How to find an MFA program

A big part of deciding whether or not to attend an MFA program (both traditional or low-residency) is figuring out where you would want to get the MFA. MFA programs are not like law schools -- graduating from Harvard Law might "guarantee" you a job, but there's absolutely no equivalent when talking about creative writing programs.*  Therefore the most important  consideration in choosing a creative writing program is will it work for you?


Of course, you have to find the darn things before you can determine if they have what you're looking for.

You can read the Poets & Writers fall issue on MFA programs, you can dally around the MFAblog -- but do both with caution. A lot of the "information" given out in both of those sources are opinions and generalizations. (Poets & Writers admits that many of their MFA articles are editorials rather than reporting, but it's easy to get swept away and forget that.) An MFA is a masters of fine arts; it is, by definition, a creative pursuit, and therefore what works for other people might not work for you.

All this is to say that you're really best off if you research programs individually and judge them by how the program's merits line up with your own desires and priorities.

There is a free database to help you out.  The AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) has an official guide to writing programs where you can enter your search criteria and see the names of accredited programs worldwide.  Can't leave the state? You can search by that. Looking for a program that does genre fic? Or Screenwriting? Or children's lit? You can search for that. Looking for a BA or BFA program instead of a grad program? They list those too.

Once you've done a search, the AWP guide will show you the page they have with the program's info. Take this page as a preliminary, not the cold hard facts. These pages are slow to change -- for example, if a faculty member has left/arrived in the past couple of years, it probably won't be reflected in the AWP guide.** BUT these pages provide the web address for the school along with basic information -- and most importantly, they provide you with knowledge that such an MFA or MA program exists.

Another good way to get some info about programs, and to do so in person, is to attend the AWP Conference. In 2012, it'll be held in Chicago (February). Many schools will have table at the bookfair and you can go up to the table and ask faculty and current students questions (depending on who's sitting at the table at the time), and usually pick up materials and application tips. If a school's been cutting costs, they might not have a table just for them but they may have a table that's under the name of their affiliated literary magazine. If the school has a magazine associated with it, it's likely that at least some of the people running it are current graduate students at that program -- and they're most likely to be the ones sitting at the table! Go ahead and ask if they're grad students and if they wouldn't mind answering some questions about the program.


*(Caveat: getting an MFA from Iowa will definitely help you get a teaching job -- or at least an interview for a teaching job -- but you'll still have to work your butt off to publish and do all the other stuff. More on that tomorrow.)


**Note: Always use the school's website for application materials, deadlines, and direct contact info. Any source other than the school itself may be wrong and you won't be able to verify their info unless you go to the school's website anyway.

Low-residency MFAs

Judging from some of the comments I've gotten when I started blogging about good reasons to get an MFA and poor reasons to get an MFA, it sounds like a lot of low-residency MFA programs are being overlooked. Don't! These programs provide solid education and great flexibility for many individuals.


A definition: A "low-residency" MFA program is a program where much of the work is done remotely and interaction is primarily through correspondence and a minimum of 14 days of residential study each year. The MFA program will often break this up into two separate visits of 7-10 days. All other study is done from the student's home wherever that is in the country or world.

The AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) says this by way of introduction to low-residency MFA programs in its Directors Handbook:

Since the first low-residency MFA program in creative writing was developed in the 1970s, higher education has established over thirty such programs.  With various combinations of residencies, workshops, lectures, online workshops and classes, study abroad, correspondence, and  one-on-one mentoring, low-residency programs vary; however, their chief attributes are individualized instruction and structural flexibility for students.  Low-residency programs require at least two years of study.  Students study literature and craft by writing original fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, translations, screenplays, or plays; by analyzing contemporary and canonical works of literature; and by writing critical papers.  Programs also require culminating projects focused on the craft of writing—an extended craft essay, a lecture, or the teaching of a seminar.  The centerpiece of the course of study is a creative thesis, an original literary work in the student’s chosen genre(s). 

With its mentoring relationships involving one teacher and one student, or with small online workshops and seminars, the low-residency program excels in expediting the development of a writer.  Students in low-residency programs tend to be older than traditional graduate students.  Many students enter these programs intending to continue in their already established careers; these students find that their professional work is often improved by the skills they acquire in their artistic avocations.  Low-residency programs have a strong record of preparing graduates for careers in teaching, editing, publishing, public affairs, advertising, and administration. 

Lifestyle favorable: Low-residency MFAs are good choices if you aren't within driving distance of the school you want to go to and have a life you can't easily move. Great for people with kids in school, or a spouse that needs to stay put for work or family reasons, if you have a house you can't sell, or if you have a job. Yep, you don't have to quit your job to get an MFA if that's what you want to do. It'll be tough to juggle it all -- going to night school always is -- but it can be done.

Another perk is that low-residency MFAs do not (usually) come with teaching obligations to round out your funding. Although, if your post-MFA goal is to teach then this may be more of a con than a pro as the during-grad-school teaching obligations are also a form of getting experience. But if you know you don't want to teach -- ever -- then hey, bonus!

But remember that even though you get to keep your current normal life/job/living situation,  it is a form of "going back to school." Even though you meet in person only once or twice a year, you still have weekly homework, workshop deadlines, and scheduled internet chats/emails/etc. with faculty.

I've been told that to be a successful low-res MFA instructor you need to be good at expressing yourself in email -- that is, expressing yourself thoroughly and without confusion. So I'd assume that the flip side of that is that if you're a low-res student, you shouldn't be afraid of extremely long emails from your faculty; you should be willing and able to plow through those and learn whatever you can; you should be able to then express yourself succinctly through reply emails. Regardless of how well you can write a story, some people just can't email worth a damn -- odd, but true -- find out if this is you before you apply so that you can have a strategy for success or choose another route.

Niche and genre-favorable programs: If the classics aren't your thing and say, mystery writing is your thing, then odds are that there's a low-residency MFA program with a niche program for mystery writers. Same goes for screen writers, YA writers, science fiction, fantasy, romance, crime, and other forms of "commercial fiction," "popular fiction," or "genre fiction" (all three terms refer to the same thing and are used interchangeably). It's my experience that it's much harder to find programs that specialize in any of those things among traditional (high residency) MFAs, but there are quite a few now in the low-res world. The University of Southern Main, Seton Hill University, and Western Colorado are just a few I know off the top of my head. It's my opinion that more programs should be more open to training writers of popular fiction.

Non-MFA granting training programs: There are also non-MFA programs which are great.  Some of them, like the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop, are potentially better than MFA programs in terms of how much you grow as a writer. If you're a sci-fi/fantasy/horror writer, consider Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop, Clarion, Clarion West, and others. For romance writers, join the RWA -- I don't know how much of an education the local chapters will give you, but I know that they often run bootcamps for members nationwide which you can attend (which anyone can attend but by joining the RWA you actually get notified of the upcoming event). I have little doubt that there are similar workshops and bootcamps for mystery writers and others interested in commercial genres check them out. They may be the alternative to a high residency MFA which is perfect for you.

