Q+A: To MFA or not to MFA?
Is a degree really worth it and why? (I asked some author pals)
Before I forget, we have a couple of events coming up:
Live chat w/ Chelsea Bieker
Join me and
for a live Substack next week on Tuesday, April 15th, at 1pm PST! It’s free and open to all subscribers. We’ll be chatting about the emotional experience of being a writer in the world (and how we tend to our inner lives). Add a reminder to your email here.Writing Workshop: The Art of the Researched Memoir w/ Erica Berry
How can we look to history, literature, or the natural world complement the telling of our own personal life stories? How do you balance interior and exterior landscapes without losing the reader? Join
and Sustenance Writing Community for a special workshop on using research to write about the self.Tuesday, April 22, 5 PM PDT. Spots are very limited. Get your tickets here.
Every month, I take a question from readers. This month, the question was whether or not an MFA was worth the investment and what alternate routes are available? I asked several of my author pals (many of whom have visited my writing community, Sustenance), what their journeys have been like and how much a degree mattered in helping them succeed.
Here’s what they had to say:
My MFA has definitely been helpful for my writing and teaching career. I received an MFA from Columbia College Chicago, where I took classic workshops and niche courses specific to creative nonfiction. I also had access to tools and opportunities for exploring and creating visual art and interdisciplinary work. I would definitely do it again, but I would prioritize getting funding because grad school is very expensive. It’s also very DIY when it comes to getting your work out into the world, so I spent a lot of time outside of classes workshopping, reading, and publishing.
— Negesti Kaudo
Author of Ripe: Essays
For me, the MFA was an essential step in my writing career. Not only because the MFA provided me with a writing community full of wonderful folks, invested mentors, and dedicated time to write, but also because it was my ticket out of my hometown. Though I didn't end up publishing my MFA project, the skills I gained while writing toward that first, still unpublished book were the key to writing my second book—which did get published, and has seen much more success than that first book likely would have. I don’t think I would’ve had the time or the discipline to write a book—let alone two—without the structure of the MFA.
—
Author of Cactus Country: A Boyhood Memoir
I’m sure I would be a better writer, had I pursued an MFA, but I also understood early on that getting my book published by one of the “big five” houses had as much to do with my understanding of the book industry as it did with the book itself—a long game that began ten years before I queried it. After studying English in college, I attended the Columbia Publishing Course, interned at the agency that would represent me a decade later, and wrote for publications that would get my name out into the world, while working on a novel that I loved, and sensed editors, agents, and readers would too.
—
Author of You’re Safe Here
I went into an MFA program when I was twenty-three. I knew nothing about them, only that I wanted to write. I'm so glad I did it because I see that it put me on a path.
I was lucky I landed with a few brilliant teachers. At the time, there weren’t the robust online offerings there are now. There is something special about devoting two years to your work. It’s declarative. But you shouldn’t go into massive debt over it. The degree itself did nothing to prepare me for say, getting an agent, selling a book. The degree has allowed me to be paid poorly as an adjunct and that’s about it. But internally it opened me up to seeing myself as a fiction writer, to accelerating my skill and depth quickly, and coming out on the other side understanding what it means to really write. I think however you can get that for yourself is great.
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Author of Madwoman, Heart Broke, and God Shot
I did an MFA at the University of Minnesota, and I loved it: three years fully-funded to write lots, take cross-genre classes, learn to teach, and drink cheap wine with brilliant people. It didn’t make me a writer, but it taught me what was vital to my creative life—reading omnivorously and surrounding myself with inspiring people. Nobody should go in thinking an MFA will ‘make’ their career. Do you have time or money to spare? If so, it can be a beautiful shortcut to community, accountability, health insurance, institutional research funding etc. But don’t forget: the writing you want to do is already inside you. Let go of the mentor myth. Make yourself a cross-genre syllabus, assign a book a week. Gather fellow writers, give each other deadlines.
—
Author of Wolfish
I'll never know if my career would have been easier with an MFA but when I look at what I’ve accomplished without one—publishing a book and having bylines in (almost) all my dream publications—I don’t think I’m missing out.
An MFA’s main value is in giving you time to write and a cohort of artists who you can trade work and encouragement with. I do think that’s vital. But I managed to find both without paying for a degree. I relied heavily on local/online networking groups and went to everything until I found my people.
—
Author of Under the Henfluence
At the time (2010), I felt I needed MFA school for permission to write and read for two years. I received a partial scholarship, and my stepdad paid for the rest, including my rent.
Now, I tell my students: Don’t go into debt to prepare you for a career that doesn’t pay a living wage. And I ask my students: Why do you think you need a graduate program in creative writing? For the degree? To teach? For the deadlines and accountability? To read and write as a lifestyle? For exposure to new books, new writing styles, etc.? For community? For mentors? To help with your high self-esteem problem? Can other avenues give you what you need? I think other avenues can give you want you need. If as many online writing schools/communities that exist today existed when I got my MFA, then I might not have gotten my MFA.
—
Author of Hysterical: A Memoir
What questions do you have about getting a degree? Ask them in the comments below!
Just accepted my MFA offer today and this post was lovely and reassuring to read ❣️
Thank you for this, very helpful!