The MFA in Creative Writing

Recycled: Statement of Purpose, Part 2

2009-11-19T10:07:00.003-06:00

Grad school is kicking my butt. So in an effort to keep this blog semi-active over the next few months, until I at least get my legs underneath me to start generating new content, I'll be recycling many of my old posts about the MFA application process. This information is a year old, but I think still very relevant for the upcoming 2009 application season.

So here it is, the Statement of Purpose, technically the most important piece of your application not called the manuscript. But it's also important to keep perspective. Your writing submission will by far be the most important part of your application, period. Everything else, even the Statement of Purpose, will be secondary, the thing that people read after they've decided they like your writing, which means you have a foot in the door to begin with. So keep that in mind. Your Statement of Purpose is a first impression, a way to tell people that you're not crazy, that you're a hard worker. With that, here's the Statement of Purpose I used for my Fall 2008 MFA applications:

My primary goals for pursuing an MFA degree are to significantly improve my writing and to become an integral part of a vibrant, close-knit writing community. To me, both of these goals are intertwined. It is difficult to improve as a writer without the feedback of peers, and similarly, one cannot be a successful member of a writing community without the rigorous application to craft. As such, I have been fortunate to be a part of the same close writing group for the past two years. Through my group’s honest and careful feedback, my writing has vastly improved, and as a result, I have had two of my short stories published: in the Concho River Review, Fall 2007 Issue, and in the Potomac Review, Fall 2008 Issue. I know that without their support, I would not be anywhere near the writer I am today.

By the same token, I understand I still have a great deal to learn. There are many aspects of craft that continue to elude me. For example, I would like to know how to effectively utilize an unreliable narrator, or how to transition from a third-person limited point of view to an omniscient point of view within a single scene. These techniques can only be improved through instruction, careful study, and access to knowledgeable professors. In essence, the intense academic environment provided by the University of Illinois’ MFA program is something that cannot be replicated. I would relish the opportunity to work with and be critiqued by fellow students and professors in such a setting.

In addition to writing, I have various professional and personal strengths to offer to the University of Illinois’ MFA program. Currently, I work as an editor in the newswire industry. In my three years in this position, I have not only been promoted from Associate to Senior Editor, but have also gained extensive experience in the areas of copy editing, professional writing, and documentation writing. Additionally, spending time in a professional environment has taught me the discipline necessary to complete large and small projects on a daily basis. I am more than confident that my real world experience has equipped me with the skills and habits needed to be a successful member of an MFA program.

I am interested in the University of Illinois’ MFA program because of its blend of writing workshops, literature classes, and elective courses on publishing, professional writing, and teaching. The emphasis on a practical range of topics related to creative writing is something that I value highly in a program. I also appreciate the three-year program the University of Illinois provides for its students. While I would savor any chance to study writing at an elite MFA program, a third year would provide more time to research and complete a full manuscript. Additionally, I believe I have much to offer to the University of Illinois. My years of professional experience in copy editing, combined with my personal experience as a contributing member of a close-knit writing community, provides me with a great understanding of what it takes to be a part of a successful program.

Obviously, this SOP varied from school to school. I didn't alter it too much, but I did apply some liberal editing to the last paragraph based on the school, and details specific to each school. I personally think my SOP is a bit wooden, and definitely on the professional side. But then, much of my formal writing experience is steeped in professional and business writing, and I'd be lying if I said that this style wasn't comfortable for me for the Statement of Purpose. Should everyone utilize this voice? Of course not. Being natural in voice and style is important; like writing stories, people can tell when you're faking it.

I should probably include another paragraph of text. Below is a snippet that I placed in some of my SOPs (usually appearing after the second paragraph of the above Statement of Purpose) to the schools that would allow over 500 words:

In regards to my writing, I am interested in exploring the issues of community and culture as it relates to the children of immigrants -- first generation immigrants -- in the United States. I was born and raised in the mostly Caucasian, middle class suburbs of Chicago, yet grew up in a primarily Chinese household. Like my parents, I was not only a minority in name and appearance, but also in culture and community. Most of our family friends were Chinese, I attended Chinese school every Sunday for five years, and we spent entire summers visiting family in Hong Kong. Yet, unlike my parents, being an American was also a far larger part of my identity than it was to them. First generation immigrants are embedded in both cultures, and often, embracing one comes at the expense of the other. To a child or a teenager, this dichotomy is made more complex with issues of identity as it pertains to adolescence and becoming an adult. I want my writing to occupy this space of tension, where to a child, their culture, community, and identity are multi-faceted, complex issues.

A dash of personal background and writing interest. Did it help? To be honest, probably not. It certainly didn't hurt, though. Of all the schools that either waitlisted or accepted me, two (Western Michigan University and Roosevelt) received the "personal" version, and two (the University of Illinois and Notre Dame) received the "vanilla" version. Purdue's case was special, as they asked for an additional written statement answering the questions: "Whose work do you admire? What collection of poetry and/or works of fiction read in the last year have been important to you, and why?" It was fairly simple for me to fold in that one paragraph with some immigrant fiction I had been reading and which were important to me.

In general, I think this is an interesting point, because I had readers who, in general, liked the additional paragraph in my SOP. It gave it a "personal" touch. I, however, was rather ambivalent about the extra paragraph. It felt a little out of place in terms of tone and content. And if a school has even gotten to your SOP, it stands to reason that they've already read and loved your manuscript, and are simply making sure you are a fairly driven, yet normal individual. You hear it over and over again: the manuscript comes first. Which is the reason why, given everything -- the dozens of drafts and the dozens of hours I spent on my SOP -- the Statement of Purpose seems to me both less important and as important as you think. It's fairly important that you try to convey an honest and interesting portrayal of yourself in the SOP. For me, this was utilizing a businesslike approach. Yet, at the same time, there's probably a fairly easy watermark to pass, kind of like a "you must be this sane to ride" type of deal.

But I don't want to dismiss the inherent value in the personal details expressed in the Statement of Purpose. When I first met the Director of the University of Illinois' program, the first few questions she asked me were related to the information and details in my SOP. I was struck by that. In a way, it was her first impression of me as a person, which is something you can never take too lightly.

Recycled: Statement of Purpose, Part 1

2009-11-04T09:53:00.003-06:00

Recycled: Letters of Recommendation

2009-10-25T09:22:00.002-05:00

Recycled: GRE Thoughts, Part 2

2009-10-20T01:38:00.002-05:00

Grad school is kicking my butt. So in an effort to keep this blog semi-active over the next few months, until I at least get my legs underneath me to start generating new content, I'll be recycling many of my old posts about the MFA application process. This information is a year old, but I think still very relevant for the upcoming 2009 application season. This post was put up on October 10, 2008, and is my second post on GREs, how they relate to MFA programs, some general thoughts, and preparation. Enjoy!