Resources: While a google serach for "Low-residency MFA" will bring back oodles of results, there's also a handbook you can get in paper or Kindle format. It appears to be made by the same people who made the Creative Writing MFA handbook, which presumably didn't have an in-depth enough section on low-residency programs and thus the low-res volume. I've not taken a look at either -- they were either not in print yet or had gone out of print when I was applying to programs.

What I recommend is checking out the Portable MFA in Creative Writing (a $10-17 book) before you begin. If the book puzzles you, presents items you never thought of, makes you feel in over your head (ever so slightly) or tantilizes you to learn more, then getting an MFA may be just the thing to do. I remember looking at A Portable MFA before starting my program, and everything that I read sounded vaguely familiar. At the time, my vocabulary wasn't up to snuff (particularly the vocabulary I use to talk about writing) so it presented a challenge when the authors were talking about writing. But mostly I remember reading that book and agreeing with them on the lessons and the theory ... and then putting down the book and having no idea how to apply that to my own work.

And that is precisely what a good teacher/mentor can do for you: teach you how to take what works theoretically and make it work for you.

Forthcoming MFA posts: 

• How to find a program
• Why you should pay no attention to "rankings" for any school or program

Reasons to get an MFA in creative writing

Here's my big question -- before we even get into the "are you ready for an MFA?" and "where should you apply/go?" -- why do you want to get an MFA, and are your reasons strong enough to hold you through 2-3 years of graduate study?

Good reasons to get an MFA:

• You want to work on improving your craft.
• You are encouraged by having deadlines for your writing.
• You want funded time to write (assuming you get funding).
• You'd like to teach writing at the college level including composition.
• You learn well in a school-setting.
• You have a high threshold for pain when it comes to people critiquing your writing.
• You enjoy classic and contemporary "literature."
• You want to push yourself.

Poor reasons to get an MFA:

• You got a BA in English and don't know what to do next.
• You hate the thought of teaching freshmen to write essays and only want to be an artist.
• You want to be an artiste.
• Your writing doesn't need any work, you just need to network.
• You believe that once you're in an MFA program, you need only stay long enough to network your way to an agent/editor/publication.
• It will look good on your submission cover letters. 
• You think a masters degree in creative writing will make you employable.

An MFA, in theory, is the terminal degree for a creative (or artistic) form.  There are creative writing PhD programs out there, but for the moment both a PhD and an MFA are considered "terminal."  As a creative discipline, the Fine Arts part of your Master of Fine Arts degree makes you not terribly employable.  There are no ready jobs for MFA holders they way there are ready jobs for holders of JDs.  (Although lately there's no ready jobs for them either.)

With an MFA in creative writing you can teach college level writing classes -- most of these openings will be college level composition classes not college level creative writing classes. With an MFA in creative writing a couple publications, you can also teach community ed. classes in creative writing. You must have substantial publications in your creative field and substantial previous teaching experience to land a decent job teaching creative writing full time.  Know this ahead of time if it's what you want.

The time spent getting the MFA is a time to learn, but it's also a time to write.  That is the most valuable part of the MFA for any funded student: funding to write.  The most valuable part for the unfunded student: a chance to learn craft from people who (usually) are good teachers.

MFAs are horrible places to network your way to publication. Unless you make it into Iowa.  If you make it into Iowa and convince them to give you a degree, it will be easier (eventually) to get a teaching position and/or your first book contract. But every other MFA in the country is not Iowa.  Only Iowa is the Iowa of writing programs. No other MFA holds that clout -- no matter its "ranking."  More on that ranking nonsense tomorrow.

The MFA community can sniff out those who are there to network not learn. And it takes them about as long to find the fakes as it does the new family on the block to figure out if their neighbor is bringing them a casserole to welcome them in and save them from ordering pizza while unpacking, or it the goo and noodles in the corning wear is really just an excuse to get in the house and snoop. And those who are identified as using the program to network, don't ever integrate fully into the community. Although I will say that most of my faculty are the biggest name droppers I've ever met ... but that doesn't mean they'll introduce you, the student, just because you're there.  If you're looking to network, then go to local readings. Find out about readings, get on email listserves.  The university, library, or community group in your area likely brings writers and editors to town to talk and you don't even know it. Ask to be included on those email list serves and then, you know, attend readings -- it's one of the best ways to meet writers. And it'll generally cost you the price of their book (to get it signed) and not the few grand it would cost per semester of MFA.

It's MFA application season

Application season for would-be MFA students lines up roughly with that of American collegiate football:

The anticipation, the planning and preparation, starts right around Labor Day weekend -- often a little before. The actual games/activity begin in September and stretches though most of the fall months, culminating in the final sendings-off of applications in the end of December and first part of January. Then there are bowl games and, for collegiate football, things are done. We wait a few weeks and then everyone goes to a Superbowl party even if they're not big on pro football because, hey, it's the only football there is for a long time, and everyone's making a big hype over it so why not?

Once the Superbowl is over, however, MFA applicants are still waiting, waiting, growing more nervous and neurotic by the day. They spend their time on the MFAblog or the Poets & Writers forums checking to see if anyone is reporting a rejection or acceptance to the schools they applied to. It is a dark few months.

Then, late-February through mid-April, the response letters and emails slowly trickle in. Rejection. Acceptance. Rejection. Rejection. Acceptance without funding. Rejection. Waitlist. Acceptance.

You jump for joy. You pout. You call your mother, wife, girlfriend, college roommate. You make plans. You worry your lip. You talk to other people. You worry some more. You get frustrated. Your buddy buys you a celebratory beer. You develop a sore from worrying your lip so damn much every day. Then you get to take a deep breath and watch the Stanley Cup finals because this application season has extended beyond the confines of a single sports season (or a single metaphor), but at least it's over ... unless you're reapplying.

In which case, you plan all summer for the start of next season.

Thankfully, for most people, this cycle does not happen more than once or twice in their life.

This week on Speak Coffee to Me, we'll get back into the MFA talk and particularly the application talk because it's that time of year and hey, I really have nothing to say about football that you can't hear on Sports Center.

State of the MFA: Year 2.5

After writing the State of the MFA: Year One, Year Two and Year Three, I realized that I'd left out a great deal. I'd left out all the revelatory information that came between the end of one and the beginning of another.

It was in this nebulous 2.5 time frame that I started asking the question (and answering it) Who am I as a writer and what is it that I care about?

For years, I tried quite desperately to write to please other people. As an undergrad I wrote stories like the ones I was assigned to read (all realism). And when someone in workshop said, hey, this sorta reminds me of that Pam Houston story we were assigned I knew I had struck gold. Yes, my writing was quirky and snarky, but it was as much that way because that's how my brain functioned as it was because that's how I knew I could get a laugh from people. Next I wrote to get into the MFA program. They needed to like me and my work to accept me, right? I arrived and the first night of workshop my instructor swiped a hand across the desk and said none of that genre stuff. I wasn't surprised, but I complied. He talked about his great interest in slice of life stories so I, like much of the class, tried to write plotless slice of life stories.

