MFA/MFYou Experience

MFA/MFYou

THE MFA EXPERIENCE:

Eboni Dunbar (Poetry) shares her experiences as an MFA Writer:

The best thing about the MFA, for me, is the professional development. I can't imagine trying to gather the information and experience of the people in my program from the internet or books. It's great to have a community right in front of you who can answer your questions without delay and who can give you advice that is tailored to the way that you write, the subjects you're interested in.

The other great thing about the MFA is meeting other writers and beginning to understand the role my voice plays in the poetry world. I look around at my peers and see our difference and our similarities and it has definitely helped me perfect my voice. I'm grateful for what my program is giving me. I'm excited to see what writing my thesis will bring as well.

Jill Faith Neal (Fiction) shares her experiences as an MFA Writer:

I decided to go all in and get the MFA because I wanted to teach writing at the collegiate level and needed the Master's degree to get consideration. During my program, my writing has benefited from the critical evaluation of my peers during workshops, where I often found (after my ego healed) many of the criticisms valid and later improved the manuscript during rewrites. I also read a ton of texts—novels that I would not have picked up on my own—and learned a lot by participating in classroom discussions and lectures on theory. Through the MFA program, I’ve been encouraged to look beyond the process and craft of writing and consider the business end of the endeavor, publication and target markets.

THE MFYOU EXPERIENCE:

Ocean Vuong (Poetry) shares his experiences as an MFYou Writer:

As a third year undergraduate, I write when I can (which isn’t often). In fact, there were stints where I would sleep only five nights a week, working on my writing during the night and into the next morning. At that time, I was a full time student holding down a part-time job. I was also in a long term relationship, which takes more time away from writing than one would imagine. I was depleted, but for me, to not write was never an option, and although I sacrificed my rest (and a little sanity), I managed to create work that both excited and satisfied me.

I also have the luxury of living in New York, one of the world’s most literary cities. Here, I have found a strong, close-knit writing community that both encourages and challenges my growth as a writer. There is never a shortage of readings, workshops, salons, and drunken gatherings. Not to mention organizations like Poet’s House and the Poetry Project. In a way, it’s even more than what some MFA programs can offer and it’s all free.

I am in favor of MFA programs to a certain degree. They give writers time and an environment to focus on the craft of writing from those experienced in the art. Also, an MFA is often a solid credential when pursuing a teaching career (which allows more time to write than your conventional 9 to 5 job). My main priority is to provide my mother and brother every immigrant’s dream: a house of their own. If not for them, I honestly would probably not pursue an MFA as I already have had satisfactory success composing and submitting my work in the past two years of writing.

My biggest fear is that some MFA programs are turning more and more into businesses, industries where filling enrollment quotas supersedes the selection of promising writers. A very realistic result could be, if not already, a diluted and bankrupt body of young American poets. Alas, I feel the poet is born, and not formed. After all, there is only so much the mastery of craft can do when one has nothing to say.

Michelle Filippini (Fiction) shares her experiences as an MFYou Writer:

I guess I’m a living example of how it’s never too late to pursue a writing career, and how—unlike in, say, athletics—you’re never too old. I received my B.A. in English with a focus on creative writing in 1988 and then promptly entered a publishing career, where I wordsmithed other people’s writing. I never stopped wanting to be a writer, but I guess it never occurred to me that I could work full-time AND write. While working as a freelance editor in the mid-1990s, I entered and won a writing contest at the University of Hawaii, Hilo, and had two poems published in their college literary journal Kanilehua. While heartened somewhat by this validation, my elation was tempered by the fact that the two published pieces had been written while I was still in college, and rejected by my own college’s literary journal. I figured it was a fluke and promptly went back to forgetting about my own writing.

Fast forward to 2008. While working at a small private liberal arts college, I became friendly with a group of women who were all writers in one way or another. We formed a very informal writing group (termed by some of our colleagues as the “Drinking Group That Sometimes Writes”), and I got bit all over again by the writing bug—or else I found my voice. In any case, they encouraged me to submit a nonfiction piece to our own school’s college literary journal, the Sierra Nevada Review. To my surprise, the piece was accepted—the journal receives and publishes work from writers all over the country and the pieces are read blind by the judging panel, so it had nothing to do with me working here, I was assured. So I kept writing, and a few pieces here and there have been published in the last two years. But that’s not why I write—I write because I have to. I live to write; I don’t live to work.

I think having had a lifetime of experiences since graduating college has definitely been my education, but I don’t downplay the value of an MFA and the focus and discipline it fosters. I have often toyed with the idea of going back to school for my MFA and have wondered more than once whether not having one has hindered my chances at publication in the gold-standard, traditional literary magazines and journals. I don’t have an answer to that question, and I don’t know whether having one would make me a better writer necessarily. It’s taken me a while to get to the realization that being published doesn’t necessarily mean one is a better—or “real”—writer, and I can’t say that I’m 100% there.

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