Welcome to my random thoughts on the GREs, part two. Part one can be found here. It occurred to me yesterday that I needed to give a little more background to where I'm coming from educationally to give a little bit more perspective on my scores. I graduated from college four years ago from Purdue with a degree in Genetics with a horrible 2.46 GPA. Suffice to say that I have never been a very hard worker. But I've always been a pretty good standardized tester. In the month leading up to my test on September 13, I first took a baseline practice test just to see how badly my verbal skills had declined in college and got a 500-550 score. Following that, I studied semi-regularly on the weekends, taking practice tests, memorizing words. When I was about a week out before the real thing, I went into "hardcore" mode and studied nonstop using the strategies I outlined in my GRE thoughts, part one. Additionally, I did some very light studying on the math and essay sections.

On to the various websites and resources, as promised in my previous post.

Barron's GRE Guide -- This was the first thing I bought in preparation for the test, and was my base resource. It's basically everything you'd expect from a GRE guidebook -- complete with five paper practice tests, one CAT test (on a CD), general study strategies, a "most frequent word" list (weighing in at 333 words), and a much more massive 3,500-word list. To be honest, I have no idea why the 3,500-word list was in there. Unless you buy this book a year to six months outside of the test, there's no way anyone would be able to reliably memorize all those words. And even then, it's not going to cover all the possible words you would potentially see on the test. Simply put, the best way to get that tasty 700+ GRE score is to be generally well read -- something that comes from decades of reading regularly. For the more realistic studier, the "most frequent word" list was by and far the most valuable thing in the book (and something that is in every respectable GRE guidebook -- Princeton, Kaplan, etc.). As I mentioned in my last post, I saw at least 7-10 words on test that were on the list, a larger portion than I would've expected. Memorize that list. At the end of it all, I took all the paper practice tests and the CAT test on the CD-Rom, and got scores consistently in the 600-650ish range. The CAT test I scored a 550.

MyGRETutor.com -- I stumbled on this website after I had exhausted all the practice tests that the Baron's guide had to offer. This site has hundreds of test questions (the first ten on each section are free) and one free CAT. There are also four other tests that can be unlocked, as well as the other test questions, for $5. The cheap price of the tests should've been a warning sign, but I didn't do my research and promptly paid to access the rest of the tests. In short, this site is horrible. The practice questions are inexact, vague, and confusing. While I'd never hold the GREs up on a pedestal as paragons of testing standards -- you can always count on their questions as at least definite. It's a very bad sign when you read through the answers of a test and find yourself saying "really?" over and over again. Even worse, there were at least a few grammatical errors on the reading comprehension sections of their tests. So yeah. Not very reputable. To give you an idea of how accurate their internal CAT scoring was, I scored on the five tests as high as 710 and as low as 540.

800score.com -- Frustrated by MyGRETutor.com, I continued to search online for a resource of reputable (and accurate) CATs to practice, and found this site. They're a pure test site, and offer five CATs to download for $20. I did a little bit of research, sampled a little bit of their free test, and went ahead and paid for their product. Much much better. The questions were better worded, more precise, and, most importantly, had answers that did not leave me scratching my head. My test score range was 540 to 600, a much tighter band of numbers, which is indicative of a more accurate test.

The ETS website -- ETS provides two free CATs for download from their website, both of which I scored 630 on. They can be found here. There's not too much to say, except that these tests come straight from the horse's mouth, and (unsurprisingly) yielded the scores that were most similar to my eventual score. A definite download, since they are free (though not really, since you pay through the nose to just take the test, never mind the $20 fee you pay per school to send the test!) and since they will be most representative of the GRE test you'll be taking.

Notice the wide range of scores that I got on each of the CATs above:

Barron's: 550-650
MyGRETutor.com: 540-710
800score.com: 540-600
ETS website: 630

The lesson? The GRE's computer adaptive tests are notoriously difficult to emulate without the exact scoring system utilized by the ETS and without the amount of data that the ETS has at their fingertips. My actual score was 650, which was a bit higher than I expected, but one that makes sense in retrospect. It was the score that was closest to the practice tests provided by the ETS. You'd almost expect the other resources to want to underscore people -- which I believe they do -- because it simply makes sense as a business practice; lower expectations are much easier to deal with than higher ones. So what do we take from this? Find and take as many tests as you can afford. But do your research, and stay away from the poor websites. Interpret your scores with a large grain of salt. And most importantly, have faith in your abilities!

Recycled: GRE Thoughts

2009-10-16T12:48:00.005-05:00

I've been away for a long, long time, but I've had a good excuse. I've been toiling away, hard at work in grad school. This should be no news at all to anyone who is seriously preparing for grad school, but it is busy. Really busy.

But that's another post. In an effort to keep this blog semi-active over the next few months, until I at least get my legs underneath me to start generating new content, I'll be recycling many of my old posts about the MFA application process. This information is a year old, but I think still very relevant for the upcoming 2009 application season. This first post was put up on October 7, 2008, and is on GREs, how they relate to MFA programs, some general thoughts, and preparation. Enjoy!

Ah, the GREs. The GREs manage walk the frustrating line of being barely important enough to an application to warrant studying for. Many top schools don’t "require" the GREs, but as some websites gently suggest (like Iowa in this link -- scroll down to point 4 under "Other Notes on Admission and Residency Requirements"), scores can often affect funding. And whenever funding dollars are involved, you can be sure that it is important enough to put time and study into. Some insights and strategies I learned when preparing for the GREs:

I took the test on September 13th, and got a 650 on the Verbal, a 680 on the Math, and a 6.0 on the essay section. Verbal, of course, is the big kahuna of the GREs, and really the only score that the schools will care about. My basic strategy for the Verbal portion consisted of two basic rules:

1) Memorize the "most frequent word" lists provided by any of the Barron's/Kaplan/Princeton study books. This was important to my success. Already have a gigantic vocabulary? Great. You'll do wonderfully on the test, and will have nothing to worry about. But for the rest of us, it’s impractical and unrealistic to even attempt to memorize the 3,500 word lists provided by the preparation books. The "most frequent word" list represents a much more realistic and efficient way of targeting words that you'd be likely to see on a test. My prep book's list was a little over 300 words, which I managed to cram in about two weeks before the test. During the test I recognized at least 7-10 words from that list, which was a significant portion of the test.

2) Take as many practice tests as you can. Myself, I took at least 20 practice tests from a variety of sources. I can’t stress how important it was to me to take those practice tests. As much as the ETS would like you to believe, the GREs are not a measure of practical knowledge, but really a measure of well you can take the GREs. The problems on the Verbal section of the GREs, especially the analogy questions, require a large amount of familiarity to have any kind of success. So in addition to the relearning those baseline strategies you’d use for the SATs or ACTs back in high school (eliminating obvious answers, etc.), I was able to improve my pattern recognition of certain kinds of questions through a ton of repetition. Cramming works.

Another tricky aspect of the GREs is the fact that they are Computer Adaptive Tests (CATs) conducted on computers, as opposed to paper tests. What is a CAT? In essence, it’s a test that “adapts” its question difficulty based on how many questions you answer correctly or incorrectly. The more consecutive questions you get correct on a test, the more difficult a test becomes, and vice versa, all to eventually determine your final score. But there's more than that. Since the test uses the thirty questions to zero in on your score, it tends to weight the first 15 questions more heavily than the last 15. For example, before you answer even one question, your initial score, like everyone else's, will be set on the average of the bell curve of all those who've previously taken the test (somewhere around 400-500). If you answer the first question right, the computer will nudge you up into the tier of questions intended for 500-600 scoring folks, and if you were to get it wrong, the computer will shift you down into the tier for the 300-400 folks. As the test progresses, those large point swings will get smaller and smaller as the computer "figures out" the appropriate level of difficulty of questions for you. By the end of the test, a correct question will only be work 10-20 points each. Keep in mind that while my math above is hypothetical (I don’t really know if the point swings are 100 at the beginning or not), the process is the same.

