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Katherine Anne Porter Collection, Accession #6339-h, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.
This collection was purchased on 1997 June 23.
Bower writes to Porter inviting her to teach at New York University.
Porter, New York City, replies that she would be interested in teaching courses in reading and understanding literature, but not in teaching or talking about writing.
[Asks Porter to consider teaching two evening courses, in writing and in literature, for the Adult Division of New York University while she is staying in the city]
[Replies to Bower's offer of a job teaching courses in the evenings by mentioning the types of work she has done for universities in the past, including lecture tours, writers' conferences, and straight teaching for eighteen years, visiting more than 150 colleges and universities; she also comments about teaching a writing course, "I cannot ever again undertake to teach a writing course. It is the most appalling work on earth, I had rather visit the blood bank once a week than again to undertake reading manuscripts and advising beginning writers. There is quite literally no end to it. And I could not engage myself for more than one lecture a week, a course in literature. I am at this point much more interested in encouraging people to be good readers than teaching them writing techniques. But the fact is, I am not willing to exhaust myself at this kind of teaching at the expense of a little time and energy for my own writing."]