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No, this blog won’t be a meditation on my place in the universe. In my last post, I mentioned some common questions I get from folks when they learn that I’m a writer. Another question I get asked a lot is why I’m in an MFA program.
The answer to that question is different for everyone who has or is earning an MFA, and arguments abound on both sides about the worth of the degree, ranging from they’re the worst things ever and slowly killing American literature to how they’re great spaces to hone one’s craft. To be sure, there are things that really suck about MFA programs and degrees, not the least of which is that they don’t lead to any actual gainful employment. (Sorry, Mom and Dad.) I had several brilliant, talented, and well-meaning professors try to dissuade me from entering an MFA program. (And don’t think for one second that I didn’t already have a thesis topic in mind in the event I decided to apply to the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at Ole Miss.) I even had a fellow undergrad in my English program, ten years my junior and a writer of YA fantasy, sit me down so she could tell me what the folks in her circle of genre writers “think about people who have MFAs.” (Trust me, it took every ounce of self-control not to tell her what MFAers think of people who write genre. But that’s a rant for another blog.)
Despite all this, I still applied for and entered an MFA program. Actually, I quit my full-time job, spent two years getting a second bachelors degree—this time in English—and then entered an MFA program. Here are my reasons. They may not be the same reasons as others. They may not even be good reasons. But they are my reasons, and that is enough for me.
- I am self-aware enough to know that while I’m a pretty good writer, I can stand to get a lot better. I could do that working with some local writers group, or I could do that in a more intense, concentrated way within an academic program. And many of the writers groups I researched in my hometown catered to genre writers, and that’s great for them. I, however, am not interested in genre (sorrynotsorry).
- I had been working for most of my twenties and had yet to find fulfilling employment. (Does such a thing even exist?) Why would I keep a job I hated and write in my spare time when I could just go to school and write all the time? Did my return to academia incur some costs? Of course. But I’d rather be in debt forever than a cog in the corporate (or state government, as the case may be) machine. In fact, I came to the point where I decided that I was okay with living in a cardboard box for the rest of my life if it meant I could find some happiness in my work. My husband—well, he’s not really sold on the whole cardboard box deal. Yet.
- Academic creative writing aligned with my career goals. To get published is hard. To get published and then have your book sell wildly and get Oprah all twitterpated is significantly harder. I’m going to have to have a day job, and I’d rather it not be waiting tables or going back to the office doldrums. An MFA degree qualifies me for day jobs that actually relate to writing, such as editing and teaching. These jobs are not easy to get and the market is saturated with underemployed MFAers, but I’m willing to take my chances (which should give you some insight into how truly unhappy I was in my previous professional life).
So I’m here, and I love it. I’ve learned more about writing, as a craft and as a profession, in the last six months than in all my previous months and years and lifetimes combined. I’m actually writing on a regular basis, which is 100% more than I was doing when I was working full time, save my occasional forays into NaNoWriMo and web content. Maybe you think I’m a sucker. Maybe I am. But I don’t hate my life like I used to, and there’s a lot to be said for that.
