August 25th, 2010 / 2:56 pm
Behind the Scenes
Blake Butler
Behind the Scenes
PW’s Top 50 Whoompers Programs for 2011
Get out your diapers, sluts! PW weighs in with the top 50 MFA programs. My dad says this is totally out of whack with the actual parameters of what young thugs want in language learning these days. What are you to think? (click img for larger versions)
Tags: PW, Seth Abramson, top 50 mfa programs
What’s an MFA program?
My program slipped 17 spots. I take full responsibility for that.
.pdf
Mine slipped 15, but I blame everyone else!
hi5!
Iowa? Never heard of it.
I feel like any list that has Iowa as number 1 is not a list I’m interested in… Say no the literati approved McStory!
Of course, rankings of this sort is really a type of cultural eugenics. Iowa is a power-broker due to history and probably will never relinquish it’s perch due to that fact (at least never leave the top 3).
There seems to be a lot of discrepancy between the writers these programs produce and their reputations within the publishing world and their rankings.
Whatever did fair Columbia do to you?
A link to Abramson’s methodology, in case anyone is interested.
http://www.pw.org/content/2011_poets_amp_writers_magazine_ranking_of_mfa_programs
Aesthetics are at issue, of course. But perhaps more so economics (which institutions can bring the gold.)
I used my MFA-funded time to write this: http://hoostown.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/something-smells-rank/
I’m starting to feel guilty, like maybe I wasn’t a good investment. I’m going to go watch the Jersey Shore & think about it.
I really hate the methodology. As you point out on your blog, it’s backwards. Even if he were to fix that fatal flaw (and gather data from people who have MFAs, as opposed to those who want MFAs) it still does no service to those in want of a MFA…
In actuality students need to think about their needs (financing) and their likes (style) and then look at the pool of schools.
How do you narrow down your likes? The faculty… Which is conspicuously absent from these rankings (not that you should have a faculty rank — or even could). All it takes is one faculty member that is on your wavelength, or a wavelength you want to be on, to make the program the right fit for you.
Damn it. I feel like a fool; last year Texas State University San Marcos was 47. I feel like I should drop out, but maybe that’s because it’s the first day.
The last US News & World Report rankings were determined by reputation (as the programs are too different to reasonably compare with any other qualitative data) – polling deans, publishers, professors etc.
Rank/School
1. University of Iowa
2. Johns Hopkins University (MD)
2. University of Houston
4. Columbia University (NY)
4. University of Virginia
6. New York University
6. University of California–Irvine
6. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
9. University of Arizona
10. Boston University
10. Cornell University (NY)
10. University of Massachusetts–Amherst
10. University of Montana
10. University of Washington
10. Washington University (MO)
16. Brown University (RI)
16. Indiana University–Bloomington
16. University of Arkansas
16. University of Utah
20. Arizona State University
20. Emerson College (MA)
20. George Mason University (VA)
20. Hollins College (VA)
20. Sarah Lawrence College (NY)
20. Syracuse University (NY)
20. University of Florida
20. University of Maryland–College Park
20. University of Pittsburgh
20. Warren Wilson College (NC)
30. University of California–Davis
30. University of Southern Mississippi
30. University of Texas–Austin
33. Iowa State University
33. University of Missouri–Columbia
33. University of Oregon
33. University of Southern California
37. Bennington College (VT)
37. CUNY–City College of New York
37. Florida State University
37. Ohio State University
37. Ohio University
37. Penn State University–University Park
37. University of Alabama
37. University of Denver
37. University of North Carolina–Greensboro
46. San Francisco State University
46. University of Cincinnati
46. University of New Hampshire
46. Western Michigan University
50. American University (DC)
50. Colorado State University
50. Eastern Washington University
50. Georgia State University
50. New Mexico State University
50. Saint Mary’s College of California
50. San Diego State University
50. Southern Illinois University–Carbondale
50. Temple University (PA)
50. University of Colorado–Boulder
50. Virginia Commonwealth University
50. Wichita State University (KS)
62. Brooklyn College (NY)
62. California State University–Fresno
62. Mills College (CA)
62. Purdue University–West Lafayette (IN)
62. SUNY–Albany
62. University of Georgia
62. University of Hawaii–Mano
62. University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign
62. University of Minnesota
62. Vermont College of Norwich University
72. Binghamton University (NY)
72. Bowling Green State University (OH)
72. Cleveland State University
72. Kansas State University
72. Michigan State University
72. Old Dominion University (VA)
72. University of Alaska–Fairbanks
72. University of Illinois–Chicago
72. University of Nebraska–Lincoln
72. University of New Mexico
72. University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
83. Goddard College (VT)
83. Miami University (OH)
83. New College of California
83. Oklahoma State University
83. Rutgers (NJ)
83. School of the Art Institute of Chicago
83. University of Kansas
83. University of Miami
83. University of Missouri–Kansas City
83. University of Notre Dame (IN)
83. University of San Francisco
83. University of South Carolina–Columbia
They were last polled in 1997, but the results still feel accurate
Knowing the facts about funding and coursework is important, sure. But, even more importantly, I’d argue, is putting yourself in the right place at the right time, for the kind of writer and learner and human being you are. If you have the means, I’d recommend actually visiting some of these programs and talking to current and former students and faculty, both the ones who walk the company line and the ones who aren’t happy, who can usually be plied pretty easily with alcohol, but really, just an attentive and sympathetic ear. Then, based on conclusions made from your interactions with everybody, make your decision.
Sometimes it’s just as easy as that. I passed up two offers for full fellowships (living stipends included) to places I realized, as soon as I visited, I would be miserable in. Instead I took out loans for the place that, in addition to being best on paper faculty- and city-wise, also ‘felt’ right.
Best call I’ve ever made.
That said, just because someplace is expensive and in your dream location, doesn’t mean you should take it. Some of these places on here are a joke, with joke students and joke professors. These places know who they are!
I got my MFA from a school that will never be on that list.
Doesn’t he also only poll people who like go to his blog instead of conducting an actual scientific random poll like any respectable statistician would do? I remember he got a lot of (deserved) flack about this last time around.
Those results look like shit. In general I am suspicious of any rankings that stem from the universities themselves and not the students who went through the programs. And I support any rankings that provide any concrete facts whatsoever to prospective students (such as funding, program size, teaching load, cost of living, etc.–like PW’s) over those that operate mainly on a sense of a program’s reputation.
