To MFA or to not MFA

Inside an MFA program: Call & response #1

We’ve had a bunch of pedagogy posts recently from inside the creative writing classroom, from the professor’s point of view. I thought it would be pretty cool to let some students chime in. And as luck would have it, I happen to have access to a bunch of MFA peoples (at New Mexico State), because I’m professional like that. So, last Thursday night, during my 500-level Form & Techniques in Fiction class (themed Constrained Prose), I put out my laptop and posed the following questions:

Can you teach creative writing? How? How would you teach creative writing that is different from your MFA? How would you “innovate” or “renovate”? What have you “learned” from your MFA? What has been the biggest surprise? Disappointment?

Below, you’ll find the responses. If you have other questions you’d like discussed/answered, this will be an on-going segment for me, so shoot me an email or something.

READ MORE >

Behind the Scenes / 12 Comments
October 10th, 2011 / 1:44 pm