Guide to MFA Programs

ABCThe Guide to ProgramsMFA

evised and updated for 2016, this essential guide from the authoritative source provides everything you need to know about applying to the Rbest graduate creative writing programs for you, including advice on preparing your application, tips on becoming a teaching assistant, and how to get the most out of your MFA experience.

1 POETS & WRITERS

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GUIDE to MFA PROGRAMS 18

6 A DISTINGUISHED 30 DEGREE: EIGHT WHY CREATIVE ELEMENTS OF THE WRITING CAN BE UNIQUE MFA LOWDOWN ON TAUGHT PROGRAMS LOW-RESIDENCY By Gregory Spatz By Dana Isokawa PROGRAMS By Erika Dreifus

22 14 34 THE PSYCHOLOGY HOW TO DECIDE OF APPLYING TO MFA LEAVING A CAREER WHERE TO APPLY PROGRAMS TO PURSUE AN MFA By Tom Kealey By Benjamin Hedin By Laura Maylene Walter 52

CONFESSIONS OF A TEACHING ASSISTANT By Kelly K. Ferguson 66

Financial 39 53 GET THE Assistance: MOST OUT OF Beyond YOUR MFA GROWING What Your EXPERIENCE DIVERSITY Program By Gabriel Packard IN GRADUATE Has to Offer SCHOOL By Rochelle Spencer 55 Teaching Assistantship 101 70

LIFE AFTER THE MFA 44 By Dawn Haines 58 IS THE PHD THE NEW MFA? CONFESSIONS 76 By Azita Osanloo OF AN MFA APPLICATION APPLICATION READER By Steve Almond TRACKER

THE AHA! MOMENT By Michael Bourne POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFAPOETS PROGRAMS & WRITERS GUIDE TO CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAMS

learn it, much less how I’d one day teach it; I only knew that I wanted to WHY CREATIVE be in the classroom, and that something about the whole endeavor was electrifying. WRITING CAN BE I’d spent most of my adult life to that point playing and teaching violin for a living. I had some faith TAUGHT that, if I could learn to do that, then I could learn about writing and I BY GREGORY SPATZ could learn to teach it. Musicians and music teachers don’t spend a lot of time questioning whether or not their instruments can be taught. We an creative writing be and humanities. So the question has take it for granted and share what taught? I’ve always hated always seemed to me to promise its worked for us as learners. We invent the question, in part be- own answer: Of course not. Besides, or research new techniques and ap- cause of its passive con- creative writing has no quantifiable proaches as students come to us with Cstruction, which omits both students body of information, its outcomes problems we don’t recognize, and we and teachers. It has always seemed to are difficult to objectively measure, adjust the pace according to the stu- me to imply some abstract learning it involves too much chatter and dent’s abilities and drive. Some of us scenario wherein a generic would- sitting around in bars and coffee are better or worse at this than oth- be writer is acted upon by unnamed houses, and anyway, real artists are ers. Frankly, I don’t think I ever got forces and thereby caused to under- born artists—people whose genius to be very good at it. But when I was stand the obscure codes and for- shouldn’t be corrupted by instruc- teaching music close to full-time, mulas of creative writing. There’s tion. Right? the question was never, Can this actually a name for this approach: Even before I started down the be done? The question was always, Transmission Model Learning, road of becoming a full-time teacher Why are some students so much bet- wherein the teacher transmits in- of creative writing in an MFA pro- ter and faster at learning? Why do formation to a passive student, who gram, before I’d entered a graduate some of them have willpower and memorizes and regurgitates the fiction writing workshop and heard discipline and others don’t? All my material until it is learned. While it the late Frank Conroy’s staple first- students, if they applied themselves, used to be the dominant approach day lecture on Occam’s razor, abject could absolutely improve, but the to teaching, no one really believes naturalism, the meaning-sense-and- ones with discipline and talent, the in Transmission Model Learning clarity pyramid, and a long rant that ones who practiced, could go faster anymore, certainly not in the arts included chalkboard diagrams with and further. stick figures, coal bins, and some- After more than fifteen years of thing reminiscent of broken rain- teaching creative writing full-time, Gregory Spatz is the author of three bows, during which he adamantly I’m pretty sure the question for writ- novels, including Inukshuk, published debunked not Transmission Model ing teachers is, or should be, basi- by Bellevue Literary Press in June Learning but rather Transmission cally the same. It’s not, Can it be 2013, and two story collections, the Model Reading (“It’s a dance! The taught? Of course it can be taught. most recent of which, Half as Happy, reader is not a passive blank slate, Anyone who’s sat in an effective was published from Engine Books in reading-and-writing is always a workshop can tell you that. The January 2013. He teaches in the MFA collaborative endeavor!”), I knew question is, Why does it work when program at Eastern Washington writing was something I wanted to it works? When it works especially University. do—and that I could be taught how well, what’s happening? to do it better. I didn’t know how I’d In order to answer, we have to

PW.ORG 6 make the original question active ate and articulate about what they’re because of limited financial aid and by returning to its true subject and reading, the and director already have aof story the that African competition with other writing pro- object—student and teacher. pulls you all the way through? Which grams, we do have to guess; we have ‘Americanones seem to have Resource an earnest desire Center to decide, at Howard in advance, who Univer looks to us- very year my colleague to learn, or some life experiences that like the learner most likely to succeed, Sam Ligon and I admit sity,might makeworries for really good material, and who causes us concern. Generally, eight to ten new MFA even if they don’t have the writing we expect that all students we admit, graduate students to thatchops to creative pull it off at present? writing We puz programs- if they apply are themselves now in to thedan work- Ethe fiction-writing track at Eastern zle over mysteries like the application earnestly and don’t resist learning, will Washington University. We review gerfile that of contains losing an utterly some bland of per their- improve. faculty We expect diversity. that, and we also application files from across the sonal statement paired with an arrest- expect surprises—students who don’t country all winter and try to under- ing writing sample, or the brilliantly develop according to the promise we stand, based on a twenty-five-page clever and intelligent personal state- saw in their application and those who writing sample, academic records, ment matched with straight-across exceed all expectations. and a one- to two-page personal perfect GRE scores and a garbled, bor- The most interesting and informa‘ - statement, which students show ing writing sample that never gets off tive surprises, year after year, come the most promise. Which ones are the ground. In all this we’re looking from those students who we let in hungry, and demonstrate a mature for one thing, and it’s unknowable and based more on a hunch than a strong relationship to or understanding of we know that it’s unknowable: Who conviction (and sometimes with real their work in its current state? Which here is teachable, and why? Every year worries), and who, by becoming as- ones can write gorgeous sentences we guess about this and get it some- tonishingly good, full-fledged writers already? Which ones are passion- what right and somewhat wrong. But by the end of their two years, show

7 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS

us not just that creative writing is learnable, but also exactly what the learning looks like when it happens, and why it’s worthwhile. In 2001 we admitted Shann Ray on such a hunch. He was not a front- runner, or even in the middle of the pack; he was the last student we admitted. Aside from the fact that he was local and therefore willing to enroll on short notice, what stood out to me in his application was the fact that he’d been a star basketball player for Montana State and for Pepperdine University and had even played pro ball in Germany, but he’d more or less walked away from a career in the sport (though he did continue playing for a faith-based organization for some years). Also Shann Ray (left) and Gregory Spatz at Eastern Washington University. notable to me was that he had a PhD in psychology, and had worked for and Bible passages, he seemed to be in With his rigorous background in years as a clinical psychologist be- love with gigantic, lyrically looping psychology, theology, philosophy, fore taking a full-time teaching job and garbled metaphors to describe a and ethics, Ray always asked us, at Gonzaga University in something landscape, which all but devoured his “How can you write anything with- called Leadership Studies, and later characters and which I guessed would out moral purpose? Why would you Forgiveness Studies. I don’t watch fog his vision and prevent him from want to write without a moral pur- basketball, much less play it, and I finding his own voice and essential pose, and who are the great moral am about as unreligious as anyone subject matter for a long, long time. fiction writers of today?” I was sur- you’ll ever meet. So the particulars He also incorporated a lot of heavy- prised that though he was a vora- of Ray’s achievements didn’t mean handed, message-driven, didactic cious reader of academic texts and a lot to me, but they suggested a re- Christian themes that deadened the premodern poetry, he’d read very cord of discipline and hard work. My work at every level, and alienated me little fiction at all, and possibly no colleague at the time, John Keeble, as a reader (and the rest of the class contemporary fiction whatsoever. himself a minister’s son, and I talked as well). In my experience, these were For starters I assigned lots of Andre about this at some length and agreed red-flag writing problems that I ex- Dubus, Flannery O’Connor, and that though Ray’s writing sample pected would be really hard to work Marilynne Robinson. was troublingly weak, he at least around, and that I knew would seri- I remember during one class going seemed likely to be agreeable and ously challenge my own reflexes as a off on a too-long diatribe about the hardworking. We took a chance and reader-critic. We had so little com- power of metaphor to transform a let him in. mon ground, and I didn’t have a lot reader’s experience of the world: how That year, in my fall workshop of hope that I’d be able to show him a writer needs to learn to use that I tried very hard not to regret the the way. The stories were exhaust- power with discretion and purpose decision. The stories Ray presented ing, and Ray’s persistent questioning because nothing else we have at our for workshop exhibited two glaring of our feedback, mine and the class’s, disposal, at the line level, will quite problems that I assumed he’d hang sounded then more like resistance or so vividly illuminate the world for on to with all his might. Probably in refusal to hear than genuine curiosity the reader as a really great metaphor,

imitation of some of his favorite poets or requests for clariﬁcation. which simultaneously functions to re- young kwak/pacific northwest inlander

PW.ORG 8 veal the author’s unique vision—the to Keeble about the low grade he writing workshops at the University writer’s imagination’s “ﬁngerprint,” received and asking if it was due to of Arizona, the University of New if you will. This wasn’t something I’d a lack of effort. “No,” Keeble an- Hampshire, and the Iowa Writers’ ever articulated for myself until Ray swered. “It was the writing.” The Workshop, and I was married to a pushed me for the explanation. I also next quarter I heard from another of poet while she was enrolled in work- remember talking a lot about message my colleagues, who asked somewhat shops at Brown University and the and meaning—the whole class talked angrily if Keeble and I hadn’t made University of California in Davis. to Ray about this, often—trying to a mistake letting Ray into the pro- I’ve seen, heard, and absorbed a lot of describe for him how readers who feel gram. “What were we thinking?” she information through the workshop corralled into a predetermined point demanded. I gave her my reasons and culture and can safely say that for or moral at the close of a story will told her we just needed to be patient. one thing, no two writing workshop feel manipulated and disrespected, And then I tried to forget about it. classes are the same. No teacher runs their imaginations beaten down, as At that point I suspected he’d never a workshop in quite the same way as if they are being asked to believe in a ﬁnish the program. another, and no program or work- one-dimensional reality. shop has ever managed to codify an What Ray took from any of these side from having taught approach to creative writing that craft lessons I don’t know. I do know at Memphis State, would achieve aesthetic uniformity, that delivering them crystallized Eastern Washington or any kind of uniform outcome, pe- some things for me. University, the Bread- riod—nor does any program I know Ray’s next class was with Keeble. Aloaf Writers’ Conference, and the of seem to have that as a goal. In fact, At the end of that quarter, Ray told Squaw Valley Community of Writ- the only generalization I ever felt I me, he remembered going to talk ers, I’ve also participated in creative could comfortably make, as a stu-

place your voice mfa in creative writing

Tracks in creative nonfi ction, fi ction, poetry, and writing for children & adolescents • An emphasis on nature, environmental, and travel writing encourages student to explore the world as part of their studies. Recent fi eld seminars visited Costa Rica, India, Turkey, Vietnam, Iceland, and South Africa. • Opportunities to concentrate in travel writing, food writing, nature writing, publishing, or teaching. • Choose between a full-residency or low-residency curriculum, with the ability to move easily between the options. • Gain experience working on The Fourth River literary journal, and teach creative writing in jails, prisons, and rehab centers in the Words Without Walls program. chatham.edu/mfa • Recognized as one of “Five Innovative/Unique Programs” by The Atlantic Monthly 800-837-1290 and one of “Nine Distinctive Programs” by Poets & Writers.

9 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS

dent of creative writing, was that my Because I want students to write y the time Ray showed teachers disagreed about everything their own stories according to their up to work with me one- and that trying to find any kind of own most strongly held convictions, on-one on his thesis proj- consensus in their feedback on my I also tell them that the only hard- ect, he’d already made work would have made me crazy. I and-fast rule in writing that I know Bsignificant strides as a writer. The had to learn to follow my gut and of is this: The student who figures work was no longer as clouded with go with the advice that made sense. out what is most loved, what is ab- overwrought descriptive language. This is what I share with my stu- solutely essential for that student to The descriptions were still very dents at the start of every workshop write about before the time runs dense, sometimes too dense, but class. I caution them that no story out, and who figures out how to get he’d learned to couple that density has ever been written by commit- started on that, is the one who will with real physical urgency in the tee or by consensus. A workshop’s have a breakthrough and write some- story action to always keep things goal is not to write your story, or thing with lasting power. This is not moving and purposeful, no matter tell you how to write your story; its something I can tell students how to how heavy the language became. aim is to give you feedback on what do or find access to in themselves; He did still tend to ram his black- you’ve already written—to point out the process is too individualized. I and-white, good-versus-evil themes where it succeeds and soars, what it can only describe it by responding and messages through a little too seems to want to be about, where it to the words on the page when I see hard, but I could see that by peel- might be improved, where it’s too it happening. ing back the language he had found slow or too rushed, and to give line- I also tell students that, aside the subject matter that was most es- edits and suggestions for revision. A from the many craft tips and point- sential to him and about which he workshop can only respond closely ers they will pick up from me in felt a genuine urgency to write: bas- and candidly to what’s on the page. class, from one another, from as- ketball, life on and off the res and I tell students that if at the end of signed reading, from visiting writ- along the Montana Highline, hard the day 5 percent of that feedback ers, from other faculty, or from living, true love, violent family life, is actually applicable to the story up other classmates over drinks after and alcoholism, and through all of for discussion, then that was a good class, the single most valuable thing this an insistent pursuit of, or long- workshop. The other 95 percent? It they can hope to walk away from ing for, some kind of spiritual light- goes into your hard wiring to inform the MFA workshop experience with ness, purity, and transcendence. I future stories, maybe—it gives you is a handful of lifelong faithful no longer felt that the stories were walls to reach out and touch later readers: two or three people with intended to persuade me to share his as you make your way through the a shared vocabulary for stories, moral perspective; instead the sto- dark. I advise participants against who will always be willing to trade ries felt inspired and illuminated by being prescriptive in their feedback, drafts of new work no matter what a moral vision that was essential to and ask that all participants lay aside else is going on in their lives and him and thus to his characters, and their own aesthetic preferences as who will know how to get inside which consequently I couldn’t help much as possible when reading one that work to give prompt, construc- but admire and feel moved by. When another’s work. I want their revision tive criticism that makes sense, long I asked him what had happened, he suggestions to work with a story’s after the MFA work is done. said simply, “I paid attention. A lot of best interests rather than against The culture of the MFA program it was talking to other students after them. My role as a teacher, as far is itself one of the strongest compo- class at the bar, going over stuff from as all this goes, is also to widen my nents of the learning experience—the class. I listened. And I realized I had critical lens in order to understand dialogue that carries on in class, after to work a whole, whole lot harder.” each story on its own terms, regard- class, at parties, in coffee shops—and During our time together we dis- less of how foreign the story feels— if students can find two or three read- cussed many or most of the stories and to use examples from each story, ers to keep that culture alive in their that later comprised his hugely suc- as appropriate, for general craft tips post-MFA life, they will have gotten cessful, prizewinning debut collec- and pointers. more than their money’s worth. tion, American Masculine, which was

PW.ORG 10

POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS

published in 2011 by Graywolf Press blown revisions of each story address- best thing I could do for him would (his novel, American Copper, is forth- ing everything we’d gone over, within be to get out of the way. Not long coming from Unbridled Books this weeks of talking to him. after, he brought me another excel- fall). Not many first books of stories Despite our notable cultural and lent story, “Mrs. Secrest.” It was all have done as well in recent years. aesthetic differences, it became ap- there, but had no ending, or had the That Ray managed to write most of parent that my responses to Ray’s wrong ending. He later reminded me that book during his MFA years with work were valuable for him precisely that my advice was to pay attention us is probably the most astonishing because of those differences; my re- to the characters to find the ending. thing I’ve ever witnessed in my years sponses could show him how to re- Something like, “It’s perfect right up of teaching and stands as a model for envision, reshape, and recalibrate his to here. Now you need an ending. So successful and effective teaching prose and his more message-heavy just write the ending and don’t fuck it and learning. Could he have done as leanings so as not to exclude a reader up, because that’s about all you could well alone? I have real doubts, but of like me. As it turned out, just by tun- do to wreck the story at this point.” course it’s possible. I am certain that ing in to the work and being honest I don’t remember saying that, but I progress of any kind would have re- and thorough in my own responses don’t doubt that I did. quired that someone read and respond to it, modeling all the advice I always critically to his work. I’m also sure give in workshop, I in fact became an bviously, writing isn’t that without something analogous to “ideal reader” for Ray. I also learned for everyone. I’m fully the structure and intensity of atten- to expect our sessions to end with a confident, though, that tion he received from our program, lot of tough questions about my own if MFA students want the process would have taken him writing—what was I working on, Oto learn, and if the environment is many years longer. what problems was I facing, how was right, if they’re willing to work, tear I learned to expect Ray to show up I integrating the writing work with down all defenses and hear the hard- for our thesis meetings with a legal family and everything else going est news about their stories, they can pad full of questions about whatever on in my life. This seemed to mat- and will grow as students at an as- story of his we were discussing, and ter a lot to him, which was unusual. tonishing rate. All writers, students I learned to expect that he would He’d share, in kind, some of his own as well as nonstudents, can become so ask every single one of those ques- struggles to carve out writing time overfocused on their own words that tions, all the while methodically and and to keep it balanced with a full- they cease having any useful perspec- patiently taking notes, flipping back time teaching job and a busy fam- tive on them, making it difficult to and forth between his notes and ily life. In one conversation it came understand how those words might questions. The first round of ques- out that he was rarely sleeping more register with anyone else. All of us tions would be followed up with a sec- than a few hours a night. need to be read. By providing good, ond, as he dug ever more persistently Ray’s stories got better and better. candid readers, the workshop process into the most sensitive and uncom- He had some solid bites from good breaks open students’ hyperfocus on fortable problems his stories faced. literary quarterlies, and soon a few their own words. That, by itself, can Rather than resisting or defending acceptances. When he brought in a cause real shock and discomfort, but the material if I suggested some- draft of the story “When We Rise,” I generally it moves them forward. And thing radical—or defined for him knew he’d really broken through to a though moving forward and break- how certain story elements failed or new level and come into his own as a ing hyperfocus can make for difficult, alienated me as a reader—Ray asked writer, and that my role as teacher was clarifying shake-ups in each student’s more questions to understand bet- just about done. I remember feeling private writing-musing process, it’s ter why I’d had these responses. He something as I read the story’s first not that part of it—the writer alone had a dispassionate, clinical curiosity sentence, a kind of pleasure and awe with the page—that I try to teach. about this. “Tell me just a little more as the sentences continued to build Unlike teaching violin, where I could about that, if you would—what you and build without a misstep. As a physically manipulate a student into mean when you say…” was a familiar teacher, there is really no more plea- a better bow grip or left-hand posi- refrain. I also learned to expect full- surable moment than this. I knew the tion, and could assign exercises that

PW.ORG 12 would strengthen good technique or Why write at all? The MFA program, discipline and the breadth of his in- specifically address technical weak- with its imposed workshop and thesis terests. And though there were times nesses, there’s no hands-on way to completion deadlines, can facilitate while teaching him that I wanted to manipulate a writer at a desk. It’s a accelerated artistic development by say, “My God, this is impossible, it’s private process. Its “mechanical” as- temporarily removing that existential too hard, writing is not like playing pects are emotional, intellectual, and block. You write in order not to let basketball,” in the end I learned that interior. down your workshop peers, who are it kind of is like basketball, at least The real mystery for me is what expecting a story by next week, or in for Ray. He learned from our pro- happens to students after they re- order to finish that presentation—in gram and grew at a phenomenal pace ceive their degree. All too often I’ve order to finish the degree. I warn stu- as a writer, but in the end the real seen people leave our program with dents about life after the MFA. We cause for his success is somewhere a handful of unique, published, or talk about it and strategize. I encour- else, off the page, in him. I can’t say publishable stories, a head of steam age them to form a long-term net- what it is and would never claim the to write more, and then…nothing. work of friends and readers and stress ability to define it or the credit for The disjunction may be explained over and over how important this will having taught it to him; I can only by another silent but profound ben- become in the years ahead. guess that whatever it is probably efit of participating in the MFA cul- All of which gets me back to why looks a lot like the same set of char- ture: the provided structure of study I argued to admit Shann Ray in the acter traits that drove him to be such and the pressure of deadlines. As first place—something I saw in his an uncannily good ballplayer. I’d long as a student is enrolled in MFA admission material which was be- describe those as dedication, desire, classes she never has to ask the re- yond or behind the page and which drive, and discipline. He might have ally hard question, which is, Why? gave me hope for him: the record of other words for it.