Things kept on like this for a while. I wrote what I wanted in my own free time and wrote what they wanted when I had to show it to them. I was happy (or so I thought) in my knowledge that
what I wrote on my own was important to me and considered worthwhile by other people even if those people were not the ones sitting in class or issuing grades. I thought I would just play the man's game long enough to learn what I needed to. At an AWP panel this past spring I heard a panelist say My goal was always to smuggle out the pretty sentences and take them to Tolkien.

Then it came to a head. I no longer cared to write for other people. I had my This matters TO ME moment.

Someone recently described when she had that same moment some fifteen years ago. Her instructor told her that the story was well written but in the end it was still a story about [dismissive fluff]. She had to work around to it, but she eventually put metaphorical fists on her hips and said, hey, this particular breed of dismissive fluff matters to me.

In my mind, this is the great thing about Year 2.5 of the MFA: you learn to separate out content from style and you realize that you no longer give a damn whether your content is on the approved list of sufficiently weighty topics we can write about.

And once you've had that moment it's hard to go back. Right now I'm working on a story and I'm really sad that it's not as ME as others because it'll be better received if it's less ME and that pisses me off.

Year 2.5 was when I came out of the genre-writer closet, so to speak. In my short profile on the side-bar, you'll see that I love paranormal and urban fantasy novels and I no longer care who knows it. I do love them and I don't care. I used to think that I had to engage only in discussion of aforementioned sufficiently weighty subject matter. Now I honestly admit that I've never given a rat's ass about the boring stuff.

I'm not saying that all MFA students will become genre writers or that we all think the same things are boring. But I do think that it takes a couple of years trying and failing before you realize what's important enough to you that you want to keep trying. To find what it is you'll fight for. If you wouldn't fight whole heartedly in defense of what it is you're doing right now, then why are you doing it? Reasons of learning or pleasing people will only last you so long, and when those reasons expire, you have nothing left except to be yourself.

State of the MFA: Year Zero

State of the MFA: this week's retrospective on the grad school process and plans for the future.
 
I begin before the beginning.  I begin with year zero.

I've posted in the past about how I finally came to the decision to apply to MFA programs. It was something that I'd greatly resisted when leaving college even though I majored in English writing -- my institution's degree that was half English lit, half writing classes.  I thought that writers had to be starving artists because they earned so little.

I rather liked food, so I applied to law school.

In short, law school sucked.  The parts of it that were cool, they told me I would not do as a practicing lawyer.  The parts of it that were a akin to waterboarding while watching paint dry, were the ones they told me I would do daily for the first ten years I practiced until I could afford to pay someone else to do them for me.  So I left.

Panic and whimsy hit me all at once.  I was in love with Chicago and I hated it.  I walked the South Loop and ground my teeth and hunched my shoulders against the wind and the drizzle.  I walked the lake shore and wanted nothing more than to sit next to a young tree and watch the waves.  I remember getting a copy of Poets & Writers mailed to me by my mother -- because for some reason you can't buy a newsstand copy of it in Chicago -- and going out to the marina during the last days of October.  I sat on the cold cement and dangled my legs over the edge.  Behind me, an occasional jogger or cyclist went by.  There were no boats tethered except one; the rest were already in winter storage.  One lone goose paddled up to me; he hung out with me the whole time I was there just in case I might feed him.  The chill seeped through my jeans, and my butt and thighs went numb, I gave the finger to the law school homework I'd been assigned and read every MFA related article in Poets & Writers until I could not feel my fingers for the cold.

Deciding to apply to MFA programs on or around November 1, is a difficult proposition.  I don't recommend it as a strategy.  But I was desperate, unemployed, not in school, and had just moved back into my parent's house.  It was a prove yourself by doing this situation.  So I did.

I applied to six schools.  Three were reach schools (fully funding all students), two were considered sleeper programs, and one was a safety school.  I don't necessarily recommend "safety schools" when applying to MFAs.  Wherever you apply to should be someplace you would actually move to and live there if you got in.  However, I was in a bit of a strange situation, what with the whole dashing of one plan -- I had done nothing but plan to be a lawyer for the 24 months prior -- and the unemployment, and the when are you going to move out of my house questions ... I was willing to go someplace I didn't really want to go to just to be moving forward.  I didn't get into the three schools that fully funded all students -- I later found out that they'd each had 2000-3000 applicants -- but I got into all of the other three, and went to one of the sleeper programs.

But in that dark period between Jan.1, when the last application was due and mid-March when they started letting people know, I did the smartest thing I could have done: I dedicated myself to writing the shitty first draft of a novel.  I finished it and proved to myself that I was a finisher not a quitter (quitting law school had put me in danger of thinking that way).  And I kept my mind off checking the MFAblog hourly.

At the time, the MFAblog was THE ONLY place to go.  Since then it's gone downhill and the Poets&Writers online forums for this sort of thing have improved drastically.  But don't post on either, or spend January and February checking either: it will only drive you crazy.  And then, two or three years later, you'll realize that you sounded just as naive, pretentious, impatient and whiny when you posted as those people who are posting today.

I think, in an ideal world, I would have asked more questions.  I would have taken my time applying.  I would have considered low-res programs that fitted my creative needs, instead of looking only for schools that would provide me with an excuse not to take my bizarre skill set into the job market during what was not-yet-called-a-recession.  Back then, my mindset was that if I showed up and applied myself, whatever teacher in whatever program could teach me to write well, and I could take that and use it as a foundation for whatever it was I wanted to do.  Back then, I also didn't know what I wanted to "do" in terms of my own writing.

I waffle between saying I would have been more successful if I'd waited until I'd known myself better, and saying that I learned more about my writing because I was in the MFA.  I think that if you're leaving nothing (like I was) to find yourself, then go and go boldly.  If you're leaving a job or moving a spouse ... maybe you want to find yourself first.

If you applied to MFAs ...

If you applied to MFA programs this cycle, really the last thing you should be doing is trolling the internet for anything remotely MFA related in the months of January/February. It's a surefire way of making yourself loco and/or paranoid.

That said, every where I go I find bloggers and the like chatting about MFA applicants and the value of such an education. And, for some reason that escapes me, I read every article I come across that debates the MFA education/experience. It's not like I'm going to change my mind about my degree halfway through it, and yet, I read.

[it could be said that I'm reading b/c I'm still entertaining myriad PhD notions and non-notions, but that's probably more logical than truthful]

If you are an applicant and read any of the following links then read this one. The blogger on Ward Six is probably the most grounded, least fear- and apprehension-mongering of all of those discussing the subject (after my humble self, of course).

