Comments

1
Seems like that guy who started McSweeneys, but for the next generation.
2
Frank Herbert doesn't make the cut?! REALLY?
3
I can't believe how quickly this paper has turned to shit :(. What the fuck is even the point now. Paul was the last good one and you ran him out. Fuck this. And fuck giving this rat-dick "teacher" a bigger platform. Also fuck comments on a new page. Fuck!
4
And so help me dog if you use the phrase "blew up the internet" again, or any buzzfeed sounding derivatives, im going drive over there and leave shit on the doorstep.
5
"You're not teaching in an MFA writing program anymore, much to the relief of certain corners of the internet that struggle with reading comprehension."

Nice hard hitting interviewing there, Stranger. Nobody has any valid reason to dislike the article, they just "struggle with reading comprehension." Now, starting from that assumption, what else can I ask that will uncritically promote you pretentious, self-promoting organization, Mr. Boudinot?
6
Mudede in the Top 10? It's tough to take him seriously now.
7
Does this really qualify as an "interview"? It sounds like Ryan Boudinot is interviewing himself. More self-promotion.
8
This is not an interview in response to Boudinot's article. This is The Stranger giving him a platform. Way to suck at journalism.
9
What all the smart people say.
10
I guess we know who the Stranger's new book review editor is going to be.
11
@3 and @4

You have a weak short memory. "Paul the last good one" LOVED "buzzfeed sounding derivatives" LIKE "blew up the internet." Blame him for influencing Frizzelle.
13
I have a new eOnline system for remembering the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse aka Slog

Frizzelle (Everyman) ---- Savage (Eh) ---- Mudede (Ethics) ---- WmSHumphrey (Entertainment)
14
Wait? What? Paul is gone? WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?
15
@14

Last Monday or Tuesday. Paul tweeted it. Probably the most detailed account was from Joel Connelly at the PI. Goldy posted yesterday that he and Paul are coworkers again.
16
Even though I have lost seven fingers in various accidents, I still have fingers to spare when I count the number Real Deal writers I have encountered in my life on this ball of wax. Ryan Boudinot is one of those fingers.
17
It wasn't 'some people have more talent.' Everyone does agree on that. The quote was more to the effect of 'unless I deem you to have natural talent, you should just quit writing.'
18
This is too self-serving and promotional to be considered an interview. There's hardly any engagement with the criticisms born from the original article. Disappointing.
19
This "interview" did nothing to illuminate the author's intentions or reaction to the overwhelmingly negative responses to his article. And to suggest that those (many) people who were offended by his mean-spirited and narcissistic tone, and wrote intelligent, well thought out responses in return were just people who "struggled with reading comprehension" is a juvenile, biased comment that betrays true journalistic standards. I'm sad to say that this is something I've come to expect from The Stranger.
20
Aaahahaha that picture. This guy looks EXACTLY like I imagined him. Those must be his "I'm the Real Deal" sunglasses.
21
Don't worry you all. He'll be "genterified" out of Seattle soon enough, and when he complains about it, we can just responded "Some people make more money then others, just like some writers have more talent then others".
22
So what is that organization he runs? It lists him and a managing director as the only staff. Is it just his own vanity project, or is it a real organization? Could he Cynthia Whitlatch himself out of it?

By the way, the biographies and the "about" page? The writing is uninspiringly bureaucratic, cliched, and poorly punctuated. It's not the prose of a Real Deal writer.
23
It's true that this is no interview. Way to wash his dick with your mouth.

One of the most criticized aspects of his essay was a crack he made about survivors of child abuse who try to write about their experiences. He said the clumsier attempts at memoir make him wish the writers had "suffered more". I don't think he literally believes there should be more child abuse in the world, only that he made a shitty, tone deaf joke that hurt his credibility and illustrated why he should never have been teaching in the first place.

Lastly, Raymond Carver really is wonderful. We can all agree on that.

24
Shit, if Lindy West, Dan Savage and Charles Mudede are on top ten lists of best NW writers, the NW must be a really horrid place for developing writers.