In other words, I hate rankings because they pretend that it’s “unreasonable” to make value judgments based on things like money, teaching and scholarship opportunities, location. Maybe you can’t reasonably expect to rank programs based on such data, but you can very reasonably compare them. This is the data that programs should be publicizing and carefully maintaining in order to back up their reputations.
i like the new ‘size’ function
Were you at the English dept meeting yesterday?
We should all just jump in that river now and drown ourselves.
These lists are total bullshit. I’m sure everybody here would just fucking love to go to Iowa for three years and sit in workshops, right? Right, guys?
I’m not against MFA programs. I went to one. But the way Seth A. puts out yearly rankings qualifying them is nothing short of ridiculous.You know what the most important factor is in deciding on an MFA program? Faculty. Read some books by the writers at the schools you’re thinking about. See if your style jives with their style, or better yet, see if your style doesn’t jive but you were moved by their work regardless. Maybe that’s the kind of challenge you need. Every writer needs something different in an MFA program. To have someone use his blog to tell us from on high THE TOP 50 MFA PROGRAMS is insulting and absurd.
If anybody’s really seriously interested in going to an MFA program, buy Tom Kealey’s Guide to MFA Programs, preferably one of the first two editions. It’s got a ton of information and essays, and there’s no rankings. He details a bunch of schools and actually supplies people with tangible information.
Y’all realize that a convoluted, 10,000 word post is headed your way, right?
woooooooord
I think you may be confusing rankings and program information.
But you raise a good point, the programs are jarringly different – which is one of the reasons why P&W is really misleading. It’s comparing and contrasting totally different metrics, it doesn’t make sense (never mind the fact that the source data is totally contaminated)
How do MFA programs work? You take writing classes, I guess? Do they give grades? Is it possible to get bad grades and fail a MFA program? Is it hard to complete an MFA? I don’t understand.
My favorite part of this list is that the school names aren’t right.
University of California “in” Irvine?
Uh… what?
I have no investment in rankings one way or the other but ranking creative writing programs is nearly impossible given how some programs specialize in certain genres and so on. You simply can’t compare programs in such arbitrary ways. I don’t know why people even try, but it is kind of fun to watch how people froth about the list.
It is fun. I also enjoy watching people get all defensive about not having MFAs, and then other people getting all defensive about having MFAs. It’s like clockwork, every time. Though this comment thread isn’t too bad so far.
Also, what’s a Seth Abramson?
I am looking forward to the “Bottom 10 Programs” list due out soon.
Whoot whoot on # 17!!
You bet your ass the cost of living is low. Let’s see beer. Check. Coffee. Check. All the issues of Black Warrior Review you would ever want to read. Check.
CORRECTION: “Finnabe” released.
I don’t think I’m confused. I know they’re different. I want rankings to essentially go away and well-maintained and thorough lists of program information to take their place. Not only would it be more helpful to people seeking an MFA, but it would force the programs to publicly report (and highlight, sure) important facts about themselves rather than relying mainly on their reputation.
And what I’m saying about PW’s list is that it at least provides real information in the process of providing poorly determined and misleading rankings. The reader can collect real information from that, whereas a ranking system based on reputation tells no one anything.
Yes. The only reason to go to any program is because you want to study with someone (or several people) on the faculty, due to the fact that you have read and like their work and feel you could learn from working closely with them.
because barber colleges should start offering MFAs so their students won’t have to eat (and enjoy) their own lightly salted fingernail tears when school’s out forever, barbers are forever because barber comes from the latin for beard and beards are forever because
Tracy –
My problem with the concrete facts is that they aren’t really comparable; and are used to give credence to the gooey, tainted “statistics” sourced from the author’s personal soapbox which make up the numerical quotient of the rankings….
U.S. News eventually agreed with you and gave up trying to rank programs. The most accurate source of information remains AWP, which is exactly what you describe above.
I don’t think that’s true. The fact that you like someone’s work doesn’t mean they’ll be a good teacher. Really, a lot of the best teachers are fairly mediocre as writers. And it can be so hard to pin down who you’ll end up working with — I know people who came to my program to work with particular professors and for one of a thousand reasons never actually got to.
Lots of reasons to go to an MFA. For me the reason was that they would give me money and teaching experience. I was determined to learn to be a good writer with or without them. If the teachers worked out, as some have for me, that was gravy. If they didn’t, as some haven’t, that was okay too — ultimately it’s up to me to become the writer I want to be, and the question is whether or not a given program enables you to do what you need to do to make that happen.
in the end its what you make of it. i feel like any of these places its mostly about how hard you are willing to work and what your ultimate ambitions are. i did no research on where i applied, i just went where my wife was applying, and i was very happy when both got in. it was supposedly a nice school, i was young and happy as a clam, and there you go. i worked very hard, met some wonderful people that i’m still friends with, and eventually rejected 99 pct of everything any instructor or peer said to me. i would not trade the experience, as they say, but eventually its about what you figure out on your own. real literature is of the street.
What’s an MFA program?
I’m with Mike, for the most part, though I think many of the best teachers are often good writers–they’re just not well-known. The literary market is saturated with good to excellent writers with a few university press books.
My current mentor is great because she critiques graduate work on its own terms and doesn’t attempt to force or will an aesthetic onto her students. This, along with honesty, is the most important quality for a teacher to possess, and it’s one that can’t be discerned from merely reading the teacher’s work.
If cost of living around UNH is “High” I can’t wait to live where it’s “Very low.”
My program slipped 17 spots. I take full responsibility for that.
.pdf
BAC, send me a poem or story and I’ll decide whether I want to study with you for the next three years. That’s all it takes, right? Reading someone’s work? To know if they’d be good to work with and spend time around for a few years? OMG, pleez, you can’t be serious.
Er, I read the second edition and it had rankings in it. And the “detailed” description of each program was written by… Abramson. Also, I don’t think Abramson’s blog is where the polling was done, but actually Kealey’s blog. And you seem to like Kealey.
Facts, right? They’re a pain.
Mine slipped 15, but I blame everyone else!
I knew the rankings started in early, which is why I said the first two editions. Didn’t realize that stuff got in the very second edition. But yeah, everything you bring up is what I would avoid.
hi5!
So are the rankings more helpful then? I think reading a wide selection of someone’s work, not “a poem or story” is what we’re talking about here.
Iowa? Never heard of it.
I feel like any list that has Iowa as number 1 is not a list I’m interested in… Say no the literati approved McStory!
Of course, rankings of this sort is really a type of cultural eugenics. Iowa is a power-broker due to history and probably will never relinquish it’s perch due to that fact (at least never leave the top 3).
There seems to be a lot of discrepancy between the writers these programs produce and their reputations within the publishing world and their rankings.
Whatever did fair Columbia do to you?
