Uneasy lay my head when I ran the RMIT professional and creative writing programs. I had almost 800 students studying creative writing (including screenwriters) and I was doing my utmost to enrol more, not only from Melbourne but across Australia. Yet something didn’t sit right.

I remember asking lecturers Delia Falconer and Laurie Clancy, if they would write a story for The Age on teaching creative writing.

Laurie said he wasn’t sure creative writing could be taught and Delia agreed. They said the writing seminars created a ‘supportive atmosphere’ but talent was elusive.

When I did the figures, I found for every 500 novel writing students, statistically, only one was going to get published. We had more success with children’s books.

Back then, because the course was located in the TAFE sector, full time students only paid $600 a year. Now they pay $14K a year.

It got me thinking. While I love books – more so then than now – I was running a ‘dream machine’ and pimping the course to young people so they too could publish a novel at a probability of 1:500.

I’d been senior media adviser and I had worked in PR and advertising. I could sell a dream.

After a while, it left a sour taste in my mouth. I wrote about it in The Australian (Education section) after I left. I’ve lost the original link but the Overland link tells the story.

With the variable skills of the teachers and the very low probability of getting a literary novel published, I thought we were running a scam. May be it was a noble scam but a scam nonetheless.

The job was good and the students were marvellous but the ethics were dodgy.