Should I get an MFA?

if you want to teach, why not just go straight to a phd program? most phd students get full funding, ergo no debt.

Cause I had to make a financial judgement call that resulted in not doing a thesis.

And as I understand it, it's tough to get into a PhD prog w/o a thesis under your belt? Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

you can always just write your own thesis.

Everyone I know who got an MFA in creative writing just ended up applying to PhDs anyway. You don't need a thesis -- app committees aren't going to read them. Many just require a writing sample of 10+ pages. Get bent OTM on getting funding -- do not pay for graduate school since it won't really pay back the costs.

Yeah and I say "go 40k into debt" w/the assumption that the majority of that would be funded, but there'd be significant debt incurred nonetheless I think?

The Ph.D. market looks charming, if you're doing English. My shithole college in New Jersey was filled with newly minted Yale, Harvard, U Penn, etc., English Ph.D.s... and those schools only have like, 10 Ph.D. students a year.

So, that's the future for the best of the best.

all the advice i get abt the phd thing is basically, only do it if you dont have to pay for it, only do it if you cant see yourself doing anything else, and only do it if youre ok with being an adjunct for the rest of your life

Yeah, I would really think hard about getting a Ph.D. if you just want it to teach. There are other ways to do it.

only do it if you cant see yourself doing anything else

This is the rub I think. I can't imagine myself doing anything other than teaching, and I'd rather teach at the uni level only because you're more likely (if not significantly so) to be teaching an audience that's interested in the subject than you would be in a public secondary school.

Cause yeah spend the time & the money only to find out that it doesn't make me happy?? :/

And obv there are the countless horror stories of "I got into this MFA program and now I never do any writing unless it's deadline cause I'm ded from teaching all these freshmen in their intro classes"

so yeah my twin impulses = teach & write and obv when it comes to life path you gotta prioritize one as breadwinning profession and one as side-pursuit i'm just torn as to which and i guess i was hoping a chorus of "go for its" or "no mfas are a waste of time" would help me clear up which one to pursue.

bueloler

I would recommend against the PhD, unless you have no interest in yr soul whatsoever.

I don't have long enough at the moment to give a really thorough response, but here's the outline, which I can expand on later if you want:

1. Wait a while. You'll get WAY more out of an MFA after a few years out writing/working on your own. There are loads of reasons for this, but the most important one is that you'll have a concrete, confident sensibility to take in with you, and that's important. If you're still sorting out how you want to write, an MFA can do more harm than good, by constantly distracting you with how other people write. Don't just go because you want to keep writing. Wait until you feel like you have an agenda, a real sense of what you want to accomplish and what you want to use those workshops to develop.

2. Go someplace that will fund you well. If you don't see funding the first time you apply, wait a year, develop your stuff, and apply again. You have time.

2a. Don't do this thing people do where you spend your MFA years living off loans and not working at all because you're "concentrating on your writing" but actually just drinking and sleeping with people. Live poor and work. (You're going to have to learn to balance working and writing at some point anyway.)

3. If your goal is to teach writing, and you don't want to spend your "waiting" time just working and trying to write on the side, consider finding some community group that does writing workshops for the public, and get some teaching experience -- you won't be working with high lit, but you'll be a step ahead with teaching if/when you do an MFA.

Summary: A good MFA program is helpful, yes; it improves your writing, improves your sense of how your writing actually communicates with others (and not just how it seems to you); there's a ton of value in a good one. But I think it does all of these things way better if you're taking the advice in #1. You go out on your own and work and write, and you get as far as you can that way -- you figure out what you want to go, you produce a backlog of good material, you get as good as you can. And then eventually you recognize a point where you feel like you're getting somewhere, but what you need is time to work, a space to really focus on writing, and more feedback and readers. When you hit THAT point, that's when you need an MFA program.

hello no, get an MBA

http://www.ycp.edu/download/Picture3_mba_web.jpg

^^ this could be HOOS

Re: the thesis issue - Hoos, if you do decide to go the PhD route (though I'd certainly pay heed to some of the cautionary tips above), not having written a thesis as an undergrad will not necessarily effect your chances of getting into a good liberal arts Phd track, especially if your work is solid, you have a decent GPA, you have reasonably good L.O.R.s, you don't totally screw up the GRE, and (most important) you present yourself in a personal essay as having a somewhat solidified and unique idea about what you want to pursue as a grad student. Even if you change your course of study later on, convincing an admissions board of your intellectual potential in written form can obviate all sorts of other formalities and get you in the door even if you went to a second-tier school or got a 2.5 your freshman year, etc. Never underestimate the power of the personal essay.

Don't do this thing people do where you spend your MFA years living off loans and not working at all because you're "concentrating on your writing" but actually just drinking and sleeping with people.

Isn't that the point of going to grad school?

Doesn't matter what your degree is, you'll be in adjunct hell, teaching wise, unless and until you have a few book publications under your belt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK0ITXBWpHE

^^ must-watch for HOOS

Is that an employee training video cause I might be writing them soon

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=40&threadid=58492#unread

damn ruined my joke

Thanks for the help, guys. I really do appreciate it, and I'll try to keep the advice in mind. The suggestion to wait is well taken.

Hoos - one more word on the PhD vs. MFA argument: It is considerably more difficult to acquire the kind of funding it would take to cover the costs of a top-tier masters program than it is to get full-tuition + annual stipend for a PhD program. However, many (if not most) liberal arts PhD programs will award you with a masters on your way to getting the ultimate prize. So, in theory, you could enroll for the PhD and cut and run with an MA or MFA. Personally, I don't know anyone who's done this - there may be certain academic/professional repercussions to doing that.

to = for

one more for waiting on the MFA and waiting further still on the ph.d.

just in general it's never a good idea to rush headlong into building more debt for yourself

Do I wanna sink $40k into debt

OH HELL NO YOU DON'T

i know right payin shit off til i'm 40

my stepmom is 37 and she just finished paying off her undergrad loans from a private college, i'll be doin it up obama style finishin up loans at 47 or whatever

or you could, uh, fuck school in the eye and go write a fucking book that dumbasses love to recommend to their relatives

I mean hey fight the system

no I'm kidding I love hitchhiker's guide as much as the next guy, that was a bestseller

http://www.kattermans.com/corrections_franzen.gif

???

xxp

are friends in the program already sufficiently well indoctrinated in the program that of course they've got to convince themselves and others it's worth it..?

Speaking as one who did this for a liberal arts degree (which I never finished due to being crazy & which would have done me no good anyway).. $40K debt for me right now = an extra $400/month I could be saving for.. well.. a house, or using to live in a nice apartment, or going out, or traveling.. instead of throwing to the feds and Sallie Mae until I'm 40. Think about it. Granted, I live in an expensive city.. but..

I would recommend against the PhD, unless you have no interest in yr soul whatsoever.
word on that. if you're thinking of PhD.. the job market for PhDs in humanities is unbelievably horrible. I got out, and I'm grateful I managed to get out with only $40K in debt and still have my sense of humor and all.. but.. well, a good friend of mine is just finishing her PhD in English after about 7 years and she's transformed from one of the most fun, cheerful, all round fantastic people to be around I've ever met into.. completely miserable. and she got a job in the field, even.

I guess if your ultimate goal is PhD, though, apply for that and if they want you they'll fund you. if your plan is pay $40K for MFA and then apply for PhD, I say no.. a lot of MFA programs are effectively moneymakers for the school because no one gets funding and they cost a lot..

http://www.frenchtowner.com/m/eat-pray-love.gif

http://kyledesigns.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/elizabeth-gilbert-eat-pray-love1.jpg

^^ this could be u hoos

the job market for PhDs in humanities is unbelievably horrible.

yeah i keep hearing this

loool xxp

That's my ultimate fear I guess is "hey I'm a bajillion moneys in debt and no one will hire my English-teachin ass"

No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money — Samuel Johnson

my chaucer prof quotes dude like on the daily

7 years in grad school sounds like an ok way to ride out the recession

ha i have said that on like 3 of your college threads dude

rolling 2008 pre- and post-graduation crisis thread

HOOS, also, I learned a good lesson about what it was like to fail miserably at something (I think ultimately that was a very good lesson and I'm grateful) but the fact that I'd borrowed $40K to do it made me hang on much longer than I should have - it warped my perspective on everything - coursework that was already stressful became extra so because, after all, I borrowed all this money.. quitting became inconceivable because, after all, I borrowed all this money.. and I spent an entire year utterly caught between being unable to finish and unable to quit, because I'd borrowed all that money. If I hadn't left I'd probably have driven my car off a bridge or something.

My suggestion is, though, since you're not me.. think about what you have to do on a daily basis to do the program and get the teaching job you'd want at the end of it. because, again, if you love love love teaching English the process of getting a PhD on a daily basis involves some time preparing and teaching, and a hell of a lot of long hours doing reading and grinding out papers and trying to publish and assimiliating yourself into the profession. can you do that for 2 years (mfa) or 6 years (phD)?

my grad advisor actually lectured me at length apropros of nothing on the travails of humanities grad students who imagine they can find some teaching job at a small college somewhere, as in, it is impossible and it sucks and the whole thing is a fucking pyramid scheme

she and I are both engineering graduates, no beef though

daria makes another very good point re: dangers of SUNK COST FALLACY

all the advice i get abt the phd thing is basically, only do it if you dont have to pay for it, only do it if you cant see yourself doing anything else, and only do it if youre ok with being an adjunct for the rest of your life

SUNK COST = $40K + 3 YEARS OF MY LIFE

yaaaaooooww! Again Hoos dude I have mood disorder stuff, so it was a much worse environment for me than it'd be for some. but as far as all the people I met in humanities PhD programs, hmm.. 15% crazy, 25% functional alcoholics, 25% brilliant people slowly being ground down over the years, 20% burnouts still hanging on, 15% successful at meeting expectations and relatively unscathed (of these, 25% will get a job in the field).

The debt issue isn't just the money, it's the time. A Hoos with big monthly payments needs a steady full-time job, and has to write around it; a Hoos without them has a lot more leeway to work part time, or take a few months off, or any of the other things that can come in kinda handy when you're trying to finish a book or something. This is why you want to get as much funding as possible and minimize your living expenses while you're there.

The other reason to wait until you have a clear goal for what you want to accomplish, writing-wise, is actually money-related. People tend to avoid careerist talk when it comes to the arts, but here's some straight dope: if you're really, realistically confident you have a book in you that you can sell -- say, just a good but modest mid-list novel -- you can spend those years in workshops to get it finished, polished, and ready to hand to an agent. And the going advance for a good, modest mid-list novel is actually not that different from the amount of debt you're talking about incurring.

(Note that if you don't see yourself ever selling a book, then it's really worth asking yourself whether an MFA is a good idea.)

15% crazy, 25% functional alcoholics, 25% brilliant people slowly being ground down over the years, 20% burnouts still hanging on, 15% successful at meeting expectations and relatively unscathed (of these, 25% will get a job in the field).

exactly

go teach high school HOOS, if you agree to teach in an urban school for five years the goverment will refund ~$60k of teacher school loans.

Additional note: a good, modest mid-list novel is no easy feat and a genuine accomplishment to pull off, and by "really, realistically confident" I mean ... like a serious, informed, totally-honest-with-yourself judgment that you have that in you (along with the discipline to get out out of you and onto pieces of paper)

so basically hoos if you want to go for it starting drinking hard (no I'm just joking)

xpost also you will get a good reality check on the value of creative writing and the modern novel

also guys can I say that I love "a Hoos" as a general-purpose replacement for "one" as in "one who does"

also HOOS I don't know if you've logged experience working full time in career track fields for a few years already? I assumed you had but maybe I am wrong? it's good to be able to somewhat easily land a job that'll pay the rent if you decide to opt out of academe. I also saw a lot of people who'd wanted to leave, but for lack of other work experience, felt it was too late..

another option if possible.. go to work full time at a university where you can take courses for free if you're an employee, & apply for the MFA program and go part time.

the going advance for a good, modest mid-list novel is actually not that different from the amount of debt you're talking about incurring.

o rly? hmm. Imagining how brilliant it'd be if I wrote a novel and wiped out that student loan debt.. :) If only I were better at getting outside of my own head and being creative.

you don't have to get outside your own head (or even your own asshole) to write a "mid-list" book, just call it a memoir instead of a novel. I would say "insert dave eggers joke here" here but that would take too... oh, for fuck's sake.

I read that major publishers are starting to eliminate advances in favor of "profit sharing" deals, as in, the author only makes money from the amount of books they sell.

i read that in the future well "read" books by having them beamed into our head using high-powered lasers

(Note that if you don't see yourself ever selling a book, then it's really worth asking yourself whether an MFA is a good idea.)

Yeah I can definitely "see" it happening, but obviously there's a gulf between "visualizing" it and actually having the discipline to make it happen. Where I'm sitting now I'm much more comfortable saying "Yes I will publish a collection of short stories in the not-too-distant future," but I'm also aware that the market for short story collections from new writers is basically zero.

Is there a novel? I'm pretty sure there is, but I also know I'm not ready to write it yet. It's disheartening to hear classmates talking about editing their second genre novel when I'm still filling out my portfolio, but I do think the words are in there. I've just got to sit down and pull em out.

I don't know if you've logged experience working full time in career track fields for a few years already? I assumed you had but maybe I am wrong? it's good to be able to somewhat easily land a job that'll pay

Yeah I've got several years of experience in the soul-sucking hospitality industry that I could parlay into a gladhanding management position, and as we speak I'm working on entry-level writing related positions at a handful of places, so I've got career-track backups, it's just a matter of which direction I want to go. I know I'd prob throw myself in front of a bus if I knew the end of the line for my career was GM at some mega-Hilton in [insert big city].

It was in the NYTimes a few weeks ago, max: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/business/04harper.html?_r=1&ex=1365048000&en=763f43a558bbc4de&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin
It's probably an experiment to see how well the idea works.

I know I'd prob throw myself in front of a bus if I knew the end of the line for my career was GM at some mega-Hilton in [insert big city].

How old are you?

Because seriously, end of the line for your career and end of the line for a slow and steady yet unprofitable artistic pursuit are two different things

I mean you post to ILM, jackass

Do you really have that much higher of an opinion for the rock crits who do it for rent money vs the dudes who luck into a gig once in a while on the side while stocking used vinyl or teaching information theory?

