I shared the news with the student's creative-writing instructor who'd invited me to class, and she—like me, like every coffee-shop writer in New York—was shot through with a mixed serum of emotions: happy for a nice person's success; astounded by the coup of his incomplete writing's placement; envious of the ease at which he'd reached this peak; stunned by the willingness of the magazine to work with material this preliminary and a writer this unproven. Having labored over a finely tuned story that was recently rejected by the same publication, the bite of the student's triumph stung. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I felt like a fool, trying to chisel perfect sentences when it clearly didn't matter. If you had a story in you—as the student did—the quality of the writing wasn't important, even for the esteemed New Yorker, reflecting this period when writers are tasked to compete with piano-playing cats rather than with F. Scott Fitzgerald. Story is and has always been king, but now more than ever before, it is the entire court. Print and online publications are ginned up to shine an anecdote, an experience, into a gem that will be plucked and dittoed through the social media.

After I was talked down from the ledge by a patient friend, however, I realized that the student's scenario represented something I believe about the essence of good writing: experience matters. And, unintentionally, his success illuminated how the process of teaching writing to aspirants is often misguided or flat-out wrong.

The New Yorker event occurred in the same week that Helen Zell, the wife of billionaire Sam Zell, contributed $50 million to the University of Michigan's graduate program in creative writing, considered to be the largest gift ever of its kind. The extraordinary donation is intended to support in perpetuity "Zellowships," annual $22,000 stipends to program graduates so that they can continue to focus on their writing for an additional year a little more easily, without the need to feed themselves through the time sucks of teaching or waiting tables or joining the Merchant Marine. The idea is noble, but it's a mistake. And I say this as someone to whom a 22-grand cushion would be manna from heaven. The last thing that a young writer needs after the cloister of the classroom is another cloister.

Ideally, creative writing programs should exist to guide students in discovering their voices within the nurturing world of the classroom. But what they can't do is provide writers with real-world experience and the perspective to make sense of it, without which there is no storytelling, there is no "editor I'm going to work with" giving the green light. Creative writing programs can teach you how to write, but they can't teach you what to write. No instructor or Zellowship can transform you into a storyteller without experience strutting your ambition.