Tesla, look, the way I saw it is that I wanted to work with someone whose work I admired.
If I eat a restaurant, and the food tastes like shit, you won’t see me creeping into the kitchen to beg for recipes. Why? Because that chef doesn’t know anything I want to learn. He might treat me well. I might enjoy my time in his kitchen. But I’ll leave there having studied under someone who wasn’t good at what he did.
I’m not saying the person has to be famous. I’m saying you have to admire their work. You can take that in any way you wish.
Personally I don’t give a flying fuck if someone is pleasant to work with, or makes me feel good about being me. Fuck, I’d let Faulkner put cigars out on my balls if he would talk to me about sentence construction for a half hour. I’d feed his dog. I’d braid his ball hair.
Pleez indeed.
A link to Abramson’s methodology, in case anyone is interested.
http://www.pw.org/content/2011_poets_amp_writers_magazine_ranking_of_mfa_programs
Aesthetics are at issue, of course. But perhaps more so economics (which institutions can bring the gold.)
I used my MFA-funded time to write this: http://hoostown.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/something-smells-rank/
I’m starting to feel guilty, like maybe I wasn’t a good investment. I’m going to go watch the Jersey Shore & think about it.
Marc: no I wasn’t, but hello nonetheless!
Meghan: are you the Meghan that was once an avid (if not legendary) rugby player?
I really hate the methodology. As you point out on your blog, it’s backwards. Even if he were to fix that fatal flaw (and gather data from people who have MFAs, as opposed to those who want MFAs) it still does no service to those in want of a MFA…
In actuality students need to think about their needs (financing) and their likes (style) and then look at the pool of schools.
How do you narrow down your likes? The faculty… Which is conspicuously absent from these rankings (not that you should have a faculty rank — or even could). All it takes is one faculty member that is on your wavelength, or a wavelength you want to be on, to make the program the right fit for you.
Damn it. I feel like a fool; last year Texas State University San Marcos was 47. I feel like I should drop out, but maybe that’s because it’s the first day.
The last US News & World Report rankings were determined by reputation (as the programs are too different to reasonably compare with any other qualitative data) – polling deans, publishers, professors etc.
Rank/School
1. University of Iowa
2. Johns Hopkins University (MD)
2. University of Houston
4. Columbia University (NY)
4. University of Virginia
6. New York University
6. University of California–Irvine
6. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
9. University of Arizona
10. Boston University
10. Cornell University (NY)
10. University of Massachusetts–Amherst
10. University of Montana
10. University of Washington
10. Washington University (MO)
16. Brown University (RI)
16. Indiana University–Bloomington
16. University of Arkansas
16. University of Utah
20. Arizona State University
20. Emerson College (MA)
20. George Mason University (VA)
20. Hollins College (VA)
20. Sarah Lawrence College (NY)
20. Syracuse University (NY)
20. University of Florida
20. University of Maryland–College Park
20. University of Pittsburgh
20. Warren Wilson College (NC)
30. University of California–Davis
30. University of Southern Mississippi
30. University of Texas–Austin
33. Iowa State University
33. University of Missouri–Columbia
33. University of Oregon
33. University of Southern California
37. Bennington College (VT)
37. CUNY–City College of New York
37. Florida State University
37. Ohio State University
37. Ohio University
37. Penn State University–University Park
37. University of Alabama
37. University of Denver
37. University of North Carolina–Greensboro
46. San Francisco State University
46. University of Cincinnati
46. University of New Hampshire
46. Western Michigan University
50. American University (DC)
50. Colorado State University
50. Eastern Washington University
50. Georgia State University
50. New Mexico State University
50. Saint Mary’s College of California
50. San Diego State University
50. Southern Illinois University–Carbondale
50. Temple University (PA)
50. University of Colorado–Boulder
50. Virginia Commonwealth University
50. Wichita State University (KS)
62. Brooklyn College (NY)
62. California State University–Fresno
62. Mills College (CA)
62. Purdue University–West Lafayette (IN)
62. SUNY–Albany
62. University of Georgia
62. University of Hawaii–Mano
62. University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign
62. University of Minnesota
62. Vermont College of Norwich University
72. Binghamton University (NY)
72. Bowling Green State University (OH)
72. Cleveland State University
72. Kansas State University
72. Michigan State University
72. Old Dominion University (VA)
72. University of Alaska–Fairbanks
72. University of Illinois–Chicago
72. University of Nebraska–Lincoln
72. University of New Mexico
72. University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
83. Goddard College (VT)
83. Miami University (OH)
83. New College of California
83. Oklahoma State University
83. Rutgers (NJ)
83. School of the Art Institute of Chicago
83. University of Kansas
83. University of Miami
83. University of Missouri–Kansas City
83. University of Notre Dame (IN)
83. University of San Francisco
83. University of South Carolina–Columbia
They were last polled in 1997, but the results still feel accurate
Mike, if it’s up to you to become the writer who you want to be, then why does an MFA program matter at all?
I agree with you in many ways, but it seems to me that the person who thinks this is also going to be the person who is most interested in funding when searching out schools, and would therefore be more inclined to like Abramson’s list.
Also, if the program only acted as some type of enabler toward success, then how they were ranked would also be extremely important, as it could lead to more lucrative teaching positions which could then aid you more in becoming the writer you wanted to be, by allowing you all the amenities that writers need.
Knowing the facts about funding and coursework is important, sure. But, even more importantly, I’d argue, is putting yourself in the right place at the right time, for the kind of writer and learner and human being you are. If you have the means, I’d recommend actually visiting some of these programs and talking to current and former students and faculty, both the ones who walk the company line and the ones who aren’t happy, who can usually be plied pretty easily with alcohol, but really, just an attentive and sympathetic ear. Then, based on conclusions made from your interactions with everybody, make your decision.
Sometimes it’s just as easy as that. I passed up two offers for full fellowships (living stipends included) to places I realized, as soon as I visited, I would be miserable in. Instead I took out loans for the place that, in addition to being best on paper faculty- and city-wise, also ‘felt’ right.
Best call I’ve ever made.
That said, just because someplace is expensive and in your dream location, doesn’t mean you should take it. Some of these places on here are a joke, with joke students and joke professors. These places know who they are!
I got my MFA from a school that will never be on that list.
Doesn’t he also only poll people who like go to his blog instead of conducting an actual scientific random poll like any respectable statistician would do? I remember he got a lot of (deserved) flack about this last time around.