Nah, it's just the hospitality industry in general that makes me want to throw myself in front of a bus. No relation to crits who do it for a living vs. crits who do it on the side.

i regret dropping out of grad school honestly. it feels pretty impossible to try to go back now too. marriage and kids and bills and fuckity fuck fuck crap crap crap really can limit you later on.

i could go on. tons of good advice here tho. beware the goat of resentment, for he shall eat your favorite shoes.

your grad school is about next gen data processing though, his is about writing a word in english with some ink onto a page in a sentence

here's some straight dope: if you're really, realistically confident you have a book in you that you can sell -- say, just a good but modest mid-list novel -- you can spend those years in workshops to get it finished, polished, and ready to hand to an agent.

very very crucial^. don't dick around in a writing workshop type atmosphere just because you don't know what else to do. if you don't have a vision with where you want to go with the MFA, then wait until you do. use the MFA do shape your book and get it ready to publish.

also don't even think about doing it without funding. spend the time before you get into a program reading your ass off and getting your writing together. READ YOUR ASS OFF. everything you can get your hands on.

i'm in a part time MA program and the number one thing i see in workshop with other people's stuff is that you can tell, by the way they write, that they just aren't well read. overuse of figurative language (or people who just don't know how to use figurative language), spelling errors (WTF), plots and characters that make no sense--it's fun to see that stuff once in awhile cause it really makes you see how fiction is put together, but man. it can also be a drag.

It's disheartening to hear classmates talking about editing their second genre novel when I'm still filling out my portfolio, but I do think the words are in there.

these people are all your age, right? how many novels have you read by 21, 22 year olds? you should only be in competition with yourself. if and when those classmates get book deals you can congratulate them and feel happy for them, and hopefully feel inspired by them, right?

Is six months really enough time to get your portfolio and application together? My gf applied to MFA programs last fall/winter. By the end of the process she HATED her portfolio and was desperately trying to come up with alternative plans for next fall. Part of the problem was that she felt she rushed the last three pieces she made and that she couldn't present them with the same conviction and intelligence that she brought to the rest of her portfolio.

As well, admissions people were v. interested in her most recent work and how if fit into her development &c. so when so you talk about "cleaning up" your work it just seems glib. And if you're already that assured of your work and your admission why even bother with an MFA? There's a hell of a lot better funding for MA/Ph.d students and if you really just want to teach why not apply to those programs?

If you live in the NYC area, or even if not, I recommended reading some Gilbert Sorrentino. Start with Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things

I would imagine that, in Future-Hoos-MFA Adjunct Hell, you'd be teaching more composition than literature... sifting through 100+ kids' barely literate essays every day would make me want to throw myself in front of a bus.

My girlfriend's father is a published poet. He has a degree in physics I think. He wrote his first volume working as a 3rd shift security guard, and went on to push papers for Veterans' Affairs for the rest of his professional life. He wrote in his spare time, published more poetry now and then, got to give readings and do workshops at various schools and events over the years, often for a modest sum. Met other poets, etc. It's sort of like being in a local band. Now he's retired at 60, financially secure, and writes poetry and letters to old friends all day while planning vacations. Not a bad way to do it.

your grad school is about next gen data processing though, his is about writing a word in english with some ink onto a page in a sentence

i think you're right in many ways. the tech sector employs people in a totally different way. you don't have to be really lucky or a superstar to get a job that pays fairly well and isn't too bad.

on the flipside, i think there's this idea that for a certain higher echelon of jobs (computer graphics and gaming) that you almost have to have a demo reel. a portfolio is required to even get an interview. (especially out of school.)

so do you stay in grad school and hone your craft while dodging the bullet of full time bondage?

and like warnings above, plenty of boobs go through the motions and waste the time. they don't network and make good connections with cool people. they get caught in teaching jobs (or research grunt work) that suck the life out of you. (or take you away from your intention)

it sounds like certain near peril ahoy. yet i still regret missing it. i took my eye away from the goal. probably very possible with or without grad school.

wtf is this 'going to college to learn to write' crap?

Gavin it's heartening to hear about somebody being happily successful using the "local band" model. I def hear lots of "why go to school to write? why not just write?"

lolol xp

"why go to school to write? why not just write?"

the old-fashioned way. if you think $40k buys you GREAT contacts with agents and publishers, then MAYBE it would be worth it. but as for actually learning your "craft", feh.

I dunno, HOOS, I'd give it a few years to think it over. My senior year in college I was pretty dead set on going straight into an MFA program (I had my heart set on Brown); I had some publications under my belt and sort of felt like I was a badass writer. Then something funny happened - I didn't get in ANYWHERE -- and this was with a really glowing recommendation from a well known writer and publications and what not. Problem was my GPA sucked and I sort of was resting on my laurels. Anyway so I had to come up with a Plan B and ditch the MFA scheme or at least put it on hold for a while.

Now it's six years later and I have no desire to get my MFA; I don't even write much anymore mainly because I sort of suck (I wrote much better back when I thought I was a good writer). Now I work in Marketing and I love it and I'm going back to school to get my MBA next year and I can't imagine teaching or doing anything academic. I guess the point of my story is that you need a few years between lol college and grad school to really figure out what you want to do.

READ YOUR ASS OFF. everything you can get your hands on.

Yeah I'm working on that. Hopefully once I'm done with this semester (two more weeks) I can really hunker down w/this novel I've been trying to finish for the last month.

I'm often stuck with the question of exactly *what* to read given that I want to be relatively marketable even with my particular Thing I'm Trying to Do. Lots of profs tell me to read lots of current journals so I can stay up on "what sells right now," but so much academic journal fiction reads like variations on Updike & Carver and I don't want to be another one of those voices.

I'm reading lots of Lethem & Chabon with an awareness that these guys had their Big Moments in the Sun 5-8 years ago and have probably already had their legion of imitators come and go. Eh. Maybe like you say I just need to fucking read and not overthink in terms of "who should I read so that I've got the most up-to-date influences."

thx for another perspective mandee! good to hear.

if you think $40k buys you GREAT contacts with agents and publishers,

MFA's don't do this, they don't advertise that they do this, no one really thinks that they do this unless they are talking out their ass. publishers and agents do not care if you have an MFA or not. they care if you have written a good book. that's it.

then MAYBE it would be worth it. but as for actually learning your "craft", feh.

like nabisco said above: Wait until you feel like you have an agenda, a real sense of what you want to accomplish and what you want to use those workshops to develop.

So it sounds like I'm hearing "wait a couple years, keep reading & developing the focus of your writing, and figure out if it's really what you want. Then if you still want it you'll be ready."

That seems like good advice. Thanks guys.

Lots of profs tell me to read lots of current journals so I can stay up on "what sells right now," but so much academic journal fiction reads like variations on Updike & Carver and I don't want to be another one of those voices.

by the time you're ready "what sells now" will be different and you'll look like a throwback. tbh i'll take 'find your voice' romanticism over 'this is what sells now' any time.

publishers and agents do not care if you have an MFA or not. they care if you have written a good book. that's it.

Yeah this is what I've always understood. An MFA doesn't "buy" you anything. It's discipline, skill, networking & luck that gets you a good deal.

the only networking you wanna do in an MFA program is to find those one or two readers whose opinion you can trust and keep in touch with after graduation and send them stuff for you to read, they send you stuff for you to read, etc.

don't worry about what you're reading vs. what the market is like anyway. write the best book you can, that's all you need.

readers=other students, of course

Good God I'm looking forward to grad-level workshops because I gather that even if there are people there who have issues with story mechanics, there'll be considerably fewer who have great difficulty with the mechanics of writing. I'm critiquing a portfolio now with the clunkiest dialogue, and I know I underlined all this shit in a previous draft!

not like it's perfect, but back when I was really into writing I would do a lot of faux-workshops on zoetrope.com; I actually made a few friends from that site and there are more good writers than would first appear.

I'll take a look. Thanks!

Here's how I would look at it. When you go out and try to earn money skills are what employers want and credentials count as evidence of skills. The question is whether you want an employer at all.

An 'artist' who produces and sells art is generally not an employee. Artists create art and the art itself becomes their product, their evidence of skill and their credential all rolled together.

Alternatively, trained artists may choose to look for a job that is related to the arts, where the job is not to produce art, but to teach, manage, sell, edit, obtain grants, or something similar. These jobs are usually more secure than being an artist (although they are rarely lucrative) and competition for them is very, very high. that's why the pay is generally so low. Employers have an endless supply of applicants.

It appears to me that an MFA, as a credential, is only useful in the second case. It has no value whatsoever in helping an artist become recognized or valued for his or her art. No one goes to a gallery owner and touts his or her degree, if they are seeking to have the gallery represent them. They bring a portfolio. If they are asking to become an appriser or salesperson, the MFA might be germaine. There's a similar dynamic in publishing.

Conversely, if, in the process of obtaining an MFA, the coursework teaches you skills that improve your proficiency as an artist, then the effort would also be 'worth it', but the actual MFA degree would only be an incidental byproduct of the learning process.

It appears to me that an MFA, as a credential, is only useful in the second case. It has no value whatsoever in helping an artist become recognized or valued for his or her art. No one goes to a gallery owner and touts his or her degree, if they are seeking to have the gallery represent them. They bring a portfolio. If they are asking to become an appriser or salesperson, the MFA might be germaine. There's a similar dynamic in publishing.

Aimless this is not nearly as true as it seems to you to be

my first xpost. But yeah, when you're trying to get your work shown in galleries and/or land a fair number of commericial art and design jobs an MFA can be necessary just to get in the door.

Or wait, to expand on that, and one other thing:

1.) I'm not trying to suggest that writing is some kind of closed elite world where you need a top-flight MFA or something -- in the end, yes, it's what you write that makes the difference, period. But lots of MFA programs take some time to educate you about the process of making money writing; some of them are a first stop for agents looking for writers; and there is some small level where, if your manuscript turns up in a pile and the letter/agent say "this guy went to Brown," editors have SOME non-elitist reassurance that it MIGHT be more likely to be worth their time (because, well, SOMEONE deemed you good enough to accept). That alone is not worth loads of debt, no, but a program really can give you information and contacts that make the selling process easier.

2.) Ignore people like Banriquit who are all like "the MAN can't TEACH you to write." If you have clear goals for writing, spending two years concentrating on them, getting feedback from peers and guidance from good profs, and generally immersing yourself in that work ... this helps, and it makes you a better writer. (Think of it like being in a band: yeah, you can hole up at home and record a great album. But maybe you're the type where you rehearse and rehearse and at some point it's time to go play shows and tour and see how people react to what you're doing. That's about what an MFA offers you, a form of experience.)

But like I said above -- to continue the analogy -- you wouldn't go on tour to figure out what your band sounds like, and you shouldn't go into an MFA until you've spent time working on your own and figuring out specifically what you want to work on and accomplish. (I am repeating myself, but this is really my main point/advice here.)

xpost

commericial art and design jobs

Keyword: jobs. Employers hate having to sift through applicants. There is no good way to see if you are making the right choice, so they settle for any way that looks better than blind chance. A credential is one way they cling to.

However, I can't help but wonder why a gallery owner, who simply wants to hang art that will command a decent price from a buyer, would give a rat's ass whether the artist had a degree? I know that art often is sold as a package: art + backstory.

But how on earth would an MFA make for a sexy backstory? Wouldn't 'starving genius working in attic' ace out 'talented MFA grad from Stanford' on the sexy scale?

Ignore people like Banriquit who are all like "the MAN can't TEACH you to write." If you have clear goals for writing, spending two years concentrating on them, getting feedback from peers and guidance from good profs, and generally immersing yourself in that work ... this helps, and it makes you a better writer who meets the approval of others involved in creative writing programmes. Hot poop.

For writing, being part of a respected MFA program is pretty essential to getting published in a journal or something. They don't go to the slush pile too often from what I've heard. That's why so much writing these days has that uniform awfulness ... the writing that makes it out into the public is part of the MFA cult.

Also I implore everyone here (really, seriously) to believe me on this: no matter how fucking brilliant and talented and amazing a writer you are, there is LOADS of shit you can learn from being surrounded by people who know about literature and are reading your stuff and telling you how they feel about it. Lots of times it's just basic mechanical stuff. You get people doing MFAs who have brilliant prose and ideas and style, but benefit from simple mechanical stuff about pacing, or get responses in workshop that go "oh, whoah, you need to make clearer that this is a ghost," or just ... "this doesn't read the way you think it does."

(Hahaha again, hence the waiting: these things aren't gonna give you "brilliant prose and ideas and style," but if you have that stuff and your work is just unformed/sloppy/un-polished*, THAT they can help you with)

(* And by "unformed/sloppy/un-polished" I don't mean a mess, I mean, like, anything less than being Saul Bellow or something! It's a fucking feat of complication to write a novel or set of stories that's even halfway READABLE -- i.e., getting through the basic flow of sections and beginning-middle-end without the reader noticing you cramming it all together -- leave alone something in any way good.)

Another thing to take my word for: banriquit (and to a lesser extent burt_stanton) have very little idea what they are talking about here

Oh yeah, I think MFA and writer's workshop writing is almost universally trash, but that's my personal opinion.

Hoos you should also check out this website, started by a Stanford grad. Not sure if he still writes for it, but lots of good advice--a lot of it about applications and stuff, the archives are very helpful.

http://creative-writing-mfa-handbook.blogspot.com/

Banriquit it is spelled "programs," FYI.

For writing, being part of a respected MFA program is pretty essential to getting published in a journal or something. They don't go to the slush pile too often from what I've heard. That's why so much writing these days has that uniform awfulness ... the writing that makes it out into the public is part of the MFA cult.

Complete Bullshit^^^

Banriquit it is spelled "programs," FYI.

in creative writing rather than pedantry tho, poindexter.

