Well, you could either go the route of a Nobel laureate in literature that you've never heard of, or for a guy with commercial success.
From Wikipedia: His books have been translated into 57 languages and, as of 2012, have sold over 200 million copies. Three of them, Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and Inferno, have been adapted into films.
It all depends on what your goals are. No-one is forced to take any of the offered classes.
They have a LOT of writing classes. Neil Gaiman, David Mamet, Judy Blume, Joyce Carol Oates, Billy Collins, Margaret Atwood... Yes they have Dan Brown, but if you want to study writing there are some fantastic ones (Gaiman, Mamet, JCO, Billy Collins, Balldacci were all fantastic)
Being a highly lauded author doesn't make you a good teacher either. The best writing teachers are probably relatively nameless individuals out there at various colleges and universities, or maybe even high schools. But no one is going to pay for a "masterclass" from them.
Sorry, that was exactly my point.
And to your "no one is going to pay", that's pretty much exactly what The Great Courses Plus subscription is doing - using relatively nameless individuals in academia to do real teaching. People (including me) pay for it.
depends on how you view writing. he might not be your average book nerd's cup of tea, but his astonishing success is nothing to balk at. i love all sorts of authors, and maybe he might not write the best literary works of art, its entertaining as shit and i devoured his books in my teenage years.
I kind of suck at reading but I can whip through a Dan Brown book fully entertained and not constantly struggling. But then I try some "real authors" as you would say and I have a bit of a hard time.
So which author is better? Not necessarily the one that is more difficult to read...
I'm not disagreeing with you, but on the other hand.. why? Not sure I understand why something more difficult to read is supposed to be 'better' from a technical standpoint.
