Year of Fearless Writing – MFA? OMG.

Welcome to the Year of Fearless Writing!

Spring is in the air

Well, it is if you’re in Australia. Here in the USA September means fall is about to kick into gear. But wherever you are, the kids are headed back to school and it’s pretty natural to wonder whether you should be, too.

This month we’ll focus on school for our Year of Fearless writing. Specifically, we want to talk to you about an MFA, and whether it’s right for you. It’s a very real question that comes up for most writers at some point. We’ll also discuss some alternatives to an MFA.

Sound good? Fine. Prepare to have all your preconceptions challenged… or justified. Who knows? It’s back to school!

WTF is an MFA, anyway?

A MFA, or Master of Fine Arts degree, is a graduate-level credential that indicates that you have completed a series of coursework focused on your particular craft (in this case, writing). In some cases, an MFA is useful to indicate that you are qualified to teach writing as well as produce it.

MFA programs vary both in content (genre) and format. Typical genres include:

• Fiction (literary and/or popular/genre fiction)
• Creative nonfiction
• Poetry
• Screenwriting and/or playwriting
• Writing for children
• Literary criticism and analysis
• Professional writing (e.g., technical writing)
• Literary translation

Most likely, you already know what you like to write, but deciding what to study is just the first step. You should also consider how you would like to study. There are different options depending on your lifestyle and availability:

• Full residency: This is your typical grad school experience. You are most likely living on or near campus and pursuing your degree full-time.
• Low residency: This is a hybrid experience designed to appeal to people who cannot commit to a full-time residency program. A typical low residency program brings students together twice a year, and the rest of the curriculum is delivered online.
• Online: Online programs usually allow the student to pursue their degree at their own pace. The curriculum is typically delivered via a course management system, and may have varying degrees of interaction with instructors and other students.

Resources

Here are a few sites that might help you locate MFA programs suited to your interests and time commitment:

• Poets & Writers MFA Database
• AWP Guide to Writing Programs
• Pros and cons of low residency programs from The Masters Review

Pros and Cons

Now that you know what an MFA is, let’s talk about why it might or might not be right for you. We think in lists, frequently, so here are lists.

Pros:

• Legitimacy: There’s no doubt about it, having those three letters after your name will let people know that you are serious, that you know what you’re doing. You’ve studied, you’ve practiced, you’ve been deemed worthy. A lot of work goes into obtaining any advanced degree, and people will generally respect that.
• Training: You’ll learn the rules of good storytelling—and how or when to break them. Analyzing others’ writing is an excellent way to figure out what makes a story or poem work. And you’ll have lots of practice writing, which will make you a better writer no matter what.

Cons:

• Expense: Some programs are pricier than others, with online programs generally the least expensive, but you’re likely to rack up some debt.
• No guarantees: Having an MFA doesn’t mean you’ll get published, let alone that you’ll be able to make a career out of writing. It’s just one of many tools to help you along the way.
• Cost to family: An advanced degree is a huge time commitment, and time spent on your degree is time taken away from your family.
• Cost to career: Aside from the time commitment, pursuing an MFA might disrupt whatever other career track you might be on.

Some special considerations

Neither pros nor cons, these are some things you might want to take into account before applying for that MFA.

Do I have the kind of voice that doesn’t fit into a standardized narrative of the culture where the MFA is being taught?

Not to put too fine a point upon it, MFAs are often geared towards the default/dominant culture. Here, that means cisgender heterosexual white male writers—or people who have been rewarded for writing like them. So when you workshop a piece with people from that culture, you learn to erase or downplay the parts of your background that aren’t readily accessible or digestible by them and risk losing the way you speak in favor of writing like some imaginary ideal Steinbeck or Hemingway, writing the Great American Novel.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with writing in that particular style.  But if that’s not you, be aware of whether and how much it’s going to hurt you to do it, and how fiercely you’re prepared to fight to be able to say things like “snatched her edges” when your professors and classmates push back because it doesn’t sound “literary” to them.

Class boundaries can also be affect the perception of your work. For example, you might be pushed to use “correct grammar” instead of experimenting with language to sound more like the people you grew up with.

Note that that we’re not talking about unique voices, or even unconventional ones. We’re talking about voices that have historically been excluded from literary fiction and nonfiction and even genre fiction. (Check out this Facebook post by Daniel Holzman-Tweed on how this kind of gatekeeping has affected science fiction, for example.)