I’d like to speak to the teaching/funding thing for a moment. My program was three years, and I was not funded for the first. I knew going in that I could not afford to go unfunded for a second year, but I toughed it out and found funding through the university by tutoring. This was a twenty hour per week job that more than paid for all my expenses and it gave me way more time to write than my teaching contemporaries. By program’s end, I had finished a horrible, aborted novel and a second one that doesn’t make me roll up in the fetal position and weep. After the program, I easily found work adjuncting around town while many of my peers who taught have not.
And back to the question of working with writers you admire. I read a book each by two different faculty members before I signed on to go to Pitt. I got to work with both of them multiple times over the three years and they both served on my manuscript committee. They were wonderful, and I also had the opportunity to work with really amazing faculty they brought in during my time at the program.
So to sum up, funding/teaching were not nearly as important as faculty connections during my own MFA years.
The stats were gathered initially from suburban ecstasies. Probably this year as well. I think he did tally up some of the Creative-Writing-MFA-Blogspot ones too though
Ditto. Thank [your supernatural entity of choice.]
Those results look like shit. In general I am suspicious of any rankings that stem from the universities themselves and not the students who went through the programs. And I support any rankings that provide any concrete facts whatsoever to prospective students (such as funding, program size, teaching load, cost of living, etc.–like PW’s) over those that operate mainly on a sense of a program’s reputation.
In other words, I hate rankings because they pretend that it’s “unreasonable” to make value judgments based on things like money, teaching and scholarship opportunities, location. Maybe you can’t reasonably expect to rank programs based on such data, but you can very reasonably compare them. This is the data that programs should be publicizing and carefully maintaining in order to back up their reputations.
Well, because I *like* gravy. That is to say, I had worked with excellent professors in undergrad who sped my maturation and development as a writer considerably, and I wanted to see if that would happen again. Ultimately, though, the MFA culture is different from my undergrad in some ways that I don’t really like — I was saying last night that I don’t think most teachers at most MFAs actually believe their students can be successful, or even that *they* can be successful themselves, which is too bad. I wouldn’t say my MFA experience has been what I wanted.
And honestly I wouldn’t say that the MFA is important. I never thought I needed to go to one to be a writer, or even to be a great writer. I was hoping that going to an MFA would get me there faster or in ways I couldn’t imagine on my own. I think that to some extent the MFA has done this for me, and to some extent the MFA has not, so that it probably about balances out. Which is probably the experience most people can expect, I think. Most people don’t write very much after the MFA, and most people don’t publish much either, and very few indeed get what they really wanted afterward, or what they thought they wanted. I will probably publish a fair amount, and I know I’ll write a lot, and that’s what I want, but I would have done it anyway, I think.
Meanwhile, though, I got a few years of money (not good money at all, but money) to spend all my time thinking about and doing writing (although, ironically, I get less time to write here than I had when I worked full time — go figure). I got to teach, and soon I’ll have a degree that qualifies me to do that more, if I want to. I met some people who were really important to me as friends and as writers, and as a writer myself. I worked in publishing through Puerto del Sol, which I would definitely say *is* important. What I was ultimately going to the MFA for, what I expected even if everything else went wrong, was to join a community of writers who cared about me, and who I would care about. That’s happened and it hasn’t happened. In a lot of ways, I’ve depended on the Internet and venues like HTMLGiant to get me there. No one here is reading my latest novel, of course, and at the MFA they are. That part is genuinely important, and that’s something you could do with or without an MFA.
Meanwhile, if you find a great writer you want to study under, you could just offer them five hundred bucks to read one of your stories and tell you what they think — that’s less than I’m paying for an equivalent service at school. I would absolutely read your work for that much, or probably less. So would, I imagine, a lot of other people. If it’s really JUST about writers you respect, that seems like a better way of A) giving them money to live on directly and B) forming the relationship you really want.
And you’re right, the way I think of it does imply that the rankings mean more than we might like. I don’t actually agree with that — for one thing, I suspect schools like Iowa could genuinely be *damaging* to your chances as a writer if you’re interesting — but I can live with it.
i like the new ‘size’ function
Were you at the English dept meeting yesterday?
Okay, so…the ranking method seems bogus, obviously–more so than even most college-ranking methods, I guess–but there’s definitely useful information in that chart. Size, teaching load, whether it’s free or not. I’m sure this could all be gleaned from each program’s respective web site, but it’s nice to have it all conveniently laid out like that.
I wonder which is more desirable: a small cluster or a large and presumably more diverse aesthetic within workshops.
Cool.
Cool!
We should all just jump in that river now and drown ourselves.
These lists are total bullshit. I’m sure everybody here would just fucking love to go to Iowa for three years and sit in workshops, right? Right, guys?
I’m not against MFA programs. I went to one. But the way Seth A. puts out yearly rankings qualifying them is nothing short of ridiculous.You know what the most important factor is in deciding on an MFA program? Faculty. Read some books by the writers at the schools you’re thinking about. See if your style jives with their style, or better yet, see if your style doesn’t jive but you were moved by their work regardless. Maybe that’s the kind of challenge you need. Every writer needs something different in an MFA program. To have someone use his blog to tell us from on high THE TOP 50 MFA PROGRAMS is insulting and absurd.
If anybody’s really seriously interested in going to an MFA program, buy Tom Kealey’s Guide to MFA Programs, preferably one of the first two editions. It’s got a ton of information and essays, and there’s no rankings. He details a bunch of schools and actually supplies people with tangible information.
Y’all realize that a convoluted, 10,000 word post is headed your way, right?
Tom Kealey’s “guide” is completely worthless, but if you enjoy throwing your money away, purchase a copy.
woooooooord
I think you may be confusing rankings and program information.
But you raise a good point, the programs are jarringly different – which is one of the reasons why P&W is really misleading. It’s comparing and contrasting totally different metrics, it doesn’t make sense (never mind the fact that the source data is totally contaminated)
How do MFA programs work? You take writing classes, I guess? Do they give grades? Is it possible to get bad grades and fail a MFA program? Is it hard to complete an MFA? I don’t understand.
I didn’t think it was all that bad when I read it in 2006. But I haven’t read any of the recent revisions. His website was a good place to hang around and find out when schools were sending out their acceptances.
My favorite part of this list is that the school names aren’t right.
University of California “in” Irvine?
Uh… what?
I have no investment in rankings one way or the other but ranking creative writing programs is nearly impossible given how some programs specialize in certain genres and so on. You simply can’t compare programs in such arbitrary ways. I don’t know why people even try, but it is kind of fun to watch how people froth about the list.
It is fun. I also enjoy watching people get all defensive about not having MFAs, and then other people getting all defensive about having MFAs. It’s like clockwork, every time. Though this comment thread isn’t too bad so far.