Really? You can just send writing to the VQR, Paris Review, etc., willy nilly, and they'll publish it?

nabisco how can one have "no idea" about one's taste in writing?

leaving aside practicalities, what kind of shit are grad school wallflowers even going to write about other than, i dunno, their childhoods?

you two deserve each other

And the cases in which they have anything resembling a point are generally due to people not taking my repetitive advice and waiting to do an MFA once they already know what their goals are -- one sure route to being deformed by them is wandering in straight from undergrad or something, with no real sense of how YOU write, which can steer you to just doing whatever other people are doing, or what they tell you should do, rather than using them to improve what you're already working on

I studied with a few young people who were just talented and knew what they were doing young, on an intuitive level -- but the people who seemed to be getting a lot out of it were the older ones who walked in confidently, had work and style they were firm about, weren't chasing the style of whatever story people liked in workshop last week ... that's what helps. I mean, one of my favorite works came from a guy who walked in with a mostly finished novel, and was basically like "I have my material, what I need is time to work on it and people to read it and help me sort out basics like structure and pacing and whether it's coming across right"

I agree with banrique. I call the vogue style these days "domestic fiction". The writing is about working in an office, or doing errands around the house, or a conversation some dude had with his wife, or something from their childhood and a few things happened. If it's writing by some rich Ivy Leaguer, it's taken from their volunteer work in Africa or something.

Hence, the awfulness of the MFA/workship cult.

Talented MFAs from Stanford have a much easier time getting their work in front of gallery owners, buyers and critics. It doesn't matter how great your work is if it gets stuck in the slush pile. As nabisco says it gives an editor/buyer/agent/whomever a reason to look at your work in the first place.

lol yes what would MFA program grads write about besides bad childhoods

cant think of a single thing

- Banriquit you're not talking about your fucking taste in writing, you're more or less talking out your ass about whether and how MFA programs enforce a style of writing

- Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, depending on specific factors I'm actually trying to help HOOS by explaining

- Whereas Burt is on his usual "oh I know how the world works, MAN" trip, which in this case involves tossing out a lazy half-truism as if he knows everything and is totally over it, whereas in fact it's nuanced and complicated

- Hahaha xpost: ALSO Burt is not even fucking right about what the cliche style of workshop writing is! If you're gonna use the dismissive "I know shit" tone please at least know the unoriginal line you're talking, please

xpost

As Nabisco indicated, with a writing MFA the value you are paying for is the chance to spend two years intensively reading, writing, evaluating, and rewriting in the presence of a teacher and other writers who have more talent for and interest in writing than one can generally find outside of such a degree program.

The value of the degree, as a credential, is something else entirely and (as I said) is incidental to whatever learning takes place during the time you spend seeking it. Only HOOS can figure out if the time and money he'll spend after the fact, paying off his debt, might be counterbalanced by the skills he will gain and his satisfaction in honing them to a finer edge.

kind of want to take up nabisco's post as PARADIGMATIC of the GRINDING DOWN PROCESS imposed by THE MAN. i.e. 'here is some raw shit you can't even deal with man' vs 'actually it's more nuanced and compli-' blah blah blah.

kind of want to tell you to go get fucked unless you have something decent to contribute.

I should go eat, because this is kinda like if I went to the moon and came back and two dudes were standing around going "ugh, the moon, I hate cheese, and everything's heavier there"

^^ some kind of exclusive ivy league standard of 'decent' being imposed?

xpost

mmm BLT w/mooncheese xp

leaving aside practicalities, what kind of shit are grad school wallflowers even going to write about other than, i dunno, their childhoods?

^^ this is a very challenging opinion

troo

hoos write a novel from the POV of a BLT with mooncheese, please, thx.

are there testimonials from published writers a HOOS respects out there to quote?

Really? You can just send writing to the VQR, Paris Review, etc., willy nilly, and they'll publish it?

-- burt_stanton, Sunday, 20 April 2008 18:43 (9 minutes ago) Link

Worked for Mr. Que, and he wasn't even in his MA program at the time!

banriquit, please, feel free to not get ground down by THE MAN. You clearly know how to avoid this beast and maintain the pristine purity of your tastes. This is good. This is very fine. This is nothing to be ashamed of.

However, THE MAN, as such, is not actually very interested in grinding down writers. THE MAN worries about how to sell something that the public has only a very tenuous idea that it values at all, and thus keep some kind of flow of money coming into his business and food on his table. THE MAN, therefore, is rather worried about things that you, THE BANRIQUIT, have no interest in. May you both live blissfully apart.

N.B. If you ever actually desire to make a bit of money by selling something in the way of art to the public, you may find yourself either coming to THE MAN for some of his expertise in this arcane feat, or you may (gasp!) start to take on some of the characteristics of THE MAN, yourself. (Forgive us, almighty god. We know not what we do.)

don't worry about me and the man -- full-disclosure of trolling, i don't do creative (fiction) writing, i do the other thing, and that's going fine and was before i SOLD OUT and started to do a phd "program" (which i don't pay to do but it's fucking me up nicely enough anyway). i care every bit as much about making money as the man does.

Mr. Que got into the Paris Review? Really?

and nabisco dude, I'm taking my opinion from reading almost every journal for the past 3 years. Just pick up the yearly Pushcart compilations, it's all in there.

it's fucking me up nicely enough anyway

Well then. You know what to do about that, surely, man of great penetration and ability that you are.

uh?

nabisco dude, I'm taking my opinion from reading almost every journal for the past 3 years. Just pick up the yearly Pushcart compilations, it's all in there.

Yeah, nabisco Granta him that much, at least.

^ I'm so sorry.

You don't plan on just sitting there and taking it on the chin, do you? Make your move. Your convictions and your courage are in full evidence in this thread. Charge ahead. Live your destiny. Don't let THE MAN outmanuever you.

Since you obviously know what HOOS should do, doesn't it stand to reason that you are mapping his course from your own, well-proved and successful strategy?

god lol @ granta - much better as a student paper.

You don't plan on just sitting there and taking it on the chin, do you? Make your move. Your convictions and your courage are in full evidence in this thread. Charge ahead. Live your destiny. Don't let THE MAN outmanuever you.

Since you obviously know what HOOS should do, doesn't it stand to reason that you are mapping his course from your own, well-proved and successful strategy?

-- Aimless, Sunday, April 20, 2008 8:18 PM (11 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

flummoxed, tbh; a HOOS shd do what HOOS feels; within my thing i'm doing OK, it's just not much fun on a personal level. i'm glad i didn't do an MA before i did the phd because that would have involved more bullshit, but it's different money-wise here, and phd programs are mercifully less structured.

a HOOS shd do what HOOS feels

urgh.

Had one been reading attentively, one might discover that a HOOS has mixed feelings - of such a nature as to make this course inaccessible to him. I believe he was also seeking something called 'information', which, by his assimilating it, might allow him to sort through these mixed feelings and clarify them into a resolve.

guys i think HOOS is probably done with this thread, especially with all of the dick waving and yakking about the MAN that's going on around here.

i think he also wanted challenging opinions because u can get information pretty easily from the mfa prog's website; also people saying yay workshops yaya helpful profs etc etc.

it seems to me that the HOOS is confronted by a bigger question than this -- he's wavering between doing-this-for-a-teaching-career, doing-this-for-a-writing-career, and doing-this-to-improve-his writing.

jesus tho, taking up THE MAN meme as irony-failure or... what? not that he doesn't exist of course.

Yeah, Burt, I'm fed now and less cranky and I believe that you read, yes.

Here is a bit of calmer straight observation, based on doing one MFA program and observing friends in others:

1. The people who write cramped, boring, "workshoppy" stuff come in that way and they leave that way; they do not appear to be reacting to the strictures of the program. They do not come in brilliant and fascinating and get ground down; that's just how they write. In my experience, their cramped, boring, "workshoppy" stories tend to be much better cramped/boring/worshoppy stories toward the end of the program than they were at the beginning. Most people, just by virtue of practice and attention, get better at whatever it is they do.

2. The vogue styles in (some) workshops are not nearly so narrow as some people would like to pretend (the mainstream is probably more slightly "imaginative" than domestic, and there is every bit as much iffy experimentalism and Denis Johnson bloodiness as middle-class mundanity); I think people tend to react to one another and fall into aesthetic "camps," rather than any kind of pressure to conform to a prescribed style. (Keep in mind these are classes with published-writer professors who are, if anything, overly cautious of not prescribing anything -- I mean, Jonathan Ames could probably beat Banriquit on the topic of THE MAN, and the guy whose program seems to select most for a particular style is freaking Robert Coover.) There's also a factor that mitigates AGAINST cliched styles in these things, which is the sheer presence of other lit people: if you come in as a Barthelme or Moore copyist, thinking that's really clever, chances are you will immediately run into 3 other Barthelme or Moore copyists, and have professors urging you to develop a more individual voice.

3. An MFA, at best, is a like taking singing lessons. It's not going to give you a better voice than your body already has. It's not going to give you better ideas for songs to sing. But if you have those talents, you go to singing lessons to learn how to use them: how to hit those notes you can't yet, how to keep your voice from cracking in those areas where you don't want them to, how to use techniques you haven't mastered, etc. You have the basics, and you go to the teacher to learn things about how to control them and get them across to people.

4. I feel like there's this thing people sometimes do with writing, where it's imagined as a big outpouring with no wrong answers -- I've been in workshops where people will defend mechanical problems as just part of their special voice, to an extent that's ... well, it's up to them, I guess. But a good writer tends to know the difference between idiosyncracies and spots where he/she isn't accomplishing what he/she wants to -- just like a musician knows the difference between purposeful discordance and a bum note, and a carpenter knows the difference between an interesting raw finish and a crap piece of wood. Part of what I'm always trying to stress on MFA-related threads is that workshops are largely about THAT stuff, these mechanical things that are not really about your style or your subject matter. I've said this before: you'd be amazed how many people submit things and then are surprised to learn that something they thought was plain wasn't understood, by anyone. (Hence my "clarify that it's a ghost" thing, above: this happens.)

Again, this is why I keep advising Hoos to wait until he has an agenda before going into a program. If you go in prepared to change your work in response to ANY response, you're screwed -- you'll wind up focus-grouping your work to suit the 10 people around you, and that'll be your own fault, not the program's. But if you go in knowing what you're trying to accomplish, that doesn't happen. If you know something about your work is "difficult" and that's how you like it, you won't sweat it when 2 out of 10 people in workshop make recommendations that'll make it more accessible -- or, hell, maybe you'll see ways to make it more accessible without giving up the effect you're shooting for! If you know what effect you're shooting for but, say, dialogue isn't high on your priority list, and you realize it's a weak point for you ... you might pick up some guidance and skills that'll help you use dialogue in a way that serves you! And if you're like the many MFA students who aren't even entirely aware what aspects of their writing aren't having the effect they want, these things will be pointed out to you, which is incredibly valuable.

5. People in workshops generally want to help you do this. I'm telling you this firsthand. Yes, in every class, you will recognize a few people who just aren't inclined toward your style and grumble every time. (You can ignore them completely, or you can use them as test cases to see how readers like that will react to different ways you write.) But for the most part, people find it cool to meet good writers whose styles are different from theirs, and are genuinely interested in figuring out what you're trying to do and helping you do it. People don't really go into these things to argue about one another's aesthetics: they sit down and say "it seems like you're going for this effect, but I feel like X, Y, and Z kept you from getting it."

I'm now overposting here at great length, but a lot of the common assumptions about these programs can be ... off, or sometimes true for reasons totally other than the ones given ...

(To be honest I think the most useful peer comments I got on my stuff involved scanning the comments in the margins of the manuscripts to see what the reading experience was like -- you can see exactly which parts people get excited about, which jokes they like, which characters they respond to, and exactly where you lose or annoy or bore them. And any young writer who's seriously like "ah, fuck all that" and isn't remotely interested in that stuff -- or willing to admit that maybe some bit of the writing isn't accomplishing what it was intended to -- I imagine that's a writer I wouldn't be entirely enthusiastic about reading.)

A good writer can figure it out own their own. That's really about it.

*on

and obviously burt has yet to figure it out

The hackiest hack response of all time, and I knew it was coming; typing on an internet messageboard = talent as a writer.

burt that mightve been a low blow but it wasnt without cause; i really do like you & think we probably agree on lots of stuff but you really should stop trolling because you are really bad at it

You should go to RTF.

How am I even trolling? I made like, 2-3 comments in this MFA clusterfuck discussion.

Yeah fwiw I def don't think dude is trolling, just repeating his dissenting opinion.

Yeah fwiw I def don't think dude is trolling, just repeating his ill informed opinions.

burt all kidding aside i don't think you are trolling either you just basically are either talking directly out of your ass or talking with your ass i can't quite decide yet.

Le Pétomane

burt you are trolling when you make flip statements like the one previous, because you at least come across as being capable of backing those statements up to some degree; if you dont want to put the time/effort into it that a guy like nabisco (who i love) does thats one thing but saying "A good writer can figure it out own their own. That's really about it." is really obviously intentionally dickish; people here are gonna get that & not take you seriously.

im saying this not to sound like a condescending dick or something but because i think you seem to have a point a lot of times & assuming you arent just a troll or a sockpuppet (which ive been accused of being *cough* banrique) id like to actually hear the reasons for it

mr que doesn't actually address any of the issues raised in the thread, or anything like that. the rise of these things is worth talking about from some perspective other than 'will it help you get on' too; obviously you get into chall-ops territory, but questions of the kind of writers creative writing programs will tend to produce don't go away unless you address them.

How is that advice dickish, d. nuts? It's the constant advice given by all these incredible writers over and over again; it's also common sense considering how many writers wrote amazing works without doing workshops or whatever.

The only ones who say "go to workshops/MFA programs!" are either the people who did them or the people who teach them. I just think it's a weird symptom of our age. Zeitgeist, if u will.

I never once took a writing class and somehow kept ending up in professional writing gigs in NYC. It's like comedy; you either got it or you don't. The only thing that holds talent back is laziness.

HOOS i don't know if you're interested in living abroad, but i'm in grad school right now in france (studying aesthetics; i graduated last summer from NYU with a BFA in drama and a BA in philosophy) and the tuition here is laughable: the total came to 217 euros for the year.

my courses are in french, though. i'm not sure if you've studied a foreign language, but there are several programs in europe (and on other continents, i imagine) that are taught in english or at least allow students to turn in their papers in english.

I never once took a writing class and somehow kept ending up in professional writing gigs in NYC. It's like comedy; you either got it or you don't. The only thing that holds talent back is laziness.

is that from 'a brownstone of one's own'

The only thing that holds talent back is laziness.

This is a bit broad for my tastes but I think largely true: it doesn't matter how good you are if you don't have the discipline. But even with all the discipline & talent in the world, if you choose to be a insular and never take anyone's advice on possible changes for the better, you might end up stuck being a "good" (mediocre) writer all your life. Who wants that? Mid-list, to me, is infinitely better than "servicable."