As you can see, the first 10 or so questions are incredibly important to moving into the highest possible tiers, as you can only move your score so much once you get into the later stages of the test. One of the most common criticisms of the GREs is that the test unfairly punishes those who make mistakes early on without much hope for improvement later. But if you go into the GREs knowing this, you can similarly use this to your advantage. With 30 minutes to answer 30 questions, I knew I wasn't going to get every single question right, but I took the extra time on the first 10 questions to carefully answer them and to make sure that I got as many right as I possibly could. In fact, I probably employed this strategy a little too effectively -- at one point I had about 14 minutes to answer the remaining 20 questions -- and had to really rush in order to answer every single question. I had no doubt I probably answered more questions incorrectly on the second half of the test, yet I still got (in my own estimation) a pretty good score. So while it may feel counterintuitive as a test-taking strategy to front weight your time on the test, it really is something worth thinking about.

In my next post I'll go a little bit deeper into the resources and tests I used for preparation for the GREs.

Almost Famous

2009-08-11T22:35:00.005-05:00

Check it out. The University of Illinois recently updated the listing of its graduate students webpage here. If you scroll down to the bottom, where all the "First Year" students are, you'll find my picture and undergraduate educational background. I know, it's the same picture as the one listed on this blog, but having my name and photo on a third party website -- a University website! -- is exciting.

Retrospective: Everything Else

2009-08-06T12:48:00.005-05:00

Okay, it's about time I tie up all the loose ends regarding my experience applying to MFA programs last fall. I wrote a retrospective on my Statement of Purpose and a retrospective on the very general topic of choosing wisely when making your MFA school list in previous posts some time ago. So what about everything else required in the MFA application process? They are, by my count, the:

GPA
GRE Verbal scores
Critical essay
Recommendations
Manuscript

Let's go over each of these one by one.

On GPA: I've complained about GPA requirements before, and have come to the happy conclusion, based on my experience with applications and where I had been accepted, that GPAs mostly do not matter. A little background. My undergraduate GPA was a horrible 2.46. Very low. Many schools have a "minimum 3.0" GPA requirement, either explicitly listed on their website or buried away in the graduate school's handbook online. At any rate, my score and many schools' requirements did not engender me with much confidence. So what I did was a hybrid approach. I actively searched for schools that did not have the "minimum 3.0" requirement, and was especially careful to read all the literature available on each schools' website. In addition, for the schools that I had my sights set on which did have GPA requirements, I emailed politely, asking if said requirement was a hard and fast rule, and whether my application would be considered holistically. Those were the schools I applied to.

Looking back on my experience, I think I can confidently say that, in general, the GPA requirement is a grad school one. The extent to which a program can "ignore" a potential candidate's poor GPA is dependent more upon how much latitude that program has within a school. Some grad schools have short leashes on their MFA programs, while others are free to ignore them completely. In cases of Iowa and Michigan, for example, I did not find any language on their websites pertaining to GPA requirements, and in fact, Michigan's website goes out of their way to say that their MFA applicants do not need to complete their "Worksheet for Computing GPA." This makes sense, as both of these schools are top-five caliber programs with tremendous cachet and influence. I can't imagine a grad school complaining about their methods of accepting and screening the students they wish for their programs. So, long story short, GPA isn't a problem if you prepare for it. Make sure the schools you apply to won't immediately disregards your application because of it, and you'll be fine.

On GRE Verbal scores: I've extensively outlined my basic strategies on how to improve your GRE Verbal scores here and here. As to the big question of how important these scores actually are, I'd have to guess that they're not important at all, even less important that the GPA. While the GPA is often used as a minimum watermark for many schools out there, I've only seen one school require a minimum GRE Verbal score, Ohio State University. All the others, with about maybe a little over half requiring the scores to be officially submitted, do not outline what scores, if any are preferable. Personally, I think GRE Verbal scores are redundant to the GPAs. What can a grad school see in your GRE scores that informs your academic (or intellectual) abilities that they can't already see in your GPA? If anything, a GRE scores merely says whether or not you can do well on a really hard test. Your GPA? It represents four years of work and effort and, to say nothing about the babysitting institution of college, it suggests a more "real life" barometer of said work and effort. Yes. What your mom always told you was right, your GPA is important. More important, at least, than your GRE scores.

I do want to temper that idea with this, however: there's NO reason to mail it in with your GRE scores if you can help it. You definitely do not want to give the graduate school a reason, however insignificant, to disqualify your application. And who wants to turn in a GRE Verbal score of 300 anyways? While a high GRE score can say any number of things -- you're smart, you're well read, you take tests well, you prepare -- a really low GRE score can really say only one thing if you're serious about writing: you didn't take the GREs seriously. And if you don't take a test that you know about several months ahead of time seriously, how can a school take your application seriously? Take the test. It sucks, it takes up a lot of brainspace, and it's a waste of time, but it's important. The GREs in a nutshell.

On the Critical Essay: Of the schools I applied to, two required a critical essay: Purdue and Ohio State University. A critical essay, as requested from Ohio State's website is a paper that should "demonstrate the applicant's ability to write clear expository prose and to construct a persuasive argument." It's a good definition as any. General consensus will also tell you that the best candidate for a previously written critical essay (so you wouldn't have to write one ground up from scratch) is one that was written from your time in undergrad school, something, ideally, having to do with literature or literature analysis. For some, this prospect may be simple, having majored in English or English Lit as an undergrad. For many, however, this becomes a tricky subject, as the last time most have written a paper for an English class (as with me) was sometime in freshman year, probably during first year composition or rhetoric. And if your writing quality was anything like mine at eighteen, well... the less said the better. So what to do? Short of majoring in anything other than mathematics or statistics, chances are that the major you did end up with required some sort of paper writing. Mine was genetics, which, unfortunately, was a subject where all the stuff I was writing was far too technical and insular to be of any use to an application committee. I ended up combing through all my old essays (fortunately I never throw anything away), and found a paper on existentialism on a philosophy class I took as a junior. The paper itself was poorly written by my standards today, but it provided a decent skeleton from which to work with. I ended up revising it heavily to bring it up to par, but it totaled far less work and time than if I had picked a random subject and wrote from scratch.

A common question is whether or not subject matter is important. There are some schools that specifically request a paper that is based in literature or literature analysis. This is again a situation where, if necessary, I'd suggest contacting the school for clarification. A lot of times, these requirements are not hard rules, but rather guidelines (like GPA requirements set by grad schools) to steer applicants towards a single set of standards. In general, I'd suggest keeping your critical essay in the general humanities. That an essay isn't about postmodernism or literary theory isn't very important, in my opinion; it seems to me that what a school is using these essays for is to determine whether you can think and write critically about a subject. Remember, these schools are not only asking you to write, but also teach, which often requires are completely different set of skills from creative writing or poetry. Critical thinking and writing, for example.