Also, what’s a Seth Abramson?
I am looking forward to the “Bottom 10 Programs” list due out soon.
Whoot whoot on # 17!!
You bet your ass the cost of living is low. Let’s see beer. Check. Coffee. Check. All the issues of Black Warrior Review you would ever want to read. Check.
CORRECTION: “Finnabe” released.
I don’t think I’m confused. I know they’re different. I want rankings to essentially go away and well-maintained and thorough lists of program information to take their place. Not only would it be more helpful to people seeking an MFA, but it would force the programs to publicly report (and highlight, sure) important facts about themselves rather than relying mainly on their reputation.
And what I’m saying about PW’s list is that it at least provides real information in the process of providing poorly determined and misleading rankings. The reader can collect real information from that, whereas a ranking system based on reputation tells no one anything.
Yes. The only reason to go to any program is because you want to study with someone (or several people) on the faculty, due to the fact that you have read and like their work and feel you could learn from working closely with them.
because barber colleges should start offering MFAs so their students won’t have to eat (and enjoy) their own lightly salted fingernail tears when school’s out forever, barbers are forever because barber comes from the latin for beard and beards are forever because
Tracy –
My problem with the concrete facts is that they aren’t really comparable; and are used to give credence to the gooey, tainted “statistics” sourced from the author’s personal soapbox which make up the numerical quotient of the rankings….
U.S. News eventually agreed with you and gave up trying to rank programs. The most accurate source of information remains AWP, which is exactly what you describe above.
I don’t think that’s true. The fact that you like someone’s work doesn’t mean they’ll be a good teacher. Really, a lot of the best teachers are fairly mediocre as writers. And it can be so hard to pin down who you’ll end up working with — I know people who came to my program to work with particular professors and for one of a thousand reasons never actually got to.
Lots of reasons to go to an MFA. For me the reason was that they would give me money and teaching experience. I was determined to learn to be a good writer with or without them. If the teachers worked out, as some have for me, that was gravy. If they didn’t, as some haven’t, that was okay too — ultimately it’s up to me to become the writer I want to be, and the question is whether or not a given program enables you to do what you need to do to make that happen.
in the end its what you make of it. i feel like any of these places its mostly about how hard you are willing to work and what your ultimate ambitions are. i did no research on where i applied, i just went where my wife was applying, and i was very happy when both got in. it was supposedly a nice school, i was young and happy as a clam, and there you go. i worked very hard, met some wonderful people that i’m still friends with, and eventually rejected 99 pct of everything any instructor or peer said to me. i would not trade the experience, as they say, but eventually its about what you figure out on your own. real literature is of the street.
It’s about as useful as the 1998 edition of Writer’s Market.
I’m with Mike, for the most part, though I think many of the best teachers are often good writers–they’re just not well-known. The literary market is saturated with good to excellent writers with a few university press books.
My current mentor is great because she critiques graduate work on its own terms and doesn’t attempt to force or will an aesthetic onto her students. This, along with honesty, is the most important quality for a teacher to possess, and it’s one that can’t be discerned from merely reading the teacher’s work.
If cost of living around UNH is “High” I can’t wait to live where it’s “Very low.”
BAC, send me a poem or story and I’ll decide whether I want to study with you for the next three years. That’s all it takes, right? Reading someone’s work? To know if they’d be good to work with and spend time around for a few years? OMG, pleez, you can’t be serious.
Er, I read the second edition and it had rankings in it. And the “detailed” description of each program was written by… Abramson. Also, I don’t think Abramson’s blog is where the polling was done, but actually Kealey’s blog. And you seem to like Kealey.
Facts, right? They’re a pain.
I knew the rankings started in early, which is why I said the first two editions. Didn’t realize that stuff got in the very second edition. But yeah, everything you bring up is what I would avoid.
So are the rankings more helpful then? I think reading a wide selection of someone’s work, not “a poem or story” is what we’re talking about here.
Tesla, look, the way I saw it is that I wanted to work with someone whose work I admired.
If I eat a restaurant, and the food tastes like shit, you won’t see me creeping into the kitchen to beg for recipes. Why? Because that chef doesn’t know anything I want to learn. He might treat me well. I might enjoy my time in his kitchen. But I’ll leave there having studied under someone who wasn’t good at what he did.
I’m not saying the person has to be famous. I’m saying you have to admire their work. You can take that in any way you wish.
Personally I don’t give a flying fuck if someone is pleasant to work with, or makes me feel good about being me. Fuck, I’d let Faulkner put cigars out on my balls if he would talk to me about sentence construction for a half hour. I’d feed his dog. I’d braid his ball hair.
Pleez indeed.
Marc: no I wasn’t, but hello nonetheless!
Meghan: are you the Meghan that was once an avid (if not legendary) rugby player?
Salvatore, the rankings do tell us something about how strong the students probably are at different programs. If one school takes 3% of everybody who applies and another 19%, I tend to think the first one has been more selective. And yes, I hear you learn more from your classmates than faculty in the end. And BAC makes the point, Faulkner would be a nightmare as a teacher, you wouldn’t learn shit. But a mediocre novelist might well be an amazing teacher. This idea that great writing and great teaching are the same thing is laughable. Plenty of the greats had ZERO ability to pass their knowledge on to others. I ain’t staking 3 years of my life on a guess like that.
Mike, if it’s up to you to become the writer who you want to be, then why does an MFA program matter at all?
I agree with you in many ways, but it seems to me that the person who thinks this is also going to be the person who is most interested in funding when searching out schools, and would therefore be more inclined to like Abramson’s list.
Also, if the program only acted as some type of enabler toward success, then how they were ranked would also be extremely important, as it could lead to more lucrative teaching positions which could then aid you more in becoming the writer you wanted to be, by allowing you all the amenities that writers need.
Methodology article appears to say only Kealey’s website was used this year, not Abrahmson’s blog. That’s an improvement.
I’d like to speak to the teaching/funding thing for a moment. My program was three years, and I was not funded for the first. I knew going in that I could not afford to go unfunded for a second year, but I toughed it out and found funding through the university by tutoring. This was a twenty hour per week job that more than paid for all my expenses and it gave me way more time to write than my teaching contemporaries. By program’s end, I had finished a horrible, aborted novel and a second one that doesn’t make me roll up in the fetal position and weep. After the program, I easily found work adjuncting around town while many of my peers who taught have not.
And back to the question of working with writers you admire. I read a book each by two different faculty members before I signed on to go to Pitt. I got to work with both of them multiple times over the three years and they both served on my manuscript committee. They were wonderful, and I also had the opportunity to work with really amazing faculty they brought in during my time at the program.
