Guest Blogger Ron Salisbury talks about MFA – Master of Fine Arts writing programs.
“Everywhere I go, I’m asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”–Flannery O’Connor
Flannery may be a little tough but not far wrong. What will you do with your MFA in poetry or fiction or non-fiction or children’s literature? Is it different from what you thought you would do before you started that MFA program?
The proliferation of Master of Fine Arts Writing Programs in the United States (some 200 as of this writing) requires new crops of students every year; cannon fodder, inductees to charge over the lip of the trench into the guns of Admission Departments and Student Loans without much chance of becoming that famous author, a goal which is implied but never stated by these programs. (Is that what you thought you’d learn at that program?)
When I started my MFA – Poetry program in 2013, I had few of those allusions given my age (70) and narrative style of poetry. I was not going to be offered that tenure track teaching position in some MFA program. At best, I would get some adjunct position. (the typical pay for a semester class as an adjunct is $2000 to $3000 with no guarantee of any future work) And would hope to worm my way into the hearts and pockets of the program directors and students. Last year the United States graduated approximately 2,000 poetry MFAs, 2,000 fiction and between 500 to 1,000 non-fiction and other. And there were less than forty tenure tract creative writing positions available in those universities and colleges. But, I did naively expect that in my program I would be among poets striving to become better poets. What I have mostly found is a cadre of wonderful people learning “how” to write poetry. My observations have been generally supported by other writers in other programs throughout the United States.
To satisfy the body count necessary for these 200+ programs, the threshold has been considerably lowered. If your goal is to teach in an MFA program, anecdotally, minimal requirements today are the MFA degree and two published books at least. If one or both books were contest winners, so much the better. Given the proliferation of book publishing options today such as high quality appearing print-on-demand and self-published, the vetting process for MFA instructors—ones skilled and with enough notoriety to attract students—has become more difficult for universities. It used to be just a book from a good publisher and you could be considered, then it became the book and the MFA. Now the field is murky. Which has led to an entirely new phenomenon, the PhD in Creative Writing which has begun to propagate much as the MFA programs did fifteen-twenty years ago (today, about 32 programs). It would not be a surprise to discover in less than ten years that the minimum requirement to be considered as an instructor in an MFA program is the book or two and the Creative Writing PhD. So, if you have a goal to obtain an MFA in Creative Writing and do more with it than hang it on your wall, continue to work at Starbucks or teach two classes of freshman composition at some Junior College, hurry.
Your Turn: Should you or shouldn’t you join an MFA program? Have you done it? What do you think? Weigh in. Post your writing on The Write Spot Blog.
Ron Salisbury lives in San Diego, CA where he continues to publish, write and study in San Diego State University’s Master of Fine Arts program, Creative Writing. Publications and awards include: Eclipse, The Cape Reader, Serving House Journal, Alaska Quarterly Review, Spitball, Soundings East, The Briar Cliff Review, Hiram Poetry Review, A Year in Ink, etc; Semi Finalist for the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize – 2012, Finalist for the ABZ First Book Contest – 2014, First Runner-up for the Brittingham and Pollak Prize in Poetry – 2014, Winner of Main Street Rag’s 2015 Poetry Prize
Miss Desert Inn published November 2015.
Kathy Myers
Aunt Wilma was at a crossroads in her career at the welfare department for the county of Los Angeles back in 1977. She told me she could handle the duties of a senior case manager, but the barrier was the minimal educational requirement. She had some college classes to her credit but no degree, and struggled with the idea of working full time and taking classes to get one.
“I’m fifty two. I figure that at this rate it’ll take me five years just to get a Bachelors degree. I’ll be fifty seven by then for Christ’s sake!”
“Hmmmm…” I pondered her dilemma for a moment, “OK then, how old will you be five years from now if you don’t go to school?”
Aunt Wilma smiled. “Hey… how come it’s the same?”
She did get her degree. She was an A student, got stipends from the county to pay for her classes, finished her career with a pension to supplement her social security then bought an RV and toured the entire United States. Some time before she died at the age of eighty four, I reminded her of our conversation and her worry about being old at fifty seven. She laughed at her own foolishness, “I was in my prime.”
Compared to Ron I’m just a young whippersnapper (67) I admire his commitment to becoming a lifelong learner and achieving his MFA goal. The proof of the benefit of honing his craft is that he has a book pending. Congrats to him and thanks for the reminder to keep on learning. Taos Writers Conference offers eight week online classes that were inspiring and very educational. I signed up yesterday with a Summer Woods class on writing scenes. And don’t underestimate the educational value of Marlene’s Writers Forum. I went to Yale last summer and had some lectures that paled in comparison to talks I’ve attended ten minutes from home—twenty minutes if there’s traffic.
mcullen Post author
Fun story, Kathy, and so true. You inspire me to Just Do It! Summer Woods class = excellent! I am so glad for you. Thank you for the lovely comment about Writers Forum.
Ron’s book, Miss Desert Inn, has been published. Watch for review by Dorianne Laux on November 8, 2015.