Then you get Alexander Chee writing about When to get your MFA. Or not. In parts one, and two, and three (which you might want to keep this link handy, because Chee forgot to link it himself) we mill around thoughtfully and take away that a degree program if nothing else is perhaps a chance to "Spend two years finding out whether or not your writing is any good rather than 20 years wondering.” Chee's posts are of his personal story and include his reasons, his thoughts, his circumstances and -- surprisingly -- the morals of the story. Perhaps I was reading this too late at night, but I really liked that he just straight up told us the "morals" of his story. It's after 1 AM, my grad student brain has switched off for the evening as it prefers to save power for more noble pursuits like figuring out how I can graduate without having to read (any more) Faulkner.

In other thoughts: go because you just love school, and not because you think there might be some sort of mystic publishing industry edge.

To get around to the absolute worst thoughts on MFA programs in print or on the web you have Poets & Writer's December 2009 MFA program rankings. Seth Abramson is attempting to make money by doing for writing programs what the LSAC did for law school: make everyone neurotic and obsessed with "prestige." (Abramson even has a "consulting" business that will, for a steep fee, give editing advice on your MFA application to those who refuse Chee's sage advice and jump to apply too soon.)

The rankings -- which I refuse even to link to -- are based on surveys of applicants to MFA programs. By definition this means that the people ranking the programs are no more educated about the realities of the programs than anyone else beginning graduate studies. They do not have writing degrees, or writing careers; they do not teach; they most likely have not published; they have no experience to draw from only research, reputation and rumor. The AWP has a letter of response posted here. Writing is a subjective art and you should be more concerned with who your subjective teachers will be and whether or not you can afford to relocate out of state than with a rumor-mill driven numeric ranking.

Googling the Statement of Purpose

I have recently been informed by a fellow MFA candidate that when you google "statement of purpose, mfa" or "sample statement of purpose, creative writing" you get ME.

I was shocked.

This might mean that the traffic to my Statement of Purpose posts is higher or that they've been linked back a lot. Or, in all likelihood, it means that there are very few samples of statement of purpose on the web for creative writing programs. Not sure why that is. A year after I applied and was admitted I posted my sample online. It's still up there if you want to see it. It's so personal that I doubt anyone would want to steal it outright and the pattern/tips I followed are still available online courtesy of Vince Gotera.

I'll leave it to Vince to get into the particulars, no need to repeat them here, but essentially a statement of purpose in creative writing is formatted like an essay (not a letter) and it states why you want to intensively study writing. And if you know what specifically you hope to do during your tenure as a student -- more often this applies to students who are seeking Ph.D.s in writing or who are returning to grad school after a long time in the work force -- you'll want to state your specific goals you hope to achieve as a student. I cannot repeat enough how unimportant your SoP is compared to your writing sample. Worry about your writing sample first, your SoP second.

My colleague and classmate who told me that my blog appeared at the top of the search engine list is gunning for a spot in a Ph.D. program -- which I'm sure she'll get. I doubt she found my example as helpful as someone who is applying to a masters program would but I wish her well on her SoP writing. And I direct all Ph.D. applicants to take a look at M. Ramirez Talusan's posted statement of purpose which is much more academic than mine.

Why do so few people post their statements of purpose? I have no idea. It's not like it is a text that you will ever use again. No one publishes their SoP for money or fame. If you're afraid that someone will rip off your SoP then clearly it's not personalized enough to your circumstances and interests; nor is is firmly rooted in your writing style. One can't "buy" or "rip off" another's SoP. Consider this: you are putting a SoP in front of career professors; they know when a student's writing style or ability suddenly shifts. And students with red flags don't get admitted. So post your damn SoP and help some clueless but diligent people out.

MFA Application Cycle

January is the dead month for MFA applications. Most of them are due in December, a few hold deadlines open until January 15 but those are certainly few and far between. My advice to anyone in this year's application cycle: forget that you've even applied until February 20. Most schools don't start making offers until the first week of March, some won't be made until the end of March. I didn't know I was coming to WMU until April.

Be patient. Write something. Buy ten novels and tell yourself you're not allowed to check any stat board until you've finished all ten.

Last year I threw myself into a January version of NaNoWriMo with an abandon. It worked wonders; instead of obsessing over an application process I no longer had control over, I obsessed over a novel that whose creation was entirely up to me and my efforts. [BTW, I printed out that manuscript over break to hopefully start editing work on it. The nice part of not looking at it for 6+ months is that I'm actually surprised by both the plot and my writing, both of which I remember to be a lot worse than they are.]

This year I'm in the MFA. Great. I'm teaching, I'm writing, I'm taking classes -- all of it working toward publication and a teaching job. The fact that winter has dumped 8-10" of snow on me in the past 48 hours isn't bothering me too much -- I've got food in the fridge and I don't have to be anywhere until Monday.

So I called my father to chat, to get updates, to find out what his secret to cooking a tenderloin is (somehow I thought there'd be more than "season it with Mrs. Dash"). I find out that my grandmother is doing well after surgery, that there's no definitive answer about family members who are moving, and he asks if now isn't a good time to start applying for the Ph.D. program.

!!!

My father remains gungho on the idea of me getting a Ph.D. in creative writing. An MFA is terminal, but a Ph.D. is even more terminal -- which doesn't make sense but neither do the degrees. The program here at WMU has both an MFA and a Ph.D. program in creative writing. As I understand it, it is possible to transfer MFA credits over to the Ph.D. program without actually completing the MFA. My father sees this as a brilliant idea: less time spent in school, right? However, now isn't the time for such considerations. I've only spent a semester in the graduate program and have very little writing-wise to show for it. I certainly don't feel like I have a portfolio worthy of a Ph.D. application. And, as I reminded my father, this year's application cycle has passed. This transferring programs conversation is one I'll have with faculty, current students and the graduate advisor in the months to come.


Meanwhile, I give you today's stupid people of the day award! It goes to yet another brilliant neighbor of mine. No, not smokey, no not the guy who nearly burned down the opposite building with his grilling/lighter fluid escapades. This award goes to a young woman with a Prius.

Coming back from her shopping/lunch trip, she pulls up in the general vicinity of her parking spot and blocks half the road with her car. Turns on her flashers, gets out, leaves the driver's side door open, opens the back hatch and takes out a brand new collapsible shovel. First she attempts to shovel with the itty-bitty short handle. After several scoops she realized that the handle can get longer and extends it the extra foot.

She spends the next 10-15 minutes shovelling out a parking space for her car. Without gloves on. This whole time her car is blocking more than half the snow filled road, door open, engine running. I'm really surprised none of the passing cars ended up taking her door off.

Snow heaved to the side -- she's effectively moved the snow over to the next parking spot instead of putting it anywhere else -- she gets back in her running car -- what do you want to be she's been blasting the heater this whole time? -- and pulls in. The shovel has been put into the back of the car where I can see at least a half dozen plastic grocery bags flapping in the wind. But when she leaves the car she's only carrying her purse and an Arby's drink cup.

Bravo, honey. Bravo. May the 4" of snow yet to fall this weekend give you problems.

(front and center is a Honda Civic. The snow reaches up to touch its front bumper.)