1. The people who write cramped, boring, "workshoppy" stuff come in that way and they leave that way; they do not appear to be reacting to the strictures of the program. They do not come in brilliant and fascinating and get ground down; that's just how they write. In my experience, their cramped, boring, "workshoppy" stories tend to be much better cramped/boring/worshoppy stories toward the end of the program than they were at the beginning. Most people, just by virtue of practice and attention, get better at whatever it is they do. . . .
-- nabisco, Sunday, April 20, 2008 8:37 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

I really like this post but I'm not really sure what you mean by cramped and "workshoppy."

I don't expect an MFA program to turn me into Nabokov or anything, but I know that having a supportive (if competitive) group of well-read proofreaders around me would be an asset to my writing.

lol hi estela!

burt im willing to admit to being confounded by you cuz no one on ilx as far as i know has said "hey this guy is chaki!" or something, so ill again repeat that a)"you are on your own" is not good advice, & b)if you are trolling, no one on ilx actually cares but me, which is v sad xp

I don't expect an MFA program to turn me into Nabokov or anything, but I know that having a supportive (if competitive) group of well-read proofreaders around me would be an asset to my writing.

genuine question: how did writers in olden times manage? better editors? more cohesive ad-hoc communities? wha?

Lots of salons & correspondence, I imagine.

They didn't even have LAPTOPS!!!!!!

They didn't even have NANOWRIMO!!!!!! Oh my god, what motivated them?

Not everyone was even LITERATE!!!!!!

They weren't even using HEROIC COUPLETS anymore!!!!!!

Clearly I am no help to a Hoos.

Nobody linked to this thread yet?

In regard to olden times, then, as now, most writers were mediocre. It is just that the mass of mediocre writers from earlier centuries have faded from view as the books, articles and poems they wrote are destroyed by the effects of time and never reprinted.

Haha yes read one Pamela, the bestseller of its day. Or The Woman in White, which spawned a dance of the same name!

Haha Aimless, one time I saw a panel on the topic of the officially-vilified-by-ILX auteur theory in which one-time auterist Paul Schrader threw down the gauntlet and said "I defy you to watch the entire output of any one of those Golden Years!"

Italicized foreign language spelling mistake. Game over.

a lot of mfa programs offer summer writers workshops which can be a good way to dip your toe in the water

dip your toe dans l'eau

--james redd

(the summer workshops idea sounds good though.)

mr que doesn't actually address any of the issues raised in the thread, or anything like that. the rise of these things is worth talking about from some perspective other than 'will it help you get on' too; obviously you get into chall-ops territory, but questions of the kind of writers creative writing programs will tend to produce don't go away unless you address them.

um, yeah dude, what are you talking about? you are making no sense. writing workshops don't produce a certain kind of writer, at all. if you can produce some kind of statistical data that shows otherwise, i'm all ears. otherwise, maybe you should shut the fuck up?

I think to a certain point workshops are utterly pointless. What if your fellow workshoppers aren't as well read as you? What if they have absolutely no clue what you're trying to do? "Well, your mass audience won't know either!" What if you aren't writing for a mass audience, but for the few of those people who do have that deep love of literature?

If you want to write decent/good prose for a lot of people, then yeah, go for workshops and MFA programs. Otherwise I don't see how they could do a thing if you have fun copping Dahlberg, Longus, Novalis, and Eliphas Levi, while expanding from there your own take on ye olde zeitgeist.

I was really obsessed with 'capturing the zeitgeist' when I was 19.

What are you writing then, meditations on the cosmos?

He took his own take on ye olde zeitgeist and just ran with it.
(xpost)

What are you writing then, meditations on the cosmos?

-- burt_stanton, Monday, April 21, 2008 1:33 AM (45 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

Once the drugs wore off I realized that deliberately trying to capture a cultural moment via stylistic choices was just going to choke me off. I'm gonna write what I'm gonna write. Some of it will address current concerns directly, but hopefully the themes of our era (wtf does that even include) will come out in my work in an understated way because I'm thinking about them, not because I'm shoehorning them into my plots.

Are you even out of school?

And I didn't mean the 'when I was 19' bit to be a zing, btw. xp

"It was somewhere around Barton Springs where the drugs began to take HOOS."

"Hoos knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him."

Hoos and I come up from the field, following the path in single file.

"Big HOOS, aka the steendriver, was literally, um, driven off his steen."

Call me BIG HOOS aka the steendriver. Some years ago— never mind how long precisely— having little or no cheddar in my manbag, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.

I must refer you to the great chronicle of Burt Stanton for the knowledge of that genealogy and antiquity of race by which Bart Stanberg is come unto us. In it you may understand more at large how the giants were born in this world, and how from them by a direct line issued Bart Stanberg, the father of Burt Stanton: and do not take it ill, if for this time I pass by it, although the subject be such, that the oftener it were remembered, the more it would please your worshipful Seniorias; according to which you have the authority of James Redd in The Blecchs; and of Mr. Que, who says that there are some kinds of purposes (such as these are without doubt), which, the frequentlier they be repeated, still prove the more delectable.

Some man that steendriving was stood by HOOSdoor at night's oncoming. Of Texas's folk was that man that on intranetz wandering far had fared. Stark ruth of man his errand that him lone lolled till that HOOS.

Stately, plump BIG HOOS aka the steendriver came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed

It was a bright, cold day in April and the clocks were striking hoosteen.

I came to ILX because I had been told that my father, a man named BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, posted there. It was estela who told me. And I had promised her that after I roffled I would go see him.

I am a sick HOOS. I am a spiteful HOOS. I am an unattractive HOOS. I believe my liver is diseased.

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of ILX.

Ah, my advice is pretty useless here, I'm like the obscuro lo-fi 5 pressing noise geek of literature. I get a boner after finding a forgotten piece of 19th century Rosicrucian fiction in the original German.

It was a bright, cold day in April and the clocks were striking hoosteen.

-- Lamp, Sunday, April 20, 2008 7:19 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

winner

I vote for that or one of Tombot's.

Never fear burt: Some stantons never end. Even in our time, in the sightlines of living history, in the retrieved instancy of film and videotape, there are stantons waiting to be finished, opened to the thrust of reasoned analysis and haunted speculation.

Sing to me of the man, HOOS, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Noize.

They threw HOOS off the steen about noon. HOOS had swung on the night before, down at the borad, and as soon as HOOS got up there under the canvas, HOOS went to sleep.

Answers to questions!

genuine question: how did writers in olden times manage?

Not too long ago, the publishing industry was organized so that you could write a few very flawed, low-selling novels and still have an editor/publisher who were waiting for you to produce a mature work, and guiding you toward it. This investment does NOT get made anymore. If you use it well, a writing workshop can provide something like the apprenticeship that used to happen publicly and with an editor.

They also, yes, showed each other their work, whether it was old salons or Grace Paley trading stories with Don Barthelme; the whole model of writing workshops is to produce this in concentrated form. Who's that old story about -- is it Flaubert and Maupassant, or something? -- where the one says "go to the train station, pick a person, and describe that person so well that I can go there at the same time tomorrow and find him?" Writers have been working over their craft-of-writing basics for time immemorial, the same way painters have been making each other copy things. These things aren't much help in having a story to tell and ideas to get across, but they give you the toolkit to make them work when you have them.

What if your fellow workshoppers aren't as well read as you? What if they have absolutely no clue what you're trying to do?

Every single writer I've ever workshopped with who made a big deal about how he/she was so much smarter and better read than everyone else and nobody would get his/her brilliance was a flat-out shitty writer, and very often was writing second-rate Palahniuk bullshit. You're right, though: if you're so up yourself that you're convinced no reader could possibly tell you ANYTHING helpful, even basic mechanical stuff like "this information should come before this information," then yes, you should probably go be a probably awful writer on your own for a while, because a workshop will be of no use to you. Nor will anything else.

P.S. Burt, the reason your arguments can be grating is that they're not even arguments. You kinda just go "eh, you're on your own." This isn't an argument, it's a truism. Of course it's all up to you. It's all up to you whether you do an MFA or not. So I've tried to offer a lot of real first-hand specifics about how and under what circumstances they can help a Hoos, if you use them correctly -- talking about stuff that has nothing to do with style -- but you just keep posting and going "eh, who needs them." It's grating because it's not an argument, it's just endless repetition of rhetoric.

I especially wish you'd take up the point I keep trying to make, which is that writing workshops have very little to do with your style or influences! There are basic mechanics with writing that just aren't about whether someone "gets" your aesthetic agenda -- they're about complicated mechanical things like structure and pacing and how you build your material into something that actually stands up. Writers forever have fucking slaved over these issues, well apart from matters of style. I've certainly seen people benefit from these things: I've seen a guy show up in a program with a crapload of incredibly written bits of a novel, terrific style and raw material, and have him pretty much dump it out and go "my challenge right now is to structure this all from incredible writing into a book that actually works" -- and the time and feedback really did help him do that, especially in the specific areas he knew he was weak with!

But no matter how many times I keep beating this horse, I feel like I'm one of few people here willing to talk about writing as having lots of different constituent parts. You guys keep talking about style and prose, and nothing about mechanics.

Once again, if you understand what I'm saying here, you'll understand why I have advised Hoos NOT to go into an MFA program, and to work on his own ("you're on your own!") until he feels like he has a firm grip on his style and his agenda. Once upon a time, that was the point where you'd publish a small novel and have an editor that might guide you as you got experience and worked your way up toward good ones. Since that doesn't happen anymore, it helps some people to get that experience and writing time in a program. It's not for everybody -- I wish fewer people would do them, really, because in the main they just take poor writers and turn them into writers just good enough that we might read them and find them mediocre. But if you know what you're aiming for, they can be a tool to get you there.

What I've discovered is, if you're a talented writer and you contact a well-known writer, they'll read your work, provide feedback, etc., all for nothing. Having writer/lit friends doesn't hurt, either.

I mean, if you have none of that and aren't crass enough to stick your shit under some stranger's nose, go for the MFA program. But there are free resources at your disposal if you know how to go about things and have friends in the arts.

and what I"m talking about isn't the "I'm so much smarter than everyone else!" It's that, the depth of the literary tradition is completely. forgotten. There's a handful of Canon Classics people are made to read by school/society and that's all anyone ever touches. The love of literature and writing ... so much amazing work gets buried under dreck or goes out of print like nothing, and it takes a hardworking, almost hermetic soul to even find the great stuff. and the people who wrote it were the same kinds of people.

MFA programs seem way too professional to me; these days I prefer wild, manic, almost feral writing. That's what gets me going, not the clean super-structured "publisher ready" kind-of stuff that's been flooding the market the past decade or so. Snoozeville, baby: population, the US of A.

You get people doing MFAs who have brilliant prose and ideas and style, but benefit from simple mechanical stuff about pacing, or get responses in workshop that go "oh, whoah, you need to make clearer that this is a ghost," or just ... "this doesn't read the way you think it does."

-- nabisco, Sunday, April 20, 2008 2:39 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

i had a hard time understanding who was ghosts in this book

http://i29.tinypic.com/wgomdk.jpg

writing workshops don't produce a certain kind of writer, at all. if you can produce some kind of statistical data that shows otherwise, i'm all ears. otherwise, maybe you should shut the fuck up?

-- Mr. Que, Monday, April 21, 2008 2:09 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Link

"statistical analysis" oh my christ; i see you're doing an MA so maybe not surprising you're butthurt. maybe you will produce something as enthralling sounding as 'all the sad young literary men', who knows.

i'm not butthurt, i'm just waiting for you to say something useful and concrete about MFA workshops/writing/the types of writers that workshops produce.

Hoos should write a book about this thread.

I have taken classes w/Denis Johnson!

how was he?

His teaching is as repetitive/dirtily luminous as his writing!

Srsly dude is a great teacher but if you've sat in a week you've basically sat in for the semester

what sort of advice did he give a hoos?

i need to work on closure. everything's gangbusters until you hit the end and there's not enough resonance.

like "make it really confusing whether everyone is 'already dead' while you trail off into trippy abstractions"

luv ya denis but u might want to follow some of that advice u gave the hoos

ha, so true. i prefer his short stories and shorter stuff, like "The Name of The World" and "Jesus' Son" to his longer stuff

jesus son foot washing is as perfect as an end can be

luv ya denis but u might want to follow some of that advice u gave the hoos

-- jhøshea, Monday, April 21, 2008 2:55 PM (2 minutes ago)

i mean he wasn't necessarily saying "clarify," dude loves ambiguity, just saying that an extra sentence or two of comedown would make a more satisfying ending

writers who are natural short story writers v. writers who are natural novelists.

i couldn't make it through fiskadoro or resuscitation of a hanged man. and tree of smoke i thought was just okay.

i could read like 10k pages of jesus son tho

I've only read Jesus' Son and always saw it more as a loosely connected series of short stories than a novel. Is the other stuff more cohesive?

yeah as long as they were chopped up into short stories, i guess? i could read 10k pages of it, too. the problem i had with tree of smoke is, it felt choppy and short story like. i never felt like i was settling into a novel.

xpost--hoos i don't think his other stuff is more cohesive but i may not the best person to ask, as i really think the guy is a short story writer/novella writer and not a novelist.

he is a novelist, if he wants to call himself that, but his longer stuff just doesn't work for me.

besides jesus son ive only read already dead which was way more novelistic in its plotting and prose

i liked it a lot but que is right that it cant touch jesus son

i should read more of this guy tho im kinda loving him

these days I prefer wild, manic, almost feral writing.

Yeah see this is the kind of shit no one wants to read.

Haha three quick ones:

But there are free resources at your disposal if you know how to go about things and have friends in the arts.

This is why my advice to Hoos is "don't go anyplace that doesn't fund you well" -- an MFA is (or can be) a free resource that condenses those sorts of resources into one program

what I"m talking about isn't the "I'm so much smarter than everyone else!" It's that, the depth of the literary tradition is completely. forgotten. There's a handful of Canon Classics people are made to read by school/society and that's all anyone ever touches.