On Recommendations: I haven't written too much on the art of recommendations, primarily because I did not have the sparkling recommendation from the world famous professor who took me under his/her tutelage in college. In fact, my recommendations were rather run-of-the-mill: two supervisors from work and a writing group member. I can really only say a couple things on recommendations. First, get them done early, as early as possible. It is your responsibility to make sure the schools receive these letters on time and sealed, not your recommendors. They're doing a favor for you, sometimes a tremendous favor, and the easier your make it for them to do their job, the happier they'll be. And it seems to me very obvious to keep your recommendors as happy as possible. Second, make sure you choose the right people to write you recommendations. This is one of those "obvious in theory, but hard in practice" things. Given the choice between a coworker who knows your writing really well and speak on you behalf on a close personal and professional level, and, say... Cormac McCarthy, who just signed your copy of "The Road," I'd suggest going with the coworker. Okay, so that's an extreme example, but I do think there is a certain art in choosing who you want to speak on your behalf. Obviously, you'd want them to be authority figures in your life, people who have seen your work and work ethic. But do you go with the person who knows you very well, but may not have the sterling or relevant background to creative writing, or do you go with the world-famous professor with whom you've taken one class under and may or may not remember your name? An application committee may pause at the famous name on the top of the letterhead, but they'll remember the story about how your insight singlehandedly helped turn someone's story into a work of art.

On the Manuscript: Not much to say here, unfortunately. This is all you, and no amount of offhand blog advice can replace good, old fashioned practice. There's no other way to do it, believe me, I've tried. BUT, if you really want to know: Feedback, critical unflinching feedback, is always good. Take a craft class over the summer. Some are better than others, so do your research. Go to a writer's conference. Found a writing group. The last one is often the best option, because it's free, and infinitely more valuable if you find a great group of people. Pick up other hobbies. It's a good way to give yourself space from writing. But don't procrastinate. (Or try not to.) And write. Write, write, write. Everything else is gravy -- feedback, a support group of friends, family, and coworkers -- but at the end of the day, they won't be the ones producing work, you will. This is by far the most important element of your application, with the Statement of Purpose coming in at a distant second. Make it count. Good luck!

The MFA Chronicles

2009-08-04T09:52:00.007-05:00

Hi there! I'm back after a somewhat longish layoff, and will be resuming semi-regular posting on this blog. The reason for the delay? Oh... grad school stuff. Moving. Studying. Reading. Not writing. The weeks and months leading up to grad school have been incredibly busy for me, and unfortunately, I suspect that it'll only get busier once school actually starts. How's that for a kick in the pants? At any rate, I'm very happy to say that I will now be contributing to a blog called the The MFA Chronicles, brainchild of Jonterri Gadson. It's a blog with about a dozen or so first year MFA students talking about their various experiences through their first nerve-wracking school year and beyond. I imagine that it'll be a great resource for those of you looking towards applying or thinking of applying this fall, especially in the decision making process of what you will exactly want or not want in an MFA program. Plus, the community we have going for this blog looks to be an enthusiastic one, which is always great.

So what have I been doing these past few weeks? Well, as I mentioned above, a lot of stuff. I quit my job, which was in itself a great deal of work. You wouldn't think that something as freeing as ending your 9-5 job would require so much time and energy, but there was that curious sense of guilt and duty to my co-workers combined with my company's desire to get as much out of me as possible before I left for good that led to a very busy last few weeks. Shortly after that, me and my fiancee had to move out of our apartment and into a new one just around the block. And since I'll be moving down to Champaign separately a few weeks later (now a little over one week from today), I'll have the fine pleasure of essentially making two moves in a matter of one month. Fun, fun, fun. And then there's the stuff related to school. Of my craft class, I've managed to read four of eight books required for the semester, which is less than I'd like, but not bad considering everything, and of my teaching assistantship (which I am by and far most nervous for), I have read the teacher's handbook, the skeleton syllabus, and one textbook. And still I feel horribly, horribly unprepared.

The University of Illinois, I am incredibly happy to say, will provide a great support system for all their incoming TAs. In addition to a week-long orientation before classes start, I'll be taking classes in parallel to the one I'm teaching on, well, teaching, as well as participating in weekly meetings (support groups, really) with other TAs teaching the same class. What's not to like? Not much, as far as I'm concerned, except for the whole teaching bit. Getting up in front of 15-20 students and talking to them for an hour is not my idea of fun, even less so considering that I hate, hate, hate public speaking. Ah well. I'll get over it. Eventually.

Facebook vs MySpace

2009-07-09T13:14:00.008-05:00

Now for something a little different. Check out this piece from the website Racialicious here on the concepts of race and class divisions as it relates to social networking sites; primarily facebook and MySpace. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm a bit of a technophile. I'm also deeply interested in the concepts of race and class, and the merging of the two subjects in this particular Racialicious post a hit fuzzy spot in my brain. Check it out.

Summer Reading, Part 2

2009-06-29T21:36:00.010-05:00

Finished "I, the Divine" by Rabih Alameddine last weekend . An aborted fictional memoir, written entirely in half-finished first chapters, "I, the Divine" is an impressive a technical feat. Some immediate thoughts: It works. Kinda. The novel is less like a traditional linear novel (duh), and more like a series of vingettes, of little windows into the narrator's life. As a character examination, it works fantastically. I really came to know the protagonist, Sarah Nour El-Din, inside and out; her ticks, her habits, her values. And by sharing all of Sarah's attempts at writing, you get a great sense of her personal voice and, just as importantly, her writing voice. She experiments with tone, with voice, with POV over the course of three hundred pages. She contradicts her facts from one chapter to the next -- some not important, some quite important -- and in doing so, reveals how truth-bending writing, even in memoirs, must and can be to best serve a story. And certainly, what may be true in one window -- Sarah's utter disdain for her stepmother as a child -- may be fanciful, even false in another, when Sarah's relationship with her stepmother as an adult looking back on her youthful ways can be best described as warm, even loving. The truth, as it is in writing, is never just one thing, and constantly it shifts and moves throughout "I, the Divine."

While the varying perspectives, voices, and small views into the life of Sarah Nour El-Din is its greatest strength, it is also its greatest weakness. Like I briefly mentioned in my last post, "I, the Divine" reads less like a novel and more like a collection of non-linear, but connected short stories. The problem with this? The stories, while individually wonderful, and occasionally beautiful, lack the same tension and emotional punch that you'd get from reading the end of "Catcher in the Rye" or "The Road." That's not to say that nothing happens, quite the contrary, there are probably more unique things that occur in this novel than most -- we learn so much about Sarah and her father, her mother, her stepmother, her son, her two ex-husbands, and all her sisters in an incredibly short amount of time. The problem is, at least to me, is that the information, while plentiful, doesn't build the same way a linear novel would, doesn't layer its scenes on top of another with increasing emotional stakes. Instead, the reader gets one chapter with Sarah as a young girl in Lebanon, fighting her stepmother, and in the next chapter, Sarah as an adult in San Francisco sleeping with a new lover. At its best, this kind of skipping narrative is fascinating, but at its weakest, it's unfortunately jarring.

