thoughtsignals

Creative writing teachers across the country are now trying to grapple with the question, more important than ever, of what to do when students write disturbing prose. You might think that you could somehow tell the truly disturbed students from those who merely want to be the next Stephen King. But maybe not.

“Lots of great literary works are deep and dark and disturbing — that would be Kafka,” says Deborah Landau, director of the creative writing program at New York University, who plans to discuss university protocol with her staff in the wake of Monday’s massacre. Yet teachers increasingly are being expected to distinguish between students’ pushing their creative boundaries or showing frightening warning signs. That’s a tall task, especially when students routinely hand in twisted texts dripping with bloodshed, cruelty, perversion and extreme sex scenes, say teachers.

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