More MFA Alternatives

My goodness, yet another author weighs in on alternatives to MFA programs for those of us whose real lives simply don't allow registering for formal study.

This time it's Julianna Baggott, poet, novelist, and YA author (also writing under the names Bridget Asher and N. E. Bode) who offers advice in her blog post How to Build Your Own MFA Experience. What I love about Baggott is that when she makes a suggestion, she gives you specifics. For example, she names conferences she trusts and gives criteria for ruling out other conferences from consideration. She lists editors who take on clients for manuscript reads and tutorials, and she gives you their links so you can contact them immediately. She also tells you about how she designed groups she put together in her own dining room that served almost as well (or as well as) a degreed program.

I have before discussed Baggott's blog, in my own post Stop Reading this Blog, in which I encourage to writers to take Baggott's suggestions and blog more seriously than my own, as I tend to ask questions, whereas she answers them. And she has the publishing history success to back her ideas up. We are lucky she is generous enough to share.

More MFA Brouhaha

Thanks to Mari for sending me the link to this article about the pitfalls of MFAs (or rather the pitfalls of having an unrealistic expectation of what having an MFA can do for you in the job market) at The Missouri Review blog, in an article by Michael Nye entitled The MFA Degree: A Bad Decision?.

Nye cites Seth Abramson's annual ranking of MFA programs, and is later engaged in discussion with Abramson in the comments section. I would strongly recommend that anyone considering an MFA or MA or PhD in creative writing or literature read this article through the comments to get a look at the prospects in the job market, and also get an understanding of what an MFA can provide you, if not a job. It's not that the degree doesn't have value; it does buy the writer time to write, and it does extend validity to the writer (in his own mind as well as in others). Having a reasonable expectation of what you can get from an MFA will only make the decision to pursue such a degree a better one, both for those who decide in favor and those who decide against.

More MFA Debate

Poet John Gallagher at his blog, Nothing to Say and Saying It, has posted two questions about MFA programs and solicited responses from MFA grads, in his post, The Top 20 MFA Research Q: What is it like there?

The questions Gallagher entertains are:

1. Is there an reigning, asserted aesthetic where you feel forced or seduced into writing in a “camp”? Is there a two-camp model being talked about, and do you feel you are being indoctrinated into one side or the other? What are your reading lists like? Who is ignored?

2. Is there talk of the “real world” in your MFA program? Is there conversation about this notion of the “professional artist”? How does the faculty talk about this? How do students talk about this?

So far he's had plenty of responses. So if you are interested (and judging from the number of "views" of my posts on DIY MFAs, many of you are), check it out.

DIY MFA

Randy Susan Meyers, at the blog Beyond the Margins, posted this week about “My Homemade MFA.” Finding herself at a point in her writing career of needing ‘more intent,’ and unable for personal and professional reasons to take the time to pursue an MFA, Meyers decided a do-it-yourself degree was in order. By her own account, she read approximately 135 books about writing and then finished it off with a Master Novel Workshop through Grub Street with novelist Jenna Blum. You can go to Meyer’s blog post for a sampling of the wisdom she gained through her self-study program.

I too am at a point in my life in which I cannot pursue an MFA degree and cannot conceivably attempt a long-distance program for at least four more years. So I had the same notion as Meyers, to do as much as I could by creating a reading program for myself. And while I admit to having read 20 or so books about writing, my main focus has been to follow the ancient Chinese proverb: “He who knows a hundred poems sounds like a hundred poems; he who knows a thousand poems sounds like himself.” That is, I focused more on reading books of poetry than on reading about writing poetry (Meyers is a fiction writer, so there’s another difference in our projects).

When I ask people who have received MFA degrees, they mostly tell me that what they got by attending such a program was 1) time to write, and 2) contacts in the literary world. Neither my self-styled program nor a real MFA is going to get me more time to write since I will not be able to do a full-time program in lieu of my regular life. Anything I would do would be in addition to my already busy schedule (and one thing that fills it up is writing as much as I can now, an activity which would then have to compete with assigned writings). And as for contacts, I’m not likely to make many living as I do in Japan, probably not even if I do a low-residency MFA program and jet in and out off-semesters.

So as much as I would love to have more time to write, and to know more literary folks, the reason for me to pursue an MFA would be for the craft. Which I am told does not necessarily come from attending an MFA program. Anyone wish to dispute this notion told me by a number of writers with degrees? (It’s hard for me to believe that almost anyone who calls herself a writer couldn’t teach me quite a bit about craft, but that’s me without even undergrad courses in creative writing.)

And furthermore, those of you with MFAs, homemade or institutional, what do you think about what your program gave you? Was it worth it? What did you gain? Would you recommend it to others? For those like me who've passed the ideal age and circumstances to go to school, is the DIY MFA going to be enough?