Be honest, now: that IS sort of an "I'm so much smarter / more in love with literature than everyone else" position! Which is fine. But look, the top-tier MFA fiction programs take in, like, 12-15 people a year. Any honest person who goes to one is going to find some other people there who are talented writers, and who have skills you don't, even when they write in styles you're not big on. Chances of being surrounded by morons are pretty slim, and if you feel like you are, there's an 80% chance you're the problem.

these days I prefer wild, manic, almost feral writing.

Funny story: the only instance in which workshops ever made me want to change my style was one month where I was like "fuck it, I'm just going to write like Graham Greene from now on," because it felt to me like everyone in the program was shooting for "wild, manic, almost feral writing," and everyone else in workshops was going "hey, this is so wild and manic and feral, you should try pushing that even harder." (For a variation, insert "the kind of thing that would be published by Dalkey Archive" in place of "wild, manic, feral.") There's this terrific irony, Burt, that MFA programs are packed with people who have precisely your attitude here.

But "wild/manic/feral" -- this is not supposed to be a dis, but this is kind of your position with everything, not just writing, so it's a bit grain-of-salt, no?

I mean, there's an extent to which I agree: any writer who feels like she's doing magical insular work that's communing with some part of literary history that no one else is going to get ... this person is probably not going to want or need an MFA. That's cool; most people should be avoiding these programs. That fact does not diminish their usefulness for people who want a specific type of experience.

these days I prefer wild, manic, almost feral acutely self-indulgent writing.

fixed

not the clean super-structured "publisher ready" kind of stuff

Oh, I want to take this up, too, to try and explain something. When I talk about the "mechanics" you might pick up via teaching, and I talk about structure and polish and whatnot, note that I'm not talking about being super-structured or tight and cramped -- I'm talking about any kind of workable structure at all! I mean, honestly, it is the rare one-in-a-million writer under the age of, say, 30 who can draft a novel that's not more of a mess than he/she would like. (Leave alone competing with a good bit of Roth, or something.) The kind of thing a decent workshop addresses isn't that you come in wild and feral and it says "tame thyself," it's that you come in and say "this is supposed to be wild and feral and all, but WTF, should this scene come before this one or what?" (And people say "you had such wild, feral momentum here and then it just cuts off and switches scenes, was that on purpose?" and you say "I was going for the momentum, but I didn't want to over-play it" and they say "no, I was into it, you can go longer with that" and you say "oh, interesting...")

nabisco, I am curious. Do participants in workshops tend to make useful distinctions between what works on the page for a silent reader vs. what works when spoken aloud by the author?

I grant that whatever a listener can follow and be interested in is very likely to be equally engaging for a reader, but it is still true that an author reading his own work is sometimes able to supply pauses, tone and emphasis that are not nearly as clear on the written page, and are required to be there.

Boring answer: people would make that distinction if it felt like a relevant issue in that particular case. I had one prof who would have the author read a paragraph or two from whatever was being workshopped; after a couple weeks we came to a girl whose method of reading her prose was just WAY more lively and beautiful than the plain way it sat on the page. This blew everyone's mind, and a lot of her workshops from then on focused on how she could make sure the life and rhythm of how she heard her writing actually got through the page to a reader.

Which is one of the fascinating things about workshops: suddenly you get 10 people going "hey, HERE is the thing that's awesome and unique about your writing in particular"

You know, I think I said everything I've said here in a much more concise and entertaining way on this thread: Creative writing considered as an industry

Threads like these always make want me to read Nabisco's fiction.

You sure it wasn't this thread, nabisco?

that Creative writing as an industry thread is very very awesome

I write fiction and never once considered an MFA program, even though the university at which I teach now has a fairly decent one (John Dufresne, Campbell McGrath, and Dan Wakefield are its stars). Since poverty's never appealed to me, I had no qualms about working at other jobs.

I'll tell you what's most troublesome: pitching and publishing freelance rockcrit has been hell on my fictive imagination.

genuine question: how did writers in olden times manage?

They wrote! Read the letters and notebook entries of Henry James. He was one giant pair of eyes, watching everything. He's got a great quote for writers – "Be the one on whom nothing is lost." nabisco most OTM on this thread.

If someone's going to a workshop or MFA, they're not writing what I"m thinking of; I don't write like anything I described, so you pointing the finger at me as "lol typical workshopper!" is a little misdirected.

The stuff that's the best right now is thrown up on the internet by weirdos and kooks and art school freakazoids; in the past they'd probably make their own cheap literary journals. It's how it was in the past - you wrote, you put it out there; if there was no place for you, you'd make one. The cream rises to the top. End of story.

Now there's this mechanical industry which only serves to make mediocre writers into decent writers. ZZzzzZZZZ.

Campbell McGrath

He wrote a book of poetry about Florida, right? I always wanted to read that.

I don't expect an MFA program to turn me into Nabokov or anything, but I know that having a supportive (if competitive) group of well-read proofreaders around me would be an asset to my writing.

This is true.

and really, the only intuitive reason why I feel this workshop machine culture is crap is that after scouring all the lit journals, etc., for some awesome new writing, I always leave them thinking "what in the holy hell has happened to writing?" The only difference these days is that people are obsessed with doing that workshop thing.

Fiction right now is in an absolutely dire state; it might not be workshop/MFA culture's fault, but I don't know, it's hard not to think it's a part of it.

why don't more people wanna write like Evelyn Waugh, that motherfucker really knew his way around a sentence

Evelyn Waugh was another famous author to make use of writer's workshops. He once said, "I'd be nowhere if it weren't for a team of my peers telling me what they liked and didn't like about my writing." I could just imagine him sulking in a corner or something like a bunch of dorks picked apart Vile Bodies.

like=while

evelyn waugh kept company with other writers (though uh not that much: he tended to leave town to write), correspond with them, shit like that, at least when he was young; otoh he claims almost to have killed himself when his friend harold acton told him novel one was no good. acton was probably right (we will never know: he burnt it). but yeah the idea of him looking to a professor or to randomly selected others for advice -- no.

you know the thing is I too am suspicious of writer's workshops but I'm equally suspicious of the willful primitivist instinct I often feel in the "X didn't need a freakin WORKSHOP" take - I mean, I think somebody who's going to be a good writer anyway might benefit or might not from workshopping, and somebody who wasn't going to be a very good writer might gain some skills but will still write boring books. The only evil of it as I see it is the networking aspect - that is, that bad writers may be charming people and may forge connections that will get their feet in various doors - and this isn't the fault of the workshops; the same people will find their way to bars, parties, dinners, etc., and will get in somehow, twas ever thus etc

I like that other thread because it focuses on something that's more of an actual issue: MFA programs take lots of OK writers with nothing great to say and turn them into people who can write well enough to be readable/publishable. That's where a lot of the blandness in low-level lit journals comes from -- people who have now learned to put together a decent story, but still don't have any great ideas they didn't have before.

A lot of the cliche complaints repeated on this thread make the weird assumption that blandoids coming out of MFA programs were somehow super-interesting before, and have had all their interesting qualities sanded out by study. This seems untrue. I think the programs take the usual spread of talent -- a few brilliant folks, a few really talented ones, a mainstream of okay but unspecial writers, and a few frauds -- and make them all somewhat more capable at whatever they do.

Haha I couldn't really publicly share fiction that I was working on or planned to do something with, so anything I could post would be some embarrassing thing I dislike and don't plan on ever coming back to. (Then again, posting something bad of mine might help prove my point about basic mechanical flaws.)

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Stan Burton

That is how it's done, and that's how I do it. I guess if you don't have other artsy friends on your life team, then yeah, go with nabisco.

N., I obviously don't expect you to post excerpts of works in progress on ILX! But I do look forward to reading your stuff someday, that's all.

Speaking of feral, maybe you people should read Aimless's book, which in my understanding is about a Bertie Wooster-like character communing with the animals in the forest.

Haha Burt I said above that I'm sure you read, but that is slightly complicated by the fact that I've never once seen you actually read an ILX post you're responding to, ever

I've never once seen you actually read an ILX post you're responding to, ever

-- nabisco, Monday, April 21, 2008 9:38 PM (14 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

SPYWARE

He just hasn't learned how to type 'xpost' yet.

That said, your ability to hammer home the same truisms and bromides while evading all questions or responses will be a HUGE asset if you ever decide to run for public office (which you should really, really think about)

(Haha JR I was referring more to the fact that my oft-repeated advice throughout this thread has been that a Hoos should not be applying to MFA programs)

nabisco I couldn't help noticing that you used the word "bromide"

my hat is off to you sir

I wonder if frat boy chemists ever say, "sup bromide"

But yeah. Nabisco, you type out friggin treatises on here; I prefer the hit and lol style.

That was certainly Blu Cantrell's best song, yeah

(honestly, though, Burt, it's possible to do hit-and-run comments that are a little more responsive to what people are saying, otherwise there's not much point to repeating yourself)

(B-b-but nabisco, how can he read the posts without seeing The Dawn by Stevan Javellana?)

but burt we're waiting for you to bring the lols. i agree with you with one thing though, you certainly have mastered the art of entering language into the empty box at the bottom of the page and then clicking "Submit Response." You've got that part DOWN.

Evelyn Waugh was another famous author to make use of writer's workshops

Kingsley Amis was quite a workshop.

Also: I'd sooner my work be proofread by ILX than anywhere else, honestly.

i'm not very good at internet

lawschool4u

Burt, it might help if you gave people a better sense of who you are. You should be more forthcoming about things like where you live or what you do for a living.

:D

oh hi y'all, I went and got one of these this morning

I am now master of the art of being fine

aw, congratulations!!!

congrats! now write a book, get on that now, k thanks bye

nice! congratulations, master!

I'm collecting letters of rec and sanding the portfolio and adding deadlines to the calendar. Also apparently I have to take the GRE for my fave program lol.

from what i understand, the GRE for MFA writing programs is a formality--most schools will look at your portfolio first and foremost. don't sweat the GRE too much

GRE hee hee

or, what j0rdan S. sez

I hate all of my endings.

B. Hoos Shyamalan

By the way, though I'm hopeful, I'm not really expecting to get in anywhere at this point. This is sort of a way of testing the waters.

It's a way of finding out for myself if my writing is ready or not.

my sister's doing a writing mfa. She's kinda freaked out, and probably rightly so, but she's a good writer, with a voice and some self-awareness, and is being somewhat entrepreneurial about it

entrepreneurial=????

You know, Networking and shit

Does anyone have anything to say about visual arts MFAs?

networking is one of the reason you go to grad school gabbneb

i thought you meant like she was selling her writing and shit or tutoring

hoos have u checked out this book and website yet?? or have i already mentioned it

http://creative-writing-mfa-handbook.blogspot.com/

I'm applying to an NYU Grad Program (MA) and they don't even require a GRE! Of course, it's only an MA :( I'd apply directly into that program's PhD, but it requires an MA degree first. So I'm hoping I do this MA and it gives me an in.

i'm not sure i understand your point re networking, Mr. Que - she could be doing what she's doing regardless of her being in grad school. i was also referring to her blog, and the inclusion of content therefrom in the website of a very major publication. if your particular interest in this subject is related to your interest in v v important contemporary fiction, that is not her oeuvre, fyi.

hoos have u checked out this book and website yet?? or have i already mentioned it

http://creative-writing-mfa-handbook.blogspot.com/

― Mr. Que, Saturday, November 1, 2008 3:02 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

yeah i read the blog regularly & if i don't get in on this go round i'm definitely purchasing the book for the next time.

thakig u for consideration tho!

awesome hoos.

i'm not sure i understand your point re networking, Mr. Que - she could be doing what she's doing regardless of her being in grad school. i was also referring to her blog, and the inclusion of content therefrom in the website of a very major publication. if your particular interest in this subject is related to your interest in v v important contemporary fiction, that is not her oeuvre, fyi.

ah, okay. that's cool. i just didn't know what you meant by networking, because you didn't explain it very well. for the record, i have no idea where you're getting the idea that i have an interest in "v v important contemporary fiction."

I've just started getting people to write my rec. letters for MFA in painting programs. It's ridiculous how excited I am about this.

It is perfectly reasonable!

seriously gabs our apt is full of v v dead ppl fiction

and not just dfw obvs

As in people going all Nate Hawthorne or what??

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/cp/vol-05/no-02/benfey/images/melville.jpg

big hoos where u thinking of going to MFA skool; you and Mr. Que should go together and be best MFA bros

please choose someplace warm and in an actual city kthxbye

applying to:

-university of texas austin
-columbia college chicago
-texas state san marcos
-nyu nymfer

by contemporary i meant "since 1945," and vague was kinda the idea

i am in MFA program at California College of the Arts.

and i want to get out.

so any suggestions, my friends. my writing is fine, i have an agenda and don't give a fuck about what anyone else is writing.

but i can't shake the feeling that i could be in a better program in a less expensive city working with better writers.

-university of texas austin IN TEXAS THEREFORE VETO
-columbia college chicago COLD COLD COLD
-texas state san marcos SEE ABOVE
-nyu nymfer COLD COLD COLD

If you and Mr. Que wanna go to Stanford I am down with that.

where at

Stanford is in California

-columbia college chicago COLD COLD COLD
-nyu nymfer COLD COLD COLD

^^ WUSS WUSS WUSS

doesnt dc get cold too?

yah the lady speaketh for herself up there. i could handle nyc winter but not nyc itself. don't think i could take chicago in the winter though. brrrr. i haven't even decided if i'm gonna try for an mfa though. i'm excited to finish my M.A. in one year, though! and i would totally do austin no problema

Stanford is in California

― quincie, Monday, November 3, 2008 4:20 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

hahaha nah i mean where YOU at that Texas is NO and the north is COLD

whatre u getting an MA in que

xpost but she, the lady, gets veto power if and when we decide to do it

M.A. in creative writing fiction. we in dc

waht is wrong with austin??

i think i'd be cool with austin for real

she went to grad school in galveston which she now calls galvatraz and hates tx, etc. austin is great and their program is really well funded which is a plus

hey hoos i'd recommend not going for an MFA unless you get funding

someone probably already said this upthread

yeah i was reading somewhere that the austin program is the best in the country for funding

and that the ny schools are the worst

yeah i was reading somewhere that the austin program is the best in the country for funding

― Uncle Shavedlongcock (max), Monday, November 3, 2008 4:40 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah you get full ride + a living stipend that's actually more than i make at my current job

One of my mentors/letter-of-rec writers is a grad of the program, super amped bout his endorsement.

seriously: how the fuck do i get myself out of this mess?

what mess? you said your writing is going fine. you expressed an interest in working with "better" writers, but do you think they would be "better" teachers?

table - are you sure you can't learn anything from your fellow MFA students, even if you don't think they are as good? alternately, if your writing is "fine" why did you go there in the first place? if you were in the best program in the country would your writing still be fine the way it is now? i mean, be a student.

all of my friends who've done MFA's (all ten of them) have said similar things, table. they've been in a range of places (including, coincidentally, CCA) from top-tier to middle-tier (no real bottom of barrel types of places).

i always put down their comments to a growing sense of "i'm competent but i have no idea what the fuck am i going to do when i graduate" panic ... that aimless worry starts to turn into antipathy projected onto their clueless but seemingly untroubled peers.

in fact i've seen that across the whole spectrum of grad school! even from business, law and med students. i think it has to do with the fact that grad school is a terribly humbling and emotionally difficult process, but also a place where everyone is expected (or expects themselves) to always be keeping up appearances (of competence, confidence, seriousness, detachment, etc). sort of a bad combination. sooner or later i imagine everyone in grad school ends up talking shit about everyone around them.

come to think of it that's not so different from high school except the bitching and gossip tends to focus on competence, vision and ability rather than "omg she smells" or "everyone hates him!"