Next on my reading list is a little bit of "me" time. I'm going to re-read "Dune," one of my all time favorite science fiction books of my youth. Will it hold up? Approximately twenty pages in, I can already say both yes and no. Yes, because I'm already reinfatuated (is that even a word?) with the book. It really brings back so many memories of what I used to viscerally love about science fiction: ideas, technology, and an wonderfully richly crafted universe. Plus, things happen and things blow up! On the other hand, reading it as an adult and not a teenager, I can already see some of the "flaws" so stereotypically associated with genre fiction. Flat, utilitarian writing and an omniscient voice that occasionally verves into the obvious. Not necessarily poor writing, but certainly not the crackling, tight voices and narratives that I've become so accustomed to over the past few years. In short, it is writing that takes a back seat to story, and not the other way around.

Work, etc.

2009-06-18T12:06:00.008-05:00

The thing about work is that it sucks. Having to spend eight hours a day (plus one hour for lunch, one to two hours for commute) is a huge time drain, and typically only leaves me four-five hours of "free" time outside of work. This is a problem, a problem that is exacerbated by the fact that I have so much to prepare for in anticipation of moving and getting ready for grad school. That's my long-winded excuse for not tending to this blog more often in the past couple weeks. On the bright side, I'm quitting the old job in less than a month, and will have much more time to write interesting posts on storytelling in video games and the like. Boy do I know my audience.

Right now I'm reading I, the Divine by Rabih Alameddine for my upcoming craft class. The unique thing about this book is that it is a kind of aborted memoir written entirely in first chapters by the protagonist, Sarah Nour El-Din. About 50 pages in, I can immediately see the advantages to this technique. Since opening sections of novels typically rely more on summary and swaths of "telling" prose, Alameddine is able to convey a huge amount of information in relatively short amount of space. He also manages to cheat in actual scenes of dialogue and action by setting them up with very short, yet grand sweeping paragraphs of summary and general statements of fact. The character begins one chapter: "I realized when it came to men, I did not pick the beautiful or the correct. I picked the wrong one. I chose David," which then transitions wonderfully into a very specific scene. What I am curious about is how tension and pacing will be handled through 300 pages of this style. It is more akin to reading a collection of closely linked short stories than a linear book. Will the constant temporal jumping from random scene to random scene get old by page 250 without sufficient build up? I hope not. Right now it's a very good read, and I'm interested in how Alameddine will handle these problems later on.

Amazon Kindle = Elitist?

2009-06-09T12:57:00.013-05:00

In a previous post, I extolled the virtues of Amazon's Kindle and how it will affect the way people read, both positively and negatively. As a technophile, I generally find myself on the side of technology, and in the case of books and the book industry, I definitely do think that eBooks and the like are the way of the future if the book is expected to survive. Like other forms of media -- music, movies, video games -- the printed word has to change or die. Just look at the newspaper and magazine industries. For better or for worse, paper has to become digital.

Now, I'm not necessarily saying there has to be a wholesale change in the way books are distributed and consumed. Like all things, the transition should be slow and natural, and I don't truly believe that the physical format will ever die out; there will always be a market for physical books. Having spent the better part of my adolescence devouring books from the library, I have countless memories of reading anything under the sun, new and old, large and small, holding books smelling of paper and age, all of which make up my childhood. And frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way. Given the choice and the means, I'd buy books in paper form while trying out the Kindle. But those are my experiences and choices, shaped by my childhood. Who says that children are experiencing literature in the same way today; who are we to say: these are our memories and experiences, you must acquire them, cherish them, and love them too?

Also interesting are writer Sherman Alexie's comments a few weeks ago at New York's BookExpo in relation to the Kindle, specifically calling it elitist. He's right. Technology, especially high technology, is not readily accessible to the poor. My feelings on this matter are mixed; I definitely do agree with Sherman Alexie's charge of technological elitism. But to speak to that, let's face it, literature as us MFAers know it is consumed primarily by the well off, the academic elite, the upper and middle class. Outside of the handful of writers -- the Dan Browns, the Stephen Kings of the world -- books are already restricted by a form of social elitism.

On the other hand, it's important to know that no one reads the way they used to, ten, twenty, thirty years ago. Attention is being siphoned by other media such as video games, movie, and television. If books wish to remain competitive as a form of entertainment, and even more importantly, if it wishes to widen its audience so that it isn't just a medium and art form for the elite, it must change. Whether this is in the form of Kindle books or PDF files easily accessed online by all, I don't know. At any rate, Sherman Alexie is interviewed in the following link, and clarifies his stance of the "elitist Kindle." It's a great read, and encapsulates a lot of important points and ideas on the complex subject. Find it here.

Storytelling and Video Games, Part 2

2009-06-01T19:23:00.006-05:00

In this second post of a three part series, I continue to wax nostalgically about my love affair with video games and story in video games. You can find the first post of this ridiculous subject here. Below, I continue my list of my top seven examples of outstanding use of story and narrative in video games.

Also, I'd like to briefly note an article that a kind poster, David, pointed out in my last post, which explores the eloquence (or relative lack thereof) of story and storytelling in video games, written by Junot Diaz! Junot brings up some excellent points in his article, in my opinion, very much in line with one of the persisting fundamental problems with the video game business today; it's still such an immature industry, a medium where the voices and talent have had only thirty years to develop. Imagine how sophisticated the written word or the movie industry was thirty years after its inception. Find it on the Wall Street Journal website here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121460385251911957.html

5. Half-Life (PC, 1998)

The premise of this game (as is the case for most First Person Shooters, FPSs) is hideously simple. You play in first person perspective with nothing but a gun and a cross hair, and are charged with shooting anything that moves. In reality, Half-Life is no different from the hundreds of other FPS that have come before or after it. You shoot things. You shoot a lot of things.

Half-Life makes its money in its departure from the video game standard of storytelling, rather than a reinvention of the FPS genre. One of the time-honored traditions of video games is the implementation of "levels" as an indicator of progress. This can be anything from the level your character attains when he/she gains enough experience points to the levels you complete with a tiny red, jumping Mario. Levels are great for video game designers because they make creating games easy (easier). Want to make a snow-based level with lots of monsters? Great. Done. What about a lava world with lots of jumping and dexterity-based puzzles? Easy. The discrete nature of leveling and level creation makes a game more diverse and interesting for the player. Where level design fails, in my opinion, is in the immersion of the player to the game. Simply, it's incredibly jarring to suddenly and arbitrarily end a scene, a situation, or a level just so you can move on to a different environment. It takes the player out of the game, and has a curious effect of "tearing down the fourth wall," to borrow a term from theater, which is something that would rarely be done (or done only with great intent) in other mediums, yet is done all the time in video games. And why would any self respecting story do that? Imagine getting to the castle where you're about to face the big bad boss to save the princess when the game suddenly pauses to essentially tell you: save here, perhaps. Drink a couple of strength potions. Enjoy this little movie cut-scene about how bad the big bad boss is. It doesn't make sense, and it removes one of the strongest qualities a video game has to offer -- interactivity.