13 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO CREATIVEMFA PROGRAMS WRITING PROGRAMS

first you must decide if pursuing an MFA is actually the right path for you HOW TO DECIDE as a writer. Consider this: The best way to improve your writing is to read and write a lot, then read and write a WHERE TO APPLY lot more. At some point, it’s very helpful to get feedback from other writers BY TOM KEALEY about your work. (And then, you read and write even more.) An MFA program is one way to carve out the time necessary to make these things hap- riting sample, lacking in the most basic guidelines, pen, in a structured environment with GRE scores, let- such as academic requirements and a community of like-minded people; ters of recommen- the necessary application materials; it’s a means of prioritizing writing in dation, personal and devoid of information about stu- your life. If you can do this on your Wstatement, undergraduate transcript. dent funding and acceptance rates. own, then perhaps an MFA program is These are the essential elements for There are ways to get the infor- not the right approach for you. On the most creative writing MFA applica- mation you need, but first you must other hand, if you feel that being part tions, and they become both the establish what that information is— of a writing community and working pleasure and the burden of poten- which criteria you should consider toward externally imposed deadlines tial graduate writing students each when deciding where to apply. would be helpful, then an MFA pro- October through January. And that’s The master of fine arts degree in gram might be a good choice. Per- just the application. The actual deci- creative writing is generally a two- sonally speaking, pursuing an MFA sion about which schools to apply to can to three-year program consisting of (at the University of Massachusetts in be even more complicated. But we writing workshops, literature classes, Amherst) was helpful to me in many belong to the information age now— and the completion of a book-length ways; most important, it helped me shouldn’t the web and the rest of digi- creative work. Genres include fiction, learn the discipline of actually getting tal media make this process easier? poetry, creative nonfiction, and to a the writing done. And there’s a lot to be They should. And in some cases lesser extent, screenwriting, playwrit- said for that. they do. Unfortunately, too many ing, and new-media writing. There are When considering schools to MFA program websites don’t offer more than two hundred full-residency apply to, many students ask, “Well, much help to potential students. MFA programs in the United States, which ones are the best?” While a Some are difficult to navigate; sorely plus nearly two hundred additional valid question, what you should really schools that offer PhDs or MA de- focus on is which program is the best grees with a creative writing emphasis. for you. And before determining this, Tom Kealey is the author of The Like most degrees, the MFA is let’s lay down a few ground rules. Creative Writing MFA Handbook: usually a residency program—the First of all, you should apply to A Guide for Prospective Graduate student attends classes on campus. between eight and twelve programs. Students (Continuum International But there is also the increasingly Why? Simple: It will increase your Publishing Group, 2005) and Thieves popular low-residency option, where chances of actually being accepted. I’ve Known (University of Georgia students meet twice a year for group The median acceptance rate for pro- Press, 2013). His work has appeared in conferences (of varying lengths, de- grams with known admission data StoryQuarterly, Glimmer Train Stories, pending on the program) and spend (94 of 151 programs release this data) The Best American NonRequired Reading the rest of their time working one- is below 6 percent. 2004, and Alaska Quarterly Review. He on-one via e-mail or online forums Keep in mind that your applica- teaches creative writing at Stanford with a writing teacher. tion’s acceptance or rejection will University. Before deciding between a resi- depend largely on your writing dency and low-residency program, sample—the prose or poetry that

PW.ORGPW.ORG 14 you include in your application. If to live? Do you need to live near the the committee members like your mountains, an ocean, or a city? Do writing, you’re likely to get in. If you need a coffee shop or a record they don’t, well, you’re sunk. Also, store nearby? I don’t mean this in the review of applications is a sub- jest. Yes, you’ll be taking classes and jective process. You can’t predict becoming part of a community. But who will be reading your work and you’ll also be working alone, writing. what mood they’ll be in. More than Give some thought to the kind of en- ten years ago I applied to five pro- vironment that will help you to write. grams, and when I was rejected by Another important thing to con- the first three and wait-listed by a sider is the cost of tuition and the fourth, I wished I’d applied to more. funding opportunities each program Do yourself a favor: Be smarter than offers. Columbia University is con- I was and give yourself more options. sidered to have one of the best creative writing programs in the country. ow do you narrow the And if you attend you’ll spend about list of where to apply fifty thousand dollars a year, plus the from over two hun- expense of living in New York City, dred possibilities to with almost no chance of funding Habout a dozen? One would think you from the university. If money isn’t should aim for programs where the an issue for you, Columbia may be a best writers are teaching. While this good choice. For the rest of us: Seek should A be separate a consideration, poll it shouldn’t out programs that have low tuition or ‘necessarily be the first. Just because offer student funding. You’ll be living ofyour more favorite writerthan is 250on the faculty as a writer: Learn to live within your of a particular program doesn’t mean means. And if you can help it, don’t MFAthat he’s aapplicants, good teacher, or evenconducted that go into deep debt. he’ll be available to teach. Professors You should also consider whether intake 2009, sabbaticals; revealed theirs is a nomadicthat you’re interested in teaching, and if profession. You could choose a pro- so, do you want to teach while you’re fundinggram based on is the far likelihood and ofaway work- thein graduate school? In most cases, mosting with one particular teacher, only teaching assistantships are the pri- to have him leave for another school. mary means of funding. significantPlus, some professors factor with morein applica es- Something- else to keep in mind is tablished literary careers teach fewer program size. Some programs accept tionclasses. and And besides,matriculation you’d have to five students in a particular genre; decide which of the many teacher- others accept up to thirty. If you apply decisions.writers you admire the most. If there to ten programs that accept only five are, say, three writers in your chosen students each, then you’re shooting genre at each program you’re con- for one of fifty available slots. Choose sidering, can you read all their books a mix of program sizes instead, and before you have to make your final bump up that number to eighty or decision? more. In addition, you might prefer a Probably not. ‘ large program because of its diversity So what other criteria should you or for social reasons, or a smaller one start with? Location is one. Where for the greater attention you’ll receive do you want to live? And maybe just from professors. My advice is to apply as important, where could you stand to programs in a range of sizes, then

15 POETSPOETS && WRITERSWRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS

factor in your preference when mak- /content/mfa_nation_2016_a_com- then contact the program office ing your final choice. pendium_of_graduate_programs and ask. Most sites will mention Now you’ve gotGROWING your criteria for _in_creative_writing) DIVERSITY and has an not only the maximum IN number of coming up with a list of possibili- online MFA database (www.pw.org students but also other characteris- ties, but how do you research the /mfa), which also includes informa- ticsBY of ROCHELLE the program, suchSPENCER as whether GRADUATEdetails? To find programs by their tion SCHOOL about PhD and MA programs, it publishes a literary magazine, location, there are several sources as well as programs in other English- funds a visiting reading series, or you can reference: Mine, The Cre- speaking countries. offers classes in bookmaking or de- ative Writing MFA Handbook, is one. Once you’ve put together a list of sign. Make note of these additional The Association of Writers & Writ- programs based on where you want benefits, as they may help you nar- ing Programs hosts the AWP Of- to live, visit each program’s web- row your list later. ficial Guide to Writing Programs site and look for information about So you’ve got your list whittled (guide.awpwriter.org), an online funding. If it’s not there, find the down to a manageable number of database, which compiles under- name of the creative writing pro- twenty or fewer; it’s time to fill in graduate and postgraduate creative gram manager, coordinator, or ad- the gaps in your research. Revisit the writing programs by state and con- ministrator on the Contact Us page websites of your twenty programs, centrationRochelle ofSpencer study. received Poets & an Writers, MFA and send an e-mail or place a call. this time taking note of the faculty Inc.,from just New published York University. a free PDF, AnMFA She should be able to answer your in your chosen genre. Take a trip to Nationinstructor 2016 at, which LaGuardia includes Community detailed questions about funding. The same your local library and start research- informationCollege, she (including is currently tuition writing and a goes for getting information about ing those professors’ books. funding)novel. for more than 170 full- and whether teaching assistantships are One note about low-residency pro- low-residency programs (www.pw.org offered: If it’s not available online, grams: Location will obviously not be

PW.ORG 16 as important a criterion for students tion is to search online for message and join the discussion yourself. in these programs. And since fund- boards the and director blogs about of the the MFA AfricanPerhaps the most important aspect ing and student teaching are rare application process. I contribute of participating in such forums is that (though not completely absent), those ‘Americanto one (creative-writing-mfa-hand Resource Centeryou’ll at meet Howard many other Univer people who- criteria won’t count as much either. book.blogspot.com) that answers are going through the same process. That leaves you with professors and sity,questions, worries links to articles and You’ll share information, commiser- program size as the principal bases other helpful sites, and provides a ate, and maybe make a friend or two. for your decision, and those aren’t thatforum creativefor students writingwho are going programs This will allare be criticalnow asin you dan polish- enough in my opinion. Make a list through the MFA application pro- your writing sample, ask for those of questions that you’d like answered gercess. Mostof losing of the best some answers of totheir letters faculty of recommendation, diversity. and draft about each program. Generally speak- prospective students’ questions are your personal statement. ing, because low-residency programs provided by the many current stu- Start early, do your homework, work, to some extent, through the use dents who visit the comments sec- and use the criteria that are most of online media, the program websites tion. Poets & Writers, Inc., hosts the important to you. Then make your should answer many of your ques- Speakeasy Message Forum (www decisions, and don’t look back.‘ tions. For those that aren’t addressed, .pw.org/speakeasy), which includes a contact the coordinators of programs discussion board on MFAs. After you you’re interested in and ask to be put in create a user name and log in, you PW.ORG/MFA touch with the program director and/ can read all sorts of past and pres- Search our MFA database, which or current students, who should be ent chats about program particulars, includes detailed information about able to provide the answers you need. including funding, atmosphere, and application deadlines, program size, Another way to get inside informa- more. Plus, you can add questions core faculty, and more.

17 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAMS

gram maintains an alliance of local outreach groups willing to work A DISTINGUISHED with students, including a circus and theater troupe, a farm alliance, and DEGREE: a feminist collective. MULTIGENRE DEGREES While the majority of programs EIGHT ELEMENTS OF grant separate degrees in two or three genres, Pittsburgh’s Chatham University (www.chatham.edu UNIQUE MFA PROGRAMS /mfa)—which runs both a full- and low-residency program—offers a BY DANA ISOKAWA dual-genre degree, as well as additional concentrations in travel writing, food writing, and nature and environmental writing. Students hen the first gradu- .edu/academics/mfa-creative-writ- who concentrate in travel writing ate creative writing ing) in Los Angeles focuses on so- enroll in a program-subsidized field program was estab- cial justice and on developing both seminar; recent seminars have been lished in 1936—the the craft and social consciousness held in Vietnam, Iceland, Turkey, Wrenowned Iowa Writers’ Work- of its students. Under the guidance Ecuador, Brazil, and Costa Rica. shop—the recipe was straightfor- of the core faculty, all students are At Western Washington Uni- ward: small, focused workshops and required to design and complete a versity’s full-residency program literature seminars in poetry and fic- field study in their local commu- (chss.wwu.edu/english/department tion. Nearly eighty years later, more nity, whether it be volunteering -english-mfa-creative-writing) in than two hundred full- and low-res- once a week to help teach creative Bellingham, all students are required idency MFA programs populate the writing to pregnant teens and teen to study at least two genres. A ma- literary landscape and offer a diverse parents, teaching writing to inmates jority of the core faculty specializes array of opportunities, genres, and at a prison, or managing and writing in both a single genre and in hybrid pedagogical approaches. Schools a publicity campaign in Atlanta for forms—their combined publication now afford students the chance to jazz musicians displaced after Hur- record runs the gamut from lyrical try on the many hats of a writer— ricane Katrina. short fiction to prose poems to col- researcher, editor, teacher, activist, In New York City, the recently laborative short fiction. curator—and study in environments established full-residency program increasingly tailored to their aes- at the Pratt Institute (www.pratt GENRE BENDING thetic concerns and interests. The .edu/academics/liberal-arts-and Not all programs stick to strict genre following are unique elements that -sciences/graduate-writing) encour- distinctions, but instead encour- help a handful of MFA programs ages students to probe the cultural age—or even require—students to stand out in a crowded field. and political dimensions of writing. blur the lines. The full-residency Pratt’s curriculum includes semi- program at Brown University (www SOCIAL JUSTICE nars that cover writing and social .brown.edu/academics/literary- The low-residency program at An- practice, ecology and poetics, queer arts /graduate-program/graduate- tioch University (www.antiochla rhetoric and writing, and feminist program) in Providence, Rhode writing traditions. Furthermore, Island, is one such example, with Dana Isokawa is the assistant editor of second-year students conduct a both a cross-disciplinary track and Poets & Writers Magazine. yearlong fieldwork residency with a a digital language-arts track in ad- community organization; the pro- dition to its more traditional fare of

PW.ORG 18 poetry and fiction. Cross-disciplinary students pair writing with music, visual art, or performance art, while SCHOOLS NOW AFFORD STUDENTS digital language arts students draw on modern technologies such as THE CHANCE TO TRY ON THE MANY computer graphics, animation, elec- HATS OF A WRITER—RESEARCHER, tronic music, sound art, and virtual environments. EDITOR, TEACHER, ACTIVIST, With an illustrious past as the brainchild of poets Allen Ginsberg CURATOR. and Anne Waldman, the Jack Ker- ouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University (www.naropa .edu/academics/graduate-academics bilingual MFA in the United States. or literary journal from start to fin- /writing-and-poetics-mfa) in Boul- All course work is conducted in both ish. Students learn both the business der, Colorado, continues to push English and Spanish: Class discus- management and marketing sides of against convention with an open- sions, workshop critiques, and writ- publishing. genre curriculum and its champi- ing move fluidly between the two oning of radical, experimental work. languages. While not all students INTERNATIONAL With both a low- and full-residency enter the full-residency program EMPHASIS track, the program requires students bilingual, the program reports that Students at the full-res program to take interdisciplinary seminars many emerge fluent in both lan- housed at the University of Nevada and classes in poetics, urging stu- guages. in Las Vegas (english.unlv.edu/mfa) dents to investigate, as faculty mem- all spend at least one semester abroad ber Bhanu Kapil describes it, “the EDITORIAL TRAINING in a non-English-speaking country, borderland spaces of genre.” At most MFA programs, students either on independent study or en- can sharpen their editorial chops by rolled at a university. The program CULTURAL LENS working on a literary journal—but adheres to the belief that great writ- While open to writers of all back- at the University of Baltimore’s full- ing goes beyond self-expression, and grounds, the low-res program at the residency program (www.ubalt.edu instead comes from a larger under- Institute of American Indian Arts /creativewriting), students receive a standing of the world. Students also (www.iaia.edu/academics/mfa-in more extended apprenticeship in the have the option of completing their -creative-writing) in Santa Fe, New art of publishing. Students not only MFA while serving in the Peace Mexico, is dedicated to advancing write a thesis, but they also design, Corps. Native American arts and cultures. print, and produce the thesis as a Sixty percent of the faculty members finished book. Courses are offered ENVIRONMENTAL FOCUS are Native American or First Nations in design and type, book arts, and The full-res program at Iowa State authors, including Sherman Alexie, print and digital publishing. University (www.engl.iastate.edu/ Sherwin Bitsui, and Natalie Diaz. In At the University of North Car- creative-writing/mfa-program-in- consultation with faculty mentors, olina in Wilmington (uncw.edu creative-writing-and-environment) students compile individual reading /writers/mfa), students of the full- in Ames adopts a more environmen- lists where at least 25 percent of the residency program can intern, study, tal perspective on the MFA, send- books must be by Native American and work at the university’s fifteen- ing its students out—sometimes or First Nations writers. year-old Publishing Laboratory. At literally—into the field. As part of Situated on the Mexican-Ameri- the so-called Pub Lab, located in the program’s thesis requirement, can border, the University of Texas its own separate space with built- all students complete up to ninety in El Paso (www.utep.edu/cw) is out publishing equipment, students hours of fieldwork with an organiza- shaking things up with the first fully learn the ropes of publishing a book tion devoted to the environment. In

19 POETS & WRITERS THINKING ABOUT AN MFA? POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAMS READY TO GO FROM INSPIRATION TO PUBLICATION?

the past, students have traveled as far wilderness retreat in the forests and dency program at Queens College as Spain to research medicinal plants lands surrounding the La Grande in New York (english.qc.cuny.edu and Zimbabwe to collect data about campus. All students also carry /graduate-programs/mfa-in-cre- BE A BRILLIANT WRITER farmworkers. To complete their out a service-learning project, and ative-writing), which also offers an degree, students also take several study the history of nature writing, advanced certiﬁcate in English lan- environmental courses outside the from Native American narratives to guage teaching and hosts the Trends English department. Lewis and Clark’s work to the clas- in Translation event series; and the In the mountainous Pacific sics of American Transcendental- full- and low-residency programs at Northwest, Eastern Oregon ism. the University of British Columbia University (www.eou.edu/mfa in Vancouver (creativewriting.ubc. /wilderness-writing-concentra- TRANSLATION DEGREES ca). The full-residency program at tion-overview) in La Grande brings A select few programs offer full de- the University of Texas Rio Grande ecological concerns to the fore with grees in translation, including the Valley (portal.utpa.edu/utpa_main the Wilderness Writing track of its nearly ﬁfty-year-old full-residency /daa_home/coah_home/english low-residency MFA program, which program at the University of Ar- _home/english_grad/grad_mfa) in was established just last year. The kansas in Fayetteville (fulbright Edinburg and Brownsville offers a program advocates for writing that .uark.edu/departments/english degree in translation between Span- not only celebrates nature, but also /graduate/mfa-in-creative-writing) ish and English, and Madison, New considers issues of urbanization, where students emerge with reading Jersey’s Fairleigh Dickinson Univer- sustainability, and public stew- knowledge of two foreign languages sity’s low-residency program (www ardship. During each residency, and experience in both poetry and .writingfdu.org) also confers a trans- students participate in a four-day fiction translation; the full-resi- lation degree.