Is an MFA a positive or a negative or a neutral step for me in terms of real career path? (life, writing, teaching)

There are some careers that a Masters will advance—academic careers, for example—but not many. So before you spend a lot of money on it, ask yourself if you are planning for the degree to “pay off,” because the odds are that it won’t. In fact, in some careers, a Masters on your resume will hurt your job prospects because people will think you don’t plan to have longevity in the job.

That said, there are skills you’ll learn in the process of acquiring a Masters that can help advance you—more than just the writing skills, although you might need those too. You might learn how to navigate the publishing business, or make contacts in the literary world, or find and work with a mentor, or develop your reading and analytical skills.

Just don’t plan on recouping the cost of an MFA in either writing pay or career prospects unless you are very lucky or in an extremely narrow band of work.

Do I even actually care if the MFA moves me forward?

Several years ago, I (Christine) applied for an MFA program because I was feeling stalled in my writing and I was working for an institution that offered an MFA, which made it affordable. I wasn’t looking (at the time) to make writing my career; I was looking for validation and something to keep me interested in my own work, and because I worked for a university at the time, I had access to reduced tuition. Also, I like taking classes, so I figured, why not? If you need structure, are goal-oriented, or just enjoy studying the craft, the MFA might be an appealing goal to work towards. There’s nothing wrong with pursuing a degree for personal satisfaction, as long as you can afford it and you don’t have unrealistic expectations about what it can do for you.

Am I planning to make writing a career?

It used to be that you could make a decent living writing books or even short stories. This is becoming less and less true. Sure, JK Rowling and James Patterson have multi-million dollar deals, but these are by far the exception, not the rule. Most writers today, even successful ones, have a day job to supplement their writing income—or more likely, their writing income supplements their day job. What’s your backup plan if (when) the writing doesn’t cover the bills, especially if you already paid for an MFA? Maybe you freelance, maybe you have a completely different side business or occupation. Go ahead and write that Great American Novel, but in the meantime, don’t depend on it being a lucrative best-seller. And even if it is, that’s only one book, and you still have bills. Now you’ve got to write the next one.

The MFA way or the highway?

So, if you decide that an MFA is not for you, what are your options? Can you get some of those same skills and opportunities elsewhere? You sure can. These options might not come with the fancy acronym or credentials, but there are plenty of other ways to hone your writing.

• Workshops: You can find a workshop to suit pretty much any topic or schedule, from an hour long online seminar to a six-week residential workshop, such as the Clarion workshop for writers of science fiction and fantasy.
• Writers’ associations: These are usually established by locality (city, state, province, national, etc.), and can range from small clubs to large membership organizations. Writers’ associations often host lectures, panels, and even hands-on workshops, often for free or with a nominal fee.
• Writing guilds: A writing guild is a professional organization for writers. Some, such as the Writers’ Guild of America (West or East), operate as a labor union; others, such as the Authors’ Guild, provide advocacy on issues of free expression and copyright protection for writers everywhere. Writing guilds often offer seminars, workshops, and other events about the business side of writing, and comprise a large network of industry resource providers. (These are US guilds, but many countries have equivalent organizations. Check out the Australian Writers’ Guild, the Writers’ Union of Canada, or the Writers Guild of the UK, or Google “writers guild [your home country or municipality]” for local organizations.)
• Industry connections: We talked about networking in June; friends in the writing and publishing world can be an invaluable resource. Just remember not to expect your industry friends to work for free. If you ask for advice, find a way to compensate them, whether that’s with a lunch out, a service in-kind, or cold, hard cash.
• Conferences: Like workshops, there are conferences for every taste, and they’re a great place to network and make some of those industry connections. If you’re lucky, there might even be something local! If not, travel can be fun and rewarding if you can afford it, and you can often find new roommates to share the cost on the forums for a conference. [Ed’s note: Rowan strongly prefers fora to forums. You do you, tho.]
• For-credit or no-credit classes at a college or university: Maybe you don’t need or want a full degree program, but you’ve got specific things you’d like to learn in a classroom setting. Check out your local educational institutions to see what they’ve got to offer, or look online for no-credit classes at some amazing institutions!

Can’t you just make up my mind for me?

Sorry, no. Only you can make the decision about whether pursuing an MFA (or any advanced degree, really) is right for you. But we hope we’ve given you some food for thought.

Your homework for this month:

Investigate at least one degree program, workshop, or class that interests you, and discuss the pros and cons of this with a friend or in the coffeehouse.

About the authors: