Comments on: The Mis-Education (Perhaps) of Louis Menand – When to Get Your MFA or Not, part 3

By: koreanish

koreanish — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 22:34:01 +0000

It is. It’s also worth noting that the system has grown as federal and state funding for the arts was attacked and all but vanished and as other institutions of support have failed or cut back sharply, such as the publishing industry and print weeklies. More and more teachers appeared as space for stories shrank. South America does produce, for example, many writers without MFA programs, but culturally across those countries writing is considered inherently of value. Papers, publishers and journals produce a lively intellectual culture. Not so here. If this is how we keep writers and writing alive during a period of anti-intellectual mania in what was once the world’s richest country, then… fine.

By: Lee

Lee — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:21:41 +0000

It’s worth asking why many other countries manage to produce excellent writers without MFA programs.

By: koreanish

koreanish — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 03:43:16 +0000

Just in case I was wrong, I went back. I’m not wrong. “Just to clarify”, he in fact does go on to say the instructors are either unpublished and educated, or published and uneducated. From that first paragraph: “There is one person in the room, the instructor, who has (usually) published a poem. But workshop protocol requires the instructor to shepherd the discussion, not to lead it, and in any case the instructor is either a product of the same process—a person with an academic degree in creative writing—or a successful writer who has had no training as a teacher of anything, and who is probably grimly or jovially skeptical of the premise on which the whole enterprise is based: that creative writing is something that can be taught.” There is no MFA program that uses unpublished faculty with MFA degrees to teach the MFA to students. The overwhelming majority of MFA workshops in this country are taught by credentialed, published professors, especially now, but even 20 years ago, when the degree was less popular—only one of my professors at Iowa in 1994 lacked a MFA, and it was Deborah Eisenberg. Advertisements for the jobs in professional journals don’t just ask for MFA or PhD, they require it, and it is in fact against the law to teach at the graduate level now without credentials in many states, like Washington, for example. Yes, he evinces said affection, but only at the end, and qualified in the ways I describe. I stand by my reading.

By: Richard Beck

Richard Beck — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 03:00:29 +0000

Just to clarify, the first sentence of Menand’s piece talks about the theory that “students who have never published a poem can teach other students who have never published a poem how to write a publishable poem.” He’s not calling the instructors unpublished hacks. He’s saying that the conceit of the MFA seminar is that students teach each other under the benevolent gaze of the instructor, who doesn’t so much teach as encourage and herd. Menand’s piece actually isn’t hostile to MFA programs at all, but almost uncritically affectionate; by the end he’s going on about how much he loved taking writing classes in college. You are being defensive without anything to actually be defensive about.

By: Elizabeth Collins

Elizabeth Collins — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 02:31:26 +0000

I do think MFAs are worthwhile. I got mine from Iowa, and while I have been disappointed in the no-go “This is a terminal degree” aspect of things (that hasn’t proven to be the case when it comes to professor positions–many public institutions do not recognize the MFA as a terminal degree), and I found the workshop experience to be a little bit uh, disheartening at certain points, it was absolutely worth the time and money. I finished a large body of work; I got to learn from amazing writers; and I got the competitive edge I needed (which I need to get back to). Great post, Alexander.

By: Creative Writing Programs Are Not a Complete Waste of Time | Idiotprogrammer

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 11:29:35 +0000

[...] 2010 Update. See Alexander Chee’s essay about whether to go for the MFA. (That’s part 3; see also part 1 and part [...]

By: Robert Nagle

Robert Nagle — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 11:22:40 +0000

I finished a fairly well-known writing program (JHU) in 1989. I have mixed feelings about it, but here's where I stand today: First, out of the 12 students in my workshop, about 3 have published books, 1 or 2 still actively write and 2 are film directors; only 1 teaches writing. I think out of them I'm the one who spends the most time on writing...although I've been the least successful (from a commercial point of view). Second, today, the biggest value in a degreed program is finding people to collaborate with you on literary projects (a journal, anthology, screenplay, etc). 4 or 5 motivated writers working together on the web can produce a lot. Third, writing programs taught me a lot about giving practical criticism -- how not to overdo it, how to be diplomatic, how to appreciate a story for what it is. That is a valuable life skill. Fourth, being on campus offers a lot of ancillary benefits: access to computer facilities, short courses, campus events. Ironically, even though my I enjoyed contact with faculty, my greatest literary influence was someone published by JHU's university press while I was attending. I'm writing a book of essays about this author. Regrettably, I never had heard of this writer until 20 years later. See also my thoughts about why creative writing programs are not a complete waste of time .

By: Giving the cliché a second chance | kikugirl

Giving the cliché a second chance | kikugirl — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 06:16:14 +0000

[...] though: I am so happy and honored just to make it to finalist status. In an excellent series of blog posts about getting an MFA, the author Alexander Chee suggests that you shouldn’t apply to MFA programs [...]

By: When to Get Your MFA. Or Not. [Part 2] « Koreanish

When to Get Your MFA. Or Not. [Part 2] « Koreanish — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:21:13 +0000

[...] week, Part 3: how to know if you're ready or not, and what to do if you don't want to go.] Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)The Mis-Education (Perhaps) of Louis Menand – [...]

By: koreanish

koreanish — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 01:33:50 +0000

Thanks. But I can’t agree with you less about this idea of the isolates. If there’s a myth as destructive as the idea that everyone needs an MFA to be a writer, it’s the idea that writers can grow themselves alone in the wild. Many of the names you drop there came from communities of writers. Whitman, for example, an isolationist? No. He was an ecstatic and was resolutely in this world, and had many friends and admirers—his and Wilde’s love affair even inspired the writing of Dracula by Bram Stoker. Many of the best of the literary experimentalists—Gertrude Stein, for example, was famously Hemingway’s teacher, or Jean Rhys who studied with Ford Madox Ford—either taught or studied with others.