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21 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFAPOETS PROGRAMS & WRITERS GUIDE TO CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAMS

no more than ten or twelve students. Many schools offer only a THE PSYCHOLOGY handful of spots, making it much harder to get into an MFA program than Harvard Law or the Wharton OF APPLYING TO School of Business. Whereas this past year Harvard Law accepted about 16 percent of its applicants, MFA PROGR AMS it is not uncommon for Syracuse to receive more than five hundred BY BENJAMIN HEDIN applications in fiction for just five available spots. The University of North Carolina in Greensboro n the spring of 1986 Donald The Mysteries of Pittsburgh—in a matriculates between 3 and 6 per- Heiney, a writer more widely single sitting. “I thought that it was cent of its fiction applicants, the known by his pen name, Mac- a courageous, audacious novel and University of Massachusetts in Donald Harris, sent his agent that I could sell it,” says Evans, who Amherst between 2 and 4 percent. Ia manuscript recently completed by did eventually auction the book for Poets face stiff competition too. one of his graduate students at the an impressive sum while also nego- Every year, for instance, Oregon University of California in Irvine. tiating the movie rights. State University in Corvallis takes He did so without informing the This is an unusual story, one that four out of a hundred and twenty student, who thought he was just has all the dimensions of folklore or or so applicants in poetry; the Iowa turning in the thesis needed to earn archetype. Each fall, though, a nar- Writers’ Workshop takes twenty- his MFA degree in fiction. Heiney’s rative like it beckons scores of aspir- two out of more than four hundred agent passed the novel on to a col- ing poets and writers to apply to MFA poetry applicants. league, Mary Evans, who read the programs. They know their rise may The typical applicant, further- first page and took the manuscript to not be as immediate or as lucrative more, has no idea how the process the top floor of the brownstone that as Chabon’s, but they do expect the works. She submits a sample of her housed the agency. “I wasn’t plan- time spent in a writing program to writing—a collection of poems or ning to read the whole thing,” Evans be meaningful and transformative. short stories or an excerpt from a says. “I was planning to read dur- The dream of the MFA is the dream novel—a personal statement, some ing my lunch hour and then take it of conversion: Enter a wannabe, letters of recommendation, and a col- home. But I literally could not stop.” come out an author, and to today’s lege transcript. Then she waits. The Evans finished the book—which its young writers the degree can seem faculty of a program will spend weeks author, Michael Chabon, had titled compulsory in a way it never did to reading these portfolios and confer- older generations. The story writer encing about them, but at the end of George Saunders, who earned his the day most applicants are convinced Benjamin Hedin has written about MFA from Syracuse University in admission is nothing but a crapshoot. books for a number of publications, New York and now teaches in the With odds like a hundred to one or a including the New Yorker, Slate, the program there, says, “I’ve noted a hundred to six, it’s easy to think ac- Nation, and the Georgia Review. He is gradual professionalization, espe- ceptance or rejection is random and the editor of an anthology, Studio A: cially over the last ten years, a grow- providential. The choice, according The Bob Dylan Reader ( W. W. Norton, ing feeling that, if a person wants to to many applicants’ thinking, is out 2004), and the author of the book In be a writer, an MFA is an absolute, of anyone’s hands; it’s just a roll of Search of the Movement: The Struggle for panic-inducing must.” the dice. Civil Rights Then and Now, published Supply, though, cannot always Could that be true? If you are this past March by City Lights Books. follow demand, since the ideal size applying to MFA programs this for a writing workshop is normally fall, what should you believe once

PW.ORG 22 e-mails and phone calls informing you of your fate start rolling in? the director of the African Can the decision be dismissed as THE DREAM OF THE MFA IS THE having nothing incontrovertible to ‘American Resource Center at Howard Univer- say about your promise as a writer, DREAM OF CONVERSION: ENTER A or is it in fact an accurate assessment sity, worries of ability? The answer, it turns out, WANNABE, COME OUT AN AUTHOR, is both. that creative writing programs are now in dan- AND TO TODAY’S YOUNG WRITERS s daunting as the odds ger of losing some of their faculty diversity. of admission are, the THE DEGREE CAN SEEM COMPULSORY process is also uniquely forgiving. While an ap- IN A WAY IT NEVER DID TO OLDER Aplicant who gets turned away from GENERATIONS. law school or medical school has ‘ little reason to expect the verdict will change from one year to the ters of recommendation say; it doesn’t favored by their undergraduate pro- next, prior rejection from a writing matter what kind of grades you got. fessors. So the question that deter- program doesn’t mean much. After We just don’t look at that. We look mines the outcome is not how good finishing his undergraduate studies at the work.” are you but how good can you be. in 2006, for instance, Matthew Burn- Chang does indeed mean “we.” More specifically, how good can you side, a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ While some schools hire screeners to be after two or three years of focused Workshop, applied to four top fiction narrow the pile down to the top 8 or coaching. “We are not necessarily programs. He was rejected by every 10 percent, usually an incoming class looking for ‘the best’ story,” Saun- one of them. Three years later he ap- is decided entirely by members of a ders says. “We are looking for some plied again, to thirteen schools, but program’s faculty. Nominally, these hint of something very special that with largely the same result: twelve writers all share the same criteria. would make that person fun to work rejections and one spot on a wait They are looking for someone who with. If a story has a great moment list. In the face of all that rejection can craft a deft paragraph or stanza, and then falls apart, that’s okay with Burnside continued to write, and in and whose work displays a genuine me. Better, of course, if it doesn’t— the fall of 2011, he decided to give it curiosity and openness. “Ear and but polish isn’t everything.” another try. This time he received a imagination, ear and imagination,” Poet Mary Jo Salter, the cochair number of acceptances, including a answers the poet Robert Pinsky, who of the MFA program at Johns letter from the Iowa Writers’ Work- teaches at Boston University (BU), Hopkins University in Baltimore, shop, the oldest and, in many writers’ when asked to describe what he is likewise says she is impressed by minds, the most prestigious writing looking for in an applicant. “After “noble failures” since those poems, program in the country. those primary considerations, what even if not formally perfect, sug- Burnside’s reversal was possible does this person know that would be gest an ambition or daring that because the writing sample is the useful to others? What is the gift for will distinguish writers once they only real determinant. The personal helping other writers?” achieve the competencies that cur- statement carries some importance, It sounds straightforward, but it’s rently elude them. but seldom enough to push the choice not. The work, since a beginning, Built into the decision, then, is a one way or the other. Rewrite and re- untested writer probably wrote it, is faith in the foundational premise of vise your stories or poems and your bound to be uneven, with dramatic an MFA program: Creative writing credentials are as good as new. Lan shifts in quality and character. It’s can be taught. Assuming that it can, Samantha Chang, the director of the also bound to be derivative. Some at least in some elementary sense, program at the University of Iowa, applicants mimic their undergradu- then those lapses a workshop is de- says, “It doesn’t matter what your let- ate professors; others mimic books signed to correct should not count

23 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS

against a prospective student. Con- and Milton, but never a deaf one, versely, whatever talents a writer and if applicants hope to receive an has that a program cannot bestow offer from his program they should should be prized. “You can work “know where the period goes.” A with writers’ technical problems,” few years ago, however, Epstein says one teacher at a top program admitted a student who was not in the West who asked to remain a native speaker of English and anonymous, “and sometimes you whose portfolio contained a num- can even work with superficial ber of awkward constructions and problems: You can point out what’s grammatical mistakes. But one of trite and urge them to dig deeper, to her stories, about a man who would try to approach experience in some don a wig and talk in a womanly fresher way. What I look for, and all voice to comfort his infant daugh- you can reasonably expect in most ter after the mother died in child- applicants, is some glimmer of orig- birth, was astonishingly moving. inality or intelligence that suggests “I said, ‘We have to take her,’” you could work with them.” Novelist Epstein recalls, welling up again at Ron Carlson, codirector of the MFA the memory of the piece. “I’m the program at the University of Cali- sentence guy; the sentences were fornia in Irvine, agrees. “Craft is kind of terrible. But depth of soul obtainable,” he says. “But you can’t counts now and then.” teach vision. You can’t teach what a Reading this, you might think writer chooses to write about. You one teacher’s verdict could never can’t teach empathy.” align with another’s, not when the There is no fixed form of origi- decision is factoring in depth of nality or vision, no singular way for soul and other nebulous qualities. a poem to demonstrate those quali- Yet they often do align. When the ties, which means there is no pro- members of a faculty convene after file of the perfect candidate. MFA separately looking through the programs are frequently criticized portfolio of each finalist, several for perpetuating a boilerplate real- teachers told me, there is seldom ist style, so one could be forgiven dispute. “We never have ﬁghts over for thinking teachers are combing whom to admit,” says Saunders. through a manuscript and awarding “It’s very clear who the top ten are, ﬁve points for weighty dialogue here, no debates. There have been years ten for believable epiphany there. In where we all sat down, wrote blind actuality there is no rubric. “When lists—and the resulting lists were I get a really good one,” says Saun- basically identical.” ders about writing samples, “it’s Consensus is found not only just a pleasure response. Like: YES. within a program but also among There’s no reasoning about it.” programs. “There’s quite a lot Leslie Epstein, who has directed of overlap and tugs-of-war,” says the graduate writing program at Deborah Landau, director of New BU since the late 1970s, likes to York University’s MFA program, emphasize the importance of sen- who like other directors is often tences, their orderliness and musi- in the position of enumerating her cality; there have been great blind program’s strengths to an applicant writers, he says, such as Homer who has received several offers. “We

PW.ORG 24 POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS

compete, and I can’t think of any way death knell from a creative writing around it,” Epstein says. “We all program. want the best writers, and it’s kind Ultimately, though, the reason of clear who they are.” the crapshoot metaphor exists is In other words, MFA admis- that it must. If applying to MFA sions, though highly intuitive and programs can be likened to a game unsystematic, are nothing like a at the craps table then it cannot crapshoot. The results seem about also be judged a test of talent—a as predictable as graduate school re- very convenient and necessary il- turns in other fields. “I don’t feel it’s lusion, which helps curb feelings of chancy,” says Carlson, “or I would rivalry and schadenfreude among get a big wheel and spin it and save applicants by encouraging them to myself nine weeks.” Ironically, think they’re all on the same level, those knocking on the doors of that one writer is not necessarily the nation’s MFA programs dis- better than the next. It also curbs seminate the same news themselves. feelings of doubt and insecurity. MFA Draft, the name of a Facebook It is very important to believe the group for applicants, is constantly outcome is based on something lit up with posts like: “My call other than whether one has the from LB2 [Lucie Brock-Broido] on goods or not. Sunday was what I hoped: into Co- Still, if come springtime you’ve lumbia w/ good moneys for poetry. received nothing but rejection let- That makes 9. Does anybody have ters, there’s no sense dismissing the a dart board?” Or: “GOT INTO system by clinging to the hope that MARYLAND!! 3 in less than 24 it’s a random process. As the teacher hours!” Or: “Here in NYC, and I’m at a top program in the West put pretty sure I’m about to accept my it, “Acceptance or rejection by any off from New School, opening up one program doesn’t mean much. If spots at Otis, USF, SFSU, and my you apply to twenty-five, however, father’s basement.” and don’t get a single nibble, then These posts and others like them that means at least twenty-five dif- should disabuse applicants of the ferent readers haven’t found your crapshoot metaphor. All the shar- work worth their serious attention. ing that goes on there would seem Granted, that’s twenty-five subjec- to make the process more transpar- tive judgments. And granted, they’re ent, but often its primary effect is made by people who all work within a redoubling of everyone’s anxiety. the MFA system, which—you might Imagine you’re on the waiting list argue—privileges the conventional at one of the schools named in the plodder over the blazing original ge- last post: What good is learning nius. I don’t believe that’s the case— that a spot will become open? You most teachers I know would kill to still don’t know where you fall on get that blazing original genius in a the list, if you’re rated number one workshop—but let’s assume. You’ve or number five, or when you’ll hear still got a problem, since most of back. All Facebook has done is en- the people out there in the real sure that applicants keep tabs on world—the publishing houses, the their phones all day, wondering if readership—probably have stan- each new chime or flash signals the dards and expectations similar to

PW.ORG 26 POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAMS

those of people in MFA world.” ary value. You can’t predict where ize their full potential. Every year hundreds of writers a young talent will go.” One need Which reminds us of something find themselves in this position, only look back at the case of Mat- obvious yet often overlooked: and what consolation do they have? thew Burnside, or turn to the ju- A writing program, despite its One answer is this: While the ver- venilia of any literary titan, where promissory title, does not make dict is in a sense definitive, it was you might encounter the most slap- a writer. Endurance and tenacity directed at a moving target. The dash and flagrant errors. Read the do that, especially since the con- gestation of a writer is so long and stories written by John Cheever in ditions that govern MFA admis- uneven that rejection should not the 1930s. Would they have gotten sions are not unique. They are be interpreted to mean you lack him into Iowa? the same as those that prevail in the goods; it may simply mean you The judgment of any writer, we the editorial office of a magazine applied before the time was right, know, is provisional, since there is or the aisles of a bookstore where during an early stage perhaps in simply no way to account for the shoppers prowl, looking for their your creative development. “A contortions of taste. Today’s hierar- next beach read. Getting into an writer, especially a young writer, chies will be scrambled tomorrow. MFA program means beating out a can make amazing leaps forward, The judgment of an MFA candidate host of competing claims to show even within a few months,” Saun- is doubly fallible since that judgment that your work is deserving of time ders says. “I think the main thing is a forecast, a glance ahead, and the and attention. If there were a clear I’d want to communicate to our re- wager is often wrong. The flip side path to follow to become a writer, jected applicants is how completely of not being able to predict where a manual or set of instructions, the not diagnostic of literary value the new talent can go is that many who next step would read, “Repeat, and process is, especially future liter- study at the top programs never real- repeat again.”

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Creative Writing at Hollins: Over fifty years of achievement in poetry, Write the next chapter of an epic. fiction, and nonfiction.

Talented faculty. Visiting writers. Writer-in-Residence. Bachelor of Arts with concentration Graduate Assistantships, Teaching Fellowships, or minor in creative writing Where students mature into authors. and Scholarships. www.hollins.edu/jacksoncenter

PW.ORG 28 Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Creative Writing at Hollins: Over fifty years of achievement in poetry, Write the next chapter of an epic. fiction, and nonfiction.

29 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS THE LOWDOWN ON LOW-R ESI DENCY PROGRAMS BY ERIKA DREIFUS

in creative writing

ore than ten years ago After a lengthy search I found a I was in the market for low-residency program, and in May an MFA program. I’d 2003, I earned my degree. But if I Located in downtown Spokane, heard a bit about the were starting this endeavor now, I’d the Inland Northwest Center M“low-residency” model: It originated have a host of options to explore. for Writers is a MFA degree in 1976 when poet Ellen Bryant Voigt Currently there are more than forty program in creative writing – established the ﬁrst such program at low-residency MFA programs up and the rst such MFA program in Goddard College in Vermont. (The running in the United States and the state of Washington – with Goddard program is now directed by Canada. Among the newer programs an international reputation for Paul Selig.) In 1981 Voigt and others are at Pittsburgh’s Carlow University, excellence and over 30 years of planted a new set of low-residency Murray State University in Ken- history and experience. Our faculty roots in Asheville, North Carolina, tucky, Seattle Pacific University, of eight – all practicing writers by establishing a program at Warren the University of British Columbia with numerous and national book publications – are committed, Wilson College. (UBC) in Vancouver, the University passionate and accessible teachers More than twenty years later, of Nebraska in Omaha, and West- of writing. when I was looking into them, low- ern Connecticut State University in residency programs had multiplied at Danbury. campuses across the country. Most low-residency programs take Application deadline: The popularity of these programs, two years to complete and require February 22, 2016 which allow writers to earn a degree students to spend one to two weeks www.ewumfa.com without having to spend much time on campus twice each year during in- living on a particular campus, was tensive residencies ﬁlled with daylong easy to understand. Writers like me workshops, seminars, and readings. who had, in many cases, slipped out In the months between these residen- of our early twenties and had es- cies, students work individually with tablished personal and professional faculty mentors, typically well-pub- commitments, could continue our lished writers, with whom students education without disrupting (too construct reading lists and to whom much) the patterns of our lives. they send their creative work for written feedback on a predetermined schedule. Less frequently, a program Erika Dreifus is the author of Quiet might fill those months with some Americans (Last Light Studio Books, kind of workshop structure main- 2011) and the media editor of Fig tained via e-mail or other Internet Tree Books. Her website is www technology instead. Regardless of .erikadreifus.com. format, by the end of the program,

PW.ORG 30 it is generally expected that a writer charge prospective students (fees can four of these genres, and in ways will have completed a book-length reach above one hundred dollars), it’s subtle but palpable, our writing for creative work as her thesis and, al- worth taking the time to research young people curriculum has both most as often, some substantive criti- them in depth before applying. enlightened other writers to the rig- cal work as well. For many writers, program se- ors of the craft and lightened some If you ask program directors about lection begins with the broadest of the tendency toward brooding the advantages of low-residency of considerations: genre. While and pretension among poets, fiction study, chances are that many will, at some programs offer instruction writers, and nonfiction writers.” some point, cite the flexibility their in several genres, others special- Regardless of which genres differ- programs afford. “Many writing ize. If you want to focus on creative ent programs teach, there are two dis- students simply can’t take two years nonfiction, for example, Warren tinct models of teaching them. “In a from their lives to move across the Wilson isn’t for you; instruction low-residency program, the ‘student- country (or to a new one) and take a there is offered in poetry and fic- working-with-a-mentor’ dynamic full-time writing program,” says An- tion only. “Two years isn’t enough trumps the group workshop,” says drew Gray, the program coordinator time to master either,” says Tur- Lesley’s Cramer. Warren Wilson at UBC. “In some cases, it’s also about chi, “but sustained, concentrated also uses the mentorship model; affordability—staying at home allows study and practice can move a Turchi says that in nearly every people to continue to work while sup- student a good way along the path educational situation, “individual porting their education.” toward mastery.” Indeed, a few low- instruction accelerates a student’s Gray believes another advantage residency programs—the one at progress.” of these programs is that the low- Goucher College in Baltimore, for UBC’s Gray admits that the residency model is more like the example—offer instruction in a mentorship model is “simple and way a working writer actually lives single genre exclusively. (The pro- relatively cheap to do,” and that it than the “artificial” atmosphere of gram at Goucher College is tailored is an effective way to teach writing, a traditional writing program. “As a for writers of creative nonfiction). “mimicking at its best the relation- writer, in the end, you are working Other programs require study in ship between an editor and an au- alone, though connected to a larger more than one genre. At the UBC’s thor.” But it can also be limiting, community,” says Gray. According to program, students must study at least Gray says. “The question we asked Peter Turchi, former director of the three genres over the course of their when we started thinking about the MFA Program for Writers at Warren degree preparation, which generally teaching of writing through distance Wilson College, that practical train- lasts two years, although students education was, ‘If the workshop is ing can have long-lasting effects. may take up to five years to complete so important to regular MFA pro- Low-residency study, Turchi says, the program. Gray believes that grams, how can most low-residency “is designed to require students to writers benefit from experience with programs do without them?’” set aside twenty-five hours a week for different creative forms; students So UBC uses the traditional their writing even as they maintain “are best served by a sort of literary workshop model, the centerpiece their professional and family lives. As ‘cross-training’ in more than one or of any residential program. Here a result, students are more likely to two genres of study.” the Internet proves essential, with continue writing on a regular basis Steven Cramer, director of the workshops designed in conjunction after graduation.” program at Lesley University, finds with UBC’s distance education ex- Despite their similarities, it is genre diversity essential. “Lesley’s perts and the faculty. Students are becoming harder to sift through program is one of the few in which able to submit their work to the and understand all the options writing for young people is honored group electronically; the group that the low-residency model as a genre every bit as seriously as then provides critique and discus- offers as the number of pro- poetry, fiction, and nonfiction sion. Gray notes that some other grams increases. Given the often for adults,” he says. “During the programs also employ similar hefty—and nonrefundable— residencies, students [have the op- technology (such as a Blackboard application fees that these programs portunity to] take seminars in all feature) for online workshops.

31 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS

“What is different for us,” Gray says, “is that we don’t rely on the one-on-one mentorship model for THREE LOW-RESIDENCY MODELS the majority of the work students Low-Residency MFA Program and faculty do together.” in Creative Writing Despite the advantages that Lesley University have made the programs increas- 29 Everett Street ingly popular with students, some Cambridge, MA 02138 challenges are intrinsic to the low- Steven Cramer, Program Director residency experience. “Students in (617) 349-8357 [email protected] low-residency programs need to www.lesley.edu/master-of-fine-arts/ take on the responsibility of setting creative-writing/low-residency time aside for their writing without being physically apart from their Optional-Residency MFA Program work or home environment. This University of British Columbia requires discipline and motivation,” UBC Creative Writing Program says Turchi. Buchanan Room E462 1866 Main Mall Gray agrees that there are chal- Vancouver BC V6T 1Z1 lenges, adding that low-residency Canada study is not for everyone. “The Andrew Gray, Program Coordinator flexibility that is attractive to busy (604) 822-2469 people can also be difficult to handle [email protected] for someone who is not motivated www.creativewriting.ubc.ca/prospec- and has difficulty organizing time. tive-students/graduate/optional-residency-mfa-program If you’re not meeting with a class regularly, having professors breath- MFA Program for Writers ing down your neck for assignments, Warren Wilson College and so on, then the motivation to MFA Program for Writers produce will have to come from you P.O. Box 9000 alone. Not all students are suited to Asheville, NC 28815-9000 Debra Allbery, Program Director this.” (828) 771-3715 The challenges of low-residency [email protected] study are compounded by the life- www.wwcmfa.org styles of the students who are drawn to it. “There’s the problem of life’s interfering,” Gray says. “People who about something more elusive, take low-residency degrees do so for something that might be called reasons that can also conflict with community? Isn’t a sense of com- the work required: Family commit- munity threatened when students ments and work pressures are the in a school’s low-residency program main ones. And there has to be an live hundreds, if not thousands, of understanding of the anticipated miles apart? The answer depends workload by the student. Good on whom you ask. According to communication from the institution Turchi, “people often believe there about this is essential.” might be less of a sense of com- Few would disagree that community among students in a low- munication is important in an residency program, [but that isn’t educational setting, but what the] experience at Warren Wilson,

PW.ORG 32 where students maintain close con- tive MFA student needs to evaluate tact by phone, mail, and e-mail, and these details, taking into account where students, alumni, and faculty each program’s offerings and his IF YOU ASK routinely get together all over the own goals. PROGRAM DIREC- country. For whatever reasons, Warren Wilson helps writers these low-residency students actu- improve their writing, says Turchi. TORS ABOUT THE ally have a stronger sense of commu- “[It’s] not the program to come to nity than those at many residential for students interested primarily in ADVANTAGES OF programs.” teaching writing, editing, etcetera. Cramer says that the on-site pe- That said, [Warren Wilson] does LOW-R ESI DENCY riod of most low-residency programs offer a postgraduate teaching fellow- plays a key role in that community- ship for those who are interested in STUDY, CHANCES building endeavor. During Lesley’s gaining experience teaching creative nine-day residencies, “students and writing. Informally, the faculty de- ARE THAT MANY faculty need to join forces very votes a great deal of energy to help- WILL, AT SOME quickly in pursuing shared aesthetic ing students place their work, and goals” and “most serious students program alumni have a semiannual POINT, CITE THE rise to the challenge of the ticking newsletter and a biannual alumni clock.” residency that include discussion FLEXIBILITY But the UBC program’s single, of publishing, editing, and teaching ten-day summer residency is op- opportunities.” THEIR PROGRAMS tional, although strongly recom- The experience at Lesley appears mended. “Most low-residency somewhat different. “What ‘feeds’ AFFORD. programs save any efforts at build- an apprentice writer’s writing?” ing community for the residencies,” Cramer asks. “Obviously, careful, Gray says. “This is fine, but I feel challenging feedback from dis- one of the problems with the men- tinguished writers and dedicated literary magazines and in book pub- torship model that most low-res- teachers; obviously, a diet of read- lishing. Cramer adds that students idency MFAs use is that it doesn’t ing that nourishes imaginative and who have demonstrated promise necessarily sustain community over technical growth.” Cramer also in a genre other than that of their the periods between residencies, points to Lesley’s interdisciplinary declared concentration may apply which are the bulk of the degree. component. their interdisciplinary credits to ex- Our challenge is to find ways to “Broadly speaking, our MFA stu- ploring the other genre. “We have create and nurture this community dents’ interdisciplinary projects poets also writing memoir; non- over the rest of the year, especially fall into two categories: those that fiction students writing texts for with our single-residency model. intrinsically enhance students’ on- picture books.” The point of the in- Online workshops and discussions going writing, and those that serve terdisciplinary component, he says, are central to this, but we also have their aspirations for future careers is “to enhance, not distract from, programs, such as a virtual writers- connected to writing.” As one exam- each student’s devotion to writing.” in-residence series, to help build ple, he cites the case of a fiction stu- In the end, one expects that all the and sustain student community.” dent who studied the history of his programs—regardless of the models Aside from UBC, most low- ancestors under the supervision of a they employ—exist to help writers residency programs offer less— Lesley University history professor. improve their writing. It’s up to you not more—than do residential This helped “provide the accuracy to decide which program’s format— programs in the way of extracur- of detail he needed for his ongoing low-residency or otherwise—will ricular activities such as teaching fiction,” Cramer says. provide the environment, support, assistantships and opportunities to The program also has assisted and opportunity to help you to suc- edit literary magazines. A prospec- students in finding internships at ceed as a writer.