Thanks for picking the douchiest picture possible of Boudinot though, it really puts the whole thing in perspective.
25
Most of the time I try to forget I'm a successful author, but I take great satisfaction in knowing that I have exponentially outsold this douchebag.
26
Jesus. The reward for a scathing, I-hate-the-world-but-probably-myself-the-most article, that really was quite pointless and masturbatory, is to then do a softball interview?
27
Maybe Boudinot is a wrestling heel and this is all an experiment?
28
I grew up in Seattle, I used to love the Stranger, but it is disgusting watching how you jump on Boudinot's bandwagon, and help him with completely disrespecting and belittling not only the whole MFA community (of which he is also is a graduate) but those who may have been his students and completely wasted a semester of tuition under a "teacher" who had absolutely no interest in teaching. You are clearly a buddy of his, and blindly support his juvenile pout-fest over figuring out he made a bad career move by deciding to be a teacher. This is not about "irritating legions of lazy aspiring writers" this is about a man whose job was to mold those who aspire to be good writers. To inspire, to cultivate, to bring to their full potential. Instead, he bullied them, discouraged them and wasted their time and money. How is it fair that he now gets to flip their bad luck in having him as a "teacher" and use his own failures as a platform for shameful self-promotion? This is not journalism, this is a couple of washed up writer buddies giving each other hi-fives for their attempt at validating themselves and their own shitty writing by demeaning others.
29
"People think you're an asshole for saying some people have more talent than others...
People are also saying your position is that there should be more child abuse in the world...
You're not teaching in an MFA writing program anymore, much to the relief of certain corners of the internet that struggle with reading comprehension."
The interview is as insulting as the original essay. Unfortunate.
30
You could retitle Boudinot's essay: "How I failed to teach anyone how to write, except those who arrived at my doorstep with enough skills that they didn't need my help"
31
@30 that's perfect!!! That is EXACTLY right!
32
In the same way that Mr. Boudinot’s self-centered rant displays his inablility as a teacher, this so-called “interview” displays Mr. Frizzelle’s journalistic ineptitude. Instead of taking the opportunity, in front of a national audience, to display his years of journalistic street cred, Mr. Frizzelle “asked” leading questions and mocked the very readers that he should have been trying to inform. It’s as if he attended the same Misogyny 101 class as Mr. Boudinot. And I wonder, if this “interview” had been a piece of writing to be critiqued by Mr. Boudinot, would he have considered Mr. Frizzelle the “real deal”? Or would he consider it just an act of mutual masturbation? What’s that crackling noise? Oh, just another bridge burning …
33
From Salon, "The Stranger itself produced a ridiculously self-congratulatory follow-up interview with Boudinot about his new project, Seattle City of Literature, a nonprofit dedicated to getting Seattle designated a UNESCO City of Literature in 2015."
34
I wonder, is Seattle City of Lit, just a big tax scam? I remember previous post saying it was being paid for by profits of Ryan's written, and if he's an employee and its a non-profit...
35
Boudinot nailed it in every way possible - funny, irreverent, and oh so honest. If you're outraged, it's because you aren't self aware enough to see the little bit of hard truth about yourself in his complaints. And rather than pausing to consider why you're so angry, you're taking it out on the one guy with the courage to say what you really needed to hear. Folks who found the child abuse thing offensive have either a) never actually been abused or b) never quite got over it. Either way, the truth hurts, shitty writers. Nut up and start looking for a new dream.
36
hey @35, you just described 99% of the population. How many child-abuse victims are "over it"? That's the only people who pass you filter. Go eat a dick.
37
At the risk of validating Boudinot's sense of his own importance by adding to the "blow up" (yet another self-promoting cliche on top of the steaming heap), I'll just say that the dim-wittedness of this so-called interview (really just marketing) has made me stop caring about The Stranger. I suppose I wasn't paying attention and missed the moment when it became boring. Oh well. More time to read other more interesting and more interestingly articulated ideas.
38
@37 +1
39
Hey @36, at least I can spell. It would be very sad if every victim of child abuse never grew up and got over it. Learning to laugh about the really bad shit that happens to us is part of the process. You're assuming EVERYONE who ever was a victim, stays a victim - much like all the other whiners so UPSET (kick/scream/kick) about Boudinot's brilliant rant. You grew up in a world where you were the absolute BEST at everything, right? Perhaps you should have your parents call Boudinot and complain, maybe that will make you feel better.