Turned in my second app today, feelin good about it.

good luck, mexican!

XD

thx btw!!

u applying to UT?

UT.....EP???

'go miners'

haha nah Abbs I applied to UT Austin last month and just today turned in my app and attendant materials for Texas State

what's san marcos like?

It's a small kinda rural town that sprang up around the college. Even calling it a "college town" feels like a stretch because it's definitely not liberal-to-a-fault or full of hippies like Austin is. Its main benefits are quiet, low rent, and dive bars. It's unlikely I'd live there as it's only a 45 min drive from Austin. I'd probably go back to taking the bus the way I have for the last couple years during undergrad.

Everyone I know that lives there says there's nothing to do, and people go North to Austin or South to San Antonio whenever they want to do something more entertaining than barhop or catch a movie--say, see a show or watch a play that isn't put on by college students.

Though of course the suggestion that "watching a play that isn't put on by college students" is more fun than dive barhopping is debatable. I just haven't managed to acquaint myself with these particular dives yet.

This also is where I reiterate I may not take the offer if I get accepted anywhere in particular (ok if I got into the UT prog I'd def take it but that's a 1 in 2345098450 chance), this is just sorta testing the waters.

Got my UT rejection today. That's cool, it's what I expected and I hadn't let myself get my hopes up.

:/

That's a drag, hoos. Sorry to hear it.

Nah I've still got a couple apps out, let's wait and see.

More options would still be good.

UT rejected me too hoos. Good times.

Yeah I mean the idea this year has always been to put out feelers. I'm gonna live in the world for a couple years, teach, then try again after that first contract runs out.

RIP that idea.

All the rejections came in at once today.

sorry Hoos--keep tryin'

(I mean, I agree w/yr plan to live in the world & teach and then try again--it's a good one. Still tho, sorry.)

aw hoos i'm so sorry.

thx guys

I hit the ground running on Plan B come Monday.

Til then? SCOTCH!

Oh, man, sorry to hear it, HOOS -- but yeah, remember you're still in a great place here. Take time, keep working on it; if you put off going to a program for a year or two, it'll just mean you're a better writer when you get there. (I didn't get into either of the places I applied to my first go-round, and that turned out to be a good thing.)

if you put off going to a program for a year or two, it'll just mean you're a better writer when you get there.

I'd also recommend taking time off, not going straight from college to grad school. I went straight from undergrad into a master's program because I couldn't think of anything else to do, and I felt pretty unfocused and a bit immature. I took a few years off before finishing my final project, and that made a big difference. The nice thing about doing creative work in an academic environment is that you have the time to do it, that it's essentially "your job." For me, it took several years having to make time to do it while not in an academic environment to get me to really appreciate the luxury of that academic environment and to take advantage of it.

I'd echo the suggestion upthread about trying out teaching (if that's the career goal, or at least the how-to-pay-the-bills goal) before committing to a Master's degree program. It probably varies based on location, but a lot of the people I know w/Masters' degrees in the arts end up teaching at community colleges. Jobs at a 4-year universities or art schools are very competitive. Part-timers at the community college level don't make very much, but a tenured full-time position is pretty good money, though those are competitive as well. Most people I know were part-timers before they got hired full-time.

Bottom line - if you're going to be taking on a bunch of student loan debt, it could very well be a real bitch paying it back the first few years.

Mass rejection is a bit much without something best taken in a glass. They must not have appreciated your compelling backstory at its full worth.

I'm putting this here, rather than in the ILB "creative writing as an industry" thread, since it always seems like a topic people are interested in -- Louis Menand piece concerning a book trying to tease out the systemic effect of writing programs on literature.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/06/08/090608crat_atlarge_menand

oo i read that on the subway the other day and meant to post it to see what people thought about it

by people i obviously mean burt_stanton

i found that book review to be. . . annoying, especially the opening paragraph. it got better at the end but then there was this

We read the little magazines—Kayak and Big Table and Lillabulero—and we thought that discovering a new poet or a new poem was the most exciting thing in the world. When you are nineteen years old, it can be.

it still can be, when you're 39! or 49!, etc etc

I will have my MFA in a year's time maybe

Mr. Que: i co-sign.

Louis Menand is an insufferable prick, anyway.

menand is often insufferable basically always a prick but i will always forgive him no matter what for his BLISTERING takedown of eats shoots & leaves

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/06/28/040628crbo_books1?currentPage=all

"I am not a grammarian,” Truss says. No quarrel there. Although she has dug up information about things like the history of the colon, Truss is so uninterested in the actual rules of punctuation that she even names the ones she flouts—for example, the rule that semicolons cannot be used to set off dependent clauses. (Unless you are using it to disambiguate items in a list, a semicolon should be used only between independent clauses—that is, clauses that can stand as complete sentences on their own.) That is the rule, she explains, but she violates it frequently. She thinks this makes her sound like Virginia Woolf.

everyone should get an mfa, it's an awful lot of fun

menand is often insufferable basically always a prick but i will always forgive him no matter what for his BLISTERING takedown of eats shoots & leaves

oh good, i'm glad other people think this. i haven't been reading the NYer that closely lately and I don't know that I've read anything by him in awhile, so i read this and I was like "you are full of it, Mr. Guy," but i felt like i had no perspective on him.

curious what y'all think of the article content, though!

You care about things that you make, and that makes it easier to care about things that other people make.

oh man is that ever true

mfas are cool if you can get funding and that's pretty much it

You know, I do that shit with semicolons all the time.

Louis Menand has written some things I like, I think.

I mean I bet they're cool otherwise, depending where you are, but really

The one thing mentioned in here that makes me curious to look at the book itself is the very fun-sounding attempt to read style as a function of people's places in a more academic system:

McGurl thinks that [Carver's] style represents the “aestheticization of shame, a mode of self-retraction.” Literary minimalism like Carver’s—McGurl calls it “lower-middle-class modernism”—is a means of reducing the risk of embarrassing oneself, and is one way that students from working-class backgrounds, like Carver (he was from Oregon, where his father was a sawmill worker), deal with the highbrow world of the academy. Rather ingeniously, McGurl reads the work of Carver’s exact contemporary Joyce Carol Oates as an expression of the same class-based self-consciousness. ... Oates is a prolific practitioner of what McGurl calls “maximalist” fiction: it has been said that, at one point in her career, she wrote forty pages of fiction every day, or about a quarter of what would constitute an entire book for Carver. But McGurl thinks that maximalism, too, is “a way of shielding oneself with words.” The two styles are methods of self-protection and, at the same time, forms of self-assertion: the minimalist writer puts his craft on display, the maximalist his facility.

Obviously you wouldn't take those glosses as in any way complete (especially with Carver's, umm, editorially-reframed work), but I do find them sort of fun, just in comparison to the way writing programs do visibly prompt people to seek out and take on the roles and styles they feel suit them -- including on some sort of personal level, which goes a little deeper than just finding your style in front of a distant audience of critics or readers.

I think that's bullshit but I also think that it doesn't really matter

if the shit you write is good to read 4 me then cool

is that McGurl as in Mark McGurl, the UCLA prof? he is dreamy + looks and talks like chris eigeman.

i guess i will maybe read this article. i like louis menand, guys.

you <3 chris eigeman so much!

i'm guessing Mark McGurl's new book is about MFA programs. his book The Novel Art was also sociology of fiction stuff. it's good. he's a funny writer. kind of glib...

xp i do!

Creative-writing programs are designed on the theory that students who have never published a poem can teach other students who have never published a poem how to write a publishable poem.

really? i mean to the casual observer yeah, and i hear a lot of talk about this in school, but really--it's about making your work better, not about publishing.

The fruit of the theory is the writing workshop, a combination of ritual scarring and twelve-on-one group therapy where aspiring writers offer their views of the efforts of other aspiring writers.

"group therapy" is some bullshit, "ritual scarring"--that's cute

The workshop is a process, an unscripted performance space, a regime for forcing people to do two things that are fundamentally contrary to human nature: actually write stuff (as opposed to planning to write stuff very, very soon), and then sit there while strangers tear it apart.

agreed it's a process; but it's not an unscripted performance space any more than any other classroom interaction is.

There is one person in the room, the instructor, who has (usually) published a poem. But workshop protocol requires the instructor to shepherd the discussion, not to lead it, and in any case the instructor is either a product of the same process—a person with an academic degree in creative writing—or a successful writer who has had no training as a teacher of anything, and who is probably grimly or jovially skeptical of the premise on which the whole enterprise is based: that creative writing is something that can be taught.

(usually)--hey, that's cute!

my big question about this whole article relates back to that first sentence. If a successful writer is running a workshop and doesn't think that writing can be taught, then why does the first sentence declare that writing workshops are set up to "teach" people how to write publishable poems? I think most people in a workshop would say that it's guidance/coaching etc that goes on in a classroom, which is not teaching (although that's just a big guess), and that what goes on in a workshop can be very valuable--but it's not teaching.

(hi i lurk on yr thread because I still dream about getting an MFA one day. sometimes.)

I am trying to think of examples of writers whose style is somehow completely disconnected from how they, like, assert themselves in relation to other people -- the only thing I can come up with is Poe, if you accept the line that Poe was a brilliant hack who'd turn out whatever was necessary to get some cash

Que, if I'm reading the piece together, I do feel like Menand is sorta just loosely recapping some of the stranger things about the workshop process in that first graph as an early hook -- his conclusion, along with McGurl's, is pretty much like what you're saying, isn't it?

haha "reading the piece correctly"

I applied to the Warwick undergrad creative writing when I was 17 but I got the request for portfolio and stared at it, panicked, and never sent them anything

I kind of think that if you "can't teach writing" it is equally true you "can't teach math" or "can't teach how to design a pretty good circuit board"

I am trying to think of examples of writers whose style is somehow completely disconnected from how they, like, assert themselves in relation to other people — www.fanfiction.net

is there a chapter on mfa workshop sex scandals

yeah i agree nabisco and like i said he came around at the end. . . i don't see where McGurl comes to the same conclusion i do? and i was just really thrown off by the beginning

basically i thought menand had a smarmy tone, i'll talk about it with him next week in workshop

There’s a drive-in A&W near Bread Loaf on Rt. 7. My girlfriend and I have eaten at this particular A&W twice. The first time was during a short vacation in The Berkshires. The second time was last month. The chubby prepubescent girls made me homesick.

^ There's a certain directness and energy to the style, which I think you should definitely try to develop going forward, but I do think you might benefit from explaining certain points to the reader better (like the girls), so the challenge is going to be giving the reader those footholds without sacrificing your energy

reading the article + liking it but i'm confused about this:

Creative-writing programs attract students (good for public universities, where enrollment may determine budgets), but, contrary to what many people assume, they are not generally cash cows. Most of the top programs—until recently, Columbia was the major exception—provide fellowship support for all their students, and the classes are tiny. In 2005-06, only four-tenths of one per cent of all master’s degrees awarded were in creative writing.

my understanding was that creative writing programs were an indirect cash cow because they attract undergrads, who are paying full tuition? this model would be lucrative at a private university; i guess not so much at a public one. am i being dense?

xp lols

i think he is talking primarily about graduate programs?

uh

you mean good grad programs attract undergrads? is that true? i guess it probably could be, couldn't it.

yeah i was thrown by that too--some idle daydreaming googling + what i hear from friends is that almost no universities outside UT have $$ for their cw students

McGurl tells the story of the attack on Momaday’s “House Made of Dawn” by Karl Kroeber. Kroeber is not a Native American; he is a professor of English at Columbia whose many interests include Native American literature, and he criticized Momaday for attempting to “evoke an ‘Indianness’ for his readers (the majority of whom will presumably not be Indians) through an Anglo-American literary structure that must prohibit any authentically Indian imaginative form.”

this Kroeber sounds like a douche. also this anecdote is like the quintessence of academia, at least in the humanities. /bitter

xpost right but even having a well-regarded mfa program is thought to attract undergrads interested in creative writing, i thought? maybe i'm being a moron.

no i think you're at least a little otm horseshoe--but yeah it's a weird quote

actually my assumptions about this are based on a conversation some professors (in the English department) at my old school had about needing to raise the profile of the creative writing program for exactly this reason--it would attract undergrads who were more lucrative for our school than grad students.

Well, MFA programs aren't usually super-lucrative for the reasons above. As for undergrad creative-writing programs, I might be naive on this point, but I can't imagine that significant a number of undergrads picking out the college they attend based much on the quality of creative writing offerings, you know? In most schools I know of, those offerings are largely just a popular sideline of the English/literature departments, not anything loads of kids showed up for specifically. (The school I went to actually made you apply into it for your third year.)

xpost - haha, yes, horseshoe, that bit so got me, and somehow seemed so typical -- I can almost understand making the argument in an academic sense, but to actually throw darts at a specific Native American writer over it has got to require giant balls brimming over with douche

actually two big exceptions to that: if you can have big-name people teaching writing to undergrads, or big-name people who went through the program -- the sorts of big names that 18-year-olds would recognize as cool -- that would be a big institutional help even w/r/t kids who plan on majoring in something else

yeah the part about ethnic writers informing on their culture or being read as though they were resonated with me.

also itt livebloggin louis menand:

(Bradbury taught Ian McEwan.)

