Comments on: THE EDITOR’S DESK: Note From Austin— How to Make Money in the Arts, Selling You Back Your Dreams, the Rise of the Middle Class Artist

By: stephen turkfeld

stephen turkfeld — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 02:03:29 +0000

my name is stephen elliot turkfeld. just noticed. kinda cool.

By: Lee

Lee — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 07:22:27 +0000

I’m wondering if there are MFA programmes – or their equivalent – elsewhere in the non-English-speaking world. Here in Germany it’s not a tradition – and there are certainly decent writers – though there seem to be several recently-established possibilities at ‘new’ universities in the former East Germany.

And tertiary education for profit is generally not practised in much of Europe, with notable exceptions.

By: Stephen Elliott

Stephen Elliott — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:12:49 +0000

I agree. The real question is, are you paying for an MFA or getting funded? I guess I don’t believe in education for profit. If you’re getting funded the MFA is probably a great idea.

By: Lee

Lee — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 11:56:36 +0000

Truly great writers are rare, but I don’t see any reason why some shouldn’t come from an MFA programme. Just as some others might come from anywhere at all. Throw of the dice, I expect.

By: wildguppy

wildguppy — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:12:27 +0000

Yeah…Maybe you have a point. Maybe that is what makes a writer a writer…is this feeling of being looked over…always being painted on the outside of the republic…their marginal status keeping them honest, but also reinforcing their own alienation from the polis. Who knows. To be clear: I don’t think your post belittled MFA’d writers. It’s the idea that an MFA is a ponzi scheme, and that people who make their living from teaching creative writing (like the people you heard saying it) go around proclaiming that it is, yet still get their bread and butter from the MFA machine. It shows how many MFA teachers just don’t give a fuck about their students. Call me an iconoclast, but shouldn’t there be some kind of striving towards “best practices” of MFA teaching just like there is for Freshman comp?

Your post is valid. It just got me thinking about what it feels like to have an MFA and reflecting on bullshit we sometimes face while in pursuit of dreams..and the catch 22 of it all. it just makes me emotional. Sorry for the diatribe.

By: Stephen Elliott

Stephen Elliott — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 14:21:51 +0000

It does mean something. And it wasn’t just DFW that got an MFA. It was Michael Chabon and Aimee Bender and Charles Bock and a whole bunch of other great writers. I mean, so many great writers come out of MFA programs. I hope this essay doesn’t imply in any way that great writers don’t come out of MFA programs. They clearly do. Flanner O’Connor had an MFA. Many published writers I know also feel ignored, even some really successful ones. I don’t, I’m happy with what I’ve got. But I know many writers much more successful than me who still feel ignored. It might be part of writing. It might be why we write and what we’re writing about.

By: wildguppy

wildguppy — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 07:59:39 +0000

I have an MFA and I am one of those adjuncts with the permanent fuck you note attached to my door. This article was so brilliant in so many ways and hit home for me. I, too have bought my own dream and been victim of the ponzi scheme being handed back to me. But, I’m not some kind of middle class faker. I am a real person with real pain. I have dreamed of being a writer since I was 4. The only time when I felt like maybe I wasn’t good enough was in my MFA program and afterwards and after moving to the Bay Area and facing so many arrogant, sharky people in the writing world. I don’t know why, but something about this bothers me deeply. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a critical household and there is only so much negativity that I can take. But something about the critiques arrested my development and I’m working hard at fighting my way out of it. I found the writing life after and in the MFA to be so competative. It kind of destroyed my joy for writing in a lot of ways. But, I am resolving not to let the final nail on the coffin sink in. I’m resolving to write, to finish what I’ve been working on, to believe in myself again. One thing that does bother me is when writers who are published don’t even realize that they are speaking from a position of privilege, or MFA program professors who have made it into a kind of “literary elite” make these kind of judgments about all the people below them on the MFA route. But, in some ways, I can see where they are coming from. It is a a business. But, at the same time: Some of us groundlings actually look up to the idea of getting recognized for their work, or for breaking in to the literary establishment, even of the ones who are just getting by. Because some of us are also just getting by, with our spirits. Some of us live for our creating our art and some of us are tired of people being so critical of our reasons for becoming artists. Of all the millions of unpublished nobodies with an MFA in this world, I guess I can speak for us all when I say: Onward! (No matter what the smug little fucker who ran my first MFA writing workshop told me about my strong female protagonist that smoked pot and kicks ass is “unlikable” fuck him. I’m going to write my shit anyway.)
But it’s like years of damage getting back to that position of unbreakability in one’s art. I think that the writing world if you are unpublished and 28 is really kind of snarky. I wish I could say otherwise, but I feel more at home talking about literature with my community college students who didn’t even know they like to read, then I do with other writers some times. Writers are too much of a finicky bunch. If I ever make it–by make it I mean publish something more than a propaganda pamphlet or a blog–then I vow at this moment not to be snarky about the people below me.
Maybe some of them, too will make it. And by the way, David Foster Wallace, the saving grace of the MFA program, killed himself. What does that say about the writing world? Stephen Elliot, this is a brilliant post…you have got it mostly right about MFA programs and their ilk. But, I have to just say…squeak bitterly from my place in the underground, that maybe some of us who have gotten our MFA’s are talented and unacknowledged and are struggling too–perhaps in spite of the criticism dished out on their writing, and the scensters and the self-effacing fear stopping them into silence, some of them–I mean us– are working from the heart. And at least that should count for something.

By: Scott Hutchins

Scott Hutchins — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 16:26:58 +0000

I should point out that I don’t think MFA programs are a ponzi scheme, nor do I think the teaching of creating writing is a ponzi scheme. As a student (and now teacher) of creative writing, this would be pretty inconsistent — even for me! But I did have that reaction to the AWP conference, with its odd sheen of desperate professionalism. Writing art is not a profession; it’s a vocation. As Steve says, anyone who’s in writing for the money has made a very bad choice. Get thee to b-school (though even that choice is looking dicier right now…).

By: Ryan Boudinot

Ryan Boudinot — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:10:17 +0000

I think MFA program’s are worth it for students who have talent, are willing to defend what’s non-negotiable about their work while being receptive to getting their ego bruised, and aren’t in it for careerist delusions. Those who get an MFA in hopes of “being a writer” are set up to fail and their money is better spent looking angsty in cafes. The student who just wants to park herself somewhere for two years because she wants a good excuse to write a lot of words and is crazy about books will get the most out of an MFA. The degree guarantees nothing, and some find this hard to swallow while others see it as a call to action.

By: Lee

Lee — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:01:55 +0000

I certainly like the idea of more artists just getting by, but I’ve yet to see a viable model for the indie online writer, with very few exceptions (and no, Cory Doctorow does not count). Anyone?