Here

I realized several things this weekend, the first was that it really was fall. The second was that I had taken pictures of fall -- I'd even taken pictures of late summer -- specifically for the blog and never retrieved them from my phone. (Look for a "photo tour" on Thursday or Friday.)

My second realization came while on a very long walk through campus Saturday afternoon. It was sublime BTW. The temp was hovering just at 60, the sky was clear and campus was empty. I was wandering past buildings and taking note of the names trying to gain some sense of what is where when I thought this is my campus for the next three years, I really should get to know it crossed my mind.

That's when it hit me: I'm really here.

I'm really at an MFA!

All that planning, applying, worrying, neurosing, the haphazard researching, talking my father's ear off about it, all those ridiculous obsessions with the MFAblog, the Poets&Writer's speak easy, the LJ applying to grad school community, followed by checking Seth Abramson's list of application responses two, three, okay five times a day ... all of that was over, over because I'm actually here.

The here that was there a year ago.

The there that I wanted to be.

So many MFAer's blogs get bitchy about actually being in the MFA program (not Tanya and Margosita so much, but people who've MFAed for longer) they get factual, they deal with the problems, the daily grind, the bleak truth that is the post-MFA job market. And that's why I'd like to take this moment to get all sorts of appreciative, and gooey about dealing with all those yucky, wonderful things.

MFA Statement of Purpose

I have never seen as much freaking out on MFA discussion boards (or on the MFAblog) prior to the first round of acceptance letters being sent out as I see about the Personal Statement or Statement of Purpose (SoP).

It is not the most important piece of the application -- that would be the writing sample -- but it has to be the most stressful for applicants. My theory is that it's difficult because it's too open ended. We know what to do for the writing sample: we write our own way. We know what to do for recommendation letters: we get someone to recommend. But the SoP needs to be about the applicant, and the university, as well as about the program and why s/he is better than all the rest. It needs to boast and suck up without either boasting or sucking up. And moreover, it needs to be short.

Do I have a magic formual? Nope. No one does. Probably because it's not as important as your writing sample.

The MFAblog's best advice is

a statement of purpose is not a resume in narrative form; it is a plan that outlines the relationship between the candidate's past, present, and future.

(read full article here)

Some things to consider about this SoP: I had recently quit law school and wanted to address that fact. Namely I wanted to say that I wasn't going to be a grad school hopper or a flake, and that I had truely learned my lesson, so I used my SoP to handle that. Some applicants use their SoP to address their research interests or what form or vein they would like to work in. My interests could be summed up simply as "writing contemporary fiction" and being "well read" in as many time periods and literary styles as possible so I didn't go into depth on that.

The first story I ever wrote was “Alfred the Alligator with Stripes.” I was seven. “Alfred” had hand drawn illustrations and an illustrious print run of one. My mother was terribly proud of me. She bound the book in a scrap of green and white wallpaper to make it a “real” paperback and showed it off to everyone. I couldn’t understand why she was so excited. It was just a story; I was making them up all the time. The real challenge was sitting still long enough to write them. By the time my attention span caught up to my creativity I had another monster to battle: my own practicality.

When I went in to meet with my Intro to Creative Writing professor for the first time as a college sophomore she asked me what I was planning to major in. Computer science, I told her. She was disappointed I was not going to major in writing and told me that I should consider it given my current work. I told her it did not seem like a practical major. She laughed and asked me what major from a liberal arts school was practical. I was back a week later with the paperwork for her to sign to become my advisor for my chosen major of English writing.

When senior year rolled around, students from my seminar asked me what I was going to do when I graduated. I told them law school. Really? They all asked. You don’t want to be a writer? I told them glibly that I also wanted to eat. To be honest, it was not a desire to avoid being a starving artist as much as it was the thought that becoming a lawyer would make others take me, my work, and my opinions seriously. However, the more I discovered about lawyers the less I could not envision myself being one. I could not see myself solving the mundane problems of the everyday attorney by wading through stacks of old case opinions written in archaic language. Archaic not because they were ancient, but because judges can be as stuffy and long winded as they like. No one is there to push judges to write something that a reader could relate to or, perhaps, enjoy.

I began talking to a friend who was then working on her senior project in fiction. I began to reminisce about how much fun that semester had been for me and how much time I had spent on my project, a novella. None of the writing I had completed for my seminar project had felt like work. Neither had the readings, rewrites or critiques of classmates’ projects. They were what I got to do in stolen moments, things that I chose to do to push off “homework” until later. I smiled at the memory. I was about to tell her to enjoy every moment of the process, particularly workshop, when she cut through my reverie to state that it was the hardest thing she had ever worked on and could barely make herself write each week. I tried to rationalize the discrepancy in our experiences. Maybe I had just been lucky to have a great professor or an intriguing group of students. They had respected my work and given my suggestions weight. Perhaps they had caused me to disproportionately enjoy the process. But the more I considered it, the more I realized my senior workshop was not an anomaly. Time and again, with different instructors and different groups of students, I had thrived in the workshop environment. I had been taken seriously, both for my own writing and for the feedback I had given others. I realized that the respect I had been hoping to find by becoming an attorney was what I had left behind in my creative endeavors. I realized that I wanted to work with words for the rest of my life. I wanted to teach about words, write about words, read, edit, and write about them again. There is a Confucius saying: choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. In order to lay the foundation for such a life I have decided to pursue graduate education in creative writing.

I understand that I first need to develop my craft. It is part of the problem I ran into when I was seven. I had great stories floating around in my head but not yet the tools to put them down on paper with art or grace. I have come a long way since seven. In addition to my ever expanding attention span, I have earned a B.A. in English writing from DePauw University, completed a novella, won an honorable mention in a local poetry competition and engaged in writing workshops outside of my degree program. One of the most valuable experiences I have had in the past year was attending the Kenyon Review writer’s workshop. At Kenyon I met a group of adults from all walks of life who took writing seriously, and took me seriously for doing what I did. To them writing was not playing or dabbling, it was weighty work. It was the first time I had met such a group of people outside of the writing faculty at my university. By the time I gave my reading to the assembled group, a hundred people with literary backgrounds, I was so enthused that I could not have been prouder or happier, not even if my mother had bound the story up in a scrap of wallpaper.

This essay (or some form of it: shortened, more specific, or split up depending on specific school requirments) was submitted with six applications -- a range of schools. Please note that if you don't apply to a range of schools you had better apply to a great many schools. I was accepted at three out of the six. Five were MFA programs and the sixth was a MA to PhD in creative writing program. Three fully funded and accepted less than 6% of their applicants the year I applied, Wisconsin-Madison, Michigan, Notre Dame. I was in the other 94%.

Ideally, what any applicant reading this will take away is to stop worrying about his or her SoP and spend that energy on his or her writing sample. However, I know that probably won't happen.

2010 Update: I'm now in the final year of my MFA program and because someone asked me for an MFA Progress Update I started writing a series of posts about it including my thoughts from Year Zero of the process (decision and application), Year One (arrival), Year Two (doldrums), Year Two-point-five (figuring out who you are as a writer) and Year Three (or at least the beginning of year three). If you're on this page with my MFA SoP sample, then these posts will probably be of interest to you as well.


