Here’s a nugget from St. Augustine’s Confessions:
“Conloqui et conridere et vicissim benevole obsequi, simul leger libros dulciloquos, simul nugari et simul honestari .” (“Conversations and jokes together, mutual rendering of good services, the reading together of sweetly phrased books, the sharing of nonsense and mutual attentions,”)
In that passage Augustine captures all of what a writing workshop is about if its of any use–for the imagination requires nonsense, sweet phrasings, occasional conviviality (though perhaps not too much?) and yes, the good services of others.
“Good services”is a fine term. I must now tell a writer that his story is littered with cliches and that by turns he’s not the master of the language’s tone. The poor fellow felt fine about his material and now I’m telling him to feel otherwise.
If the teacher of a workshop and the workshop’s participants (notice I don’t use the word students–students take orders; writers are mixing it up with aesthetics–a different thing altogether.) –if the teacher is any good she or he tries out some suggestions and doses the matter with high or low comedy. Comedy says we’re in this together. Tragedy is the demonstration of ostracism and its the thing you want if you’re orchestrating a mythology but its useless as a workshop principle.
So we’re in this together. We are going to levitate the cliches right out of this story the way Alan Ginsburg once attempted with about 100 other convivialists to levitate the Pentagon. Of course a good workshop has only 10 or 12 convivialists but the levitation doesn’t require more than that.
A writing workshop is not the place for therapy or affirmation of desire or a massage but neither is it a place for excoriation or pedestal climbing.
The worst participants are those who want something of the above and the worst teachers are those who want to wave from a considerable height. Such teachers are among us and they’re invariably second rate though they are finalists for the Pulitzer or invitees to a Washington reception none of which means they can teacha workshop. There’s no room for a crystal throne in a good workshop.
“Conloqui et conridere et vicissim benevole obsequi…”
Out you damned cliches! We shall substitute wormwood and the minty reeds of Lake Lentini. A cloud shaped like a spider. Victory tailed swallows. Dead leaves blown about in a Russian dance. Anything other than the word “awesome” okay?
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 
I will refrain from using “awesome” to describe this post. But thank you for this insight.
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