THE GREAT CHEAPENING, Part I: Qualifying the Value of an MFA in Fiction
“The best job that was ever offered to me was to become a landlord in a brothel. In my opinion it’s the perfect milieu for an artist to work in.”
— William Faulkner
Before we even begin this conversation, I should qualify my commentary. I did not attend a prestigious MFA program. In fact, I didn’t attend an MFA program at all. Nor did I study writing as an undergrad (just literature). But I have people to blame.
When I began to develop an interest in writing I was a senior in high school. Like all aspiring writers, I wanted to become a mildly-famous author of literature, marry a Parisian (a languages professor, preferably), and live in a modest, lake-side cabin on the Canadian side of lake Superior. I would write a novel every two years, subsidize my downtime with carpentry the publication of an occasional short story in the New Yorker, smoke cigarettes, and teach a smattering of courses as a visiting author at Irvine, USC, and Boston. When I was old, having collected the National Book, thrice the PEN/Hemingway (the Pulitzer always elusive), I would lose first my wife to cancer and then my live-in lover, 32 years my junior, to suicide. This would cause me to fall into a deep depression, take up writing poetry that would be hailed as my last great gift to the world (published posthumously), and whither away from self-imposed starvation. And this romantic fate would come to fruition by going to graduate school and getting my Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.
So, upon graduating from university—with nothing less than a Bachelor’s in Religious Studies and another in English Literature—I began writing letters and emails to various author-professors at the schools I wanted to attend.
These letters read:
Dear (various),
I am a young writer that would very much like to attend (Syracuses’, Iowa’s, Alabama’s, et cetera) creative writing program.”
The problem is,” and I laid out that I already wrote with rigid regularity, and read everything I could get my hands on. I already had correspondence with some of my favorite authors, all of whom regularly read my work and gave me feedback. I had a group of intelligent friends. I had been published. And, finally, MFA’s cost a lot of money.
So, what do you (the author-professor) think I should do?”
Regards,
Elijah Jenkins
I was expecting the responses to read: “A Master’s program is where you come to hone your craft,” and “face-to-face, one-on-one attention is invaluable,” or “the connections you’ll make will be priceless.” It’s unfair to say that I didn’t receive some comments to this effect, but most of the program directors and administrators who wrote back said that an MFA would help instill discipline, but wouldn’t guarantees me a job. From one of my undergraduate writing professors, whom I’d queried about the ordeal, I received this advice: “You already write . . . a lot. Now you need something to write about. I challenge you to go get the most challenging job you can think of and take notes. Read constantly, but go get something to write about.”
With a heavy heart I postponed graduate school, and went to work.
My first job was as a substitute teacher for migrant farm workers’ children. After that I worked as a debt collector, a tutor for emotionally disturbed teens, a crisis behavior intervention specialist for children with Autism, a social worker for adults with developmental disabilities, and finally a case manager for sex offenders. In the meantime, while I was getting “real world” experience, friends of mine attended Boston University, Iowa, Mississippi, Columbia, Syracuse, Iowa (another friend), and Irvine. Most of them now have agents, some have been collected in serious short story anthologies, and one has a book deal. Simultaneous to their studies, I’d been toiling professionally and collecting material to write about. I’d been published in a few journals, but had no awards, no agent, and certainly no book deal. I could not help but feel inadequate when, over at someone’s house for dinner, I would see a graduate diploma in an office with the title page from a Harper’s short story framed beside it.
Suffice it to say, I was questioning the advice I’d gotten about grad school. I hadn’t gone, and I hadn’t achieved what I’d hoped. So, over meals, I began asking my MFA friends about their experiences at various programs around the country. After a few months, I’d had roughly a dozen of these conversations. But here’s what’s strange: My friends with Master’s degrees, almost to the last man, were completely cynical. I might ask a friend what she’d gotten out of attending a program, and she’d say something along the lines of, “Don’t get me wrong, it was a great experience. I learned a lot, my work was read by some great writers. But it seemed so unexceptional. I mean, everyone has an MFA. It just doesn’t mean anything.”
Well, I didn’t have one. So, what had I missed? What had they? How can a graduate degree not mean anything?
(During the next few weeks, Elijah Jenkins will attempt to answer these rhetorical questions. Check back to see if he succeeds.)
March 3rd, 2009 at 6:46 am
i jus called my agent and he tol me mfa stands for master of farts so lol
March 3rd, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Not sure that they’re rhetorical questions. I’ll be checking back!
March 4th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
hmmm… im not really sure wat rhetorical means but thats a good point kayla now let me ask you a question a/s/l?
March 5th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Lije, didn’t your experience as an editor show you that the way to get published is to write awesomely? It’s the first paragraph that makes or breaks you. The credentials are irrelevant. You should have M fake a French accent, though.
March 5th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
hey shannen i think your right about that stuff your talking about (lije or w/e) wld you care to talk about it over a glass of curvasier (a/s/l?)