2011 Update: I have completed my MFA! I'm also running a series of posts this fall on MFA application season, Reasons to get an MFA, Low-residency MFA programs, How to find an MFA program, and Why you should pay no attention to MFA rankings. To see all at once, follow the tag MFA or MFA application.

Headless Horsemen (the food post)

If the ginger bread man and your pumpkin pie had a love child this is what it would look like.

I've decided to name these monstrous cookies Headless Horsemen for their gargantuan size, their scary unladylike look and their half pumpkin nature.

Over the past year I've been experimenting with cookies to see if I couldn't fuse a ginger snap with pumpkin pie filling to get a good cookie. The results were varied. But last night's attempt is pretty damn good - although huge in size. I didn't mean to make them that big (see the picture where it takes up the palm of my hand) but they bake nicely this way. They poof in the oven and then they suck up moisture like mad. The air conditioning has been on the entire time these creatures have been living in my kitchen and still they are noticeably moister now than they were when they came out of the oven.


It's been a summer of good food experiments. After going to Gambier, Ohio and eating at the Village Inn I wanted to try and recreate their Corn Cakes and Black Bean Salsa ... and I did! It not only tasted great but it was sooooo pretty.

Speaking of pretty, I would also like to note that it is tomato season in Michigan. Farmer's Market is filled with them the past couple weeks and they're just so lush looking that they're hard to not smile at.

I also did the world's best stir fry last night! I got the timing down perfectly for how each vegetable should cook -- a first for me -- but I didn't take pictures of that one.

As you might have guessed from all my fabulous cooking successes, the writing's not going so hot.

If you haven't already left my blog to run to your fridge after all this food talk only to discover that you really, really need to go to the grocery store, I'll ask you to put off shopping for just a few more minutes.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by the new website and made the launch party such a great success! If you haven't gotten a chance to check it out yet don't worry, a few things have changed but the site isn't going anywhere. Actually, as soon as I get my feet under me after my move there will be more stuff to see.

Arriving yesterday on the web was the first installment of Carful of Witches (which I continue to read as "careful of witches" because sometimes dyslexia never leaves you). The author, Emily Kajsa Herrstrom, is yet another "internet acquaintance" I've made over the past year.

And because it's getting to be that time of year again -- MFA application time, that is -- I'll be posting the statement of purpose (or one draft of it) that I used in my applications last fall. Look for that post later this week.

Not a Bad Wednesday ... Scratch That. A Good Wednesday

Project Runway totally sent the wrong designer home. The whiny boy who keeps talking about how he has such impeccable taste (but doesn't) really needs to go home. He should have left last week and the fact that he's still around is more a testament to dumb luck than his skill. My father says the guy is still around because the producers think he makes good TV. But this kid is just whiny ... that's not drama, that's annoying.

Segue. Yesterday was a good day for me as a writer. I worked on a short story that I had begun at the Kenyon Workshop and realized that I'm a lot closer to having a finished first draft than I thought I was. Yea!

The story started off as a prompt from a picture of a woman walking in the desert. I've been jotting down notes on it then and again, thinking about the characters for two months now but I haven't been able to get back into it long enough to work on the story as a whole until yesterday.

The story is going to end up being a lot shorter than I thought it would. 2000 words isn't a terribly long story, but the style of this one is very brief, pared down, even. Then again I think my stories always surprise me with their length because they going from being all these pieces and scraps of fabric to being knit into one another, just one piece instead of taking up my entire workbench.

Length aside, I'm just excited that I'll have something to take to workshop now!

One of my goals for the summer was to have two new pieces of short fiction that were at a point that I could take them in to workshop. As someone who likes to write beginning drafts that skip around and don't always connect with the thought before, getting a draft to the point where someone else can read it and think it coherent is an accomplishment. I also hate workshopping stories that are honestly "first drafts." I want as much time to edit as possible so that I don't embarrass myself.

At this point I only have the one story finished, not the two. But I'll take one over none! And who knows, I might not use it at all this semester. It depends on how the workshop class is structured, I might not get the opportunity. One way or another, it is a good feeling to walk in with a back up -- one that isn't from my application packet!

I've heard tell of that practice as well: that sometimes when first year MFA candidates feel overwhelmed by grad school or stuck in a writing rut, they pull the writing sample from their application packet and bring it to workshop. That practice has it's pros and cons. Perhaps you've never gotten a chance to workshop the pieces you sent in with the application and you now have the opportunity to have knowledgeable people give feedback. Okay I can see that one. But where you're shooting yourself in the foot is that you're not using the time to write anything new. (Although you could counter that argument by actually writing just not bringing it to class.) An MFA is nothing if not time to write with deadlines to push you forward -- or so everyone keeps telling me. It's also an opportunity to learn and apply those skills to writing immediately. And you also have to consider the fact that your professor might have been on the application committee and, as I've discovered through impromptu phone conversations, they remember these stories.

I just wanted to walk in with a short story in hand just in case. In case I want or need to go first. In case I get stuck or swamped or pressed for time. And after seeing that it took me two months to go from original concept to a draft I'd be willing to let someone else read, I might just need a back up.

One last bit of great news: I got a copy of Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg yesterday! I was in love with the book after only reading the preface and introduction. I'm tempted to read the whole thing in one sitting but I know that's not a very helpful way of consuming a book on writing.

The Great MFA Debate

It's been raging for years. Maybe raging is too strong a word. More like people have been muttering and sputtering about it for years. One camp pushing for the academic legitimacy of a writing degree and another camp tossing around phrases like might as well spend two years and sixty thousand dollars on a cabin in the woods if you want to write.

Poets&Writers Magazine runs their Nov./Dec. with this headline every year. They print pretty much the same thing every year but lord only knows how many copies they sell to basically say do it if you want to teach. And then some midpoint people who say do it if you can do it without going into debt. And then they print one grumpy guy defending his grumpiness as a state of mind not affected by all students to strive for personal strength instead of group acceptance.

Whatever.

What I find more ludicrous (yes there is something even more pointless when discussion MFA programs) are the attempts at ranking schools. Since there are no numbers to crunch here the best any one can do is peer evaluation. So this list from USBC is of how good people think programs are. They are subjectively ranking programs they haven't attended or worked at and programs they might not know anyone at. Yes, they might have attended one program and teach at one other but the rest of the programs they're ranking...?

Then there was this interesting blog entry from Paper Cuts on the NYTimes site, stating that he was looking for "Cinderella Schools," writers out of one program making more money and fame than Iowa graduates. And, in the end, he couldn't get enough data to figure out anything.

Interesting experiment though. I always assumed that MFA graduates never really achieved any sort of monetary success. They taught. They published small. But unless they became the next Ron Carlson, usually the types of writing that MFA programs champion isn't popular fiction (read: limited, if any, commercial value.)