33 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS

personal projects. Finding a way to L E AV I NG write while also holding down a day job is, after all, the long-term reality most writers face. A CAREER TO But I couldn’t shake the desire to pursue my own writing full-time, if only for a few years. Trading in my PURSUE AN MFA job for a fully funded, full-residency MFA program, I believed, could give me that chance. BY LAURA MAYLENE WALTER ait Weiss knows what it’s like to walk away few years ago I scrolled back home. I already had an estab- from a career that oth- through the comments lished career as an editor of a trade ers might covet. As the on a blog for prospec- magazine—writing-intensive work Cfounder of the social media con- tive creative writing that provided a decent salary, health sultant firm Cait & Associates Inc., AMFA students and found, amidst benefits, a flexible work schedule, she’s built a successful business—a talk of funding, faculty, and accep- and the opportunity to travel sev- business she put on hold two years tance rates, writers’ backup plans in eral times a year on the company’s ago when she moved from Brook- the event of rejection. One woman dime. I recognized I had a good lyn, New York, to Columbus, Ohio, announced that if she didn’t receive situation, and I suspected many of to begin an MFA in poetry at Ohio an acceptance, she’d be forced to get these applicants wouldn’t hesitate State University. While those clos- a regular nine-to-five job, “probably to trade places with me. Even so, I est to Weiss were supportive of her in retail.” Others discussed similarly had recently sent off a round of ap- decision to put her career on pause bleak job hunts or moving back in plications for the chance to leave to pursue an MFA, she did receive a with their parents, while still oth- my profession to earn a degree that few bewildered reactions. ers worried how an MFA would (or would likely provide few to no career “People who don’t know me seem wouldn’t) improve their career pros- advancements. to be very confused, especially if they pects moving forward. To say I was apprehensive about hear that I ran my own business, that Like these writers, I too had ap- this plan is an understatement. I got to work from home, and that I plied to MFA programs. But I wasn’t Whenever I thought about letting could travel,” she says. “When they straight out of an undergrad pro- go of my career to earn an MFA, I hear things like that, they think I’m gram, or wallowing through the veered wildly between two conflict- completely insane.” volatile job market, or facing unem- ing attitudes—either I loved my job But for Weiss, taking a break ployment or the prospect of moving and was certain that I would be in- from the professional world in sane to give it up in this economy, order to attend a funded graduate or I was convinced that life was too program was worth the risk, the Laura Maylene Walter is t he short not to go after what I most pay cut, the career hiatus, and even author of the short story collection loved. I also knew, considering the the uncertainty that the MFA could Living Arrangements (BkMk Press, strides I’d made on my own in my transform her working life going 2011), which won the G. S. Sharat writing career, that I didn’t need an forward. Chandra Prize for Short Fiction, a MFA to continue making progress. “I’m using this degree to live in the national gold IPPY, and a ForeWord Surely I could continue working day where I get to write. It’s a present- Book of the Year Award. She blogs as I had been for years: squeezing tense degree for me,” she says. “I hope about the writing life at lauramay in my personal writing around the to transition into an academic career, lenewalter.com. workday and splitting my writing but if I can’t, I still will consider this energy between professional and a success.”

PW.ORG 34 An award-winning Because “success” is so often says of the income drop. “But there’s illustrated defined by money in our world, the so much going on in an MFA that financial realities of leaving a career you don’t have time to spend money book of to pursue an MFA can sting no mat- doing anything else. In a way, it’s a funky poems ter how much a writer values her savings plan itself. And it’s only a art. The annual stipends of even the couple of years.” with quirky most financially supportive MFA While I was busy feeling anx- programs are likely only a fraction ious about abandoning what I’d rhymes and of a professional’s previous salary. achieved so far in my career for an syncopated As an MFA student, Weiss earns in MFA, Samuele was quick to point out one year what she previously made that writers who are established in rhythms... in about two months. Still, she ap- the workforce will always have that proached graduate work with the experience to fall back on later. “If practical mind-set of a business you’re going to leave your career to owner. pursue an MFA, the beauty of it is “My No. 1 priority was to get into that you can [likely] go back to it,” a school with tuition remission,” she he says. “If anything, the MFA made says. “I would advise people not to me realize that my work experience go into debt [for the degree], espe- has shaped who I am today. Work cially if you’re a poet. Poets should really shapes the way I think, the really try to avoid big debt.” way I write.” For aerospace engineer Rocco Samuele, the decision to attend the amuele wasn’t the only University of Michigan’s MFA pro- writer I interviewed who gram in fiction meant the loss of not stressed that a working one but two salaries. Both he and his life can inform the writing wife left their careers in California Slife. In 1999, Mary L. Tabor, author to move halfway across the country of The Woman Who Never Cooked for Michigan’s program. It was a (Mid-List Press, 2006), among other risk, but Samuele was drawn by that books, left a sixteen-year career at elusive gift of time. the American Petroleum Institute to “I wanted to spend a good chunk focus on creative writing full time of time just focusing on writing,” he and to earn an MFA. In fact, she was says. “I wasn’t able to do that when so devoted to pursuing the writing I was working full-time as an aero- life that she left her position even space engineer.” before sending off her MFA applica- Samuele applied to programs in tions. 2009, a particularly volatile time for “I knew I was making a choice for the economy, but his acceptance to full-time writing, and I had to be all LIVE Michigan—which came with tu- in. All in or no way,” she says. “I was ition remission and a generous sti- making a decision to do this no mat- NUDE pend, and would eventually include ter what, whether I got into school or a third-year Zell fellowship—was not.” POEMS enough to convince him to go for it. Tabor applied widely and, after “It’s tough to digest at first be- receiving offers, including funding www.youtube.com/ cause you get used to a certain from multiple programs, she used tctutoring standard of living, and it’s hard to her business acumen in the deci- imagine living on anything else,” he sion-making process by traveling

35 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS

to schools and interviewing the fac- wise sees the value in beginning an of writing. He submitted only one ulty, eventually choosing Ohio State MFA when she did. MFA application—to the Univer- University’s ﬁction program. At the “I’ve had a lot of experience in sity of Iowa’s storied program—and age of fifty, she found herself in a the business world and a lot of un- moved with his wife from Vermont classroom with students who were derstanding of what the writer has to Iowa when he was accepted. half her age—an experience she now to do,” she says. “Do I wish I had “I made up my mind before I came describes as “fantastic.” started earlier? Of course. I do wish here that I was here for a purpose, “I think it’s important as an older that. But I’m also glad that I have and that involved change. It’s harder student to recognize that you’re this vibrant life [now] at sixty-eight to be open to change in your sixties a student like everyone else,” she years old. To have waited to get to do than in your twenties and thirties, says. “I took all my business suits and this is a hard thing to look back on, but I looked at my fellow students as stuck them in a closet and they’ve but it’s also a great gift.” my colleagues, my team—even if I’m since been given away. I haven’t had a Thomas Corcoran, a recent gradu- old enough in a couple of cases to be business suit on in twenty years now. ate of the ﬁction program at the Iowa their grandfather,” he says. “But age, It was a tremendously important ex- Writers’ Workshop, can also speak either old or young, is completely ir- perience.” to coming to the MFA later in life relevant.” While Tabor perceives a few following a rich career. After serv- downsides associated with coming ing twenty-one years in the Navy n today’s MFA landscape, to the writing life at an older age— and holding down a second career writers with an established ca- she suggests that the powers that be as an information-systems database reer aren’t obligated to choose in the publishing industry tend to programmer, Corcoran retired and between the degree and their anoint younger writers—she other- set about pursuing his lifelong love Ijob. Low-residency MFA programs

Evening Classes Part- or Full-Time MFA Small Workshops @Manhattanville FICTION|POETRY|CREATIVE NONFICTION|YOUNG ADULT|CROSS-GENRE

Recent Guests: Jennifer Egan|Philip Gourevitch|Justin Torres|Tracy K. Smith|Nick Flynn

W: mville.edu/mfa E: [email protected] P: 914.323.5239

PW.ORG 36 allow writers with a career, family, The low-res model certainly career goals,” he explains. “I felt I and/or geographic restrictions to works for writers like Todd Har- could get the best of both worlds— pursue the degree part-time with- ris and Kevin Wheeler, both who improve my writing but also con- out displacing their professional or studied in Warren Wilson Col- tinue to follow my love of science.” personal lives. lege’s esteemed low-residency MFA Wheeler, a former emergency While the low-res route was a program in Swannanoa, North physician who was transitioning to a tempting solution to my career con- Carolina. Harris, who earned his new career with a consulting firm as cerns, I was already writing as much PhD in chemistry six years ago and he was applying to programs, found as possible within the time and en- is currently a postdoc working in the the low-residency model’s flexibility ergy constraints imposed by my day area of liver fibrosis, knew that his to be crucial to both his personal job. From my perspective, the big- work, coupled with his wife’s law ca- and professional interests. “I wanted gest benefit of an MFA would be to reer and their roots in Sacramento, to keep working full-time,” he says. take a break from work and see what California, made a low-res MFA the “My medical career has always been I could accomplish if I directed my best option for him. He also stressed important to me. I’ve enjoyed taking full attention to writing. that he didn’t want or need a clean care of patients and feel it’s important Samuele felt the same way. “The slate from his work. work, so I was happy to do both.” whole point of doing the MFA for me “I have a career that I love. I’m As he embarked on his job transi- was to totally clean the slate and focus very passionate about science. For tion, Wheeler took a semester off on writing, which wasn’t going to be me, rather than taking a break from from Warren Wilson, an option he possible with a low-res program,” he that, it was a way of [forging] a path was grateful to have. In addition to says. “But I’m sure for other working of integration, to bring my progress praising the program’s willingness people, it’s a good option.” with my writing in line with other to accommodate his needs, he even

37 POETS & WRITERS MFA in Creative POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS Writing. MA in Literature. suggests that the MFA made him a complete with tuition remission, Summers in more attractive candidate for his a stipend, a reasonable teaching new position. “Consulting compa- load, and a chance to work on the Sewanee. nies want to see flexible thinking, Mid-American Review, all at a uni- Join the innovative program in and they want to see imagination,” versity only a two-hour drive from literature and creative writing for he says. “The MFA was a conversa- the home my husband and I own in students whose lives won’t stop for a year or two of conventional tion starter, and it spoke to an abil- Cleveland. graduate school. Give us six weeks ity to think creatively and write When I shared the news with each of the next four summers, clearly.” my colleagues, I received plenty write and defend a thesis, and Finally, Alison Hughes, who is of congratulations for having the we’ll award you an MA or MFA studying fiction at the Vermont courage to follow my dreams. of exceptional quality — and College of Fine Arts low-residency Then we posted the job descrip- introduce you to a community program in Montpelier, points out tion for my position and were that has been drawing writers and readers together for over a that the low-res model more closely promptly flooded with résumés hundred years. echoes the realities of most writers’ from seasoned writers and editors lives. all vying for my job—another re- Apply for summer 2016 at “I would say that a possible ad- minder that it’s tough out there and letters.sewanee.edu. vantage of a low-residency program that I can’t count on any guaran- is that it requires a degree of inde- tees in the workforce once I com- pendence in one’s work that would plete my MFA. reflect more adequately what a writer But I’m not doing this for guar- must do after the MFA,” she says. antees. The safe choice might be to Hughes, who lives in Spain and continue working, but most writers works at Radio Exterior, a world- aren’t in this field for the steady, service shortwave broadcaster of high-paying work. If anything, my Spanish National Radio, juggles a experience in the professional world demanding job along with her MFA allows me to more fully appreciate requirements and is using her sav- this chance to spend two years im- ings on the degree. While she jokes mersed in my writing. And because that “a person would have to be mad I don’t expect any miracle book to be doing what I’m doing,” she also deals or teaching jobs to materialize believes an MFA could be an advan- once I complete the degree, I know tage if she were ever compelled to that when the program is over, I’ll seek employment elsewhere. have to create my career path anew. “The question I find myself ask- Maybe I’ll take another nine-to-five ing more and more lately is what corporate job, and maybe I won’t. sort of job might be most compatible The most beautiful and terrifying with writing and still pay the bills,” aspects of leaving my career are one she says. and the same: I’ve opened myself up It is a question that many of us will to an entirely new set of possibili- never stop asking. ties. Or, as Tabor told me, she knew @SewaneeLetters After much deliberation and that while an important chapter of letters.sewanee.edu more than a little anxiety, I accepted her life had closed when she left her 931.598.1636 a spot in Bowling Green State Uni- job, an even more important one versity’s MFA program. I would be had opened. The University of the South 735 University Ave. trading in my editorial job for the “The work of your life is the work Sewanee, TN 37383 chance to spend two years studying you should be doing,” she adds. “So I John Grammer, Director fiction, an opportunity that comes say leap before you look.” April Alvarez, Administrator

PW.ORG 38 POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS

GROWING DIVERSITY IN GRADUATE SCHOOL BY ROCHELLE SPENCER

y plan was to grow of geographic locations, ethnicities, writers of African descent (an exam okra. During my and socioeconomic classes. And not in “non–African American litera- senior year of col- only are the institutions doing more, ture” is also offered). For Randall lege, I fantasized students are also taking an active role Horton, who coedited the anthol- Mabout moving to a farm in south- in increasing the diversity of their ogy Fingernails Across the Chalkboard: ern Georgia with my boyfriend, programs by creating and joining Poetry and Prose on HIV/AIDS From a free-spirited musician-poet- organizations in order to enrich the the Black Diaspora (Third World philosopher who thought he was graduate school experience. Press, 2007) while he was in the an alien from another planet. In order to serve a student popula- program, CSU was a godsend. Hor- Luckily, one of my college profes- tion that is about 76 percent Latino, ton says that when he talked to other sors didn’t think the okra farm was the University of Texas in El Paso writers of color who say they were such a good idea. Having read some of (UTEP), created in 2002 what may “scarred” and “traumatized” by their my short stories, she encouraged me very well be the nation’s first bilin- graduate school experiences, he real- to apply to a graduate creative writing gual MFA program. The program’s ized CSU had given him the confi- program. To this day I’m grateful. faculty, which includes poets Rosa dence he couldn’t have developed at My grandparents picked cotton and Alcalá, Sasha Pimentel Chacón, Ben- a school where there wasn’t such an drove buses for a living, and because jamin Alire Sáenz, and Jeff Sirkin and emphasis on ethnic literature. of that my parents spent a lot of time fiction writers Daniel Chacón and At SUNY, Albany, where Hor- discussing the importance of “jobs Luis Arturo Ramos, features authors ton graduated with a PhD in 2009, that could pay the bills.” So, if not from a variety of Spanish-speaking Horton says people didn’t under- for the encouragement of that profes- countries, Peru, Mexico, and Spain stand where he was coming from sor, it never would have occurred to among them. Lex Williford, the and they didn’t really try. “I was in me that I could become a writer, let online program’s director, says that a fiction workshop and people had alone go to graduate school to learn UTEP, like all universities, tries to no idea who Walter Mosley was. more about the craft. meet its students’ individual needs, And one young woman—she was That was over ten years ago. and with bilingualism at the core of Korean—told me that in a work- Today, some graduate programs are the graduate program’s mission, a shop she had been told she couldn’t doing more than ever to appeal to majority of classes are taught in Span- use Korean names for her charac- students—like my younger self— ish and English. The “primary reason ters because no one would under- who are unaware of the opportunities for moving in this direction has to stand her and no one would buy her they offer. These programs seek to do with the tremendous diversity of work.” Santee Frazier, a poet and celebrate different kinds of writing by writers who are publishing today,” MFA graduate of Syracuse Univer- creating or strengthening initiatives Williford says. sity, says that conflict can some- that appeal to students from a variety The creative writing program at times arise when students of color Chicago State University (CSU), want to discuss race in a workshop created in 2001, offers classes in Af- setting. “People wonder if you’re Rochelle Spencer received an MFA rican American literature in addi- playing the race card,” adds Frazier, from New York University. She is an tion to workshops in fiction, creative who believes that among students instructor at LaGuardia Community nonfiction, poetry, and scriptwrit- of color there is a growing inter- College in New York City. ing. Students must pass a compre- est in newer programs that offer hensive exam focused on books by more ethnically diverse faculty and

3939 POETSPOETS & & WRITERS WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS

and currently a teaching fellow at WHILE SOME WRITING PROGRAMS Columbia University in New York ARE ATTEMPTING GROWING TO APPEAL DIVERSITY TO City, says more schools IN need diverse admissions boards, because no STUDENTS OF DIFFERENT ETHNIC matterBY ROCHELLE how well intentioned, SPENCER a ra- GRADUATE SCHOOL cially homogenous board can make BACKGROUNDS, OTHERS ARE FOCUSING decisions leading to classes that are less diverse. ON ECONOMIC DIVERSITY. “There are schools that say they are looking for radically different approaches to writing or are speciﬁcally classes. “The older programs don’t points out, in some cases a program’s looking for underrepresented com- seem that diverse,” he says. size or geographical location might munities, but even in that there is an One of the older, more estab- make recruiting more difﬁcult. air of paternalism,” Pardlo says. “The lished programs is, of course, the The key, some say, is for col- way to change the landscape of cre- esteemed Iowa Writers’ Workshop. leges and universities to simply hire ative writing programs is by getting ItsRochelle director, Spencer Lan Samantha received an Chang, MFA more diverse faculty members and more diversity on the administrative saysfrom creative New Yorkwriting University. programs An that administrative staff: Once they’re levels of institutions. People say they wantinstructor more ethnicat LaGuardia diversity Community face chal - available, the students will follow. want diversity, but diversity is pro- lenges.College, While she is it’s currently to the “advantage writing a Gregory Pardlo, a former assistant duced when people are put in power ofnovel. writing programs to enroll tal- professor at George Washington that can actually make a decision.” ented and diverse writers,” Chang University in Washington, D.C., Chang says that while the success