So where does this leave Half-Life? Half-Life throws all old video game convention out the window, by giving you nothing to begin the game with except a character to control in first person perspective, and later, a gun and cross hairs. And that's it. There are no "levels" to speak of, no interruptions in the game where control of the game is taken from the player, and from the beginning credits until the the end, there is nothing except the survival of your character. You could conceivably play the game from beginning to end (all 20-30 hours) without stopping; every significant event is experienced real time, whether it is being attacked by an Apache helicopter to destroying a gigantic tentacled alien inside a nuclear reactor to eavesdropping on marines who are hunting you. The scenes of action are extremely exciting, and even better, they are defined by the player's reaction to what happens -- do I throw a grenade at the group of marines and then run in with guns a' blazing or do I snipe them from afar? -- which makes for great gameplay and even better stories.

4. Metal Gear Solid 2 (Playstation 2, 2001)

On the other end of the spectrum, we have one of the preeminent examples of video game interruption during gameplay -- Metal Gear Solid 2. Where you could call Half Life a minimalist exercise in storytelling, letting the player experience everything themselves, the Metal Gear franchise is perhaps most famously known for beating their players over the head with ridiculously long movie sequences, scenes of dialogue, and overt, heavy handed political commentary. To say that the last four or so Metal Gear games is almost akin to playing an interactive movie would not be so far from the truth. So why, especially after spending several paragraphs above deriding the problems with taking player control out of the hands of the player, would I nominate Metal Gear Solid 2? Because I love a good story, especially a story that can deliver with near Hollywood-like production values and effects. Check out the following intro movie to Metal Gear Solid 2:

So what's so important about Metal Gear Solid 2? For starters, it was one of the first games that truly attempted to bring a movie-like quality to the story it was telling. Metal Gear Solid (One) attempted to do this on the Playstation with its transition to 3D graphics, but at the time, the technology was limited and constrained in many ways. It wasn't until the sequel with MGS 2 debuting on the Playstation 2 do we get a game that fully exploits the technology of its day. To me, the above intro movie is something straight out of a Bond film or some spy thriller, complete with dramatic music and high-flying digital stunts. Even more tellingly, you can see how the series has evolved in terms of how the medium of video games (at least for this game) views itself in the intro of its sequel, Metal Gear Solid 3:

Credits? Theme music? If you were watching the above on the big screen, I bet you'd guess it was another Bond movie, for at least the first few minutes. While the gameplay was in general excellent and interesting, what most fascinated me about Metal Gear Solid 2 was its almost rigid adherence to making it seem like you were playing a movie, an extremely well made, well shot, and well financed movie.

Chicago's Printers Row Lit Fest 2009

2009-05-29T15:10:00.009-05:00

Live in Chicago? Love books? Great news! Next weekend, June 6-7, Chicago will be holding its 2009 Printers Row Lit Fest in the Printers Row neighborhood. This year's festival is particularly star-studded, featuring writers such as Neil Gaiman, Dave Eggers, Charles Baxter, Joe Meno, and Aleksandar Hemon. Unfortunately, and predictably, the tickets (which are free) for the events featuring both Neil Gaiman and Dave Eggers are all sold out as of the writing of this post. If I were a more studious person, I'd be able to tell you that I had had booked the tickets for both of those writers a long time ago, but that's sadly not the case. So while I will be attending the event, I unfortunately won't be seeing either of those authors. At any rate, if you live in Chicago or anywhere near Chicago, be sure to mark these dates in your calendar. It's in a beautiful part of downtown (although to be honest, all of downtown is beautiful), and the actual outdoor book fair portion of the festival -- wall to wall stands of every imaginable type of book and book-related product -- is simply stunning.

Storytelling and Video Games

2009-05-27T16:37:00.002-05:00

Yes, the title of this post is correct. I am, for better or for worse, an avid video gamer. While I don't game as much as I used to in previous years (I wasted the better part of my youth on the computer) I do still enjoy a good gaming fix every now and then. Besides the obvious fix generated from blasting baddies and buddies alike, as a storyteller, one of my favorite parts of playing video games is the incredible opportunity to not only spectate and experience fantastic narratives, but to have the chance to participate in them too. One of the huge advantages computer games have over their other media counterparts is their interactivity. Now, instead of reading or watching Superman save Lois Lane for the umpteenth time, you can actually do it. Needless to say, the potential for immersive storytelling in video games is incredibly rich, and experiencing story and plot is nothing like it is in a book or a movie.

Despite all this, the standard for storytelling in video games is still horribly low. A common (and frequently accurate) stereotype is that video games pander to graphical ability, violence, and sex with little to no regard to story or narrative in order to sell copies. If there is a story, it is often a cliched one, the most common being the hero's journey, a tale usually involving a busty female in need of saving from the clutches of a villain by a protagonist of superhero (or superhero-like) ability. But the industry is still relatively immature, and at almost thirty years old, the medium of video games is extremely new and has a long way to go. With this, I present to you my own personal top seven list of outstanding examples of story and storytelling in video games. This is by no means a complete list -- there are many other worthy candidates that I have not played that should grace this list -- but I hope to outline what the video game industry has to offer in terms of not only creating and developing moving narratives, but also forging new ground in what the medium can offer in the realm of interactive storytelling.

7. Chrono Trigger (SNES, 1995)

Chrono Trigger is an old school Super Nintendo Japanese console RPG. In it you control Crono, a silent protagonist, and his band of adventurers whom you pick up along the way throughout the course of game, a cast which includes a princess tomboy, a robot, an evil wizard, and Glenn, the sword wielding frog, to save the world from a creature named Lavos (a gigantic lava-like oval monster?) by jumping through various periods in time. Hence the time-themed title of the game, Chrono Trigger. If you've never played a video game (especially a Japanese-made console RPG), this may seem all very strange, but for the initiated, it's very much par for the course. And yes, Glenn is the frog displayed on the cover of the game above.

Despite of, and perhaps because of the story's obvious wackiness, there's a certain zeal and charm to Chrono Trigger's world and its characters. For example, in the game's future time period, the land you explore is drab and gray, with little to no human or animal life, instead populated with rocks, steel, and worn down machines. Yet this same world, except in the prehistoric time period, is conversely dominated by jungles of overgrowth and green. Animals are everywhere -- including dinosaurs -- and humans are the minority, struggling to survive in a land where they are prey to nearly everything. Chrono Tigger's ability to immerse you in a half a dozen deep and interesting worlds through its art and design is remarkable.

But what's most unique about Chrono Trigger is that it was one of the first of its kind to feature multiple endings (thirteen). Depending on what you do in the game, and how you did it, what happens when the credits start rolling will be wildly different. While the way you can acquire these different endings are somewhat arbitrary, depending mostly on when you decide to engage the end boss and with which characters, the idea behind "customizing" the way you can experience the close of the story was a remarkable idea for its time. That you deeply care for the characters and their situations made the ending that you finished with all the more important and, interestingly, it encouraged the gamer to play and replay the game to see all the possible endings. This kind of experience is really only something that can be found in the medium of video games, and as we'll see in my later picks, the ability to "choose" and carve out your character's unique story and ending is something that the industry had barely begun to scratch with Chrono Trigger.