So to sum up, funding/teaching were not nearly as important as faculty connections during my own MFA years.
The stats were gathered initially from suburban ecstasies. Probably this year as well. I think he did tally up some of the Creative-Writing-MFA-Blogspot ones too though
Ditto. Thank [your supernatural entity of choice.]
Well, because I *like* gravy. That is to say, I had worked with excellent professors in undergrad who sped my maturation and development as a writer considerably, and I wanted to see if that would happen again. Ultimately, though, the MFA culture is different from my undergrad in some ways that I don’t really like — I was saying last night that I don’t think most teachers at most MFAs actually believe their students can be successful, or even that *they* can be successful themselves, which is too bad. I wouldn’t say my MFA experience has been what I wanted.
And honestly I wouldn’t say that the MFA is important. I never thought I needed to go to one to be a writer, or even to be a great writer. I was hoping that going to an MFA would get me there faster or in ways I couldn’t imagine on my own. I think that to some extent the MFA has done this for me, and to some extent the MFA has not, so that it probably about balances out. Which is probably the experience most people can expect, I think. Most people don’t write very much after the MFA, and most people don’t publish much either, and very few indeed get what they really wanted afterward, or what they thought they wanted. I will probably publish a fair amount, and I know I’ll write a lot, and that’s what I want, but I would have done it anyway, I think.
Meanwhile, though, I got a few years of money (not good money at all, but money) to spend all my time thinking about and doing writing (although, ironically, I get less time to write here than I had when I worked full time — go figure). I got to teach, and soon I’ll have a degree that qualifies me to do that more, if I want to. I met some people who were really important to me as friends and as writers, and as a writer myself. I worked in publishing through Puerto del Sol, which I would definitely say *is* important. What I was ultimately going to the MFA for, what I expected even if everything else went wrong, was to join a community of writers who cared about me, and who I would care about. That’s happened and it hasn’t happened. In a lot of ways, I’ve depended on the Internet and venues like HTMLGiant to get me there. No one here is reading my latest novel, of course, and at the MFA they are. That part is genuinely important, and that’s something you could do with or without an MFA.
Meanwhile, if you find a great writer you want to study under, you could just offer them five hundred bucks to read one of your stories and tell you what they think — that’s less than I’m paying for an equivalent service at school. I would absolutely read your work for that much, or probably less. So would, I imagine, a lot of other people. If it’s really JUST about writers you respect, that seems like a better way of A) giving them money to live on directly and B) forming the relationship you really want.
And you’re right, the way I think of it does imply that the rankings mean more than we might like. I don’t actually agree with that — for one thing, I suspect schools like Iowa could genuinely be *damaging* to your chances as a writer if you’re interesting — but I can live with it.
Okay, so…the ranking method seems bogus, obviously–more so than even most college-ranking methods, I guess–but there’s definitely useful information in that chart. Size, teaching load, whether it’s free or not. I’m sure this could all be gleaned from each program’s respective web site, but it’s nice to have it all conveniently laid out like that.
I wonder which is more desirable: a small cluster or a large and presumably more diverse aesthetic within workshops.
lol
Cool.
Cool!
Tom Kealey’s “guide” is completely worthless, but if you enjoy throwing your money away, purchase a copy.
I didn’t think it was all that bad when I read it in 2006. But I haven’t read any of the recent revisions. His website was a good place to hang around and find out when schools were sending out their acceptances.
It’s about as useful as the 1998 edition of Writer’s Market.
Salvatore, the rankings do tell us something about how strong the students probably are at different programs. If one school takes 3% of everybody who applies and another 19%, I tend to think the first one has been more selective. And yes, I hear you learn more from your classmates than faculty in the end. And BAC makes the point, Faulkner would be a nightmare as a teacher, you wouldn’t learn shit. But a mediocre novelist might well be an amazing teacher. This idea that great writing and great teaching are the same thing is laughable. Plenty of the greats had ZERO ability to pass their knowledge on to others. I ain’t staking 3 years of my life on a guess like that.
Methodology article appears to say only Kealey’s website was used this year, not Abrahmson’s blog. That’s an improvement.
lol
a back scratcher.
Tesla, if you can’t see the merit it wanting to study under someone whose work you admire (which is the phrase I initially used and led to your coughing) then you are ignorant.
If a person can’t build a house, then I don’t want them to teach me to build a house.
If a person can’t change a tire, then I don’t want them to teach me how to change a tire.
If a person can’t type, then I don’t want them to teach me how to type.
If a person can’t write, then they’d probably make a great writing teacher?
Really?
Because that is what you are arguing. Would you study under a shitty cook? Would you study under a mechanic whose work consistently failed. Would you study under an architect whose designs collapsed? Probably not.
But you (meaning you here Tesla) would study under a person whose work you find to be mediocre. Because you assume that, somehow, mediocrity in the field of writing leads to quality in the classroom, and that strength in writing leads to poor classroom performance.
The truth of the matter is, that you couldn’t possibly know how good a techer is before physically going to a program. The only educated decisions you can make are based on the evaluation of someone’s performance in their writing.
I think what Salvatore and I are saying is that you should READ THE WORKS OF THE PROFESSORS AT THE PROGRAMS YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT APPLYING TO AND THAT YOUR EVALUATION OF THESE WORKS (IN TERMS OF HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT THE STRENGTH OR WEAKNESS OF THE WORK) SHOULD BE THE CHIEF CRITERIA STEERING YOUR APPLICATION PROCESS.
That or funding. Those are the only things you can really guage pre-moving to the area and attending the program.
…met some wonderful people that i’m still friends with
The importance of this aspect of the MFA experience cannot be over-stated, especially if your friends also turn out to be readers you can trust and / or future collaborators.
BAC, the chef scenario is a pretty poor analogy. Most students aren’t enrolling in MFAs so that they can hang out in a master writer’s ‘kitchen’ and ‘learn their recipes.’ For one thing, there are no recipes, and for another, it’s presumed that, at the graduate level, you have a couple recipes of your own. What students are really going to MFAs for (aside from the subsidized writing time and health insurance, and the built-in community, and the degree) is dedicated feedback. The teachers are there to respond to your own writing, not to dispense hard-won wisdom and esoteric formulas. So the better analogy would be this: I may not like a chef’s cooking or care about her personal recipes, but if I bake a cupcake that I’m unsure about, I might still trust her to tell me that it tastes bland, that it needs more sugar.