Despite this, there's all sorts of pressure, desperation and struggling, along with sleepless questing through internet forums to get whatever information possible to make a better application to MFA programs. To which end I'll publish my Statement of Purpose here in the next couple days.

I know why I wanted to get an MFA (I want to teach) but the writing world seems to just keep tearing at the subject of whether MFAs are good for writing. I've known people to say they promote sameness. That they focus on short stories and no one wants short stories. Then the next person says that MFAs are the last defense of the short story (this is the same person that claims big publishers are trying to eradicate the short story form from the literary landscape). Then there are published writers lamenting the fact that they'll have to get an MFA if they want to go any further (she told me she needs "the connections that come with an MFA"). Commercial writers are often vehemently opposed to the thought of more schooling. Probably because academic programs try to beat the genre writing out of a person if they find it lurking there. Then again have you noticed how many commercial writers used to be lawyers? That alone tells you two things: 1) education itself isn't a bad thing and 2) most people are inherently unhappy being lawyers.

Thursday Updates (there's lots)

• Rejection letter for short story received today. Guess I need to wish harder on the mail man, he keeps bringing me news I don't want to hear. Already tacked the form letter up on the board. I do like the type face of their logo though.


• It's spring in full swing here. Time to bust out the camera and the Claritin.

These pink beauties are crab apple blossoms. There's tons of them in the area blooming in this shade of light pink, a darker mauve color and some so pale they're white with just a hint of pink. It's a very pretty time of year. It's also the time of year when these trees buzz with their bee friends.

• Western Michigan does have a spot for me. I was reassured that I was wanted to come to their MFA program only they didn't offer me a seat because they could only afford a very few number of TA positions. Ug that Michigan economy.
• I told UNH (officially) that I will not be attending. Going out east might have been interesting, but this move will be better for my life and stress level.

So, I'm going to grad school! I can ditch all my "considered options" and go back to the plan. Plan B, admittedly, but "The Plan" for current purposes.

The writing world has not turned me out on my ass as I had thought! Well, to be more precise I thought it had just kicked me out of the nest and said it's time to make it in the real world. Honestly? We're stilling nesting. (Can I mix metaphors any more?)

*Takes deep breath. Tries to become more zen-like about the world.*

I was really coming that place in my mind where I was realizing that I had to get "real work" asap and that I had to find it as a writing job in some way because I will go crazy doing just about anything else. I'm not a very good business or retail person. I believe too much in a quality product filling a genuine need to ever tack the word "Sales" after my name. So I was looking at copy editor positions. A copy editor is akin to a proof reader in many positions and sometimes they also do writing depending on the needs of the employer.

Who knows? In three years I might be right back here looking at copy editor jobs again but at that point I will have three more years of writing under my belt. And what I need now is time. Time because publishing is a slow process. It gains momentum (if everything works out) but it's a slow start.

MFA Update

Or perhaps lack of update would be better.

People (not me) went to UNH's admitted student day. They've reported back. Said only glowing wonderful things. Got back frank but praiseworthy emails from the advisor-type-woman whom UNH told me to contact.

Was supposed to call WMU today but by the time I got around to it, it was already after normal business hours so I wasn't too surprised when it went to voicemail. Gotta look into that because the Poets&Writer's Speak Easy (yes I've caved and started reading there) says that they're telling waitlisted people what their number on the waitlist is.

Not that knowing a mere number really does much either way for me. Knowing the number doesn't mean that I'll get and acceptance even if I'm #1 nor does it mean that as #10 I will not for certain get an offer. The fact of the matter is that until I get a definite 'yes' or 'no' there can be no plan making. I can't sculpt my life around a maybe. But I can let them know that I remain interested.

I'm starting to remind myself of those women who sit around waiting, waiting, waiting on their boyfriends to get a clue and give 'em a ring.

I hate those women.

But at least with this I know that in a couple of months I will have an answer. I'll have a bride-groom one way or the other.

New Hampshire sounds amazing as a physical location. Mountains, forests, snow, ocean. Quaint college town where the students think they run things and cross the street wherever they want because the pedestrian is invincible. But it's so damn far away. And the farther away you go the greater your start up cost is. There won't be any running back home because I forgot something.

Not that I'm the kind of person who has always lived close by my parents and used them as a convenience store. I've lived 5-6 hours from home during school so I know that if I forgot something I needed to find it on my own. But it's a big move. Not distance-wise but stuff-wise. Dad seems to think that he has some ideas on how to make it happen physically. I'll let him worry about that for now.

For the moment, I find I have enough pointless worry.

I can't do much to influence the school situation right now. I haven't written anything (fiction) in a little less than a week. And I'm freaking out a little too much to generate any sort of well formed ideas. Then again the mindlessness of my new job helps to numb my brain and make it suitable only for reality TV viewing. Just last night did I realize that the guy I'd been watching skanks, dancers, and rock chick groupies slobber after and fight over was once the lead singer of Poison. I just liked the outrageous train wreck of it all. It's disgusting. All of it. And yet, I watch, because I'm in a bout of writing-insomnia.

It's not writer's block. Mostly it's not because I don't believe in writer's block. I think it's all in your head. And I'm coming up with ideas and notions for stories, letting the facts and pieces bubble up to me and saving them for when I have a clearer picture to write. But still there's nothing to show for that thinking process save post-its and napkins that I've scribbled notes on. And I want something I can skin my teeth into and feel good about.

Maybe the April version of NaNoWriMo (called April Fools) will be helpful. Although I doubt it will over much, as I'm having trouble dealing with the intensity of the genre overload that goes on at that site.

Officially ...

... it's spring: (Photo taken 3/21/08 @ 3:30 pm)

... and I'm on the waitlist:

It's good to get the first snow storm of the spring season out of the way. And for once I'm not being sarcastic. It's a decent storm but without any ice which is always good.

Also good news is that Western Michigan has let me know something at all. They also told me that should I move up to be "eligible for a funded position" they would contact me. Exciting! Funded position! Oo the thought! Because right now I'd go to Western with out the funding as I qualify as an in-state resident. And I think I should get some sort of reward from this state for putting up with snow in the spring time. Okay, now I'm being sarcastic again.
Up Next: Ad of the Week

Oh, Spring, that's right

Today is officially the first day of Spring. I wouldn't have remembered if it wasn't for the image that greeted me when I went to Google this morning. Awww. Isn't that cute?

And look, the weather even seemed to cooperate for this festive occasion! Yes, indeed, that is blue sky and fluffy little white clouds! I should go stalk the water tower and see if they match today or not.

But don't get too excited. Tomorrow's forecast? 35 degrees, snow, and a Winter Storm Watch!

"SNOW IS EXPECTED TO DEVELOP FRIDAY AFTERNOON AND BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES DURING THE LATE AFTERNOON AND EVENING HOURS. TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATION OF 5 TO 8 INCHES IS POSSIBLE BETWEEN ABOUT 2 PM FRIDAY AFTERNOON AND 4 AM LATE FRIDAY NIGHT BEFORE TAPERING OFF AND ENDING BY SUNRISE SATURDAY MORNING."