PW.ORG 40 of recent Iowa graduates of color— that although many writers of color ganizations at their schools. One ZZ Packer, Yiyun Li, and Daniel have wonthe prestigious director writing of awardsthe African such organization is Our Word, Alarcón, to name a few—may be one in recent years, the academy’s new- founded in 2000 at Columbia Uni- reason why her program sees diverse ‘Americanfound focus on theResource PhD could keep Center versity. at Denise Howard Burrell-Stinson, Univer for-- applicants, prospective students some of these writers from receiving mer copresident of Our Word, says might also be interested in working sity,tenure-track worries positions. the organization has held agents with the diverse faculty. “Half of the “Now that there are more African and editors panels and has helped permanent ﬁction faculty at Iowa are thatAmericans creative available writingto teach, there programs bring an areethnically now diverse in dan mix -of people of color,” she says. “It’s also is another barrier—schools say they writers—Hilton Als, Malcolm possible that they feel comfortable gercan’t hireof someonelosing full-time some because of their Gladwell, faculty Ernesto diversity. Quiñonez, Laura coming to a program that has chosen they don’t have a PhD in creative writ- Restrepo, and Colson Whitehead, a woman of color to be its director.” ing,” Miller says. “So now you see a among others—to the campus. Stu- Despite the success of some pro- lot of African American writers who dents of all ethnicities can join Our grams in assembling diverse facul- have their MFA, but they don’t have a Word, and Burrell-Stinson, a former ties, E. Ethelbert Miller, the director PhD. And that will keep a number of research arts student—a designation‘ of the African American Studies Re- African American writers—and other given to MFA students at Columbia source Center at Howard University creative writing teachers—moving who have completed their course- and a former faculty member of the around from school to school.” work but have yet to turn in their Bennington Writing Seminars, wor- To ensure continuing cultural theses—says the mentorship Our ries that creative writing programs diversity, some students are look- Word provides helps not just writ- are now in danger of losing some of ing beyond the faculties of their ers of color, but all the writers in their faculty diversity. Miller says MFA programs to student-run or- the program. “[Columbia] is a rather

STONECOAST MFA IN CREATIVE WRITING Creative Nonfiction • Fiction • Multimedia • Poetry Popular Fiction • Scriptwriting • Writing for Social Change

“The friends and mentors whom I encountered at Stonecoast continue to deﬁne my essential writing community.” — Melanie Drane, poet, Stonecoast alumna and recipient of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award

APPLY TODAY Since 2010 Stonecoast has been ranked by Poets & Writers as one of the nation’s top ten low-residency MFA programs, and has become known for providing a superb, open-minded, and progressive education in the art of writing. For more information, please visit: usm.maine.edu/stonecoastmfa (207) 780-4386 or e-mail [email protected]

41 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO CREATIVEMFA PROGRAMS WRITING PROGRAMS

large program, and when wonderful students are taking out loans—and writers such as Emily Raboteau and they’re having a difficult time repay- Victor LaValle offer their time and ing them after graduation. attention, that makes the overall Co- Martin Lammon, who holds lumbia University experience richer.” the Fuller E. Callaway/Flannery Graduate students have also O’Connor Chair in Creative Writ- played a role in Brown Univer- ing at Georgia College and is a for- sity’s International Writers Proj- mer president of the Association ect (IWP), a program that provides of Writers & Writing Programs international writers who face po- (AWP), understands that while there litical persecution with fellowships are students who can easily afford and housing. Students who work to pay tuition, he says it’s still “re- with IWP have nominated writers ally important that MFA programs for fellowships, organized activities don’t try to become these opera- around the writers’ visits, and found tions where the goal is to raise a lot writers housing. IWP has also helped of money and charge people a lot of bring writers such as Salman Rush- money to study.” He believes that die and Nobel Prize winner Orhan “the right model is to create MFA Pamuk to the Brown campus. programs where most students are While Cave Canem isn’t affiliated on fellowship, where most students with any school, the weeklong work- have opportunities to become teach- shop for writers of color founded by ers or to work with journals or read- Cornelius Eady and Toi Derricotte ing and writing centers.” in 1996 has helped some writers feel Denise Low-Weso, the former better about the prospect of attend- chair of the English department at ing graduate school. Eady says the or- Haskell Indian Nations University, ganization has given many students the former president of AWP, and the confidence to apply to writing former Kansas poet laureate, says the programs and has helped students expense of creative writing programs in some programs feel less alienated. means that some of her best students “We have students who come to Cave go into different fields. “As low- Canem thinking an MFA program is income people, they don’t have many too complicated or something they resources,” she says. “I had a won- wouldn’t feel comfortable doing,” he derful former student who started says. “But after working with Yusef a masters in creative writing at the Komunyakaa or Sonia Sanchez and University of Kansas. She was very talking with some of the other people dedicated, but she was driving a in the program, they suddenly realize truck at night…and she eventually that they can do this.” had to leave the program.” While some writing programs are Columbia’s Burrell-Stinson, who attempting to appeal to students of as a research arts student paid re- different ethnic backgrounds, others duced tuition, says she loved her are focusing on economic diversity. writing program but believes its The National Center for Education expense could drive away a lot of Statistics reports that in 2007–2008 talented students. “The cost of the the average annual cost of graduate program seems to go up each year. I school was $34,600, a figure that will wouldn’t have been able to afford the surely rise. To pay the bills, many program if I had entered [later than I

PW.ORG 42 TO ENSURE CONTINUING CULTUR- AL DIVERSITY, SOME STUDENTS ARE LOOKING BEYOND THE FACULTIES OF THEIR MFA PROGRAMS TO STU- DENT-RUN ORGANIZATIONS AT THEIR SCHOOLS. did], and that would have broken my “runs effectively between sixty-five heart. Where else would I have had thousand dollars to seventy thousand the opportunity to study with writers dollars over a two-year period,” he such as Jonathan Ames and Nathan says. Likewise, Kenneth McClane, Englander? Where else could I have W. E. B. DuBois Professor of Lit- had this experience?” She believes erature at Cornell University, and that rising tuition costs and limited Brian Evenson, who is a professor in funding could create “more writers of the literary arts program at Brown privilege than writers of promise.” In University, say their schools offer response, several writing department full funding for graduate writing stu- chairs and directors, who say they are dents, which is why their programs sympathetic to students with few or must be kept small. no economic resources, are doing everything they can to fund them. s directors, admin- Iowa’s Chang says that funding istrators, faculty, and at Iowa is on an “upswing,” but she some students work to remains concerned about students create ethnically diverse at other institutions where “the Aprograms that remain affordable, the increasing number of new and pos- draw of graduate school remains, for sibly underfunded programs can many, the promise of time to write. make it challenging for students to Money was a big concern for Sara earn an MFA without getting into Ortiz as she applied to graduate pro- significant debt.” grams, but she still chose Antioch Dave Smith, former chair of the University, even though it was, she Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins says, “the most expensive program University, knows firsthand how I applied for.” Ortiz received some financial resources can affect a stu- funding from the American Indian dent’s future. His daughter received Graduate Center, a national non- an MFA, “and she’s deeply in debt with profit organization dedicated to loans, and she couldn’t have done it aiding American Indian graduate any other way,” he says. Smith’s pro- students in all fields of study, but like gram at Hopkins, however, provides a lot of students she paid for graduate all its students with full tuition waiv- school through “student loans, fel- ers, a limited health insurance policy, lowships, and a little bit of help from and a small stipend—a package that my family.”

43 POETS & WRITERS43 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS

IS THE PHD THE NEW MFA? BY AZITA OSANLOO

n a 1979 essay entitled “In ﬁnd low-residency degrees, like the Defense of Creative-Writing program at Bennington College, Classes,” the poet Richard more fitting to their needs; still Hugo expressed a characteris- others contemplate an as yet less Itically empathic statement apropos popular option: the creative writ- creative writing in the classroom: ing PhD. What is the creative writing When we are told in dozens of PhD? Who gets one and why? insidious ways that our lives don’t While creative writing doctorates matter, we may be forced to insist, have existed much longer than often far too loudly, that they do. one might guess (the University A creative-writing class may be of Denver, for example, started one of the last places you can go its creative writing PhD program where your life still matters. in 1947), they have existed, until fairly recently, in relative obscu- If any truth exists in Hugo’s sen- rity, not wholly unlike misunder- timent, it may provide the most stood stepchildren. A newfound sound reason for the continuing appreciation for them has grown in growth of creative writing classes in recent years, though, as the prolif- the three decades that have passed eration of MFA programs—and the since his essay’s publication in the hundreds of writers they graduate American Poetry Review. Develop- every year—has occurred, ﬂooding ments in creative writing programs, the academic job market, leading however, lead the curious observer more and more writers to continue and the writer who has much at on to doctoral programs. To some, stake to ask which kind of creative these programs offer even more writing class will make writers and concentrated writing time, a study their writing feel most worthwhile. of the craft closely connected to Many of us choose to attend tradi- the larger study of literature, and, tional MFA programs in the spirit of some will argue, a better shot at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop; others landing one of those nice academic jobs that everyone seems to want so badly. Azita Osanloo received her MFA In the mission statement on its from the University of Montana. She website, the University of Utah has taught writing and literature at the states that “the PhD…is neither University of Montana and Oberlin a fine arts degree nor simply a College. traditional literature PhD with a creative dissertation. The program

PW.ORG 44 is designed to help the student become a better writer…a writer who TO SOME, THESE PROGRAMS knows the history of his or her chosen genre and is aware of the criti- OFFER EVEN MORE CONCENTRATED cal theory relevant to it. The PhD is generally recognized as a writer’s WRITING TIME, A STUDY OF THE best preparation for a teaching ca- CRAFT CLOSELY CONNECTED TO THE reer at the college or university level.” Utah’s deﬁnition of the de- LARGER STUDY OF LITERATURE, AND, gree falls in line with that of the handful of other creative writing SOME WILL ARGUE, A BETTER SHOT doctoral programs in the country. “Now, hold up a minute,” you AT LANDING ONE OF THOSE NICE may be saying to yourself. “What’s all this ‘ﬂooding the market’ non- ACADEMIC JOBS. sense? I want to pursue my MFA to be a better writer, not to learn PhD. And as more and more writ- minal degree, one that represents about ‘the market’ or cushy job ers continue toward a doctoral de- a time when a writer spent two or prospects.” Fair enough. Yet, in- gree, it’s worth considering how three years honing the craft among asmuch as the MFA has made an that trend might alter the present a group of like-minded artists. indelible mark on the modern lit- literary landscape. Traditionally, Today, the same writer, who per- erary community, so might the the MFA has been considered a ter- haps twenty years ago explored the

45 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS

TRADITIONALLY, THE MFA HAS BEEN CONSIDERED A TERMINAL DEGREE, ONE THAT REPRESENTS A TIME WHEN A WRITER SPENT TWO OR THREE YEARS HONING THE CRAFT AMONG A GROUP OF LIKE-MINDED ARTISTS.

MFA option and decided against on equal footing with his col- it, would have to decide between leagues. The dissertation, tradi- no degree, the MFA, or the MFA/ tionally a research-oriented body PhD package. While the differ- of work, represents the culmina- ence between the MFA graduate tion of the student’s work in the and the non-MFA graduate is the chosen ﬁeld, and the new voice is difference between the writer who one that broadens and deepens an spends only two or three years ongoing, scholastic conversation. in a studio-oriented program (as For the creative writer, it’s not so opposed to a more academically much the dissertation (creative or oriented one) and the writer who otherwise) that puts one on a level works on her craft through nonac- playing field with other writers, ademic channels, the PhD, which but rather—and perhaps only—a virtually doubles the amount of published book. Presumably, this time one spends in school and de- is why the MFA has always been mands a rigorous and formal study considered a terminal degree: A of literature, threatens to create a writer spends a few years among much more deﬁned delineation, for an intimate and intense group of better or worse, between a writer writer-peers while she works from who chooses graduate school and a beneath the wing of an MFA thesis writer who doesn’t. adviser; that writer then spends a So how does a writer choose? Do few more years continuing to write degrees really put some writers at while waiting tables, bartending, a more publishable advantage? Fi- part-time teaching, or doing some nally, and perhaps most important: such job that helps keep body and If doctoral programs continue to soul together. Finally, she pub- proliferate, will they eventually lishes the cherished book (so lov- become the industry standard and ingly revised!). Only then is the ultimately render the MFA obso- young writer considered “on equal lete? footing” with other writers and, In any academic field, a suc- conceivably, able to apply for a ten- cessful doctoral dissertation is ure-track job in a creative writing one that puts a young scholar department at a university.

PW.ORG 46 Readers who cringe a little every way, the growing number of MFA time the oft-criticized relationship applicants each year indicates that between writing and academia is graduate programs, in some form brought to the surface may hope or another, are here to stay. never to hear the phrases “lov- Whether or not the current MFA ingly revised” and “tenure-track system retains its prominence, job” together in the same sentence though, remains to be seen. Some again. (Among the most prominent would argue that the “lost genera- of critics against the “institution- tion,” as a nominal designation, alization” of creative writing was could conceivably describe the Jorge Luis Borges, who in 1984 most recent generation of MFA shocked a University of Minne- graduates (of which I would include sota audience when he proclaimed, myself). For, as the young modern- “Every year you stay in school, you ists of the post–World War I era drive the knife in deeper.”) The desperately sought something new truth, however, is that creative from the expression of language writing has had its rightful place (or, for that matter, from art, inside the ivory tower for a good music, or dance), today’s lost gen- part of history. But while creative eration of MFA graduates arguably writing existed as a legitimate part seeks a valid purpose for creative of an academic curriculum for sev- writing itself. To echo Richard eral hundred years as “verse writ- Hugo: When MFA graduates are ing,” our modern conception of told that their writing doesn’t MFA programs arguably found its matter, they are forced to discover basis in the celebrated and much- ways in which it could. A creative documented years of the Lost writing doctoral program may be Generation. Specifically, the term one of the last places MFA gradu- refers to artists like Hemingway, ates can go to discover just how and Fitzgerald, Pound, Stein, and oth- in exactly what context their writers who spent years in Paris, as well ing could matter. as in other parts of Europe, in exile When Wilbur Schramm led the from America, in close connection first class of graduate students at to one another and devoted to cre- the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in ating new expression in writing 1936, the school’s graduates were and art. Today young writers, in few and significant, and for those both the jovial camaraderie and who went on to teach in subsequent prolific output of work, do much MFA and undergraduate writing the same thing in MFA programs. programs, they provided a novel, Depending on one’s viewpoint, rare service to academia generally the academic (and decidedly and to young writers specifically. American) twist on Fitzgerald and While this exchange between pas- Hemingway’s years in Paris is ei- sionate teachers and young writers ther an empowering system that still occurs every day in programs represents the perfect symbiosis across the country, more than sev- between freewheeling artist and enty years and more than two hun- careful scholar, or a tacky, hierar- dred postgraduate creative writing chical, Oprah-fied version of the programs since Schramm’s first young artist’s movement. Either workshop have produced a virtual

47 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS

MFA Writing FULL-TIME FACULTY Program FICTION: Donald Antrim • Nicholas Christopher Stacey D’Erasmo • Deborah Eisenberg • Richard Ford Fiction Heidi Julavits • Binnie Kirshenbaum • Victor LaValle Sam Lipsyte • Ben Marcus • Orhan Pamuk Nonfiction Gary Shteyngart • Alan Ziegler POETRY: Lucie Brock-Broido • Timothy Donnelly Poetry Dorothea Lasky NONFICTION: Hilton Als • Lis Harris • Leslie Jamison Option for joint Margo Jefferson • Richard Locke • Phillip Lopate Patricia O’Toole course of study TRANSLATION: Susan Bernofsky in Literary Translation RECENT ADJUNCT FACULTY Paul Beatty • Jonathan Dee • Geoff Dyer Scholarships, financial David Ebershoff • James Fenton • John Freeman aid and teaching Rivka Galchen • Alan Gilbert • Vivian Gornick fellowships available. Edith Grossman • Cathy Park Hong • Richard Howard Hari Kunzru • Ada Limón • Wendy Lesser Erroll McDonald • Tom McCarthy • Ben Metcalf Join a thriving School of the Eileen Myles • Rowan Ricardo Phillips • Darryl Pinckney Arts community in New York Roger Reeves • Elissa Schappell • Bruce Smith Lynne Tillman • Mónica de la Torre City offering graduate degrees Brenda Wineapple • James Wood in film, theatre, visual arts and writing. ALUMNI Jonathan Ames • Molly Antopol • Mary Jo Bang Jesse Ball • Cris Beam • Meghan Daum • Kiran Desai Visit Manuel Gonzales • Aaron Hamburger • Dinaw Mengestu arts.columbia.edu/pw Julie Otsuka • Claudia Rankine • Karen Russell Parul Sehgal • Brenda Shaughnessy • Lori Soderlind for more information. Tracy K. Smith • Wells Tower • Josh Weil • Vendela Vida Adam Wilson • Mark Wunderlich ﬂood of supremely qualiﬁed yet utterly commonplace MFA graduates (let the hate mail commence). WHILE THE MFA CURRENTLY FULL-TIME FACULTY The problem is that this flood REMAINS THE STANDARD MFA Writing has diluted whatever novel ser- FICTION: Donald Antrim • Nicholas Christopher vice our mentors and predecessors TERMINAL DEGREE FOR WRITERS, Program provided before us. While the Stacey D’Erasmo • Deborah Eisenberg • Richard Ford proliferation of MFA programs has THE HANDFUL OF DOCTORAL Fiction Heidi Julavits • Binnie Kirshenbaum • Victor LaValle certainly helped to produce some Sam Lipsyte • Ben Marcus • Orhan Pamuk astonishing talents in addition to PROGRAMS MAKE A STRONGER Gary Shteyngart • Alan Ziegler a growing number of people who Nonfiction can write well and who care about IMPACT EVERY YEAR. POETRY: Lucie Brock-Broido • Timothy Donnelly good writing (never a bad thing), Poetry a common characteristic of a re- Dorothea Lasky cent MFA grad is a debilitating them for anywhere between four ther Returns (Random House, 2004) NONFICTION: Hilton Als • Lis Harris • Leslie Jamison aimlessness. Those who share this and six years, the process is one and former director of the creative trait just can’t seem to muster the that provides a path more secure writing program at Florida State Option for joint Margo Jefferson • Richard Locke • Phillip Lopate strength to compete in a job mar- and even more forgiving than the University, where he is currently Patricia O’Toole ket that demands one or even two one offered by the current MFA a professor of English. “Though nationally distributed publications, system. It allows for the natural in all the years I’ve been teaching, course of study TRANSLATION: Susan Bernofsky a commercial publishing industry maturation of a writer’s voice over I’ve spent dramatically more time that ignores poetry and increas- a longer period—a voice that, explaining why I don’t have a PhD in Literary Translation ingly squelches the publication because of a mandatory, concen- than I would have had I actually RECENT ADJUNCT FACULTY of literary fiction, and an ever- trated study of literature (usually gotten one.” Although perhaps un- pervasive information highway. identical to the course of study for fair, that sentiment has dogged the Paul Beatty • Jonathan Dee • Geoff Dyer As the writers of the Lost Genera- doctoral candidates in literature), creative writing doctorate for years. Scholarships, financial David Ebershoff • James Fenton • John Freeman tion found a way to work through is neither divorced from nor igno- While professors in MFA programs what appeared an endless wave of rant of the larger literary history will often respond to students’ in- aid and teaching Rivka Galchen • Alan Gilbert • Vivian Gornick stale literature to ultimately create of which it is part. “My studies in quiries about PhD programs with fellowships available. Edith Grossman • Cathy Park Hong • Richard Howard some of history’s most memorable literature began to complicate, di- polite diplomacy (i.e., “It’s a good Hari Kunzru • Ada Limón • Wendy Lesser works, so must program directors, mensionalize, and often illuminate decision if you write best in an aca- in conjunction with the most re- my own writing in ways I would demic environment, but you should Erroll McDonald • Tom McCarthy • Ben Metcalf cent generation of MFA graduates, never have expected,” says Jacob really just stop at the master’s”), the Join a thriving School of the Eileen Myles • Rowan Ricardo Phillips • Darryl Pinckney work to revitalize a system that has White, a graduate of the Univer- stigma attached to the writer with Arts community in New York Roger Reeves • Elissa Schappell • Bruce Smith long since drained its resources in sity of Houston’s elite creative the PhD is one that seems to imply Lynne Tillman • Mónica de la Torre order to help young writers ad- writing doctoral program. “Get- a lack of publishing distinction in City offering graduate degrees vance in their vocation. ting a firm grasp on the terrain of addition to an overdeveloped de- Brenda Wineapple • James Wood Regularly, a “revitalization” of literature—the philosophical and pendence on academic triggers to in film, theatre, visual arts any given system implies some- historical terrain—has helped writing. The sentiment, however, thing new, something revolu- me achieve a grounding in and is an antiquated one quickly dis- and writing. ALUMNI tionary. So, perhaps it comes as a understanding of my own work proved by a glance at the roster surprise that some view the PhD that simply writing in an aes- of most any doctoral program. Jonathan Ames • Molly Antopol • Mary Jo Bang degree, a far more traditional aca- thetic anti-gravity chamber can’t Scott Cairns, a professor in the Jesse Ball • Cris Beam • Meghan Daum • Kiran Desai demic path, as the best way to re- achieve.” creative writing program at the Visit Manuel Gonzales • Aaron Hamburger • Dinaw Mengestu vitalize that relationship between “Up until recently, writers with University of Missouri in Colum- academia and creative writing. For a PhD were kind of considered like bia, points out that “most (nearly arts.columbia.edu/pw Julie Otsuka • Claudia Rankine • Karen Russell directors of such programs as well the village idiots,” admits Mark all) of our students publish books Parul Sehgal • Brenda Shaughnessy • Lori Soderlind as the students who commit to Winegardner, author of The Godfa- during or immediately following for more information. Tracy K. Smith • Wells Tower • Josh Weil • Vendela Vida Adam Wilson • Mark Wunderlich

49 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS CHOOSE YOUR DIGITAL EDITION OF

their studies at Missouri. The list of their publishing, but eventu- the next ten to twenty years, MFA of accomplishments is stunning; ally someone’s going to ask you programs, rather than becom- for instance, [students] have won if you have your union card, and ing obsolete, will transition to National Poetry Series awards, the PhD is simply a better union becoming pure studio pro- received National Endowment card.” Certainly, creative writing grams, wholly divorced from for the Arts grants, and have pub- programs will always want to hire English departments, with lished books or have won awards writers with strong publishing re- the purpose of serving those that will lead to future publica- cords, regardless of degree. How- writers who don’t necessar- tion.” ever, to more and more people, ily want a career in academia. While the MFA currently re- the PhD option provides a better, Studio programs, as divorced mains the standard terminal de- more complete path for a writer from English departments, will gree for writers, the handful of who wants to combine writing allow those writers who choose doctoral programs make a stron- with literature and make teaching them a two- to three-year block ger impact every year, and this a priority in their careers. wherein they can create an in- impact will inevitably bring to the The most likely solution is dependent course of study that surface a distinct contradiction in this: For as many writers who best meets their writing needs. this ﬁeld. How can we continue to exist and wish to teach, there For writers who wish to become call an MFA terminal if more and are just as many who do not, who both artists and scholars ca- more PhD students are stepping feel their passions and writing pable of teaching at the univer- into the spotlight every year? As are best served with either no sity level, the PhD program will Winegardner points out, “Writers contact or minimal contact with indeed become the “terminal” will always be hired on the basis academic institutions. Within degree.