If MFA faculty are nothing else, they’re generally widely read people who care deeply about literature, and who (in the best cases) give generously of themselves, reading each draft you turn in multiple times and writing four- or five-page letters in response. A few things should be obvious from this: (1) that not all admirable writers will give very generously of themselves as teachers (for instance, Faulkner might toss off one paragraph of feedback after only skimming your story, if he bothers to do even that); (2) that a well-read, eloquent person can give you helpful editorial advice, even if they haven’t written something you personally admire (otherwise, publishing houses wouldn’t employ editors); (3) that faculty are only 1/13th of the usefulness of a workshop – as Tesla pointed out, you’ll also have (in the best cases) twelve other well-read, intelligent, ambitious peers in the room, who are perfectly capable of telling when a cupcake’s bland even if they can’t bake one themselves (and aside from providing editorial feedback, maybe 40% of a good teacher’s job is facilitating workshop and optimizing the helpfulness of these peers – making sure everyone else is reading stuff multiple times, too, and turning in thoughtful, conscientious responses).
There are still good reasons to be suspicious of an MFA, of course, but the supposed mediocrity of faculty work doesn’t strike me as one of them. And, weirdly, it’s not a criticism that’s lodged against any other pedagogy: people believe that coaches can train great athletes without being world-class athletes themselves; or that mediocre scholars can give useful guidance to PhD students; etc. Only when it’s a question of literary writing do people assume that aesthetic genius is a teaching credential.
BAC, Christ, calm down. What I’m saying is that writing can’t be and isn’t taught the same way a guy teaches another guy how to fix a flat tire. That’s why programs are always saying “We can’t teach you how to write.” If you get into a program you’re already well on your way, you’re likely young and among the most talented in your age group. What you need is time to spend writing and a community. Anyone who does an MFA will say you learn as much or more from classmates as faculty. And as to faculty, you don’t find “mediocre” poets and writers teaching in the most plum jobs in America, MFA jobs. They’re all likely “good” or better, my point is that they may not seem “good” to you because you hate their aesthetics. But having one aesthetic doesn’t mean you can’t teach another. And being “good” doesn’t mean you can help others along the way to being “great” (as with the more appropriate “coach” analogy the other poster used). And being “great” means ZERO about whether you can teach or want to teach. Not to mention the other stuff, like the fact that the more famous writers are never on campus anyway, almost never teach, and on and on. You really are working off a notion of what the MFA is that’s like thirty years old. I’d rather choose from my program on the basis of funding and location and how strong my classmates are likely to be. Acceptance rates and alumni success and stuff like how big the program is give me an idea of what the community will be like.
No, she is my arch enemy. I play polo.
Tesla:
The quality of students at a university is definitely as important as the faculty. That’s why it would be nice if these rankings actually took into account alumni success.
Frankly, faculty, alumni success and perhaps location seem like the biggest factors in the quality of an MFA program. Funding is a huge factor in the individual experience. The first three aren’t factored into the ranking at all and everything else on the ranking seems pointless.
Where undergraduates who read Seth’s blog want to go doesn’t tell us much. Would be better to survey graduates who actually experienced an MFA program and likely know people who experienced other ones.
a back scratcher.
Tesla, if you can’t see the merit it wanting to study under someone whose work you admire (which is the phrase I initially used and led to your coughing) then you are ignorant.
If a person can’t build a house, then I don’t want them to teach me to build a house.
If a person can’t change a tire, then I don’t want them to teach me how to change a tire.
If a person can’t type, then I don’t want them to teach me how to type.
If a person can’t write, then they’d probably make a great writing teacher?
Really?
Because that is what you are arguing. Would you study under a shitty cook? Would you study under a mechanic whose work consistently failed. Would you study under an architect whose designs collapsed? Probably not.
But you (meaning you here Tesla) would study under a person whose work you find to be mediocre. Because you assume that, somehow, mediocrity in the field of writing leads to quality in the classroom, and that strength in writing leads to poor classroom performance.
The truth of the matter is, that you couldn’t possibly know how good a techer is before physically going to a program. The only educated decisions you can make are based on the evaluation of someone’s performance in their writing.
I think what Salvatore and I are saying is that you should READ THE WORKS OF THE PROFESSORS AT THE PROGRAMS YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT APPLYING TO AND THAT YOUR EVALUATION OF THESE WORKS (IN TERMS OF HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT THE STRENGTH OR WEAKNESS OF THE WORK) SHOULD BE THE CHIEF CRITERIA STEERING YOUR APPLICATION PROCESS.
That or funding. Those are the only things you can really guage pre-moving to the area and attending the program.
…met some wonderful people that i’m still friends with
The importance of this aspect of the MFA experience cannot be over-stated, especially if your friends also turn out to be readers you can trust and / or future collaborators.
BAC, the chef scenario is a pretty poor analogy. Most students aren’t enrolling in MFAs so that they can hang out in a master writer’s ‘kitchen’ and ‘learn their recipes.’ For one thing, there are no recipes, and for another, it’s presumed that, at the graduate level, you have a couple recipes of your own. What students are really going to MFAs for (aside from the subsidized writing time and health insurance, and the built-in community, and the degree) is dedicated feedback. The teachers are there to respond to your own writing, not to dispense hard-won wisdom and esoteric formulas. So the better analogy would be this: I may not like a chef’s cooking or care about her personal recipes, but if I bake a cupcake that I’m unsure about, I might still trust her to tell me that it tastes bland, that it needs more sugar.
If MFA faculty are nothing else, they’re generally widely read people who care deeply about literature, and who (in the best cases) give generously of themselves, reading each draft you turn in multiple times and writing four- or five-page letters in response. A few things should be obvious from this: (1) that not all admirable writers will give very generously of themselves as teachers (for instance, Faulkner might toss off one paragraph of feedback after only skimming your story, if he bothers to do even that); (2) that a well-read, eloquent person can give you helpful editorial advice, even if they haven’t written something you personally admire (otherwise, publishing houses wouldn’t employ editors); (3) that faculty are only 1/13th of the usefulness of a workshop – as Tesla pointed out, you’ll also have (in the best cases) twelve other well-read, intelligent, ambitious peers in the room, who are perfectly capable of telling when a cupcake’s bland even if they can’t bake one themselves (and aside from providing editorial feedback, maybe 40% of a good teacher’s job is facilitating workshop and optimizing the helpfulness of these peers – making sure everyone else is reading stuff multiple times, too, and turning in thoughtful, conscientious responses).
