At Harvard, we rarely indulge in reading for leisure or writing for its own sake. The stress of the academic environment can leave students feeling sapped of the time, energy, and inspiration needed to engage in forms of creative expression. Given that these same students have also become accustomed to operating within a system that promises recognition and rewards in exchange for their work, the private, often unsung act of creative writing demands considerable dedication and confidence.
From April 29 to May 1, the Harvard Department of English, the Office of the Dean of Arts and Humanities, Harvard Writers at Work, and the Office for the Arts at Harvard teamed up to produce LITFest, which aimed to encourage and honor the art of reading and writing on Harvard’s campus. This was LITFest’s inaugural year. Each day of the festival was filled with various events, from discussions with famous authors like Jamaica Kincaid and Jorie Graham to writing workshops and literary walking tours of Harvard Square. Dr. Sarah Zeiser, assistant director of LITFest, explained that the idea for the festival was conceived when co-director Greg Harris pointed out that, up until that point, Harvard had had no events geared specifically toward those interested in writing: while Harvard does provide many different locations for writers and celebrates all of the arts through Arts First, LITFest was the first unifying, targeted event for student writers.
LITFest called attention to the tension between studying at a prestigious university and pursuing writing as an art. Great writers must often abandon cautionary careerism and put aside concerns of achieving wealth and recognition in favor of letting oneself be guided by inspiration. This kind of lifestyle seems incongruous with the one practiced by students who have presumably pursued traditional definitions of success by making their way to top-tier colleges. However, LITFest challenged the assumption that Harvard students must naturally be less inclined to pursue writing. By portraying writing as a craft, as opposed to a career in and of itself, LITFest opened up new avenues for students to continue writing without abandoning their more cautious and traditional inclinations.
The four Harvard graduates who spoke during the festival’s opening event, “Breaking In: Recent Harvard Grads Describe Life in Publishing,” and the two featured in the subsequent panel, “Building Lives, Building Careers: A conversation about the writing life with Johanna Berkman,” all pursued writing in greatly varying ways. Michelle Kuo, originally set on law school, was inspired to pursue writing after teaching on the Arkansas-Mississippi border and coming into contact with a student who would later end up in jail. For Kuo, the pursuit of writing did mean abandoning more assured roads to success; from her story, the act of writing could be interpreted as one of anti-institutional rebellion. But Samantha Perry David’s approach to writing refutes this analysis: Samantha studied literature and creative writing while at Harvard, and continues to write in her spare time to this day, despite having known all along that she intended to end up in business school. These two stories are tied together by the suggestion that writing can fill voids left over or created by more conventional careers, whether that means abandoning other pursuits entirely, or merely supplementing them.
But money is a central concern—and, possibly, a culprit responsible for the absence of creative writing in professional spheres. Is it really possible for less-fortunate writers to support themselves outside of the well-tred post-Harvard career tracks? At LITFest, Jamaica Kincaid admitted that much of a successful writing career leans on chance. She told the story of her struggles as a budding writer, stating, “You’ll notice that from my early days writing for the New Yorker, I always went where there was food.” To those who are dismayed by the dismal financial prospects of a career in writing, she advised: “It’s a very American thing to want to earn a living, and professionalize everything. But supporting yourself is secondary—you have to do it or you’d be lost.” But is this justification enough to tempt Harvard students away from a rule-abiding lifestyle, in favor of the spontaneity and hardship that Kincaid describes as inevitable in the day-to-day lives of the creative class?
In a recent Crimson article entitled “Pursuing Passion? Selling Out? Buying Time?” Victoria Baena argued that because of our need for security, Harvard students often go into consulting immediately after graduation. Baena wrote that these students are not necessarily motivated by the prospect of financial success; in fact, other common post-graduation pursuits, like Teach for America, offer markedly poor pay. Instead, the most important factor seems to be protection from risk. By following a popular and respected course of action, these students continue down the well-worn path that they’ve trodden down thus far by striving for academic success, and can avoid the unfamiliar and alarming hazards associated with doing something less well regimented, like writing—even if the latter would be a more rewarding pursuit.
Kincaid’s advice also highlights that socioeconomic realities have the power to allow for or completely discourage the pursuit of writing. The idea that “supporting yourself is secondary” to indulging your passions may sound true, beautiful, and exciting to those whose privileged backgrounds have afforded them the luxury of never having to worry about supporting themselves. But how can Kincaid offer this same advice to someone from an impoverished family, who has grown up with an acute awareness of the importance of money, and of the debilitating issues that can arise when you don’t have enough to support yourself with? The financial struggles associated with the pursuit of writing can’t simply be brushed aside, even with an avowal as eloquent and idealistic as Kincaid’s.
Dr. Zeiser offers a potential solution to both of these issues, conceding, “It’s hard to tell undergraduates not to worry about their career—but you can point out that there are many different elements involved in putting your life together, and that your job and your interest don’t necessarily have to be one and the same.” In addition to coordinating LITFest, Dr. Zeiser works on the project “Building Lives, Building Careers,” which aims to open up a discussion with undergraduates about the value of the humanities, and to help students understand that they are not limited to the scope of their concentration. She points out, “Only six or seven people in the world make a living just out of writing books. Most people have their own lives and jobs and write whenever they have time.” As Dr. Zeiser works to show through LITFest, writing does not have to be an activity reserved exclusively for the privileged few that can become successful through their work, or that can disregard the financial pangs of a writer’s lifestyle.
The graduates featured during LITFest shared advice for making time to write while at Harvard. Most agreed that their winning strategy was to put aside some time in the mornings, before the stresses of the day built up and the outside world distracted them from what was going on in their heads. In response to the packed Harvard schedule that hinders many a writer, Kathleen Hale pointed out that much of the stress students feel is invented: we use our perceived busyness to motivate us to do the boring things we have to do on a daily basis, but, at the same time, we too often let it stop us from engaging with what we are passionate about.
For those who love to read and write but feel discouraged by the hectic schedule and competitive atmosphere often found at Harvard, LITFest offers an encouraging message: there is always room for literature, whether you write to wind down in the evenings after a long day at the consulting firm, or subscribe wholeheartedly to Jamaica Kincaid’s devotion: “I don’t really know how to do anything else—besides maybe iron.”