MFA
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Low-Res Forever
Maggie Messitt writes a defense of low-residency MFA programs: These are my people. And, because we have always lived away from one another, we learned from the start that writing is solitary, but we have each other. And, as a…
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MFA-Gate Continues
Last week, Ryan Boudinot published the MFA-disparaging essay/listicle/cranky advice column that launched a thousand angry tweets. Electric Literature has two responses: one supporting Boudinot’s core argument and one rebutting it.
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The Real Deal
Many of us choose to pursue MFAs; many of us are also plagued with doubts about the value of a degree in creative writing. Former teacher Ryan Boudinot shares his thoughts about programs, publishing, and the unlikely chance that you’re the…
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Girl Not in Your MFA
That Guy in Your MFA is neither a guy nor a student in an MFA program. He’s actually a woman, Dana Schwartz, a Brown University undergraduate. Schwartz also runs the twitter Dystopian YA Novel that satirizes series like Divergent. She tells…
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The Rumpus Interview with Daisy Hernández
Daisy Hernández talks about her new memoir, A Cup of Water Under My Bed, feminism, bilingual writing, and working in both the fiction and nonfiction genres.
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The Rumpus Interview with Rebecca Makkai
Rebecca Makkai talks about ghosts, teaching, chronology in writing, and her new novel, The Hundred-Year House.
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How to Be a Writer and Also Have a 401K
At The Morning News, seven writers with full-time jobs talk about how they fit (or attempt to fit) writing time into their work weeks, and the general conclusion is: There isn’t an elegant solution to cramming a writing life into…
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MFA vs. SNL
The best writers learn their craft in unexpected places, even from the foot of an improv stage.
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Adjunct Faculty Plan Walk Out
Adjunct college faculty are at last taking a stand against abominable work conditions and low pay by planning a national walk out on February 25, 2015. Unlike their tenured counterparts, adjuncts lack protection from retributive firing should they follow through.…
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Mountains, Lowlands, and Archipelagos
Horace Engdahl thinks that creative writing programs and the walled-off communities academic programs create are hurting western literature. Since writing courses help monetize writing—and fund writers as professionals—Engdahl worries that the courses are removing writers from the real world. Engdahl…
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From Applebee’s to Published Author
Scott Cheshire explains that he started flirting with the woman who became his wife by telling her he had a novel coming out. Twelve years later, it did. Today, he is a published novelist with a graduate degree, but back…
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The Rumpus Interview with Julie Schumacher
Julie Schumacher discusses going extinct, iPads and iPhones, epistolary novels, and why the number of MFA programs in the U.S. is a non-issue.