A na Belén Marín (Barcelona, ??1985) has been living in a cloud for a few months. He made his narrative debut in April and his book, Dale recuerdos, in which he vindicates his grandmother’s story, is now in its fourth edition. He never imagined that he would experience something like this, let alone with a creature. Motherhood arrived in the middle of writing, which led her to consider whether or not she should stop for an unlimited time her classes at the Writing School of the Ateneu Barcelonès, But then came the pandemic and virtuality.
“Taking lessons from home was an advantage for me for personal, practical and logistical reasons. At first I was doubtful if it would work, as I would only see my classmates and my teacher through the screen. But I ended up realizing that the complicity that is created with the group does not depend only on seeing each other every week, but is also possible by providing very sincere opinions after reading each other’s texts”, reflects Marín.
The editor Rosa María Prats was his teacher and he remembers well the express courses he had to do to adapt to the new normal, which arrived to stay, since since then video conferences have been part of the school’s methodology and allow face-to-face and virtual students to coexist in the same group, something that had not even been considered until covid, since they were two separate itineraries. “Students usually attend classes from home, but sometimes also from an airport or even from a hospital,” he explains.
The faculty does not believe that virtuality and new technologies prevent classes from working properly. In fact, Pau Pérez, director of the center, remembers that the actress Carme Serna (Palma, 1981) won the Mercè Rodoreda award in December with her first book, Forgive me for wishing it so much, created on the virtual circuit of the same school “Of the last five editions of this award, four have been won by students from the school”. It refers, in addition to the performer, to Carlota Gurt, Anna Gas and Marc Vintró, who, for the most part, also became fond of online.
Jordi Solé (Sabadell, 1966) also went there many years ago, who in September won the Prudenci Bertrana with The Year I Loved Ava Gardner, which places the actress on the Costa Brava of the fifties. Solé now runs, with Xavier Vidal and Montse García, his own writing school, Escriptorium Sabadell, which already had classes in a mixed format before covid changed the rules of the game. Despite everything, he says: “I am a firm defender of attendance. The virtual and technological advantages are obvious, but experience tells me that people prefer dealing in person. Classes are not only a way of learning, but also a moment of disconnection from the rest of things”.
Of course, remember that writing – whether for leisure or not – is an activity that must be taken seriously, which is why “from day one I warn my students that they are wrong if they think they will all leave here with a bestseller in the hand”, although he recognizes that there are several who, “with time and effort, manage to advance a career and even win literary awards”.
He doesn’t just say it for himself. He prefers to highlight some of his students, such as Adrià Aguacil (Sabadell, 2000), who won the Ciutat de Badalona Prize for Youth Narrative in 2020 for The Shop of Lives, in which the protagonist, who hates her life, wonders if she is possible to buy a new one and start from scratch. The novel was subsequently nominated for the Llibreter 2021 award, in the category of Children’s and Youth Literature in Catalan. Two news that the school received with excitement in those very complicated times.
If a twenty-year-old like Aguacil, trained precisely in a writing school, had won a prize of this renown a few decades ago, many would not have believed it. Antonio Rómar, deputy director of the Fuentetaja school, present in twenty cities, remembers that “when the center opened forty years ago in Madrid, there were several writers who were wary of agreeing on a writing methodology and teaching the students. Imagine if they knew that, in addition, they would have the possibility to do it from their home. They believed that to be a writer you had to have an innate talent and that, therefore, there was little point in taking notes.
We endeavored to change this view and to show that it is indeed possible to learn to write, regardless of the environment you come from. Our approach has been popularization since the beginning, since a few decades ago the few formations that could exist were intended for the elites. In this sense, opening the focus to virtuality with more courses than we had before the pandemic and expanding it to mixed training – face-to-face and virtual – in some specific classes is positive”.
When he looks back, Rómar realizes how things have changed. Not only in the technological aspect, but in how the learning centers themselves are seen today, in general terms. “Many writers are now teachers because they have seen teaching as a source of extra income. In addition, it makes all the sense in the world because, who better than them to teach you how to write and put your ideas on paper?”.
There are several writers who have come out of there who sometimes give workshops, such as Florencia del Campo, Marta Gordo or Elisa Ferrer, winner of the Tusquets prize for novels. “Virtuality allows many writers who previously did not commit to being teachers for an entire year in case they are on tour to do so now because, if that happens, they can continue to teach from their own computer.”
In Barcelona, ??she also combines her side as a writer and a teacher, although she prefers face-to-face, Care Santos (Mataró, 1970), which shows that you don’t need to depend on a writing school to teach the profession. “I teach several courses through the cultural digital medium Catorze. But, beyond these sessions and the ones I can do in libraries or town halls, I have private workshops, although I don’t publicize them much, because they are always full. They are people with whom I have already agreed before who keep asking me for workshops. Some have even signed up for thirteen courses, and I often tell them that the day will soon come when they can teach me more than the other way around. I try to be one more, that’s why I also do the homework I set.”
Santos never went to a writing school. “Hopefully, because in my teenage years I would have gone crazy.” He wishes he could do it now, although he admits much of the supply is aimed at first-time writers. “I miss some kind of continuous training for those of us who already have published work, although I recognize that we are a guild that generally does not like to have its ego touched.”
Roser Cabré-Verdiell (Barcelona, ??1982) did decide to attend the Bloom School in Barcelona and a summer course in Iowa after publishing his first stories, as they also did – although at a different center – Gemma Sardà, Leticia Asenjo, Elisenda Solsona and Laura Tejada, a group known as the Autochtones and of which she is also a part. The author of Aioua explains that she does not believe too much in the single methodology, but that “it is good to have knowledge to learn to ignore it”. Therefore, he believes that all training, virtual or not, is welcome and that, indirectly, it can teach you to write better, although “for this you have to have a base, which is reading, in addition of a creative restlessness, which is what will allow you to grow”.