MFA in CREATIVE WRITING Fiction. Poetry. Creative Nonﬁction.

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Jesmyn Ward The National Book Award–winning author faces tragedy in her new memoir POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO CREATIVEMFA PROGRAMS WRITING PROGRAMS

CONFESSIONS GROWING OF DIVERSITY A IN TEACHINGGRADUATE ASSISTANTSCHOOL BY ROCHELLEBY KELLY SPENCERK. FERGUSON

ike most hopeful writ- cation to Sallie Mae, I applied for a expected of me as a creative writer, ers applying to MFA teaching assistantship at my gradu- but as a TA? I didn’t really know what programs across the ate school of choice. I had gotten myself into. country each year, I When I received the news that I A teaching assistantship is the most Lconsidered funding a priority. A se- had been not only accepted into the common means of funding for students ries of “careers,” ranging from enoki program but also offered a spot as in a full-residency MFA program. As mushroom farmer to rock drum- a teaching assistant (TA), I jumped part of the deal, the university typi- mer, had given me plenty to write around like a contestant on The Price cally grants a tuition waver and pays a about,Rochelle but Spencerno time received to put anwords MFA on Is Right. I chugged ﬁzzy wine straight (small) stipend. In exchange, the gradu- paperfrom and New no York room University. for debt. While An from the bottle and burped with glee. ate student agrees to teach one or two I ultimatelyinstructor at wantedLaGuardia two Community years dur - The next morning I lay on the sofa sections of an undergraduate course, ingCollege, which she to iswrite, currently I wanted writing to a do with a bag of frozen peas on my brow. usually Freshman Composition. sonovel. without piling up student loans. “Well,” I thought, “now what?” I In addition to paying the bills— So, rather than ﬁre off a loan appli- had a pretty good handle on what was and giving you some of the experience

PW.ORG 52 necessary to get a teaching position, should you choose that career once CONFESSIONS OF A you receive your MFA—being of- FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE: BEYOND WHAT YOUR PROGRAM HAS TO OFFER fered a position as a TA is considered BY KELLY K. FERGUSON a vote of confidence by the adminis- ost programs offer financial aid all. Start by visiting the college’s fi- TEACHING ASSISTANT tration. It means your application was M in the form of fellowships and nancial aid website or office. stacked on top of other applications. teaching assistantships, and it’s always worthwhile to apply. But there are other Hardship assistance: If, during the This feels good, of course, but some sources of aid available as well. course of your program, you have a go so far as to interpret the awarding genuine financial emergency, tell the of a teaching assistantship as some Federal student aid: File a Free program director or your college’s Application for Federal Student Aid financial aid office. There may be kind of sign. I’ve talked to more than at www.fafsa.ed.gov before you begin money in reserve for people in a bona one student who said funding deter- your program, and then refile every fide financial crisis. mined whether they pursued writing year that you’re enrolled to see how or something more practical. These much money Uncle Sam will give you College awards and prizes: Re- in grants, student loans, and work- search any awards and prizes offered people are forgetting that you don’t study placements. by the college you’re attending, par- actually need an MFA to write. But all ticularly those offered by the English the same, if you are named as a TA, Your college’s financial aid: Be- department. Often these will be free to enter, will have cash prizes, will look you can’t help but feel as if you’re get- yond the department that adminis- ters your MFA program, find out the good on your CV, and might also have ting a pat on the back—that is, until application process for every relevant relatively little competition. Look for you realize all that is expected of you. grant and scholarship available from details on your English department’s A teaching assistantship is not a your school and then apply for them website or stop by the office and ask. fellowship—there’s no cash award. In

5353 POETSPOETS && WRITERSWRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO CREATIVEMFA PROGRAMS WRITING PROGRAMS

fact, it is less like a gift and a whole plenty of time to write and schmooze week or so into class, when I received lot more like a job. On paper, this the visiting writers, right? my students’ responses to their first job looks pretty good.GROWING Assuming you Not necessarily. DIVERSITY For every hour assignment: “Inquiry IN Project No. 1: have one section, you’ll technically you’re in front of your students, you’ll The Personal Essay—My Literacy be teaching only two and a half hours spend many more hours planning les- Project,”BY ROCHELLE in which SPENCERthey’d been in- GRADUATEper week—a typical schedule is fifty sons, SCHOOL grading papers, and going fetal structed to “relay a personal memory minutes on Monday, Wednesday, and over your last lecture that bombed. that demonstrates an experience you Friday, or an hour and fifteen minutes Just how many hours depends on your had with the power of language.” I on Tuesday and Thursday. That leaves personality. sat down, nervous, with the first of In my letter of intent, I wrote that twenty-four essays. I read five pages my motivations for wanting to pur- about drinking and driving through Kelly K. Ferguson is the author of My sue the degree were simple: I wanted the Montana wilderness to the songs Life As Laura: Or How I Searched for a chance to put writing first. I would of Led Zeppelin. Two full pages were Laura Ingalls Wilder and Found Myself, say the program gave me this chance. dedicated to some mysterious she- published in 2011 by Press 53. Her However, if I were to clock the hours I nanigans involving a sparkler, three work has appeared in the Gettysburg spent writing versus the hours I spent cases of Kokanee, and a moose skull. ReviewRochelle, mental_floss Spencer, andreceived Brevity an, among MFA teaching—plus prep time—I’m sure “Try connecting this experience to otherfrom publications. New York SheUniversity. has an MFA An in teaching won by a landslide. The first a greater issue,” I wrote. “What is creativeinstructor writing at LaGuardia from the Community University semester was especially rough. I prob- the greater significance of your SUV ofCollege, Montana, she andis currently a PhD from writing Ohio a ably logged forty hours a week, at least and Kashmir?” Later, I looked at the University.novel. that when I had to grade papers. clock. I had spent almost two hours My first experience grading came a on my comments sheet. In fact, my

PW.ORG 54 TEACHING ASSISTANTSHIP 101

ELIGIBILITY and practice.the director Develop a lesson of plan the that Africanyour best writing time? Once you have A number of creative writing programs includes an outline of talking points a sense of this, make a schedule that is give teaching assistantships to all their‘ Americanthat you’ll cover inResource class. Practice your Center most productive at Howard for your working Univer style - incoming graduate students, but others talking points at home—even in front and be vigilant about sticking to it. have only a limited number of positions sity,of a mirror worries and using a tape recorder or While grading takes time and energy, available. Typically program faculty video recorder to become aware of (and so does worrying about the huge pile of determine which students become TAs work at eliminating) any speaking tics papers you’ve let build up on your cof- based on the overall strength of the cre- thatyou may creative have. The more writing you practice, programs fee table. are now in dan- ative writing application, plus academic the more comfortable you’ll seem in credentials such as undergraduate grade gerfront of of the losing classroom. some Practicing of also theirMEASURES faculty OF diversity. SUCCESS point average and GRE score. Prefer- gives you a sense of how much time it Most programs have established meth- ence is often given to candidates who takes to cover any particular subject. ods for determining how well you’re have previous teaching experience. Another tip: It helps to move around performing in the classroom. Some when speaking in front of a group. You’ll institute peer visits during which fel- PREP WORK burn off nervous energy and appear low TAs attend one or more of your It’s in the best interest of universities livelier. Note, though, that combining classes and give you feedback on how‘ to assure that their TAs perform well, a suddenly quieter speaking voice with they think you’re doing. These can so they always provide some kind of a focused physical stillness subtly but prepare you for formal assessments, training, but the rigor of that train- firmly grabs attention and asserts your during which a faculty member ob- ing varies. Some programs require higher status as teacher. It can be a pow- serves your class and later submits a TAs to attend pre-semester orienta- erful secret weapon. written evaluation to the department tion sessions and sign up for first- Along with talking points, include under which your classes fall. Finally, semester seminars on how to teach time for questions from students—be your students usually have a chance writing. Such classes brief students on sure to have some of your own prepared to weigh in through end-of-semester what the department expects from its as a way to engage a quiet class. Mix up evaluations, which are also submitted TAs, as well as instructing them on the lectures with other tasks such as free- to the department. Such evaluations best practices for creating a syllabus, writing exercises and student-involved are usually shared with you. Take any which texts to use, how to create as- activities (and have extra activities to feedback you receive seriously; there’s signments, how to inspire lively class- draw from in the event that your class always room for improvement. And a room discussion, and grading. Other starts to become restless). Have stu- poor overall evaluation may threaten programs require their students to dents break into peer groups and col- your receiving a reappointment for the work as tutors and/or with a faculty laborate on answering a set of questions subsequent year. member first before taking on their or completing an assignment. Remem- own classes. ber to bring classroom exercises back THE PAYOFF Along with taking the required pre- to the day’s lesson plan. And be sure to Being a TA is a serious and important paratory courses, new TAs should also end the class with a reminder of what’s responsibility. Doing it well often consider reacquainting themselves with expected of your students at the next draws from the same energy source the rules of grammar and punctuation. meeting. that feeds your own writing. So it’s While most creative writers have an in- crucial to strive for balance between tuitive sense of what constitutes strong TIME MANAGEMENT doing your best in the classroom prose, they don’t always have at the tip of One of the biggest challenges for creative and at your writing desk. But hav- their tongues (or pens) the rules that ex- writing graduate students who are also ing teaching experience under your plain why. Part of teaching introductory TAs is time management. Depending belt can be a tremendous boon post- writing involves being able to convey on class size and the number of courses graduation. If nothing else, it gives these fundamentals to beginning writ- you’ll be assigned to teach, you could be you a sense of whether teaching is a ers, so it helps to give yourself a brushup. grading twenty to fifty papers every few career path you want to pursue. The Some resources to consider: The Ele- weeks. That’s a lot of time spent reading, skills you learn along the way can also ments of Style by William Strunk (Dover let alone grading. TAs also are usually be applied to other occupations that Publications, 2006), The Practical Stylist required to hold office hours, which are involve leadership, the training of by Sheridan Baker (Longman, 1997), more time spent away from your own others, and public speaking. Perhaps and Essentials of English Grammar by L. creative endeavors. From the beginning, most valuable, being a TA gives you Sue Baugh (McGraw-Hill, 2005). work to develop a schedule for grading the chance to help cultivate a wider papers. Get a sense of your own rhythm appreciation for writing, and reading, STAGE FRIGHT and endurance: How many papers can in the public at large—and to build The best way to combat pre-class jit- you read before you begin to glaze over? the audience for your own future con- ters is obvious and important: Prepare What is your best reading time? What is tributions.

55 POETS55 POETS& WRITERS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO CREATIVEMFA PROGRAMS WRITING PROGRAMS

comments were longer than the essay “engaging with your pedagogical while the latter complained about itself. And I had twenty-three more community.” debt. to go. GROWINGThe bottom lineDIVERSITY is that teaching As you apply to programs,IN keep You can expect to hear war sto- is a demanding job, and Comp is a in mind that not all TA positions ries like this at your on-campus tough class. Each semester my stu- areBY created ROCHELLE equal. SPENCER Now that we GRADUATE“teacher training,” which is re- dents SCHOOL wrote four papers, plus eight know an assistantship is a job, not quired of all incoming TAs. A kind shorter assignments. Some of them a blessing from the Writer God, of boot camp for beginning teach- were solid writers; others could let’s talk salary. The University of ers, the three- to five-day session is barely construct a paragraph. All of Montana pays $14,000 a year. At the designed to give you the basic cur- them had a lot to learn. It took time. University of Alabama TAs receive riculum requirements and a heaping A whole lot of precious time. And $13,140. Also, keep in mind that dose of rhetorical theory. Don’t be time spent teaching is time spent not some schools cover health insur- surprised if the experience leaves writing. ance, while others don’t. you in a state of complete panic. As a TA, I knew I was getting The number of sections a TA It’s impossible to learn a time- teaching experience. I knew school is required to teach can also vary honored profession in a few days. was paid for. But I found that when from place to place. I’ve heard WhoRochelle said Spencerteaching received was easy?an MFA No my writing was going well, my TAs claim that the real work is one.from New York University. An classroom was in chaos. And vice in the planning, so teaching two instructorOnce you at LaGuardia find yourself Community in the versa. Writing and teaching are like sections isn’t that much more classroom,College, she expect is currently student writing resis a - siblings, related but not necessarily work than one. These people are tance,novel. but don’t take it personally. compatible. And while I did make crazy. The fact is, while every student is time for writing (notice the word required to take Freshman Comp, “make”), I didn’t have much energy didn’t know any of this before no one is very excited about it. The to revise, query, enter, or submit. I got to school. Do I regret ac- good students think they should Whenever times got rough in cepting the position without be exempt and the bad students school my first thought was, “Well, being fully informed? Not are counting down the minutes to at least I’m not paying for this.” But Ireally. I would have made the same Jäger time. On the plus side, you is that the right attitude? No. Stu- decision. I just feel lucky to have can win your students over, and dents who receive no funding of any been accepted into the program I they just might leave your class as kind, I have noticed, tend to voice wanted—with funding. I did want more informed people. As a writ- their concerns, ask more questions the teaching experience; I didn’t ing instructor, you get to know in class, and take more notes dur- want the debt. I’ll pass along some your students pretty well, and you ing workshop. They often act as advice I heard years ago: “Apply to can have a significant impact. Re- the consumer watchdogs of the as many programs as you can stand” ally. program, the first to confront ad- (Steve Almond); make that “at least Your fellow TAs will be your life- ministrators on decisions that affect eight to twelve” schools (Tom Ke- line to sanity. I also suggest chatting students. aley); and “while you’re at it, why not up the adjuncts. “Adjunct” is short A friend of mine has theorized try and get school paid for?” (Mom for adjunct faculty—those hired to that writers who don’t receive jobs and Dad). teach additional sections of Comp. as TAs or other forms of financial aid All of these people were spot Often adjuncts are people who just come in with smaller egos, and are on. I also learned from my fellow graduated from your MFA program therefore more willing to take feed- classmates—the ones who were and are still around town. As expe- back and revise. Are the students paying to be in the program— rienced teachers, they usually have who work as TAs better writers than about how I could get the most out classroom activities and assignment those who don’t? Of course not. The of my time there. Getting funding sheets typed up and ready to go. only difference I noticed between is important, but once you are en- Don’t think of using these prepared TAs and non-TAs was that the rolled, act as if you are paying the lessons as stealing—rather, you’re former complained about students full price of admission.

PW.ORG 56 the director of the African ‘American Resource Center at Howard Univer- sity, worries that creative writing programs are now in danger of losing some of their faculty diversity. ‘

57 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO CREATIVEMFA PROGRAMS WRITING PROGRAMS

CONFESSIONS GROWING OF DIVERSITY AN MFA IN APPLICATIONGRADUATE SCHOOL READERBY ROCHELLEBY STEVE SPENCER ALMOND

hen I was asked to in one of four categories: “don’t applicants some pointed advice. read fiction appli- recommend,” “unsure,” “recom- The applications I read consisted cations for an MFA mend,” and “strongly recommend.” of an undergraduate transcript, a program, I imme- The applications were then turned writing sample, three letters of rec- Wdiately agreed. After all, I felt qual- over to a second reader, who made ommendation, a personal essay, and ified: I’m a fiction writer, a teacher, another evaluation, before the staff a second essay on a writer the ap- and someone who went through an reached a final decision. plicant admired. Most programs ask MFA program myself. Plus, I figured Obviously (and fortunately), I for the first four of these, though doingRochelle so would Spencer help received reinforce an MFA the was not put in the position to accept many require GRE scores as well. always-tenuousfrom New York notion University. that I Anknew or reject applicants. Nonetheless, In looking over the dossiers, I was whatinstructor I was attalking LaGuardia about Community. the experience gave me an insider’s struck by how much time I imagined College,My responsibilities she is currently writingconsisted a view of the process, which is why had gone into preparing each one, ofnovel. reviewing several dozen appli- I—in consultation with a few real and how little time, comparatively, cations and putting each of them experts, of course—want to offer I spent with them—anywhere from

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PW.ORG 58 thirty to forty-ﬁve minutes. Almost “The writing sample is the only Story A in your application, chances CONFESSIONS OF AN MFA all my time was spent reading the thing the we look director at,” says theof authorthe Africanare, Story B (despite your sentimen- writing samples. In general, these George Saunders, who teaches in tal attachment to it, in fact, because samples range from twenty to forty ‘theAmerican MFA program Resource at Syracuse Uni Center- of your at sentimentalHoward attachment) Univer is- BY STEVE ALMOND APPLICATION READER pages for ﬁction (about half of that versity. “Sometimes, at the very the wrong choice. for poetry). end,sity, if worriesthere’s a toss-up, we look at Never assume that readers are Mind you, nobody told me how the rest.” looking for a particular kind of much attention to devote to each ele- thatJohn creative Dufresne, awriting novelist and programs writing. areThey’re now not. in While dan it’s- ment of the application. The only in- creative writing professor at Florida true that most of the folks who read struction I received was not to waste Internationalger of losing University some (FIU ),of con their- applications faculty are diversity. themselves writ- time on an application if the writing curs. “It’s the first thing I look at, ers, they are invariably interested sample was weak. sometimes the only thing.” in the quality of the work—not its Remember that the directors of Here are some rules of thumb, aesthetic. “Don’t try to second- MFA programs are, in large part, when it comes to the writing sam- guess your readers,” advises Stuart looking to recruit those students ple. Dischell, a poet and professor‘ who who stand the best chance of suc- Do not assume you’re the best reads applications for the Univer- ceeding as writers. Unlike other judge of your own work. If you sity of North Carolina in Greens- graduate school applications, have readers you trust, friends, writ- boro (UNCG). “Just put in your best where the screeners have to guess ing group pals, even teachers—by all work.” at an applicant’s potential based on means ask them for help in choosing Dischell says he looks for a grades or test scores, MFA applica- a sample. And listen to their counsel. broad range of styles: “I certainly tions offer a direct indication. If half a dozen folks tell you to use wouldn’t wish to have mostly stu-

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59 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS

dents inclined toward my formal as quickly as possible. the first. Quality trumps quantity, or aesthetic concerns. It wouldn’t This, by the way, applies to every time. There is no law against provide the give and take, the poetry as well as fiction. “Don’t put submitting a fifteen-page story, even cross-teaching, necessary for stu- your oldest poems on the top, even if the limit is thirty. To be honest, dents to challenge each others’ if you are a loyal person,” Dischell most readers (this one at least) will assumptions.” says. “They are probably not your be grateful. We won’t assume you Make sure you start strong. best works, and if they are, it’s prob- don’t have other good stories. We’ll You cannot expect someone who ably not a good sign for the develop- just assume you have confidence in has just read forty straight applica- ment of a writer.” your best work. tions to wade through seven pages of “Most people who apply can write Also, synopses—particularly prologue before getting to the meat well,” FIU’s Dufresne observes. “But lengthy ones—come off as indul- of a story. It’s not going to happen. they can’t tell a story, don’t seem to gent and semipro. Remember that This is not an invitation to glibness, know what a story is. So, fiction most readers don’t really care about but a reminder to engage the reader writers, tell a story! Make me care the plot of your novel. We just want about what happens to your charac- to see if you can keep us reading. ters. I don’t want to be distracted by More than a decade ago, when I Steve Almond is the author of nine your ‘style.’” was applying to schools—and, for books of fiction and nonfiction, Less is, in fact, more. I often the most part, getting rejected— most recently Against Football: One came across applications with one most required that applicants take Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto (Melville very strong story and one weaker the GREs. I spent a great deal of House, 2014). story. All this second story did time worrying about this test, and was water down my impression of still wound up with lousy scores.