^^^this dude has a lot to answer for.

i imagine that having those kinds of big names helps even for kids who arent going for creative writing specifically

princetons not hiding the fact that toni morrison and joyce carol oates and paul muldoon and john mcphee teach there

that's what i meant!

also i think it is unfair for mark mcgurl to be quite so dreamy + possessed of a chris eigeman inflection + a tenured professor at a great school + living in beautiful LA

Writing teachers may therefore cultivate their own legends. Once, on the first day of class, Angela Carter, who taught at Brown, was asked by a student what her own writing was like. She carefully answered as follows: “My work cuts like a steel blade at the base of a man’s penis.”

:X

and the author of a book that sounds interesting also, i meant to say.

xpost wow

xpost - so that would support menand's "they are not generally cash cows": the majority of programs don't boast brand name writers

whaaaaaaaaaaat

xps

any male members of that Carter class could probably have had some fun creating a stink about a gender-biased environment in there

xpost - I think he's speaking specifically about MFA programs with that bit, and the fact that they generally fund people

big names are kind of dicey because some are so involved in their own work that they don't really help students all that much (which I heard about brown) and they can always switch colleges (which I think happened to a friend in like michigan or something)

also all mfa "teachers" really need to be is really organized, no one can teach you shit (I think)

i can't imagine that anyone would think or assume that a english/lit person/writer would be a cash cow for a university, so menand's point is kind of a straw man for me.

haha fair enough; "cash cow" is probably not the best way to put it.

yeah i mean i think he's saying what nabisco pointed out about funding, but yeah cash cow probably not a good choice of words. let's all go around the table and give louis suggestions to improve his phrase

also all mfa "teachers" really need to be is really organized, no one can teach you shit (I think)

― cool app (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Wednesday, June 10, 2009 4:39 PM (53 seconds ago) Bookmark

nah

i mean, i had two creative writing profs (ern3st h3bert and dani3l mu3ller) and both were great dudes but only the latter did any "teaching"

h3bert was just a bro, and wrote one of my favorite poems

aw this article ends all sweet with the big reveal!

(haha I am trying to imagine a class in which someone like Chuck Palahniuk deploys an equivalently gendered metaphor in describing his writing, and what would happen next)

xpost - organization and moderating skills are basics, but really any of the variety of mentor-type skills people can have is valuable -- you don't need to be all Finding Forrester about it, but there's a set of talents involved in recognizing what people are good at and helping them to develop it themselves

xpost - actually when MFA programs aren't funding people as much as they could, the "cash cow" thing is pretty accurate, because the writing parts of them are pretty low-overhead and low-maintenance -- Columbia's program has had periods of feeling a bit profit-y in terms of accepting more people and funding a smaller percentage of them (though I think this has been reversed a bit; you can't do it long or you will actively and noticeably harm your program)

but there's a set of talents involved in recognizing what people are good at and helping them to develop it themselves'

exactly

Here lies Joseph Ernest Vaccarest Hebert. He loved
what he could compare to what he loved. He said,
the surface of the pond is slightly curved as is
music from a violin and the violin itself. He envied
his reflection off water because it stared fearlessly
at the sun. Face buried in his palm, he was still
able to say, this bright spot before my eyes is a
rose, and the rose is a pair of hands folded in
prayer. In the end, despite wandering in his own
rooms, resting much and sleeping little, he said,
patches of water on ice make me believe the retina
of the eye is beautiful.

i mean coaching is the closest verb i can think of

I like that poem dude

maybe not actually one of my favorite favorites, but i like it \(°_°)/

so nabisco what did you think. . . .?

workshops are ok but I learned way more from ppl who were willing to take a red pen to my poems and shove the results back in my face... I don't find talking abt writing particularly insightful

every workshop i've been in, you edit other people's stuff, write them a letter about their work, in addition to the talkie stuff

my roommate (and classmate) was the best critic i had---he wielded the red pen like a steel blade across yr fucking dick. everyone else in my workshop at the time was afraid to give criticism because they thought it would invite retaliation

it's why there are so many bad or middling poets, they'd be good poets if there were someone to run a steel blade across their dicks every minute of their lives

one of my creative writing profs was st3ph3n dunn, one of my favorite poems of his is about how dire and hilarious workshops can be

loving that h3bert poem btw

:)

gbx were you an English/Writing major too? I had no idea!

yeah!

more like mf gay

elif batumann thinks that no you should not get an mfa

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n18/elif-batuman/get-a-real-degree

haven't read it but that guy otm

that chick

some quality laughs in that book review, batumann OTM

stoked for the madness

have a feeling a certain ilxor will weigh in on this

looking forward to it, too

I'll have one of these in oh...three months? Gonna be craaaaaaaazy

Damn, max, that is one long, long review. I did like this paragraph, however:

There is no arguing with taste, and there are doubtless people in the world who enjoy ‘the virtuosity of Butler’s performance of narrative mobility’. To me, such ‘performances’ are symptomatic of the large-scale replacement of books I would want to read by rich, multifaceted explorations whose ‘amazing audacity’ I’m supposed to admire in order not to be some kind of jerk.

This thread is only about writing MFAs!

i've read other stuff by elif batuman and she seems chill

look fwd to skimming

mfas are just for money I thought

well, money and contacts or whatever

that chick

― max, Wednesday, September 15, 2010 11:55 AM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark

is this a 'dominique leone' thing or

The acquisition of contacts should not be underestimated IMO. No idea how this works for writers. What is the equivalent of screenings and art openings for y'all? How do you get your face and business card out there?

not sure if ilx has any (published) novelists yet

u know a lot of elifs goole?

not a one!

http://www.interviewmagazine.com/files/2009/06/30/img-book-of-jokes_182644112130.jpg

ok lol

A friend of mine just got a two book deal with Jonathan Cape. He is admittedly kind of disparaging about the role his MFA played in that.

The acquisition of contacts should not be underestimated IMO. No idea how this works for writers. What is the equivalent of screenings and art openings for y'all? How do you get your face and business card out there?

― Nano McPhee (admrl), Wednesday, September 15, 2010 10:17 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah I didn't mean to make it sound like an unnecessary thing, just that I don't know many people who go into an mfa program to learn how to write or whatever. One of my cousins just finished a book and has no idea what the fuck to do with it.

admittedly I didn't read the article but kind of scrolled through it and chuckled when she started talking about stuff white people like or whatever

this is just too rich

http://gawker.com/5651154/columbia-writing-professor-sends-worlds-haughtiest-email-to-former-students

doesn't come off that haughty to me?? one thing she does not tell her students: columbia hardly funds it's students at all compared to lots (and lots) of other MFA programs. . . programs which aren't in NYC, so you can't hang out in Central Park, but you can live a lot cheaper.

big upping your current students for all the opportunities the students you're sending the e-mail to will never have, also big upping your current students' intellectual vigor (thereby implying these other students don't measure up), and damning USC for not being in NYC doesn't come across as haughty??

have you ever been to south carolina????

how is that relevant? even if USC is the world's biggest shithole, sending an e-mail to your former students that basically amounts to "look at all these opportunities you will NEVER GET TO HAVE, why are you EVEN TRYING" is NAGL

she tells them to hop on 95 and go on up there to the big apple in the first paragraph

It seems to me that USC writing students should also know about these opportunities, since you could car-pool up to NYC very cheaply and stay at youth hostels on Manhattan (within walking distance of Columbia U and Central Park) for just $30/night (shared room) with linen, towels, and breakfast provided. MFA students from other states take advantage of this and visit in groups. Why not USC?

yes, "please consider taking a 8 hour carride to NYC, where the school you should have went to is located"

dunno how you are defending this tbh

just doesn't seem that newsworthy to me. not defending it, either, just saying it doesn't seem haughty. i mean, this is really something to get agitated about? an email you can delete in one second? so she's a stuck up jerk. she's the first professor to write a snotty email?

welcome to 2010

welcome to the jungle/we got mfa's

Wait, they admit 100 people/year and half (of however many of those attend) actually have book contracts on graduation? Something is fishy with that stat.

I mean if you look at this:
http://wwwapp.cc.columbia.edu/art/app/arts/writing/jackets.jsp

There's only one publication by a grad from the last 10 years, and that's an '03 person. You'd have to assume they'd feature more recent stuff if there was more recent stuff to feature.

maybe they all use vanity presses?

how is that relevant? even if USC is the world's biggest shithole, sending an e-mail to your former students that basically amounts to "look at all these opportunities you will NEVER GET TO HAVE, why are you EVEN TRYING" is NAGL

― Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile (dayo), Thursday, September 30, 2010 10:52 PM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark

this

that professor just seems really excited to be in nyc, sorta like a stereotypical 20-something who moves here

except instead of a fb note it's an email

and instead of nobody caring it's a gawker post

Yeah except she's not 20.

And instead of her being some random transplant tweeting to her friends she's a professor e-mailing her former university.

and instead of nobody caring it's a gawker post

― iatee, Friday, October 1, 2010 12:45 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

not mutually exclusive ime

ok but it's a boasty email/fb message/blog post from someone who these people learned from, looked up to, and was supposed to be supported by. this is the "omg i moved to nyc and it is so totes AWESOME" email from the person who was supposed to be nurturing you. it's lame.

i give zero shits about mfa students (in general) but this is an affront to students everywhere

yeah exactly

can't imagine wtf she was thinking

people be delusional i guess

Narcissist discovered teaching creative writing

I mean this woman is a *visiting* prof - she's moving back to south carolina! and probably spending the rest of her life there! I am reading this as her being 100% clueless and innocent.

you would think someone w/ her background would have been to nyc enough to be at least SORTA blasé about it.

Oh, just drive up to HARVARD, where people REALLY know how business school is done! Here you can hobnob with ALL the hippest entrepreneurs and kiss the well educated rumps of academia's royalty, I tell you. Listen, it's just a short 500 hour drive up here from [your shitty school where I will eventually live someday] -- make the effort! Here we REALLY know how it's done (and I do mean WE -- I am one with the city!).

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

At both places the crackle of intellectual energy in the air is almost visible, like blue fire.

I will say that this is not as good as the Northwestern law student who accidentally sent a hand job offer to the entire law school.

It's pretty funny that "the sidewalk bistros on broadway" on the UWS are her idea of exciting new york.

the sidewalk bistros, crackling like blue fire

She's a total bozo

can't wait for her email when she discovers williamsburg

xp

welcome to the jungle/we got mfa's

― Mr. Que, Friday, October 1, 2010 12:04 AM (57 minutes ago)

thanking u

the whole 'come and visit NYC and experience this' part is such a lame pretext. if she was really serious she would just say 'these are some f the cool writing related activities you can do here.' instead it's all 'these students here are so amazing, too bad you will never measure up'

dayo you are TOTALLY otm. this is why this woman is a clown.

i still just think this is funnier http://abovethelaw.com/2010/09/northwestern-law-student-emails-hand-job-offer-to-entire-law-school/

Yeah, that one made the rounds among us law folk. Twas a good un.

lol I saw that LL! hand to wiener is my new favorite euphemism

http://cache.abovethelaw.com/uploads/2010/09/hot-dog-2.jpg

USC is the world's biggest shithole
― Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile (dayo)

sending an e-mail to your former students that basically amounts to "look at all these opportunities you will NEVER GET TO HAVE, why are you EVEN TRYING" is NAGL pretty honest and forthright

but if she wanted to communicate that, she needed to do it in a more direct (and also sympathetic) way

i don't think the email as written communicates that at all...it's all just...why are you telling me this?

and frankly a group email is not a good format for that very delicate conversation to happen

a better format would be a writing workshop, in a bistro, on the upper east side, ideas crackling like fire

haha it's like she's me at thirteen obsessively rewatching hannah and her sisters or something

also hi max i missed you!

they should bus people from south carolina to that bistro, and when they open the door, the people sitting there look them up and down, and then kind of look away. and then they bus them all home.

and set their bus on fire so they can see what blue flame looks like, crackling

i missed you too horseshoe!!

lol

xp <3

wish you guys could see the hand motions im doing when i say "crackling like blue flame" i promise it makes it even funnier

i hear "crackling like blue flame" in a very particular voice

im doing it as a "storyteller" complete with dramatic reading and expressive hand/face motions

http://therumpus.net/2010/10/on-blowing-my-load-thoughts-from-inside-the-mfa-ponzi-scheme/#more-63220

that professor just seems really excited to be in nyc, sorta like a stereotypical 20-something who moves here

― iatee, Friday, October 1, 2010 5:44 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

except instead of a fb note it's an email

― iatee, Friday, October 1, 2010 5:45 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

and instead of nobody caring it's a gawker post

― iatee, Friday, October 1, 2010 5:45 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark

lol'd at this

Hey, is that blue fire? It's almost visible but not quite.

theres a test you can do to see if something is blue fire

question 1:

is it crackling?

if "y" it is blue fire

I almost see it crackling.

still can't believe a creative writing professor used figurative language in an email to her former students

*mind reels*

man you were so close to seeing real blue fire xp

This thread is making me almost palpably lol, like a foggy sweater.

mr que stop bending over backwards to defend this chick

she wrote a hilariously clueless email with an awful shitty simile

Like a wallflower at a Virginia square dance, Mr Que's mind almost reeled.

i'm hardly bending over backwards to defend her--i called her a stuck up jerk last night, fyi

Like an obese yoga instructor, Mr. Que hardly bent over backward

but when i do finally bend over backwards, my ass will crackle with blue fire

afaic defending anything on the internet amounts to more effort than is warranted

TBF, unlike hers, my similes at least make sense.

i like the wallflower one, but having trouble parsing the foggy sweater one

Oh sorry, that one was supposed to be nonsensical.

like a foggy sweater I didn't make sense

lying on the floor lying on the floor I've come undone

http://www.slate.com/id/2275733/pagenum/all/#p2

still reading this but seems intrsting

afaic defending anything on the internet amounts to more effort than is warranted

― max, Friday, October 1, 2010 3:04 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark

i think this is the opposite of true as i don't see the point of expending hate energy on stuff, but i'm a weird motherfucker like that.

thx 4 the link dayo!

idgi hoos i think we are saying the same thing

expending energy on stuff is stupid, doubly so on the internet

I don't know enough about contemporary literature to know how much the author exaggerates the situation to fit his model...but I did have problems w/ his idea that MFA programs are a self-sustaining form of jobs and revenue in the same way that the publishing industry is.