Happy Spring!

Thanks for that weather update, Jim. Now back to local news.

In the mail today -- Bam! -- rejection letter. Thank you Notre Dame for making me wait this long! Paralith and I got into a discussion a while ago about the waiting for grad school responses and getting only silence when others where getting acceptances and rejections. She stated, aptly, that by this point at least we had made it beyond the first or second round of rejections. Which I agree with.

I have a feeling that I was on the second half of the ND wait list. Maybe even the first half. They started notifying accepted applicants more than a month ago so I held out fairly long. But as reality TV has taught us, putting in a good show and a tough fight may make you a fan favorite, it won't get you the prize money at the end. So long to my last chance to attend my father's Alma Mater. And my uncle's Alma Mater. It's where my dad got his graduate degree, where I was born and baptized and where my uncle played football in the tradition that my grandfather so loved. And it was the only thing that could have convinced me to move back to Indiana right now. My mother was ticked that I didn't name drop more on my application, as that football playing uncle (1970s if you follow ND football) is her brother.

My favorite part of the ND rejection is when they state "it's not you, it's the other candidates."

It reads "this decision should not be viewed as an evaluation of your acceptability as a graduate student, by rather as an indication of the degree of competition in your department."

Which made me feel really good until I thought about it. Translated into break up speak it would read "It's not that you're ugly, it's that this other chick is waaaay hotter." And I'd slap a guy for that.

I know, I know. Those three required visits to the therapist were obviously not effective else I wouldn't be having the urge to slap someone again. But now that no action has been brought against me I'd like to say that the bastard more than deserved it and most people agree.

Dear Indiana friends: this means I will not be moving back to you. Face it, you're not that shocked.

I have one school left to hear from: Western Michigan.

I refuse to think about anything arriving other than a skinny envelope with a rejection letter. Then again all I've ever gotten are skinny envelopes even for acceptances. As soon as I start thinking about what it would be like to attend a school, what I would say when I got the call, where I would apartment hunt, I inevitably get some piece of information that nixes all that creative wondering. Either a flat rejection or a piece of financial information that makes me realize some hard truths of the situation.

I'm not upset by the thought of needing a back door (apply to one program and switch) to get to do what I want to do. If I thought "sleeper program" sounded intriguing then "back door" sounds like I'm being just as crafty. To be honest, I don't need the degree to write. I'm writing now. I need the degree to teach, because I'd prefer not to temp for the rest of my natural life. So who cares how I get it or where i get it from so long as I get my writing done and get it accepted someplace? [N.B. we should be hearing acceptance/rejection of fiction pieces from the last round of send outs March 28 - early June. Contest (2 dif contests) winners announced in "late Spring."]

There's one more option after this last school though. A back door, so to speak, that could have beautiful product if I follow through with it. Especially for my web followers as it is a hybrid program that embraces tech and the visual art merged with writing. We will see on that score as I've not yet applied. However it's a program I know I could afford.

Which begs the question, what will the future of cutting edge writing look like? We're moving toward the ebook (I'll admit that I've read a few but I still love the smell of a new book in my hands) but no one has really explored the possibilities of the ebook. How much could be done with that form?

Decision Making

I've been comparing programs for the two schools that I've been accepted to. Among UNH's many draws is the fact that it's considered a "sleeper program." These under the radar programs are identified as a very good MFA that is doing great things but for whatever reason isn't getting the hordes of applicants progams like Michigan do.

I like the sound of "sleeper program" -- it sound stealth-like. Like I planned this. Like I am, in turn, stealthy.

UW-Milwaukee has a Ph.D. track. Yes, I'm interested in eventually going the Ph.D. path, but the program as a whole is not as impressive.

Then there are my friends from undergrad putting in their two-cents about place and location. Wtfisjohn (whom had previously spouted out his love for Milwaukee) gave me a hands down vote for New Hampshire. "You've lived in Chicago," he told me, "Milwaukee is just Chicago's German neighborhood. Go someplace new."

Then there was my girl friend's note:

Congrats [Speak Coffee]!!!!

Now. let's think about this rationally. Which place would be better for me to visit? Milwaukee is a fun place from what I hear, but NH sounds so much classier. I'm def thinking a visit to New England fall in NH sounds much better than let's drink some Miller Light, eh? Regardless, I know I'll be visiting a happier [Speak Coffee] than I would have just a few miles down the road at [law school].

So yep. congrats on taking the big plunge, working hard on those apps, and for having a choice about where to go!

Taggie7 asked a good question: would I still consider going if I wasn't funded? BTW Ms. Taggie7 has also been admitted to UNH fiction program. No, I don't know her, I found her on the MFAblog - isn't the internet lovely? I've also found someone by the name of Robert on that blog who was also admitted into the same program but he does not appear to blog, (I guess we can't all be perfect). Thanks to them I now know that it would appear that no one else got word of funding in their letters either. And the new magic word on the streets is that funding decisions have yet to finish their path through the lovely beauracracy that is college administration.

In answer to her question, funding will be a very important part of my decision. I desperately want this MFA. Then again I desperately want a TA position, for the fact that it is teaching experience as much as it is a paying job.

If I don't get funding from any school my next few moves will require some serious meditation. Not contemplation, but meditation. Zen-like moments to center and structure my life. Not because I'm into new age living techniques, but because I would need something to help me cope with life in debt, and meditation is cheaper than alcohol ... even Miller Light.

Official UNH Letter

There we have it! The official snail mail acceptance letter!

This means I'll no longer feel compelled to continue checking the blackboard site for UNH to see if my "status" had magically changed. I'll no longer fear an apologetic email from the campus tech department saying there was a glitch in their database that caused all applicants to appear as "admitted." Nope. It's on paper now; that means it's official, baby!

But now that it's here in my hot little hands, I am on a mission to decipher its secrets. I know it's just a letter and not some Da Vinci Code artifact, but there's a telling silence in this four paragraph letter:

There's not one word about money.

Nowhere does it say there's a grant, scholarship or TA position with my name on it. Nor does it inform me that TA decisions have already been made and I can apply for one next year should I choose to attend UNH. Word on the MFAblog was that the office decided they would not send out letters until they had made TA decisions. If so, this is bad news. However, hope hinges on the fact that this letter comes from the Dean of the Graduate School, and was cc-ed to the English Department. The Graduate School doesn't make TA decisions, the individual departments do.

I'd love to hang my hat on the later speculation, but it turns out I have no hat.

The fact and fiction of the letter.
Yes, it reaffirms the existence of an acceptance --
but what mysteries does it hold beneath its introductory platitudes?

The best I can hope if there's no money involved is further debt for one year of out of state tuition (glug). Then a Starbucks (or equivalent) job to establish residency in the great state of New Hampshire so that the remaining 2-4 semesters will be more resonably priced.

Up Next: Notes on Craft and "Seasonal" Photography