6. Grim Fandango (PC, 1998)

Grim Fandango is what you could call one of the last "old school" adventure games, which mushroomed in popularity during the eighties and nineties. A game under the Adventure genre is one typically defined by perspective and action, where the character controlled by the player is on-screen at all times, interacting with the environment and other characters through dialogue and manipulation. An adventure game is rarely violent (by today's standards), and is one part puzzle game, one part movie. Dialogue is perhaps one of the most important features of an adventure game, and one of the unique mechanics the adventure game pioneered for the industry was the invention of the "dialogue tree." When interacting with another character, players are given choices on how they might want to respond or say, and thus makes subsequent choices until the conversation ends. Back in the day, this essentially meant choosing option "A," "B," or "C" to get a slightly emotionally varied, but essentially same informational response from Random Character D, but at the time, this choice typified the kind of freedom a video game offered to players. Want to be serious? Choose the straight-forward dialogue option. Want to be snarky? Tell the character to go suck a lemon. Even though dialogue trees were (and to a certain degree, still are) a very stripped down version of those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, I really loved the unique opportunity to forward story, dialogue, and character development through non-violent means based on my own choices.

Out of all the adventure games I've played in my life, Grim Fandango is bar none, one of the finest games in terms of story, plot, and character that I've ever played. Grim Fandango takes place in The Land of the Dead, a world, heavily influenced by Mexico's "Day of the Dead" holiday, where recently deceased souls undergo a four year journey to their final resting place, the Ninth Underworld. It's all outlined in the game's starting intro below:

You play Manuel "Manny" Calavera (in the video above) who, through situations in the game, goes on his own four year journey to the Ninth Underworld while trying to save the soul of another character he falls in love with, Mercedes "Meche" Colomar (yes, it's the damsel in distress), and simultaneously foiling the plot of a crime syndicate. If it sounds like the game has heavy film noir influences, you'd be right. The art, the style, the story, and especially the music are all lifted from movies such as The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. Simply, the game oozes personality with its unique blend of film noir and Mexican-influenced style, from the high-ceilinged and beautiful architecture to the calaca-inspired characters.

What does this have to do with story? Everything. Atmosphere is the video game's long paragraphs of description, music and dialogue its sense of pace and rhythm. A game is nothing without place, art, and style, which Grim Fandango has in the spades, and simply, it's easy to get absorbed in a narrative that provides a ready-made world rich with history. But my hands down favorite aspect of Grim Fandango are the characters and their personalities. The voice acting is Pixar-quality, and every main character -- Manny, Meche, and Glottis (an huge orange demon) -- is a fully fleshed "person." I fell in love with these characters while playing, and when the game ended and the credits started to roll, I felt a kind of loss that's so familiar to me when finishing a great book. I didn't want it to end, having journeyed so long and experiencing so much with Manny and Meche; I wanted to follow with those characters forever, which is, really, all you could ever ask of a great story.

I think I'll stop here. I still have another five games to go, but if I continued, this post would go on forever. Check in later, where I'll wax endlessly about more titles you've probably never heard of!

Goodreads

2009-05-21T15:54:00.002-05:00

My previous post got me thinking: all my "What I'm Reading" list really is, is but a stripped down version of what Goodreads offers. What's Goodreads? I'm glad you asked. It's yet another social networking site, but with a literary twist. It focuses on books and the people who read books. Users maintain and update lists of books they've read, want to read ("to-read"), are currently reading, and any other kind of custom list. They can also rate books, write reviews, and comment on other people's book selections, reviews, comments, etc. Personally, I find it's an indispensable resource for keeping track of what I've read, when I've read it, and what I plan to read sometime down the line. On top of that, it's also a great way to generate book discussions with friends (the few that I have who read!).

Want to be my friend on Goodreads? Click here. Happy reading!

Reading for Fun and Profit

2009-05-20T00:24:00.012-05:00

I've ploughed through two books of my reading list for my craft class in the fall so far: Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris, and Shining at the Bottom of the Sea by Stephen Marche. With this, I'd like to unveil a fancy right-hand sidebar addition to the blog, the "What I'm Reading" list. Yes, it's a very creative title. But for those of you who are interested, it's a simple listing of what I'm currently reading. Right now, it's Alone With All That Could Happen: Rethinking Conventional Wisdom About the Craft of Fiction by David Jauss, a craft book on fiction.

As for the other two books I've finished, "Then We Came to the End" and "Shining at the Bottom of the Sea," I'm glad to say they were both great reads. The Stephen Marche book is less my kind of reading material, as I quickly came to realize it was more metafiction than anything else. "Shining at the Bottom of the Sea" is an anthology of works derived from a made up country (Sanjania) and its culture. Craft-wise, it's a pretty brilliant book. Marche creates a whole population with its own customs, practices, value systems, dialects, and histories from the bottom up. Reading through the anthology of short stories, I really came to appreciate the breadth of Marche's writing prowess; he manages to write over a dozen stories, "authored" by over a dozen different writers, all of which have their own unique voices and stylistic tics. It's both amazing and intimidating.

However, for all of Marche's technical virtuosity, I found myself fundamentally enjoying Ferris' "Then We Came to the End" on a much more viseral level. Everyone reads for different purposes. Myself, I read to be moved, to laugh, to cry. Metafiction, unfortunately, does not do this for me. Joshua Ferris' book does. Written entirely in first person plural, "Then We Came to the End" follows an advertising agency office struggling to stay afloat during a time of layoffs and economic troubles. At first, I was dubious about the subject matter of the book; I didn't think I would care very much about the travails of a group of affluent upper-middle class people, but I was pleasantly surprised that the book became much more than that. Suffice to say, it manages to be a very emotionally satisfying read. Also, what's extraordinary about Ferris' book is that it, too, is technically remarkable -- writing a story that is almost entirely in first person plural ("we" and "our") is amazing. The fact is, a story such as this could have never been written without the first person plural point of view. The narrator, the "we" and "our," is an additional character, representing the crowd, with the kind of group think that occurs in an office of people whose backgrounds are all socioeconomically and culturally very similar. This group think is an important character, as they act and think as one, often with the maturity level of children, which leads to some very ridiculous decisions and situations, some of them more serious than others.

I can't even begin to imagine how Ferris managed to develop this voice, though I suspect it came from years and years of writing and rewriting. But that's an obvious answer, right? At any rate, I'm very glad to have finished two books on my list already. I'll be sure to share the remaining book titles as I tackle them in the weeks ahead.

Work, etc.

2009-05-15T00:32:00.001-05:00

How busy has your summer been so far? If it has been anything like mine, then the answer would probably be "very." Yet as early as a month ago, I was patting myself on the back for a job well done applying to all those schools last fall, thinking I'd take it easy over the summer, maybe read a few books, write a lot, and relax. Nope.

Not if you want to hit the ground running in your first year of grad school. Relatively speaking, of course. All the preparation in the world can't replace actually going to grad school. But you can do is prepare for the worst, and hope for the best. And preparing for the worst, I've found, is a lot of work. This summer, I have to:

Move from one city to another.
Write -- New, sparkly stories that will validate my program's confidence in me!
Read -- Read what, you may ask? A ton of stuff:

My professors' works.
Works for my upcoming craft class.
Textbooks for my TAship.
Anything else that I would normally read for fun. A low priority, considering what's listed above.

