The teaching of writing in the Czech Republic
Apart from the teaching of composition in primary and secondary schools, the development of the skills and abilities necessary for the creation of a text is provided in the CR by the fields of university study focusing on journalism, scriptwriting and dramaturgy. Since 1994 creative writing has appeared in the curriculum of secondary schools and universities, as well as selected cultural and educational institutions, as a field specialising in the development of the author’s individual style, imagination, linguistic experimentation and ability to produce a compositionally balanced text (see Zbyněk Fišer: Tvůrčí psaní: malá učebnice technik tvůrčího psaní. Brno: Paido, 2001, p. 32). In 2000 the Josef Škvorecký Literary Academy was founded in Prague and it is even possible to develop one’s literary talent in the Czech Republic using e-learning.
In 1995, when the field of creative writing first began in this country, the literary scholar and writer Zdeněk Kožmín published his pioneering work Tvořivý sloh: malé traktáty a malé scénáře. In 1994 the Studio of Creative Writing came into being at the Arts Faculty of Masaryk University (FF MU) in Brno. It was founded by Professor Zdeněk Kožmín himself and by the current head of the Institute of Czech Literature and Library Studies (ÚČLK) at FF MU, Dr Zbyněk Fišer, Ph.D. Since 2003 the Studio has been an institutionalised part of ÚČLK and teaching usually takes the form of creative writing seminars. In 2004 the Creative Writing Summer School – a week-long course focused on the basics of literary and journalistic writing in Czech – was held there. The course was organised in cooperation with the Brno House of Arts. “I see the future of the Studio of Creative Writing as being the systematic preparation of undergraduates for the creation of appropriate, functionally adequate text, most often of a specialised nature. This preparation consists of both the development of individual linguistic or literary ability and most importantly the acquisition of effective working practices for creative thinking with a pen in hand, from the initial search for a theme to the fine-tuning of the text,” states the poet, translator and pedagogue Zbyněk Fišer (Deset let Ateliéru tvůrčího psaní na Filozofické fakultě Masarykovy univerzity v Brně. In: Tvůrčí psaní – klíčová kompetence na vysoké škole. Sborník textů. Brno: Doplněk, 2005).
In 2005 Zbyněk Fišer and Dr Raija Hauck from Universität Greifswald organised a Course in Creative Translation. The theme was partly linked to Fišer’s publication Překlad jako kreativní proces. Teorie a praxe funkcionalistického překládání. Brno: Host, 2009.
We find a similar field of study at the Silesian University in Opava, where Jakub Chrobák, Ph.D. runs the Seminar in Creative Writing at the Faculty of Philosophy and Science’s Institute of Czech Literature and Library Studies. What is offered there, however, is “creative writing with a priority focus on literary competence, a formally concluded literary artefact in the field of poetry and prose.” Since 1996 the poet and prose writer Lydie Romanská has also taught creative writing there.
According to Jakub Chrobák the teaching of poetry there focuses on demonstrating to students through their creative experiments how important it is to search for a contemporary language to express specific experiences and guiding them through genre forms like the sonnet, song or ballad. In the field of prose it focuses on the refined construction of text, work with dialogue, narrative situations, etc.
At the Department of Czech Studies in the Faculty of Education of Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem a seminar in creative writing is run by Dr Ivo Harák, Ph.D. This seminar is dedicated to“the analysis, interpretation and above all the writing of poetic texts”.
At the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of the University of Pardubice, Jiří Studený, Ph.D. works in the Department of Literary Culture and Slavistics, and his pedagogical activities include the teaching of creative writing. He is the author of the publications Drama jazyka. Teorie a praxe tvůrčího psaní (Pardubice: University of Pardubice 2004) and Dramata jazyka. Teorie literatury a praxe tvůrčího psaní (Červený Kostelec: Pavel Mervart 2010).At the same institution Dr. Antonín K. Kudláč is engaged in the teaching of creative writing focused on genres of popular literature.
At the Department of Czech Studies of Palacký University in Olomouc, Soňa Schneiderová, Ph.D. runs the seminar Professional Creative Writing. It is dedicated “to the characteristics of the specialist stylistic area; work in the seminar is based on the analysis of specific texts, students’ Bachelors and Masters dissertations, and consists of the stylisation of one’s own texts.”
Apart from teaching creative writing at the Faculty of Education of Masaryk University in Brno (PdF MU), in 2008 and 2010 Dr Marie Pavlovská, Ph.D. organised festivals of creative writing (and storytelling) whose practical results can be scrutinised in the collections MY, TY, ONI aneb tvůrčí psaní na PdF MU.
In 2006 the Department of Czech Language and Literature at the Faculty of Education of the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice brought out a publication on this subject by František Skorunka, Úvod do tvůrčího psaní.
The creation of journalistic texts can be studied at the Department of Media Studies and Journalism at the Faculty of Social Studies of Masaryk University in Brno or at the Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University, or alternatively at the College of Media and Journalism.
This year the Josef Škvorecký Literary Academy celebrates the 10th anniversary of its foundation. Its current rector, Dr Martin Štoll, Ph.D., identifies the main principles of the school’s approach as “teaching on an intimate scale, developing individual character, faculties and talents”.