"There were 79 degree-granting programs in creative writing in 1975; today, there are 854" - I mean, are we really in need of 10x the MFAs today? hey maybe we'll have 8540 MFA programs by 2035! that's basically the only way to keep this business expanding at its current rate, isn't it? like, the fact that he gives these figures and doesn't even question the need or source of $ is pretty amazing.

" And a business model that relies on tuition and tax revenue (the top six MFA programs, according to Poets & Writers, are part of large public universities); the continued unemployability of twentysomethings"

is as far as he gets? A business model that relies on tax dollars (yeah it doesn't. they wouldn't be expanding at this rate if they were) and $ from...unemployed young people? the nyc publishing industry is a business - people (sometimes) buy books. this otoh, is operating like a pyramid scheme. high tuition easy-to-create masters programs are a big part of our higher ed crisis and student loan bubble and to treat them like a sustainable business model is insane.

For the MFA writer, then, publishing a book becomes not a primary way to earn money or even a direct attempt to make money. The book instead serves as a credential.

welcome to how the rest of the humanities operates, MFA dudes

So I was all set to update this thread like "alright yall lets kick the tires and light the fires"

Remaking my lists of schools to apply to, significantly extended from last time around, all jazzed after the AWP Conference hit DC this week, then I start scanning lists of faculty and alumni trying to find a name I recognize--you want to find a program where you can be guided by a writer you admire, right? I mean, otherwise what's the point? So I look at the lists of names, the lists that go on for pages and blur names into the titles of books I've never heard of put out by publishing houses whose websites look like they were put together on Geocities. I keep looking. I find one name a few names I recognize, one I can honestly say I admire: Denis Johnson, writer in residence at (wait for it) Texas State University.

Looking at these lists of names I can't help feeling that running myself through the mill of one of these programs, no matter how prestigious it may be in the weird closed-loop world of MFA literature, would just end with my name on another of these lists to blur into those before and after me.

And at that point what's the point?

burn the libraries

BURN THEM ALL

the only point is money, so if you don't get it don't go

I have a book rec for ppl tho, this shit is p crazy

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41sTmGkAF9L._SL500_.jpg

otm. i've got a bunch of friends here who have done mfas (some that are on their second mfa), and the consensus seems to be that you only do it if they're going to cover your full tuition. and if they do, then the big win is getting time to write, right?

if they don't cover you, get on unemployment

yeah i'm not even considering places that don't do full funding

When I was younger all I wanted to do was get an MFA in creative writing and be a ~writer

Some of my friends did this, and they are no better off than I am. I have had more publications than a few of them, even. My sister, however, luvvved her MFA program!

... but she regrets going into academia.

I bought a book called "The Portable MFA" and the section on fiction writing was pretty sad. It ended with, "Well, we don't teach novel-writing in MFA programs, sowwwy." It's very skewed toward short-story writing.

But you're a poet, HOOS! HEY YOU SHOULD GO TO NAROPA. HIPPIE POETRY BABES. LJ WILL BE SO JEALOUS!

(some that are on their second mfa)

what

HOOS! HEY YOU SHOULD GO TO NAROPA

have thought abt this tbh

A lot of folks do the Naropa MFA and then seem to always transition over to the DU writing PhD afterward. Its either that or Brown MFA--> DU PhD.

i think you should do it Hooz. CARPE or whatever. i wrote a long letter to a friend on why he should get an MFA, maybe i'll resurrect it and tailor it to you.

do this imo

what do you want from it?

(some that are on their second mfa)

what

i know, it didn't make sense to me either at first, but it's just a way to get money + time to write. it's weird that you can apparently do as many creative mfa degrees as you want (at different programs) though.

haha wait

Here at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University

I am not sure how I feel abt this

i know, it didn't make sense to me either at first, but it's just a way to get money + time to write. it's weird that you can apparently do as many creative mfa degrees as you want (at different programs) though.

― bows don't kill people, arrows do (Jordan), Monday, 7 February 2011 22:21 (2 seconds ago) Bookmark

yeah i mean i've been meeting a lot of artists who do this, just live from residency to residency all up and down the northeast, but the idea of doing it as a writer is........come to think of it, kind of great

what do you want from it?

― a gadfly within the ranks of the nationalist far right (history mayne), Monday, 7 February 2011 22:20 (1 minute ago) Bookmark

to be famous obviously

nah i mean maybe this is stupid and idealistic of me but i want to use the time earning the degree to hone my craft, which is i guess what every one of those people on those long lists are doing, the disheartening thing is the sort of circle jerk aspect of the whole enterprise

it really is obnoxiously circle-jerky

and that Planet MFA largely prepares you to succeed on Planet MFA, where you can live forever, an entire planet of other writers who might read your work out of a sense of obligation sometime

but what isn't, eh

EHHHHH

the problem with MFA writing is that it seems the goal is to please other writers

not, like, readers

but, you know...

seems like part of the point is to hang (ie drink) with other writers, some of whom will be good and whom you'll later trade readings and blurbs with

xp

the workshop mentality does seem like it could get weird, but should in no way prevent you from writing what you want to write imo

nah i mean maybe this is stupid and idealistic of me but i want to use the time earning the degree to hone my craft, which is i guess what every one of those people on those long lists are doing, the disheartening thing is the sort of circle jerk aspect of the whole enterprise

― HOOS the master?? STEEN NUFF (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Monday, February 7, 2011 2:24 PM (2 minutes ago) [

Hoos, I got me one of those writing MFAs. It cost a shitload of money, and yeah I guess I got a lot of good training out of it, but but the whole thing IS a circle-jerk and your time would probably better be spent just FUCKING WRITING and READING and trying to find a good mentor that can take through the ins and outs of the professional writing life. In other words, 40,000 is a hefty amount to pay for what $10,000 and a lot of tenacity will net you.

if you can get money to fanny around for __ years, then that's p amazing!

having a job irl might lead to writing-worthy experiences tho

not sure what 'people who never leave college' have to talk abt

http://pintofstout.files.wordpress.com/2006/10/money_burning.jpg

having a job irl might lead to writing-worthy experiences tho

well i mean i finished undergrad rollin up on three years ago now and my decision then was to apply on a lark at the time, assuming i wouldn't get in anywhere, then take everyone's advice (itt & otherwise) and reapply a few years down the line. now is a few years, and i'm trying to decide if i want to focus on this nonprofit career thing or go back as per my original plan.

every single writer from my MFA (even the good ones) ended up back in their original job AFTER the MFA, or in some basically menial and tangentially-related writing capacity, or "successful" in the sense that they came from a lot of money, did the MFA, self-published/used their finances to leverage themselves a book deal or are "currently working" e.g. sucking the parental teat$ dry while they work on their six novel about escalating paranoiac tendencies in the 20th century white male or whatever

lol

Should I get an LMFAO?

I mean part of the reason I'm jazzed abt this right now is, as Nabisco said in 08, I was waiting so that when I was ready:

you'll have a concrete, confident sensibility to take in with you, and that's important. If you're still sorting out how you want to write, an MFA can do more harm than good, by constantly distracting you with how other people write. Don't just go because you want to keep writing. Wait until you feel like you have an agenda, a real sense of what you want to accomplish and what you want to use those workshops to develop.

And in the time since I feel like my writing has gained a real sense of direction, I can say I have a purpose that I work towards when I write a poem, and I can state that purpose in the kind of words that English professors like to hear. I've gotten to this point largely because I've spent this time working with the editor of small press (putting out my chapbook this spring yall!!) feeling out different directions and logics and techniques and what have you, and now I feel like I'm in a position to draw up my project as a writer and defend it and pursue it--the things, as I understand it, that you go to an MFA program to do.

my mfa-having friends are all teaching + writing now (or doing another mfa). but a lot of them have had stuff published and i feel optimistic about their future "careers".

techniques and what have you, and now I feel like I'm in a position to draw up my project as a writer and defend it and pursue it--the things, as I understand it, that you go to an MFA program to do.

not to be glib, but why can't finding a really kickass mentor do these things to you for much less time/money?

Much better to hold on to your job and write. Too many MFA-harvested story collections and novels boast sensitive, intelligent fellows as protagonists.

I have nothing to boast about. I'm a writer and my university had a pretty good MFA program but the thought of matriculating didn't cross my mind, especially after meeting a few of the students and being suitably appalled by how badly they read, if they read at all (something for another thread: people who say they're writers yet "don't find the time" to read, or read crap).

the really kickass mentor is gonna have a hard time getting me in print unless the really kickass mentor has the kinds of connections the freaky spindly mfa jungle gym provides, i think? xxp

i mean obv it's MY job to get me published, i'm just sayin

something for another thread: people who say they're writers yet "don't find the time" to read

can't tell you how many times i heard this just during two nights of AWP offsites

the really kickass mentor is gonna have a hard time getting me in print unless the really kickass mentor has the kinds of connections the freaky spindly mfa jungle gym provides, i think? xxp

― HOOS the master?? STEEN NUFF (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Monday, February 7, 2011 10:47 PM (10 seconds ago) Bookmark

the need to get the connects is obviously pressing & important, but there must be a more direct and less expensive way to get them. are you even guaranteed them by enrolling?

"workshops" kinda perplex me. my writer friends read my stuff, and, when i'm lucky, editors do too. i don't have to pay them. it's pretty neat.

i do have friends getting MFAs though. i don't think it's doing anything for their writing that they couldn't do outside the university, but it's getting them connections, which does matter. it does seem that there's probably a cheaper way even to get those, though.

probably a longshot, but did you go to the m0nst3rs of p0etry thing at the asylum bar?

xp

i hope my friend doesn't see this, but i just asked him if he's glad he got an mfa and he kinda indicated that he's not :/

he basically said that it was a good time to get work experience and he was in grad school instead

(i think he's unemployed atm)

i thought about it! but i didn't. that was saturday night, right? i wound up at the black squirrel i think. xp

btw guys brb i gotta finish up at the office or i will never have time to contribute to this thread

i just don't find the time to ilx

i do have an acquaintance who is a semi-successful poet. I mean as successful as a poet can be without being like maya angelou or something. he is a d-bag, though.

i think it was on friday. anyway, those are my bros.

oh rad, yeah friday i went to a thing hosted by drunken boat/32 poems/"tuesday: an art project," traded infos w/a v v pretty editor of a v prominent journal

so that was nice

a v prominent journal

ugh u see how it starts

prominent as in $$$ or as in, idk, kudos or whatever people write for

prominent as in "kudos"

it is v "in"

u shudhang w me ihave mad cxns in literary circles, cud make r break u on a whim jus sayin

lol lets do it imo

yah stick w me zadie smith and jonathanfranzen r glad they did lemme tell u

just to mention a couple of my protogees

thank god for all of us

i was like jonathan we could go n/l w/ this oprah thing

get an mfa in websites instead

master of fine websites

hoos did you read that batuman article on mfas

yes and it made me wish batman had written an article on mfas

lol. I haven't done an MFA but I think she's pretty otm - a MFA seems like an opportunity to hone your 'craft' to standards proscribed and prescribed by whatever writing community you end up at, and it may pay you (minimally) to write, but I don't really see what else it provides.

idk, I think of all the writers from the past who I admire and very rarely do I find that they specialized in writing/English at an academic level? idk what an MFA offers that a willingness to immerse yourself in tradition, a critical eye directed inwards, and a few good friends wouldn't provide.

also in terms of improving one's writing I feel like disconnecting oneself from the internet would probably have a 100x more beneficial effect than an MFA

or maybe you can just pay somebody to follow you around all day and make sure you never use a computer

probably would cost the same as an MFA

I will do it for half the price

as long as I don't have to read anything

a MFA seems like an opportunity to hone your 'craft' to standards proscribed and prescribed by whatever writing community you end up at

yeah this is why its so important to find a program that has a writer or two you admire, but the only way to really make an informed decision on this is to A) find a program with a Famous Writer You Recognize or B) find out if you admire any of the mid-level types in these programs. A) is pretty tough, and the only way to do B) is to dive into planet mfa and subscribe to a bunch of journals and thoroughly enmesh yourself in this whole other world

it's frustrating

Mostly Fucking Around

my cat just farted while it was licking its asshole

a MFA seems like an opportunity to hone your 'craft' to standards proscribed and prescribed by whatever writing community you end up at

yeah this is why its so important to find a program that has a writer or two you admire, but the only way to really make an informed decision on this is to A) find a program with a Famous Writer You Recognize or B) find out if you admire any of the mid-level types in these programs. A) is pretty tough, and the only way to do B) is to dive into planet mfa and subscribe to a bunch of journals and thoroughly enmesh yourself in this whole other world

it's frustrating

― HOOS the master?? STEEN NUFF (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, February 8, 2011 2:09 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is all untrue ime, just do your fucking homework and have emotions and put them somewhere

your post is v oblique to me uh oh i'm having a fantasy

Would it become any clearer if I beat you with this stick?

Shit. I put that stick down just for a moment and now I can't remember where. Perhaps if I were to brandish this finger in a menacing fashion?

Dzogchen Ponlop: Microsoft. That’s a moment. When the hour-glass never stops, that’s the moment. Or when you have worked on a document that’s like twenty pages long and suddenly it has disappeared. That’s like, “pow”, wake up moment. So thanks for Microsoft!

All my hourglasses are made by Microsoft. I am very discriminating that way.

eah this is why its so important to find a program that has a writer or two you admire, but the only way to really make an informed decision on this is to A) find a program with a Famous Writer You Recognize or B) find out if you admire any of the mid-level types in these programs. A) is pretty tough, and the only way to do B) is to dive into planet mfa and subscribe to a bunch of journals and thoroughly enmesh yourself in this whole other world

it's frustrating

― HOOS the master?? STEEN NUFF (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Wednesday, February 9, 2011 6:09 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

this also kind of assumes that said writer is an effective teacher who will show you insights above and beyond what you could get from just reading her work and will be able to impart on you w/e magic she has

just playing devil's advocate here

its a good poitn

hey fyi everybody i have actually earned a degree in spelling and i spell real good when my keybard works

I love the idea of a keybard - a modern day bard whose instrument is not a lyre but a keyboard