- February 28, 1909 - July 16, 1995
- Sir Stephen Harold Spender was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose work centered around social injustice and class struggle.
- He was appointed U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1965.
- In addition to being a friend of W. H. Auden, he traveled with a veritable who's who of literary giants including among others David Jones, William Butler Yeats, Allen Ginsberg, Ted Hughes, Joseph Brodsky, Isaiah Berlin, Mary McCarthy, Dylan Thomas, Jean-Paul Sartre, Colin Wilson, T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf.
The Writer's Workshop features 15 major talents in contemporary literature who met in a one-on-one forum with well-known author William Price Fox and University of South Carolina creative writing students. Each writer discussed his or her personal writing methods, furnishing insights into the highly individualized process of literary creation. Other authors include George Plimpton, James Dickey, James McPherson, John Gardener, John Hawkes, John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut, Nora Ephron, Pauline Kael, Reynolds Price, Stephen Spender, Susan Sontag, Tom Wolf, William Price Fox, and William Styron.
