I have been arguing with my undergraduate English students. Nicely and very carefully, but still, we are arguing, and I have the distinct sense I’m losing.
The subject of contention is a certain phrase they have heard often and hold dear: “you write what you know.” Many of them find this statement self-evident and undeniably true, like “Gravity exists,” or 2+2=4.
At first I responded with a question: “But what does it mean to ‘know’ something?” They were not impressed. Our arguments then take various forms: Some of the students insist that Edgar Allan Poe must have contemplated murder, otherwise he never could have written “The Tell-Tale Heart.” I bite the insides of my cheeks and suggest that Poe might have used his imagination to create his stories.