MFA
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You Write or You Don’t
As if we weren’t already torn over MFA programs, Joseph Scapellato recounts their pros, cons, joys, uncertainties, and (of course) costs: MFA is dreamy, and the more MFA talks the dreamier MFA becomes, but there’s a practical you inside you…
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An Ideal MFA
How would a writer without an MFA imagine an ideal Creative Writing degree program? Over at Ploughshares, Rebecca Makkai invites you to consider her optimal 2015/2016 course catalog, warning that “the course offerings will be much more practical than “Problems…
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Fine the Way You Are
Homogeneity in the literary scene isn’t a recent development. Earlier this year, Junot Diaz caused a stir by branding the unbearable too-whiteness of his workshop experience. Justin Torres and Ayana Mathis couldn’t help but contribute: “One of the characters is…
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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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How to Write (for Actual Legal Tender)
Over at The Awl, Heather Havrilesky, a writer without an MFA, has some humorous and candid freelancing tips for her MFA students and us readers. Havrilesky knows we’ll appreciate this advice, since she’s “one of the only writers [her] students know…
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The 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…
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Teaching How to Read Racial Identity
Last week, we wrote about Junot Diaz‘s thoughts on the silence around racial identity that he experienced during his MFA in the ‘90s. Salon tracked down the syllabi of two undergrad courses the writer teaches at MIT, in the Comparative Media Studies/Writing Department. Informed…
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The Eternal Question: To MFA or Not?
Writers who are currently trying to decide whether an MFA is right for them will find that the questions being raised today are not unlike those addressed by Flannery O’Connor: What first stuns the young writer emerging from college is…
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Fate, Chance, and Student Loans
Does everything happen for a reason? That’s the question writer Laura Leigh Abby had to ask herself after a car accident allowed her to graduate with an MFA degree loan-free: For most of my life I’ve been doing things without worrying…
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Alexander Chee on MFA Programs
Take a break from wracking your brain about whether or not to get an MFA and go read Rumpus Pal Alexander Chee’s essay “What Getting an MFA In Fiction Meant To Me” at BuzzFeed. Chee beautifully narrates the inner debate…
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Master 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…
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Spotlight: Ali Shapiro
Ali Shapiro doles out some exceedingly practical advice for job-hunting with the qualifications of a creative writer.