Dear Writers,
 
I found Steve's problem with the "Flexible Reading Fund" idea to be a very
valid issue; surely there is a danger in the increased temptation to use
readings as counters in the game of po-biz.  Since I had also wondered
about this potential problem,  if I had been given to prolepsis (I think
that's the word for anticipating arguments that I just learned yesterday
from the amazing "Word-a-Day" listserv) I might have addressed it
originally---
 
Anyway, now having thought it over at lenghth, I have some further thoughts
in response.
 
First, isn't this exactly how the current readings we already have are used
anyway?  Not to disparage the literary importance of the readers on the
Ohio Poetry Circuit, but I don't think they got there by holding aloof from
the practices of trading readings, etc., and I doubt that whoever chooses
the readers for those gigs is entirely disinterested either.  In the
cynical view, then, the only difference with the Flexible Reading Fund is
that we would be choosing our OWN people to trade favors with; in the less
cynical view, we would be also free to choose people whose work we like and
not be entirely at the mercy of the machinations of others.
 
Second, by increasing the numbers of no-big-deal readers with the FRF,  one
could argue that we would also be providing a more varied and ultimately
less politically-driven menu for the students.  It would enable us to bring
in people who don't have the clout to get past the whole state of Ohio or
even the whole creative writing committee, and surely that would mean a
more accurate range of many points of view--maybe not an ideally
disinterested or utterly objective range, but a greater range.  So that
even if someone is brought in because they are in the area and know one of
us, it's possible that that person would be just the writer that one or
more of our students needs to read right then, even if that person isn't
one of OUR personal favorites as a writer, one we would have been willing
to start up the C.W. machine for.  Does that sound too farfetched?  I guess
I 'm just thinking that the greater the range of voices we can bring, the
more likely we are to hit on something that will work for the students.
 
Finally, this type of experience would allow us not only, as you say, to
bring in people to address a class (though I think there is money for that
through the SmalL Grants to Improve Teaching administered by Milt Cox, so
we probably wouldn' t want to use FRF money for that), but also to have a
small enough group in the Reading Room or wherever to allow the graduate
students  to interact more with the writers than they currently do.
Networking perpetuated, of course, but at least between the students who
really need it and the established writers--arguably where networking best
belongs.
 
I wish I still had a copy of Steve's eloquent description of the creative
writing machine stumbling into big-time gear, because I guess that
process--and a certain level of fatigue with that process--is still really
the major motivation for this idea, for me as well.
 
Annie