Writing Workshops • Craft Classes • Literature Classes e MFA in Writing Program at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri, focuses on the practice and study of creative writing. Students receive personalized instruction in small workshop sessions. Courses may be taken in the classroom, fully online, or a combination of both in-class and online. Faculty members include writers such as Tony D’Souza, Eve Jones, Wm. Anthony Connolly, Catherine Rankovic, and Kelli Allen. Coursework Options fiction • creative nonfiction • poetry • narrative journalism scriptwriting • novel • genre fiction • journal editing

Contact: Visit: Beth Mead, Program Director www.lindenwood.edu/online/mfa-writing.html [email protected] www.lindenwood.edu/acceleratedDegreePrograms/writing 636.949.4524 www.lindenwood.edu/lindenwoodReview

www.lindenwood.edu

PW.ORG 60 Now, as an initial application reader, I can tell you those scores REMEMBER THAT MOST READERS didn’t mean diddly-squat to me. And, to be honest, they don’t mean DON’T REALLY CARE ABOUT THE much to the higher-ups in the MFA department, either. PLOT OF YOUR NOVEL. WE JUST WANT Likewise, I didn’t really pay much attention to the academic tran- TO SEE IF YOU CAN KEEP US READING. scripts. Having earned a sterling GPA, or attended an Ivy League school, just didn’t strike me as hav- applicant’s major. So, even if you and GRE scores weigh much more ing much bearing on whether an write like Faulkner, you could still heavily if you’re applying for a PhD applicant would learn to write well. get dinged. in creative writing. “Of course, But (and this is a big but) many In general, grades and GRE scores the writing sample is the most programs have a two-tiered screen- are important only if they’re ex- important element,” says Michael ing process. The folks in the MFA ceptionally low, in which case the Grifﬁth, a writer who teaches in the department are the ones who make graduate school might balk, or excep- PhD program and is the director of the ultimate decision. But ﬁrst you tionally high, in which case the MFA graduate studies at the University of have to be accepted by the graduate department might make a run at a Cincinnati. “But a promising sam- school in question. Take UNCG, my university-wide fellowship to pay a ple wouldn’t be enough, as it might alma mater, for example. The gradu- student’s tuition. be in a studio program, to overcome ate school requires a 3.0 GPA in an It’s worth noting that your GPA subpar grades and scores.”

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6161 POETSPOETS && WRITERSWRITERS POETSPOETS && WRITERSWRITERS GUIDEGUIDE TOTO CREATIVEMFA PROGRAMS WRITING PROGRAMS

GROWING DIVERSITY IN GRADUATE SCHOOL BY ROCHELLE SPENCER

Rochelle Spencer received an MFA from New York University. An instructor at LaGuardia Community College, she is currently writing a novel.

WRITING CHANGES CREATIVE

WWW.UWB.EDU/MFA

PW.ORG 62 ily to find her place in the world as a EVERYONE HAS SOME the SORT director OF of the Africanwriter. She had run away from home, STORY, SOME MOMENT OF REVELA- dropped out of high school, and slung ‘American Resource Centerdrinks at at Howard a topless bar Univerbefore earn-- TION, OF YEARNING AND PERIL —AND ing her college degree. I urged her to sity, worries share these experiences, which were, THAT’S WHAT YOU SHOULD BE SET- after all, central to her fiction. She that creative writing programsrelented—and are woundnow up in receiving dan- a TING DOWN: THE SLOPPY HUMAN raft of offers. ger of losing some of their Obviously,faculty diversity.not everyone has a TRUTH. Horatio Alger saga on tap. But everyone has some sort of story, some moment of revelation, of yearning he two other elements like that of blurbs—is hyperbolic. Ev- and peril—and that’s what you of the application to eryone is wonderful and dedicated and should be setting down: the‘ sloppy which I paid careful at- bristling with potential. Half-hearted, human truth, not the polite rheto- tention were the letters or ambivalent, testimonials stand out. ric. Tof recommendation and the personal Don’t recycle old recommenda- “Write it and rewrite it until you essay. tions. One applicant included a let- get past all that crap you tell your- Neither mattered much if the ter written for his attempt to get into self and other people about why you writing sample was weak. But they medical school. write,” says Dufresne. “Write until did become a factor in those cases As for the personal essay, please, I you’re being honest with yourself. when I had to choose between two beg of you, avoid the clichés. Avoid: This statement is the second most strong writing samples. I have been writing as long as I can important document in your file, A few notes on the letters of remember. Avoid: I am hopeful your and it should be as well written recommendation: program will allow me the time to hone and as compelling as your fiction Don’t have your best friend write my fiction. Avoid: I am seeking an en- or poetry. Avoid sentimentality. it. No matter how heartfelt it might vironment that will nurture my work. If you aren’t sure why you want to be, what it’s telling me is that you Not only are you stating the obvi- write, you should be by the end of don’t have teachers who will vouch ous, you are squandering a precious this statement. Or you’ll find out for you. The same goes for your phy- opportunity to bring yourself alive. that it’s not as important as you sician, coworker, real estate broker. After all, the application process it- thought.” (I encountered examples of all three.) self is dehumanizing. You are reduced My final piece of advice is accept Don’t ask someone who doesn’t to a sheaf of papers, one of several the fact that your experience is know your work well. I read one hundred being reviewed by a groggy, going to be determined by factors application that included a letter marginally responsible person like you can’t control: who your class- from a Very Famous Writer. But me. What you need to do with the mates are, who your neighbors are, this writer had obviously met the essay is to create an identity that makes the appearance of a particular vis- applicant only in passing, and read a you something more than application iting writer. The one thing you can single story. He wasn’t really quali- No. 397. I’m not suggesting that you control—as always—is your own fied to comment on her prospects. get gimmicky. Forget the collage, work. Which is why I urge appli- The tone of his letter was polite, but and the haiku. On the contrary, the cants to recognize that where you a little bemused. idea is to be as emotionally honest as get in really matters a lot less than Don’t ask someone if you aren’t possible. what you put in. MFA programs can sure they’re going to praise you This was the advice I gave to my foster talent. But they can’t make lavishly. This sounds obvious. But friend Nan, whose first pass was an or break you as a writer. That you have to remember that the entire essay of the well-meaning, dull vari- power—or burden, or chance— realm of recommendation letters— ety. In fact, Nan had struggled might- belongs solely to you.

6363 POETSPOETS && WRITERSWRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS

THE AHA! MOMENT BY MICHAEL BOURNE

f you’re applying to MFA programs 1 “The title jumps out at me right away because not everybody this year, once you’ve finished honing titles the personal statement. I like that he’s framing it up. I read your writing sample and gathering tran- this as a mini-essay. He’s not just throwing down a bunch of para- scripts and letters of recommendation, graphs. He’s actually thinking about how he wants to frame his Ichances are you will need to write a personal experience as a nonfiction writer.” statement introducing yourself and laying out your reasons for applying. (Of course prospec- 2 “I’m always looking for potential graduate students who are tive students should always carefully research a really trying something. I see him at the beginning starting with a program’s required application materials before homely anecdote about making hot dogs, and then a little bit later applying.) But beyond thanking the admissions you can see him pulling out all the stops and writing these incred- committee for considering your application and ibly complex sentences and making erudite references to authors saying how badly you want to attend its MFA who have influenced him. I like that he’s doing high/low.” program, what should you say—and not say—in a personal statement? 3 “He’s doing really interesting things syntactically. I’ll often Wendy Rawlings, director of the MFA pro- start a sentence and not quite know where I’m going to end up. You gram at the University of Alabama in Tus- have the phrase ‘the buns’ set off by itself. He’s using a colon and caloosa, says that when she began reading a pair of parentheses and then he’s doing the hyphens: ‘well-we- applications, she found herself “scanning for aren’t-the-French-fry-hambur—.’ I mean, look at all that. To me, crazy” in personal statements. Even now, she that’s what I call texture. There’s a lot of texture.” says, she can be turned off by “overly fawning” references to faculty members’ work and indi- 4 “That’s a crazy sentence. But I can see what he’s trying to do. cations that applicants have an inflated view of Probably if he was in my class and writing an essay, I’d talk to him their own talents. about some ways to refine it. It does seem like he loses control Overall, though, while Rawlings considers a little bit, but he’s trying something. There’s tons of interesting the writing sample by far the most important stuff in there.” element of an application, she says she reads personal statements to see whether the prospec- 5 “A lot of times people will just give us a list of influential writ- tive student would be a good fit for Alabama’s ers and we laugh about, ‘Oh, David Foster Wallace, perennially program and for signs that the writer is willing interesting to people.’ Or, right now, George Saunders—everybody’s to take risks even with a tame form like the read George Saunders. If it’s just a mention like that in a list of Lorrie personal statement. Moore, George Saunders, DFW—that’s not as interesting to me as Here, as part of our continuing series, Raw- it is here, where he’s actually trying to connect the Stevens line to lings discusses an excerpt from the personal what he’s thinking about.” statement of Connor O’Neill, a twenty-three- year-old graduate of Vassar College who en- 6 “He’s out of his comfort zone here. He’ll be interesting to work tered the MFA program at the University of with as a nonfiction writer because I don’t know if he’s figured out Alabama last fall. yet how to work his intellectual concerns into his personal writing. But I can see that he’s capable of doing that down the road. A lot of people aren’t evincing intellectual curiosity, so if I can see a mind a Michael Bourne is a contributing editor of Poets little bit on fire, which is what I’m seeing here, it’s okay that I don’t & Writers Magazine. understand everything.”

PW.ORG 64 Go Without Saying, or, Why I Write Nonfiction At some point after I took my brother to the hospital, I was back at my parents’ house ravenous and alone and made two hot dogs in a pan with a generous pad of butter. We had those buns that open on top and can’t be toasted with the dogs. So I left them, the buns, by the stove and went looking for ketchup. Glancing through and around milk, jam, and cottage cheese: none. I considered the mustard (we had three kinds). Then a half-shrug of well-we- aren’t-the-French-fry-hambur— But on those days when the sweat is so bottom- less, the heat so oppressive that it feels like you are wearing it, only that cold tang of ketchup will do. So I looked again. Relief. But also a residual wonder, in the half-articulated assumptions of our ketchup-keeping habits: why was I willing to believe we didn’t? See, that is why I write nonfiction—and it has absolutely nothing to do with whether we had that ketchup. What can become, on the page, a manifold and mul- tivalent meditation on family and culinary preference there at the six-cornered in- tersection with notions of self, was, in the moment, a series of disordered sensations including but not limited to: a hunger pang, tabouli flashing across the palette, a half-inflated imagining of Mum finding a bottle lid covered by the dried-blood of old ketchup (“Pitched” she’d say, throwing it out and proceeding to slick-up the kitchen). “How we felt / At what we saw” is an excerpt from a Wallace Stevens poem that sums up this question rather nicely. But the economy of phrase belies a working distance from oneself necessary to work towards oneself. To contemplate, discover, and articulate how I felt leering into the fridge in anything approaching Wallace-ian beauty, scope, and feeling requires one to trace, sort and remember. The present is too fickle, synapses fire too quickly in the moment to be fully conscious of them in that moment. But writing can parse the neural and psychological spasms. It necessarily (re)shapes and (re)orders, in a linear fashion, the fragmented and discrete quanta of interiority. I sit each night with pen and pad and remake the world in the image of time, working towards an image of self. These are willful and necessary acts of revision—folding creases in reality with words. For anything to ‘go without saying’ is to lose myself. The piece of reality that feels real to me, I’ve made by writing.

65 POETS & WRITERS POETSPOETS && WRITERSWRITERS GUIDEGUIDE TOTO CREATIVEMFA PROGRAMS WRITING PROGRAMS

GET GROWING THE MOST DIVERSITY OUT OF IN YOURGRADUATE MFA EXPERIENCE SCHOOL BY ROCHELLE SPENCER

BY GABRIEL PACKARD

nce you’ve landed in the spend writing is the single most gram [at the time], sat me down in right program, there are important variable that will deter- his office and said, ‘You write three a few guidelines you mine how much you develop your hours a day, six days a week.’ And should follow to make craft during your MFA. Clear the he made clear—reading, research, OtheRochelle best of Spencer your experience. received an MFA maximum amount of free time and editing, all that other stuff is off fromChoose New the York best University. classes. Before An preserve it for writing only. The the clock. That time is for compo- showinginstructor up at forLaGuardia your first Community semester, more time you can spend writing, sition. Learning to sit and put your callCollege, the program she is currently administrator writing anda the more you will get out of any head down, to build a schedule, is requestnovel. contact information for a workshop and the program as a about the only way to get serious few graduate students currently in whole. If you can afford to do so, writing done. ” the program. Contact them for ad- work only part-time, or don’t work Work the workshop. In work- vice about which classes and work- at all. Two years isn’t a long time, shops, submit pieces that you’ve shops they think are the best and and you want to make the most already taken as far as you can on why. “Talk to current students at of it. This is one major reason for your own. It’s annoying, and also the program to see which instruc- carefully thinking about applying a wasted opportunity, to be told by tors are the most invested in their to expensive programs. You don’t your classmates and instructor that workshops and in their students’ want to be worrying about money you need to fix particular problems work,” says Julia Fierro, graduate when you should be focused on that you already knew needed fixing. of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop your writing. Resolving these before you submit and founder of the Sackett Street By setting aside the maximum allows your fellow students to focus Writers’ Workshop in New York amount of time to write—and on any deeper writing issues that City. “Those are the instructors— using it—you can develop your self- you may have missed. even if they are less published, have discipline during your MFA years, Don’t be afraid to put forth the won fewer awards, and so on— rather than relying on deadlines same piece of work several differ- whom you should try to study with.” given by your instructors to spur ent times—after having rigorously Spend as much time as pos- you to write. After you graduate revised it each time, of course. sible writing. The time you the deadlines will be gone, but This is a very effective use of any you’ll take the self-discipline with workshop, because your ultimate you. Writer Nathan Englander, goal is to be able to produce high- Gabriel Packard is the associate who teaches at the New York Uni- quality, polished pieces of writing, director of the creative writing MFA versity MFA program, and who not to accumulate an ever increas- program at Hunter College, CUNY. graduated from the Iowa Writers’ ing number of half-finished stories, His book Self-Discipline: A Practical Workshop, recalls: “The advice I poems, or essays that you plan on Guide for Writers was published in 2012 got when I started workshop was revising later. You attend an MFA by Cardoza Publishing. hugely helpful to me. Frank Con- program to hone your writing roy, the director of the Iowa pro- skills, many of which can only be

PW.ORG 66 learned in the late stages of draft- it carefully and slowly. “Be open— students, support your points with ing. really the and directortruly open—to of hearing the African examples and excerpts from the Consider the workshop to what other people say about your text that you’re workshopping. This be a place where you’ll learn ‘Americanwork,” says Paisley Resource Rekdal, whoCenter makes at yourHoward argument Univer stronger, -it how to think like a writer, not teaches at the University of Utah’s makes what you’re saying more in- simply how to improve a spe- sity,MFA program worries in Salt Lake City and teresting and valuable, and it helps cific piece. “Don’t go into a is a graduate of the MFA program keep the class conversation focused workshop looking for a poetry thatat the creativeUniversity ofwriting Michigan programs in on the text are itself. now in dan- doctor—somebody who can help Ann Arbor. “Also, be intelligently Focus on your thesis. If you you fix up your poems,” says David gerprepared of losing not to heed some all the of cri their- have faculty the option, diversity. consider postpon - Rivard, a professor at the Univer- tiques you get. Students should be ing your thesis workshop or super- sity of New Hampshire’s MFA realistic: Some people are better vision until you’ve finished all your program in Durham and a graduate readers than others.” Whatever other MFA classes. This gives you of the University of Arizona’s MFA you do, don’t simply enter every the benefit of being able to direct program in Tucson. “You’re bet- suggestion into your manuscript. all your energy toward your‘ the- ter off with a teacher who will help It’s a good idea to read through all sis without having to worry about you—and all the other students in the critiques and edits and wait at other assignments. the workshop—think through the least a few days to let the dust settle Once you’ve begun working on problems and opportunities that before making any changes to your it, submit as many drafts as you can your writing embodies.” workshopped piece. to your thesis supervisor for feed- When it comes to the feedback you In the critiques, both written back. This is a unique opportunity receive from other students, assess and spoken, that you offer to other to have an established writer give

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67 POETSPW.ORG & WRITERS67 POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO CREATIVEMFA PROGRAMS WRITING PROGRAMS

focused attention to your work. But make sure each draft is a significant improvement over GROWING the last. You don’t DIVERSITY IN want to waste your time—or your supervisor’s. ONCE YOU’VE BEGUNBY ROCHELLE WORKING SPENCER GRADUATEBuild professional relation- SCHOOL ships with the faculty. Having ON YOUR THESIS, SUBMIT AS MANY contacts in the world of letters DRAFTS AS YOU CAN TO YOUR SUPER- can help you progress in your career more quickly, just as it can VISOR. THIS IS A UNIQUE OPPORTU- in practically every other walk of life. You still, first and foremost, NITY TO HAVE AN ESTABLISHED need to be able to produce high- quality writing to succeed as a WRITER GIVE FOCUSED ATTENTION writer, but knowing professionals in the writing industry may TO YOUR WORK. helpRochelle get yourSpencer manuscript received an MFA read andfrom responded New York to University.by editors moreAn quicklyinstructor and at LaGuardiaalso may Communityhelp get you recommendedCollege, she is currentlyfor jobs writingand other a opportunities.novel. graduates. It’s a kind of joint net- free time to write. This may well The best way to build strong re- working: You let us know about be a plain, old office job, where lationships with your professors is your books so we can buy them, we you forget about work when you simply to be a hardworking, serious let others know about you so that leave at 5 PM each evening. Many writer, who is reliable and profes- we can look good.” writing jobs, publishing jobs, and sional. Be the kind of person that After graduating, stay in touch teaching jobs draw from the same anyone would be proud to recom- with your classmates. You can help writing and editing energy you’ll mend for a job opening, and pro- one another out, as your careers need for your own work, leaving duce the kind of writing that people progress, with agent recommen- you burnt out. will remember and will want to ad- dations, critiques of one another’s “Persevere,” says Leslie Epstein, vocate for. work, book-jacket blurbs, setting up director of Boston University’s When a faculty member recom- readings, and more. Get together MFA program in creative writing. mends you for an opportunity of with the students whose work you “Some of our graduates, like Ha any kind, she is putting her own respect after you graduate, and Jin, began to publish the very work reputation on the line, so follow form your own workshop or manu- they wrote in the workshops—and through and be sure to make her script exchange. they did so immediately. Others, look good. If you succeed, your Some final words of advice. like Jhumpa Lahiri, admirably chances of being recommended Don’t fall into the trap of thinking stuck with it over years, just a story again will be greater. that now that you have an MFA, here, a story there: and then the Continue to benefit from your you must get a job connected to blossoming.” MFA after graduation. Market teaching, writing, or publishing in The most important thing is yourself through your alma mater: order to stay in the game. These to exercise the writing skills and “Let your MFA program know if types of jobs won’t necessarily self-discipline you learned during you’ve won an award or published help you build your writing career. your MFA experience into your a book or series of poems,” says If your main aim is to continue postgraduate life. Know that for Rekdal. “Every MFA program has a to develop as a writer, you might most students, the end of the MFA newsletter of some sort, and every look instead for a job that will is just the beginning of their writ- program likes to brag about its provide you with the maximum ing career.