40
I'm sorry @39, but who made you Lord of Get-Over-It? It is not your place to say how or when people who have experienced trauma/abuse/rape should be over it, and those who don't get over it in your timeline need to grow up? That is cruel and insensitive and clearly ignorant to the process of healing. If you write a bad sentence, would you prefer a teacher, your ONE teacher for the entire semester that you are paying thousands of dollars for, to tell you it's a shitty sentence and what you have to say is worthless. Period. End of story. Or would you rather have a teacher who provided you with tools to help make the sentence better, to help you grow as a writer? His job was not overseeing publication submissions, his job was not as lead editor of some magazine. His ONE job was to teach, which the article he wrote shows he had no desire to do, maybe at one point he did, but certainly not at the time that article was written. There is nothing wrong with being honest and telling a student they need to step it up, or suggesting things to read that maybe they were never exposed to. Maybe this will come as a big shock to you, but in this great big melting pot of a country, not everyone grew up thinking old white men were the classics, or enjoyed reading books by people they can't identify with, writing about experiences they don't care to identify with. I certainly don't disrespect or belittle anyone who has never read Edwidge Danticat, Toni Morrison or Jamaica Kincaid despite my passion for their books. Personally, I get excited when I get the chance to expose someone to something they may have never heard of or read. A teacher should be excited by getting to polish the mind of a student and take pride in expanding their horizons. If there is an issue over what books students should have read, then perhaps one should take that up with the admissions board, or work for a school with stricter admissions policies, not punish the student for something they didn't even know they were missing. Everyone processes things at different times and in different ways. Writing is a multifaceted practice, and for good or for bad, people enter into MFA programs at different levels in their writing. In fact, sometimes the process of writing/reading brings up things that people may have thought were healed and buried, then suddenly, in the middle of an assigned book a girl is raped or a child dies and BAM, you start writing about something you thought you were over. By your rules that means that if you try that avenue you should get bashed by the very person who is supposed to be guiding you??? Who is taking your hard earned money to TEACH you??? If that's what you believe then you are JUST his kind of customer, and I encourage you to go hand him a few thousand dollars to tell you you're dull and uninteresting and deserving of more suffering in your life. Not everyone gets into an MFA program with the grand dream of writing to be published, some would just like to be teachers, some would just like to learn to be better writers...the point is, NONE entered the program and forked over thousands of dollars to have someone chastise them over the content of their lives or the skills and background they don't already possess, they come to LEARN. If there are technical faults, then as a TEACHER shouldn't one CORRECT those faults? The fact that Boudinot is a graduate of Evergreen is just bewildering, considering how compassionate and encompassing their teaching style is. Perhaps he forgot where he comes from. Maybe the publishing world has been just that hard on him and his bruised ego clouds his memory of what it was like to be a writing student. Point is, if you work at McDonald's and you decide you don't like flipping burgers anymore, you don't start spitting on the patties and telling the customers they deserve heart disease...you just find another job. Publicly bashing students who trusted him with some of their most painful memories does not equate a "brilliant rant". It is not whining to ask that a teacher TEACH rather than critique. The world will be filled with insensitive pricks like you to do that for them when they graduate and look to get published, IF that's their goal.
41
One of the most troubling aspects of Mr Boudinot's obnoxious rant is the silence on the part of the Seattle literary community. Do they agree with Mr B? Are they willing to let Mr B represent Seattle as a city where literature is more exclusive than inclusive, where people who do not read or write in the "correct" way are mocked, rather than going on record as not agreeing with him? I believe it is this silence more than anything that will prevent Seattle from the UNESCO designation as a city of literature.

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