Posts Tagged: mfa programs
Portrait of a Writing Center
Over at Lit Hub, Michele Filgate is writing a series of articles on six of the country’s top writing centers, starting with GrubStreet in Boston. Rather than competing with MFA programs for students, GrubStreet Executive Director Eve Bridburg sees writing centers as adding to the literary landscape: I see a healthier, bigger ecosystem with more opportunity […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Brian Shawver
Author Brian Shawver talks about his new book, Danger on the Page, his novel Aftermath, MFA programs, and why it’s a good thing that writing never stops being hard work.
...moreVivian Gornick Does Not Like Your MFA
Jessica Gross interviewed Vivian Gornick for Longreads and they talked money, death, sex, MFAs, and other things that bore Gornick: It’s meaningless to me. I found, as the years went on, I was very lucky not to have a bourgeois bone in my body. I don’t want anything, and that has really stood me in good stead. […]
...moreThe Saturday Rumpus Essay: Never Really Alone
Blood and smoke and broken windows aren’t the only images out of Baltimore (though they sure do get good ratings).
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The Rumpus Interview with Richard Ford
Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Richard Ford discusses his new book, Let Me Be Frank With You, how metaphor shapes our world, and why he doesn’t like the idea he has a battery to recharge.
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The Rumpus Interview with Susan Minot
The Rumpus talks with Susan Minot about MFA programs, Joseph Kony, and throwing out big chunks of text.
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Why MFA?: The Rumpus Interview with Tom Kealey and Robin Tung
Tom Kealey and Robin Tung on why they advocate for prospective MFA students, the MFA application process, and why we pursue MFAs in the first place.
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The Rumpus Interview with Richard Russo
Prize-winning writer and Authors Guild Vice President Richard Russo discusses publishing in the age of ebooks, the continued relevance of the Guild, and the Amazon-Hachette conflict.
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The Rumpus Interview with Debra Dean
Author Debra Dean discusses the thin line between fiction and autobiography and how she became a writer after a career onstage.
...moreThe People You Want to Share Your Brain With
“Why are you so interested in MFAs and whether they’re a good idea or not?” asked Rumpus friend Sheila Heti, in a recent interview with the New Yorker. Heti, who did not attend grad school, believes that it is possible for writers to fully immerse themselves in their craft without the help of a program. As Heti […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Chad Harbach
Chad Harbach sits down to talk about MFA vs NYC and its ongoing debate, co-founding the literary magazine n+1, and the intuitive process behind looking at your own work.
...moreThe CIA and Creative Writing
Did the Iowa Writers’ Workshop take money from a CIA front? Has it left a profound impact on literature as we know it? The folks over at The Chronicle of Higher Education seem to. “The Iowa Workshop, then, attained national eminence by capitalizing on the fears and hopes of the Cold War. But the creative-writing […]
...moreCreative Writing, Creative Careers
The two central myths are one, that literary citizenship is all about self-promotion, and two, that it’s connected deeply to the “marketplace.” In an interview for Ploughshares, Tasha Golden talks to “writing geek” Stephanie Vanderslice about teaching the business side of a creative writing career. It’s a must-read for creative writers trying to figure out a […]
...moreMaster of Feeling Ambivalent
There are a lot of people who have very strong feelings about MFA programs, but Blake Butler’s Vice piece “What I Remember from Getting an MFA in Creative Writing,” just sort of lays out the details and holds back on the judgment (not unlike good fiction, really). It’s surprisingly beautiful in its ambivalence: I remember getting […]
...moreMaking Sense of the MFA Debate
We’re all familiar with the great MFA debate: Can an MFA program teach you how to write? Is it just a Ponzi scheme? Why should you enroll in one, or not? Jia Tolentino, a University of Michigan MFA student, zooms out and takes a less het-up look at both sides of the argument. It’s super […]
...moreQuestionable Ranking Systems for MFA Programs
Poets & Writers recently ranked the country’s MFA programs, and as rankings often do, it is being received with some hostility. Their hierarchy of MFA programs is based on the word of mouth of MFA applicants, rather than the US News-style algorithm (which has got its own controversy). Though the ranking did come with a […]
...moreWhat’s It Like at Your MFA Program?
John Gallaher is looking for responses in what he’s calling his “Market Research Friday.” Yes, it’s Saturday, but I suspect he’s leaving comments open for a while yet. Here’s what he’s mainly asking for: “1. Is there an reigning, asserted aesthetic where you feel forced or seduced into writing in a “camp”? Is there a […]
...moreMFAs, for Better or for Worse
Creative programs are increasingly common and so are their criticisms. The difficulty with pinpointing creativity to an academic institution or justifying a trend where tuition money and literary prowess are both major contributing factors to success make MFA programs a contentious subject. Mark McGurl answers four questions about the current state of creative writing programs […]
...moreThe MFA Rankings Wars
Last week in my Poetic Lives Online column, I wrote a little about the immediate reaction to the Poets & Writers MFA program rankings. Well, it’s blown up a bit more in the last week, with the Association of Writing Programs weighing in on the matter. Seth Abramson, speaking for himself, responds quite capably here. […]
...morePoetic Lives Online: Links by Brian Spears
Can you tell the difference between E. E. Cummings and a YouTube commenter? (It’s really not as hard as it looks.) Caroline Guinzio has been guest blogging at Unstressed this week, and I enjoyed this piece very much in light of the long interview we recently published with Rebecca Wolff. Her blogging all week has […]
...moreDon’t Be a Coward: The Rumpus Interview with Philipp Meyer
“All of us, all the time, are searching for some order in the world/universe/our lives. We’re searching for guiding principles and explanations. Especially in times of stress, we tend to find sayings, aphorisms, mantras to help guide us.”
...morePoetic Lives Online: Links by Brian Spears
Barbara Jane Reyes has a good response to the New Yorker article on MFA programs I posted earlier. At Harriet, Don Share takes on poetry reviews, even though he’s tired of the whole story. I took his post as an opportunity to expound on my own reviewing policies, both as reviewer and editor. Sam Witt […]
...moreLouis Menand on Creative-Writing Programs
Louis Menand has really been on a roll this year. First the must-read article about how the Village Voice changed journalism, then the article on Donald Barthelme, and now this week, an essay about The Program Era by Mark McGurl, a book dealing with the origins of creative-writing programs, their development over the past half-century, […]
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