PW.ORG 68 A COMPENDIUM OF GRADUATE MFA NATION 2016 WRITING PROGRAMS

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69 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFAPOETS PROGRAMS & WRITERS GUIDE TO CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAMS

your old life or begin a new one. LIFE AFTER Learn to be flexible. Many years ago I attended a weekend workshop with poet and fiction writer Kate THE MFA Braverman, who blew me away with her courage, her power, and her BY DAWN HAINES convictions. She told the students gathered in the room that if we were serious about becoming writers, we must forsake everything, live in a here aren’t many writ- were many reasons for my inactivity, solitary room, and write endlessly. ers I know who don’t but first and foremost I was suffer- An older gentleman with a beard look back on their time ing from a simple case of good old- and white hair—whom I immediately in an MFA program as fashioned postgraduation blues. pictured in a sparsely furnished room Tthe closest they’ll get to heaven on What I call postgraduation blues with a hot plate, a cat, and a portable earth. These programs, whether another might call writer’s block. A typewriter—said, “I am ready to do they are full- or low-residency, typi- student of mine at the University of it.” I have no doubt he believed he cally offer good teaching, excellent New Hampshire recently sent me this was. I hope he is still writing. networking opportunities, and a missive: “I have no idea if the poet This all-or-nothing approach to structured, protected writing cul- William Stafford was a Buddhist, but the writing life plagues many MFA ture. Yet the work has only begun the quote I need to pin to my shirt students, but the truth is, it’s not by the program’s end. What follows reads, ‘I believe that the so-called very practical. I’ve written in the is a compendium of experiences and “writer’s block” is a product of some living room with my toddler at my advice about how to sustain a writing kind of disproportion between your feet. I’ve written in coffee shops, life after the MFA, which I’ve gath- standards and your performance.... airplanes, in the car during soccer ered since graduating from the low- One should lower his standards until practice, and sitting up in bed. I’ve residency program at the Vermont there is no felt threshold to go over done some of my best revising in the College of Fine Arts (VCFA) in 2006. in writing. It’s easy to write. You just in-between moments, all those times Write the day after you leave shouldn’t have standards that inhibit when I wanted to believe I couldn’t your program. In early January you from writing.’” write because the setting or situation 2006 I returned to my regular life— In one of his lectures at VCFA, wasn’t right or there wasn’t enough my husband, my young son, and my Larry Sutin said, “You never know open-ended time. I’ve learned to lis- dog as well as my full-time teaching when you’ll do your best writing, so ten to myself, to know that any time job—and promptly stopped writing. write a lot.” He wasn’t talking about I need to, I can get real writing done. Today I know (because I started desperation. Writing is always in Someone asked Grace Paley, at writing again six months later) there part a process of exploring the un- a reading she gave in Tucson, Ari- known. If we don’t know when the zona, in the early nineties, “Do you good stuff will happen, we have to like writing or do you like having Dawn Haines’s writing has appeared make sure we show up to work to at written?” At the time, I knew I liked in Poets & Writers Magazine, Brevity, least allow for the chance of it. For having written. I liked being done. and Zone 3. She lives with her me, it’s actually a statement of hope. Having something to show for it. husband and son in southern New You have to circumvent those But that kind of mind-set—thinking Hampshire, where she is a senior feelings of loss when your MFA of yourself as a writer, even a specific lecturer in English at the University program ends—those feelings kind of writer, without focusing on of New Hampshire. She received an of self-doubt when the work gets what really makes you a writer—can MFA from Vermont College of Fine hard—by simply writing just as you lead to trouble. Arts in 2006. had been all along, starting the day Brian Tierney, who graduated you graduate and either return to from VCFA in 2005, learned that

PW.ORGPW.ORG 7070 calling himself a novelist curtailed has reopened in me a delicious the early mornings, in small rooms his creative output. “Though I have wellspring the director of creativity. of Ithe still African outfitted with pianos and one square published poetry, nonfiction, and struggle with structured writing window, over which I taped a piece of fiction, I had determined sometime ‘Americantime, but only untilResource I realize I Centeram paper at for Howard privacy—my Univerown solitary- after [receiving] my MFA that fin- struggling—then I let it go and the world. I didn’t mindlessly sing scales ishing my novel was the path for sity,work usually worries follows.” or whole arias. I practiced breathing me.” Bent on finishing what he’d Slowly redevelop writing prac- and posture and then moved slowly started, Tierney was hit with a thattice. Many creative students writing who graduate programs through aare line ofnow a song, in feeling dan the- series of events—a move, house from MFA programs struggle with sensations as I produced sound, try- renovations, and an accident re- gerfinding of the losing balance somebetween oftheir their ing facultyto figure out diversity. how to make each quiring surgery—that encroached writing lives and their professions and note sound as full, open, and pro- upon his writing life. “In short, I families. Poet Robin Behn suggests nounced as the one before it. Writ- made myself into a binge writer. that graduates develop a practice sim- ing is a lot like this. “Figure out what That alone might not be a nega- ilar to that of musicians, integrating makes that pitch work,” Jan would say tive, but coupled with the box I daily practice into a normal routine. during a lesson, “and make it‘ happen put myself in, that I must only be As an undergraduate at the Eastman on the next one.” working on a novel, I limited my School of Music, my voice teacher, “I have to admit I don’t feel like output and missed many opportu- mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani, much of a writer these days,” says nities for writing about real life,” taught me to be a student of myself nonfiction writer Michelle Otero. says Tierney. “I no longer tell my- by staying in the moment of the cre- Having recently moved in with her self stories about what I am, which ative act and paying attention. I used partner and his children, Otero’s has freed me to be who I am. That to practice six days a week, usually in writing schedule has had to shift. “I

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71 POETS & WRITERS POETS & WRITERS GUIDE TO MFA PROGRAMS

still write in a journal almost every again. Or those who worry about subscriptions to literary magazines day, but my long, quiet mornings feel finding the time, or who, without and trade journals current. like a thing of the past.” Otero tells the help of deadlines, stop writing Join or start a writers group. Dur- me that she often wonders, “What all together. The bottom line is ing graduate school at the University is best for me, for my writing, for this: If you do nothing, nothing will of Arizona, I joined a group of writing my relationship, my family? It is happen. If you don’t write, stories teachers, all women, who met twice only through practice—the spiri- and essays and poems won’t get ex- a month to write together and then tual practice of writing, of living, of plored or built. You won’t learn any- read our rough drafts aloud. Our ex- loving as a human being, a partner, thing about writing by not writing. perience was so rewarding that we and a parent—that answers come to (Though you may learn something if published a book about it, Writing me. This is my life. It looks nothing you write about not writing.) Together (Perigee Press, 1997). Since like it did a year ago. I work on the “When I’m not writing, it’s fear,” then, I’ve been in groups that fizzle book in forty-five to ninety-minute said An Na during a panel discussion out and ones that thrive. Currently I spurts, sometimes longer.… I am at VCFA a few summers ago. “You’re meet twice a month with five other learning something about stillness, beginning and beginning but not professors at the university where I about being present, about trusting getting down to it. Face it. You have teach. We’ve been together nearly my instincts. I am learning some- to figure out why you’re not writing.” two years. A few years ago I spent a thing of patience, which I thought I Writing is hard work, and if you give weekend at a member’s home on the lacked, and something of faith.” yourself enough reasons not to write, coast of Maine. We wrote during Acquiring discipline is an uphill you won’t. So stop making excuses. long quiet spells, met for meals, read climb for me now too. I’ve written a Stay connected to other writ- works-in-progress, and talked about thousand words every day. I’ve risen ers. Do not underestimate the bene- life, art, and our writing. at 5 AM, five days a week. I’ve written fits of a writing community. It is one Write to authors you admire. at night after a long day. And then of the best things an MFA program Read online journals, blogs, and there are times when I slip, when I can offer—and one of the most diffi- other literary websites. Join Face- don’t write at all. My husband once cult to reproduce once you graduate. book. Start a blog. Launch your own set up a “training” schedule for me, Fortunately, there are lots of ways to literary journal. Read manuscripts mimicking his cycling training rou- find like-minded writers. Check out for other literary journals. Review tine. We all have to figure out how your local or state writers guild or books. Interview writers. Do what- to fit writing into our lives in a way arts council. Usually these organiza- ever you need to do to stay connected. that allows us to produce and move tions offer classes, conferences, grant When you’re ready, submit forward in our writing. As poet and opportunities, and sometimes they your work. While it may be true memoirist Heather Sellers wrote, sponsor writing contests. Find an that not every writer needs to be “Becoming a writer means being adult- or continuing-education de- published, serious writers write to creative enough to find the time and partment at a local college or univer- be heard, and that means publica- the place in your life for writing.” sity and sign up for workshops with tion. Getting published is part of the “People go to MFA programs be- visiting writers you admire. Take a business of the writing life—and it’s cause they’re hungry,” says young local, nonacademic writing class or also a good way to stay connected adult novelist An Na. “Whatever it join an online workshop group. At- after attending an MFA program. took to write, they did it. To feed tend readings at bookstores and col- Bret Lott at VCFA gave the best talk that passion inside us we have to jug- lege campuses, or those sponsored I ever heard on the subject of sub- gle, organize, be proactive to make by local arts organizations. Make a mitting work. He talked about the sure the writing is our priority. Give commitment with one or two writers importance of setting up a system, it a place of honor and feed it.” from your old MFA program to send about tracking your submissions Face your demons. We’ve all each other pages regularly. Become with a spreadsheet and sending a heard the stories about writers who, a member of a literary organization. rejected piece back out the day you having felt so beat-up in an MFA Attend conferences. Apply to art- receive word of its fate. He talked program, graduate and never write ist colonies and retreats. Keep your about how you must separate ego

PW.ORG 72 from the submission process. About reminded that I am a working writer, much hope, too much despair.” how you should eschew intimida- that with each rejection letter I am On my writing desk is a photo tion mostly by doing your home- closer to publication. of my fifteen-year-old son, taken work: Read journals and discern if Find and relish inspiration. I one summer on the coast of Maine. your work is a good match. He also tape lines of poetry, aphorisms, and He’s perched atop a small rock encouraged us to send work to the advice to my laptop, to my desktop, surrounded by water. He holds best of the journals and magazines and to the walls behind it. Today I his arms outstretched, the water out there. If you are confident the read what’s in front of me as I sit and glistening white, his whole body work is ready, why shoot low? revise this essay. “Challenge: Think nearly black, a shadow against all The standard advice is good: about sentences. Have you ever been that light. I wasn’t there when this Study journals and know your au- a student of the sentence?” And this photo was taken. The angle of his dience. Cultivate relationships with line from Patricia Hampl: “It still shadowed body makes it hard to tell editors who like your work and comes as a shock to realize that I don’t if he’s facing the camera or looking whose work you like. Write short write about what I know: I write in out at the water, his arms reach- cover letters. Query editors. Cul- order to find out what I know.” And ing. It doesn’t matter whether he’s tivate readers to carefully consider this one on my laptop: “If you are coming or going, what he’s facing your work before sending it out. truly serious about doing distinctive or leaving behind. In the second Enter contests. While the process of work that will make its mark, slow the camera clicked, he was simply submitting and receiving rejections down.” And underneath it, this one being, fully present and alive, notic- is costly, frustrating, and often feels from Lee Martin, who ends his working everything. like a shot in the dark, it is necessary. shops with Isak Dinesen’s words: “I May we all achieve such mo- Every time I receive a rejection, I am write a little every day, without too ments in our writing lives.

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73 POETS & WRITERS CLASSIFIEDS

CFM: MAGAZINES depth. For author’s 2016 SAN style or form. Prize: LITERAL LATTE guidelines, visit www MIGUEL Writers’ $1,000 and book pub- has stimulated the FJORDS REVIEW, .nila.edu/soundings. Conference & Liter- lication. Reading fee: minds of readers and available in over ary Festival (Febru- $20 per manuscript the careers of writers 1,200 bookstores CFM: WEBSITES ary 10–14). Eleventh submitted. Deadline: for over 20 years. (find it in yours), anniversary keynote December 14. E-mail Taste our words. accepts articles and ESME speakers: Joyce givalpress@yahoo Now accepting reviews, fiction, (Empowering Solo Carol Oates, Scott .com or visit website online submissions. poetry, and cre- Moms Everywhere) Simon, Lisa See, Luis www.givalpress.com www.literal-latte.com. ative nonfiction for is a new website that Alberto Urrea, Gail for complete details. each twice-yearly welcomes poetry, Sheehy, Juan Villoro Gival Press, P.O. Box REED newsstand edition. essays, and short (Mexico), and Eliza- 3812, Arlington, VA MAGAZINE, Fjords will publish fiction written by beth Hay (Canada). 22203. the West’s oldest a special all-author mothers who’ve par- Choose from 70 literary journal, of- and LGBT-friendly workshops in all gen- 2016 MAIN ented alone. We are STREET RAG fers $3,333 in prizes: edition in February especially interested res. Barbara King- the John Steinbeck 2016, guest-edited solver: “San Miguel Poetry Book Award. in writing that is in- Deadline: January 31, Award for Fiction; by Alex Dimitrov; spired by the experi- is full of unexpected Gabriele Rico Chal- deadline December 1. riches...” Details 2016. Length: 48–84 ence of being a solo pages of poetry lenge for nonfiction; Visit us at fjords mom. For details and and registration: Edwin Markham review.com. www.sanmiguel (TOC, title pages, submission guide- and blank pages don’t Prize for poetry. lines, please visit our writersconference Submit online June RALEIGH .org. count). Reading fee: website, www.esme $25. $1,200 prize plus 1–November 1 using REVIEW is a .com. Submittable; $15 NEW YORK publication. Blind national nonprofit judging, guideline de- reading fee includes magazine of poetry, CONFERENCES WRITERS WORK- a free copy. Winners SHOP Pitch Confer- tails available online. short fiction, and art, All entries considered are published in our ences: Improve your offering accessible for publication. Send handsome print jour- 12TH ANNUAL pitch and present it works of experience to: Main Street Rag, www.reedmag Palm Beach Poetry to editors from three nal. that are emotion- Festival in Delray P.O. Box 690100, .org. ally and intellectually major New York Beach, FL, January Charlotte, NC 28227- complex. Our mis- publishing firms, 18–23, 2016. Focus 7001. Website: www RIVER STYX sion is to foster the plus attend Agents .mainstreetrag.com. creation and availa- on your work with Panel. Nonfiction Schlafly Beer Micro- 8 of America’s most Brew Microfiction bility of accessible yet and Fiction (Adults THE COMSTOCK provocative contem- celebrated poets: and Children’s/YA) Contest. First place Laure-Anne Bos- REVIEW celebrates receives prize of porary literature. To conferences each held 30 years and the submit, visit www selaar, Carl Dennis, twice a year, spring $1,500 and 1 case of Denise Duhamel, remarkable poets Schlafly beer. Win- .raleighreview.org. and fall. Check the who graced our Carol Frost, Thomas New York Writers ners published in Lux, Tom Sleigh, pages since 1986. River Styx; 500 words SOUNDINGS Workshop website for Two annual con- REVIEW pays Mary Szybist, and information: http:// tests: Muriel Craft maximum per story, $25 for prose, $10 Kevin Young. Six newyorkwriters Bailey Award (single up to 3 stories per per poem. Reading days of workshops, workshop.com/ poem) and chapbook entry. Entry options: periods: March 1– readings, craft talks, conferences. competitions. Open $10 includes a copy June 1 and Septem- manuscript confer- submissions every of the issue in which ber 1–December 1 ences, panel discus- CONTESTS winter, two issues the winners appear, annually. We seek sions, social events, yearly. Please join $20 includes a 1-year high-quality fiction, and so much more. 17TH GIVAL our conversations subscription to River nonfiction, chil- Special guest: Robert PRESS Poetry on Facebook. For Styx. Postmarked by dren’s/young adult Haas. To join our Award for best origi- subscription info, December 31 or and poetry from a mailing list and to nal previously unpub- guidelines, deadlines, enter online via Sub- variety of voices. We apply, visit www.palm lished collection of and announcements, mittable. www are passionate about beachpoetryfestival poetry of at least 45 visit www.comstock .riverstyx.org/ both accessibility and .org. typed pages in any review.org. contests. Mail to:

PW.ORG 74

River Styx $1,000, publica- cover/query let- thor (Bantam, Avon, mail.com. Website: Microfiction Contest, tion with Big Pencil ter guidelines. Join Scholastic, Berkeley/ www.susanmary 3547 Olive St., Ste. Press, and a weeklong 50,000+ writers who Ace, others) offers malone.com. 107, St. Louis, MO residency at the rural receive weekly leads extensive critiques, 63103. Richard New- Gell Center of the in Submit Write tutorials, revisions, WRITE-GOALS: man, Editor: big Finger Lakes will be Now! In Our 22nd support. Upgrade Editor/Coach (MFA, [email protected]. awarded each year Year! Writer’s Relief, your writing skills; MA, published to the author of an Inc., 207 Hackensack solve problems with writer) will read and THE outstanding, unpub- Street, Wood-Ridge, plot, character devel- critique your work UNIVERSITY OF NJ 07075. PHONE: opment, pacing. with an eye to bring- ARKANSAS lished, book-length manuscript of poems. (866) 405-3003. Specialties include ing out your unique Press is accepting WEBSITE: www. literary and main- voice. I also help submissions for the Timothy Liu will be writers get their ideas the final judge for the writers stream fiction, mys- Miller Williams relief.com. tery/thriller, juvenile/ onto the page by Poetry Prize, judged prize to be awarded YA, general nonfic- brainstorming with in March 2016. by Billy Collins. SERVICES tion, psychology, them and setting The winner receives Reading fee is $25. spirituality. Carol writing schedules. $5,000 in cash in Manuscripts must be Gaskin. Phone: (941) Contact Joann for postmarked between ALREADY HAVE addition to publica- your MFA but need 377-7640. E-mail: a free consultation: tion. Applications are September 1 and help honing that carol@editorial joannsmith.write accepted year-round. December 31. For writing project for alchemy.com. Web- [email protected]. The deadline for the guidelines and entry publication? Many site: www.editorial Website: www.write following year’s prize form, click on Gell writers who’ve alchemy.com. -goals.com. is September 30. Poetry Prize at www earned an MFA in www.uapress.com. .wab.org. creative writing have LET WRITER WORKSHOPS an interest in con- ADVICE’S Manu- WOMEN’S RESIDENCIES tinuing to work 1-on- script Consultation THE ACT OF NATIONAL Book 1 with a mentor in Service make your Writing. Workshop Association announc- JENTEL ARTIST order to put the final application essay for Creativity and es its 2015–2016 Residency Program. touches on the book- stand out. Read more Movement: Octo- Writing Contest. One-month residency length manuscripts at http://www ber 23–25. Balance Fiction, poetry, and for writers and that comprised their .writeradvice.com/ Arts Center, NYC. creative nonfiction/ visual artists in rural creative theses, or manuscript The act of writing memoir. Award in- ranch setting in the to obtain feedback consultation.html. comes from your cludes publication for foothills of the Big- on newer writing While you’re there, whole being. We’ll top 4 submissions in a horn Mountains of projects that are well read advice from ex- explore movement as national literary jour- Wyoming. Includes on their way to being perts, and polish and a source of creativ- nal. $250 paid for first spacious residence, polished but aren’t perfect your work, ity, a way to move prize winners. Judges private room, sepa- quite “there” yet. and check out our forward when you’re stuck, a means to a TBA. Submission rate studio, stipend. To meet this need, contests on www period September fresh perspective on Annual deadlines: we offer the Solstice .writeradvice.com. 15, 2015–February 1, MFA Post-Graduate how you move and 2016. All contest fees January 15 and Sep- MALONE- write, and a way to tember 15. Visit Study Program, open fund WNBA literacy to anyone with an EDITED BOOKS inspire, sharpen, programs. Contest www.jentelarts.org MFA from an accred- sell to traditional and energize your guidelines, judges’ for information and ited institution. For publishers. Turning writing experience. bios, and submission application or call details, visit www manuscripts into tra- Sessions include link: www.wnba (307) 737-2311. .pmc.edu/ ditionally published movement as writing -books.org/contest. post-graduate books, and devel- prompts, reading RESOURCES -opportunities. oping writers into your work aloud, WRITERS & successful authors. dancing the vil- BOOKS announces DON’T HAVE AUTHOR, Malone Editorial lanelle, and try- the ninth annual TIME to submit AUTHOR! Services, www ing your hand at Kenneth and Ger- your creative writing? Professional editor, .maloneeditorial choreography. Fee: aldine Gell Poetry We can help. Free literary midwife, .com. E-mail: $350. www.balance Prize Competition: submission leads and award-winning au- maloneeditorial@hot artscenter.com.

PW.ORG 75 ABC APPLICATION TRACKER MFA A RESOURCE FOR PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS OF GRADUATE CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAMS

DEADLINE DATE SENT PROGRAM NAME CONTACT APPLICATION FEE WORK SAMPLE NOTES PERSONAL STATEMENT 1 . COLLEGE TRANSCRIPTS LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION FINANCIAL AID 2 .

3 .

4 .

5 .

TOTAL $