March 5th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
(kaelan is posting this here, though the comment came to the editor’s box)
Elijah,
You bring up great points and a common point of conflict in young writers. Like you since high school, I have always wanted to be a writer. A few years after my undergraduate graduation, I applied to MFA’s (Columbia, NYU, Art Institute) and I was accepted to a few but it dawned on me that I was about to pay thousands of dollars to “learn” how to write. It seemed a ridiculous concept when the world was out there. When my favorite writers had been journalists, social workers, and bums.. I declined. I lived abroad. I traveled. I was broke. I moved back to Chicago. I started a literary magazine. Best decisions I’ve made in my 20’s was to LIVE.
In addition, for four years, I worked in an alternative high school in Chicago and the experiences there have formed my very perspective on life, and thus, subsequently my very perspectives on writing. MFA’s often make good writers, which is often represented in journals, academics, etc; however, many many of these writers do not have stories. They are jaded because they missed the boat of experience, which, as a writer ages, is the nexus and lifeblood of good writing. Imagine Hemingway without the traveling; or Roberto Bolano with the odd-jobs and wandering; or Salman Rushdie without the politics… Many MFA grads lose focus on the art and experience of writing, and focus much too young on the business and profile of writing… The writers with MFA’s who are artistically successful have stories anyway. They would have gotten there anyway.
You seem to be missing the point that you have done amazing work outside of literature and your life is the source for your words. If good story and good art is the point (not a hanged diploma or Harpers cover) then you are well on your way to this.
Write. Submit. Hang out with other social workers, truckers, journalists, artists. etc…
Apply to grants (http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/1763) (I won one last year and was able to take time off to write full time, very unexpectedly.) Nobody looks at a diploma. Nobody should write literature for attention. Your words will speak for themselves…
And most importantly - LIVE! It is the only source for story and the best source for good writing….
Mike
March 5th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
hmmmm. anyway, i wrote freelance travel articles across Europe for skiing and rock climbing mags, then several investment aricles and then a political column, all paid nicely on a BA in Philosophy, but could not make the jump across to books with advances until the ink was wet on the MFA, now 4 books total. more than the “class work” involved i benefited (in the mfa program) from meeting people and when they saw i work my ass off they took me seriously, unlike some dopey cling ons who snuck in just for the paper on the wall and the network grew. and grew. seems these were the right people to meet.
March 5th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
hmmm. anyway bikerackerboy do you have an amazon.com page i wanna read your books like crazy after that gr8 post
March 5th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
I’m glad this has started a conversation. A lot of what is being brought up in these comments gets addressed in the final two parts, so I’m going to have to publish the rest of the article before I say much more. Thanks for the interest though, folks. Stay tuned. There is a turn.
March 6th, 2009 at 7:25 am
Hi Elijah,
I had the same dream, down to the Parisian spouse! *grins* I think this is a great thread because to “MFA” or not to “MFA” is a question that plagues many writers in day jobs, struggling through slush piles and feeling drawn away from their craft by the business end of life. I agree that an MFA alone won’t do it; the sad nepotistic reality of the literary writing field does tell me, though, that having those connections can mean the difference between being someone whose story is emailed directly to an editor with a “here is my brilliant new student’s work I told you about” and taking chances with being in the .0001234 % work accepted by the anonymous masses. Also, get MFA, get pub credits, get teaching gig, have uni funds to pay other writers to come for readings, get more invited subs to big journals this way, too-in addition to an academic job making it far easier to get a book accepted by a press. This is my conflict, to be sure. I have an MA, but do I want to hemmorrage another 20K to try and build those networks or connections (not to mention having time to write if I got loans and being more competitive on a job market, despite the decreasingly certain POV that MFA is the terminal degree for writers-Note: I’m seeing more and more creative writing jobs advertised as Ph.D. preferred)?-in which I could just use and revise the 250 some stories I already have written in the last decade and a half? Great post! I’ll look forward to the next parts.
All warmest and best,
H
March 6th, 2009 at 7:52 am
P.S. Which is not to say I didn’t have great mentors or whatnot in my M.A., but that I did that a decade ago-and think an extra M.F.A. would be good due to the two to three years to build connections-since mine was only a brief tour of paradise (reading, writing, painting, etc.) and so long ago. Now, if only my home mortgage in SoCal wasn’t breaking my back and forcing continuous day job. Guess that’s real living I’m doing, right? Best and thanks for this post! xo, H
March 6th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
hey (not) Brent Newland. I dislike amazon for many many reasons. They are like the Vice Rector I had in a Catholic Seminary who told me weekly; “I know you hate my guts and for good reason, but you HAVE to deal with me.” so, i am not sending you there even though my books are posted. try http://www.shawnrohrbach.com
March 6th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
also, not sure if this adds anything to the dialogue or maybe i’m just a douche for bringing it up, but got a contract today for a short story collection. the advance will pay for my monthly scocth habit and that’s about it, but anyway…