The Literary Academy (LA) has the following departments: the Department of Creative Writing, the Department of Media and Journalism, the Department of Czech and World Literature and Czech Language, the Department of Social Sciences and the Department of Foreign Languages. Various genres of creative writing are currently taught there by members of the department: Radek Malý, Ph.D. (head of department, literature for children and young people and poetry), Petr Borkovec (poetry), Radka Denemarková, Ph.D. (prose), Daniela Fischerová (theatre, television and radio plays, prose), Prof. Július Gajdoš, Ph.D. (drama), Prof. Arnošt Goldflam (dramatic text, prose), Jana Šrámková (prose), Dr. Miroslav Kovářík (poetry), René Nekuda (prose), Prof. David Jan Novotný (scriptwriting). However, prominent Czech writers have also appeared and continue to appear among the teachers, including Alexandra Berková, Michal Viewegh, Milan Uhde, Jáchym Topol, Jiří Stránský, Alexandr Kliment, Vladimír Křivánek and Václav Jamek.
The aims with which the LA was founded in 2000 and the problems or issues it faced in its early years are discussed in the collection Krok k autorské existenci, containing papers from a conference on creative writing which the school held in June 2002. In this collection the organisers state: “We consider creative writing to be the main subject to which all the others are closely or loosely linked. We therefore wished to clarify how this subject is taught at other schools of a similar or related type in the world and in the Czech Republic.” Among the advisors/participants in the conference were the playwrights and screenwriters Arnošt Goldflam, Antonín Přidal, Jan Vedral and Ivan Vyskočil. However, in October 2004 at the international conference Tvůrčí psaní – klíčová kompetence na vysoké škole, held at FF MU in Brno (see also the aforementioned collection of the same name from p. 44), Petr Čornej expressed some doubt when he branded creative writing “a fashionable subject or field of study” and pointed out that LA had received accreditation for the programme “Media and Communication Studies”, in which creative writing was only one, albeit central field of study. He believes that “the primary objective of the school is not to produce professional writers who in the future will flood bookshops and book fairs with their works,” and adds that “graduates are finding and will probably continue to find employment primarily in the editorial offices of book publishers, in the world of print and electronic media, in advertising and artistic agencies and in cultural institutions.” At present, however, LA is consciously moving away from the characteristics of a school of humanities with an artistic output towards a purely artistic profile. LA now has accredited Bachelors courses in Creative Writing and Journalism and Communication in the Media and related Masters courses in Creative Writing (specializations in Creative Writing, Editorial Work, Non-Fiction) and Communication in the Media. In addition to textbooks and collections of papers, the Prvotiny series has been published there since 2002.
The teaching of scriptwriting (and dramaturgy) has a longer history in the Czech Republic than courses in creative writing. The Film and TV School in Prague (FAMU), where it is now possible to graduate in screenwriting and script editing at Bachelors or Masters level, has been part of the Academy of Performing Arts (AMU) (initially as the film department) since the academic year 1946/47. The current head of the Department of Screenwriting and Script Editing is the author, scriptwriter and director Martin Ryšavý, and among the other teachers are Edgar Dutka, Petr Jarchovský and Marek Vajchr.
At the Theatre Faculty (DIFA) of the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts (JAMU), operating in Brno since 1947, it is now possible to study in the studios of directing and dramaturgy under the guidance of professors Josef Kovalčuk, Petr Oslzlý and Václav Cejpek. The studio of Radio and TV Dramaturgy and Scriptwriting (RTDS), headed by Jan Gogola, also offers the necessary grounding in this subject. Among the teachers can be found well-known authors like Prof. Antonín Přidal and Prof. Pavel Švanda.
The Studio of Audiovisual Arts, headed by Eva Šviráková, Ph.D, was established at the Faculty of Multimedia Communications at Tomas Bata University in Zlín. It is also possible to study directing and scriptwriting there.
At JAMU’s Theatre Faculty one of the members of staff at the studio of Drama Education is Eva Brhelová, Ph.D., who in 2006 defended the dissertation Tvorba dramatického textu a její pedagogické aplikace. She teaches scriptwriting, dramaturgy and creative writing at the studio. She has also extended her sphere of activity to Brno’s Leisure Time Centre Lužánky (www.luzanky.cz), where she takes classes in Creative Writing for beginners and advanced students.
Another teacher of creative writing who emerged from JAMU’s DIFA, in this case the RTDS studio, is the scriptwriter Pavel Gotthard, who offers his courses through the Brno organisation Court of Moravia.
To these examples of courses taking place off campus we can also add the possibility of developing one’s creative powers through the internet. On the website www.tvurcipsani.cz can be found Markéta Dočekalová’s School of Creative Writing. This scriptwriter and novel-writer also teaches creative writing at Jan Amos Komensky University in Prague. As well as assessing talent or literary texts, scripts and themes, she also offers other related services on her website, including creative writing courses. Among these are face-to-face courses, weekend or week-long residential courses, but also distance courses conducted on-line, or even combined studies. Markéta Dočekalová is also the author of the three-volume publication Tvůrčí psaní pro každého. Prague: Grada publishing, 2006–2010.
As an example of the fact that other institutions offer occasional public courses in creative writing, it is worth mentioning the Karlovy Vary Regional Library, which as part of its Free Time University 2011 engaged Ivona Březinová to run a three-day course.
Alena Blažejovská
