At a time when blind commercialism rules Australian publishing, and the country is flooded by imported books, government funding for literature has been seriously reduced. But instead, as a country, we fiddle while Rome burns. Oddly, as the difficulties of getting published are escalating, the number of writers is sky-rocketing and Creative Writing Classes, many government funded, are proliferating across the land. Funding for such classes come as community cultural development . It keeps the jobless off the streets, and is not a bad thing as such.
Many people like to write, want to write, and are able to benefit from classes.
As well, the scheme funds writers as teachers. But serious writing is hardly a community activity, and with so many classes, ambitions are fostered and hopes raised in the hearts of too many people. Writing is an solitary art, driven by an urge to create and ultimately to communicate. This last is normally achieved through publication of the created work. Writers want to write, primarily, but having writ, want to be published.