There are still good reasons to be suspicious of an MFA, of course, but the supposed mediocrity of faculty work doesn’t strike me as one of them. And, weirdly, it’s not a criticism that’s lodged against any other pedagogy: people believe that coaches can train great athletes without being world-class athletes themselves; or that mediocre scholars can give useful guidance to PhD students; etc. Only when it’s a question of literary writing do people assume that aesthetic genius is a teaching credential.
Whatever.
Hmm, I believe the proper term is “woot woot”
Do they hand out cheap h’s at your school, sir?
I can run faster than you, to boot, and longer distance. I run ultra ultra ultra ultra marathons (262 miles).
maybe talking about the shopping all the way out at North Conway?
Of course there is no answer to any of the questions and no way of justifying one program’s merits over another. What I found out about MFA programs is that each attendee comes there for different reasons–some are funded, some for a certain writer (who may not help them all), some for the place, some for the prestige. However, students should be going there to write, immerse themselves, and hopefully work with one writer/professor who doesn’t baby them but propels them into understanding how they can work on their own, with their (overused but understood word) craft. I’ve seen students fully funded who didn’t give a shit about challenging themselves and I’ve seen those who had to pay for the programs bitch so much about paying that they too didn’t challenge themselves. If one wants an MFA they also must know that they are going to have to answer the question “am I a writer,” because if you’re not capable of that or getting beyond even having to question it you will leave the program with very little in terms of understanding. MFA’s are as prevalent as law degrees, which should tell us something about whether or not they should even exist. Yet since they do exist it those who choose to attend should focus on the fact that they are there to write and thus take advantage of writing.
BAC, Christ, calm down. What I’m saying is that writing can’t be and isn’t taught the same way a guy teaches another guy how to fix a flat tire. That’s why programs are always saying “We can’t teach you how to write.” If you get into a program you’re already well on your way, you’re likely young and among the most talented in your age group. What you need is time to spend writing and a community. Anyone who does an MFA will say you learn as much or more from classmates as faculty. And as to faculty, you don’t find “mediocre” poets and writers teaching in the most plum jobs in America, MFA jobs. They’re all likely “good” or better, my point is that they may not seem “good” to you because you hate their aesthetics. But having one aesthetic doesn’t mean you can’t teach another. And being “good” doesn’t mean you can help others along the way to being “great” (as with the more appropriate “coach” analogy the other poster used). And being “great” means ZERO about whether you can teach or want to teach. Not to mention the other stuff, like the fact that the more famous writers are never on campus anyway, almost never teach, and on and on. You really are working off a notion of what the MFA is that’s like thirty years old. I’d rather choose from my program on the basis of funding and location and how strong my classmates are likely to be. Acceptance rates and alumni success and stuff like how big the program is give me an idea of what the community will be like.
No, she is my arch enemy. I play polo.
More likely they consider Durham a suburb of Boston. Although I’d love if Story-Land gave out MFA’s
Tesla:
The quality of students at a university is definitely as important as the faculty. That’s why it would be nice if these rankings actually took into account alumni success.
Frankly, faculty, alumni success and perhaps location seem like the biggest factors in the quality of an MFA program. Funding is a huge factor in the individual experience. The first three aren’t factored into the ranking at all and everything else on the ranking seems pointless.
Where undergraduates who read Seth’s blog want to go doesn’t tell us much. Would be better to survey graduates who actually experienced an MFA program and likely know people who experienced other ones.
Whatever.
Hmm, I believe the proper term is “woot woot”
Do they hand out cheap h’s at your school, sir?
I can run faster than you, to boot, and longer distance. I run ultra ultra ultra ultra marathons (262 miles).
maybe talking about the shopping all the way out at North Conway?
He’s being coy… I know he has multiple google alerts for his name. Maybe P&W yanked his internet connection
Of course there is no answer to any of the questions and no way of justifying one program’s merits over another. What I found out about MFA programs is that each attendee comes there for different reasons–some are funded, some for a certain writer (who may not help them all), some for the place, some for the prestige. However, students should be going there to write, immerse themselves, and hopefully work with one writer/professor who doesn’t baby them but propels them into understanding how they can work on their own, with their (overused but understood word) craft. I’ve seen students fully funded who didn’t give a shit about challenging themselves and I’ve seen those who had to pay for the programs bitch so much about paying that they too didn’t challenge themselves. If one wants an MFA they also must know that they are going to have to answer the question “am I a writer,” because if you’re not capable of that or getting beyond even having to question it you will leave the program with very little in terms of understanding. MFA’s are as prevalent as law degrees, which should tell us something about whether or not they should even exist. Yet since they do exist it those who choose to attend should focus on the fact that they are there to write and thus take advantage of writing.
Two years is a drop in a bucket in a writer’s life. If you’re not in it for life, you’re not in it. Look at Bolano and Bukowski. How old were they when the fiction really started happening? Either get an MFA or don’t. But please just write.
More likely they consider Durham a suburb of Boston. Although I’d love if Story-Land gave out MFA’s
He’s being coy… I know he has multiple google alerts for his name. Maybe P&W yanked his internet connection
Two years is a drop in a bucket in a writer’s life. If you’re not in it for life, you’re not in it. Look at Bolano and Bukowski. How old were they when the fiction really started happening? Either get an MFA or don’t. But please just write.
Damn… I read through this whole thread waiting for Seth Abramson to show up.
Seth Abramson
Seth Abramson
Seth Abramson
C’mon, everybody!
Rather see pics of top 50 T&A… Rather…
Leave him alone Bruiser. Sean is a jobber. He knows no better.
Damn… I read through this whole thread waiting for Seth Abramson to show up.
Seth Abramson
Seth Abramson
Seth Abramson
C’mon, everybody!
Rather see pics of top 50 T&A… Rather…
Leave him alone Bruiser. Sean is a jobber. He knows no better.
Someone bring back Black Mountain College, please.
Someone bring back Black Mountain College, please.
As a dude who’s spent the last 9 months looking at MFA programs, cruising their sites, checking up on their faculty and talking with published authors, publishers and writers with MFAs, nothing has been as helpful as Seth’s work.
Seth’s advice, which matches the literary world’s consensus, is IF you set out to get an MFA in creative writing, don’t pay for it. His ratings make it easy to see which schools are fully funded (nearly all of them) and the cost of living for the school’s city. He shows which programs require teaching, and how much… which programs are studio-oriented versus academic… the size of the program… how hard it is to get into the program.
And I completely disagree with you about faculty. I’ve workshopped with writers whose work I love, only to find out that they’re pathetic teachers. And just as often teachers whose work is less than inspiring turn out to be very gifted guides. Not to mention that faculty changes, sometimes unexpectedly. Often, a touted faculty member is more of a figurehead and rarely actually teaches.