Prepare for my TAship.

The above list may look small. Innocent, even. But it is by no means easy. For example, for the last bullet point, I emailed the TA Director a few days ago, asking for some guidance on teaching preparation for the fall, and happily, he provided me with a great deal of information, of which were: two textbooks (Did you know that you can get those suckers for free if you contact the publishers and let them know you're teaching that class? Free stuff rules.), a syllabus, and some journal readings on topics that I'll be expected to teach. The reading, while not exactly tiny stuff, isn't what scares me about teaching, though. I don't mind work. It's the act of teaching, the whole getting up in front of twenty or so students, and talking for fifty minutes, three times a week. How in the heck do you prepare for that? The syllabus provides some structure in this respect. As will the week-long orientation for all teaching assistants before school starts. In fact, I'm fairly confident in the University's ability to prepare their students to teach come fall, yet the simple fact is that all the preparation in the world cannot replace the knowledge gained from actually experiencing something. I'm not scared of the prospect of teaching (okay, maybe I am just a little; I despise public speaking), I'm really more looking forward to the day where I don't have to consciously worry about it.

Amazon's Kindle

2009-05-13T14:47:00.010-05:00

Check it, the new Kindle DX. Discalimer: I do not represent or am affiliated with Amazon in any way. I am, however, a humongous technophile and a reading geek. So, you can imagine how great this new Kindle is to me. In addition to holding thousands of pounds of books in a light, easy to carry little tablet, the thing also supports magazines, textbooks, and newspapers, all downloadable at your fingertips. Hooray for an alternative financial model for the dying newspapers! It also supports PDF files, and has nifty graphics in black and white. No color, but I imagine that it'll be something that Amazon will be unveiling sometime down the road.

Now. Let's be honest. At $489, this item is not cheap. And if you want your New York Times or subscription to The Atlantic or any books at all, those are all additional fees on top of the extraordinarily expensive Kindle. Older versions will cost you about $350, which is (relatively) reasonable, but honestly, what writer (unless you're Stephen King) has that kind of change to spare? What's intriguing about the whole concept of downloadable content and media (in book and text form) is the way it could potentially change the way books are consumed and read. An electronic version of a book, one that can be bought and downloaded in the matter of minutes, anywhere, very much supports the kind of impulsive and "on-demand" buying pattern that the Internet currently feeds for things like video games and software. Want it? Have a credit card? It's yours, right now. A good thing for books, I think, if they are advertised and supported properly. At the same time, the electronic format (and the linked Wall Street Journal article above touches on this) also promotes a different type of reading pattern that a good old fashioned piece of paper does not. It makes reading more fractious, promotes skimming rather than an attention to detail. You can see it in the way media online is currently consumed. When was the last time you've read something you were only half interested in line by line in an online article? My reading habits and strategies massively shift depending on what medium it is in. Online, I tend to read more quickly, skimming articles, websites, and pages for key phrases and nuggets. When I find something that interests me, or that requires deeper attention, do I finally stop and give a deeper reading. Otherwise, if it doesn't attract me, I pass it over, and ignore it. This, I imagine, will be exacerbated with cheap, on-demand e-media. If a book -- bought relatively cheaply -- is easily gotten, easily downloaded, and easily loaded, how much attention will it be given if it doesn't grab a reader from the first page? The first paragraph? Easily gotten, also easily abandoned and forgotten. I've always considered buying books from the store as entering into a kind of agreement: no matter how long it takes me to get to the book or how long to read, I'll eventually finish it. More than it being 10-15 dollars in price, a physical book is a kind of reminder, sitting on your desk or bookshelf or whatever, until you go and read it, where it then transforms into a different kind of reminder, a reminder of how good (or bad) your memories of that book were everytime you see it. An e-book cannot do this. An e-book, if you don't like it, can be closed and filed away electronically. It disappears, and there is no physical reminder of your book, unless you actively go and look for it again in the file menu.

Some interesting things to think about -- both bad and good. Even though I believe the physical format will never go out of style, I do think the electronic format is the future. Just look at the music industry.

Funding 101

2009-04-28T21:23:00.003-05:00

Check it out: Seth Abramson's Funding Rankings on The Suburban Ecstasies. Fantastic stuff. I kind of wish I had this kind of resource when I was applying to schools last fall. Not that the knowledge would have changed my list (it wouldn't have), but rather, it would have provided a large measure of comfort for me in my decision making. To have a comprehensive list of schools, from one to fifty, documenting funding, length, and teaching load is nothing short of fantastic. It's a great read, regardless of whether you're currently (or will be) attending school or gearing up to apply for 2010.

As for the list itself, I am relatively unsurprised. To trumpet the University of Illinois' funding briefly, it comes as no shock to me that it ranks so highly at number three, as the University of Illinois manages to provide full funding for all its students through its incredibly tiny cohorts (three poets, three fiction writers a year) with many TA and internship opportunities. Every student teaches one section in their first year, and then two sections (or a combination of TAing and internships) in their remaining two years. TAing (based on previous years) gives an approximately $9,000 stipend. That totals ~$9K for the first year, and ~$18K for the remaining two. Combine that with the ridiculously low cost of living in Champaign-Urbana (single apartments go for $400-500, depending on how nice you want to go), and you have one of the best financial packages in the country. Surprised? I was too in my research of the program and subsequent acceptance. You'd figure that the University of Illinois would be a more widely regarded program based on the strength of its funding package alone. What most don't realize is that the University of Illinois is, relatively speaking, a very young program, established in just 2002.

Also unsurprising to me is the kind of footprint that Midwestern and Southern schools have on the list. Out of the top fifteen schools, seven are located in the Midwest -- University of Illinois, Indiana University, Ohio State University, Purdue University, Washington University at St. Louis, University of Michigan, and Southern Illinois University. In the top twenty, nine schools. The South, has six schools in the top fifteen, and nine in the top twenty. As I've intimated in previous posts, this kind of funding pattern is unsurprising. The major metropolitan areas in the United States -- the West Coast and East Coast, Chicago, etc. -- are replete with writers and writing communities by virtue of their large, concentrated populations. This is why so many schools located in these areas can sustain programs, some of them very prestigious, with little to no funding (Columbia, The New School, NYU, Northwestern). Simply, they don't need to offer their students funding; they have more than enough people living close by who are willing to pay full price. In contrast, the Midwest and the South, outside of the few major metropolitan areas, must provide aggressive funding packages to attract people out of necessity. To a writer living in Chicago or New York or Los Angeles, where many advantages of lifestyle and community are afforded to them, the prospect of moving to a town with a population of fifty thousand is made that much more appealing with the prospect of a fully funded program.

At any rate, Seth's list is an excellent jumping off point for anyone compiling a list of schools, especially if funding is one of your top priorities. It is important to note, however, that some schools, like the University of Minnesota, Syracuse, and Johns Hopkins, are all listed in the mid-thirties because of a lack of information in regards to their exact funding. I know all three programs fully fund their students, and probably quite well, however the lack of information unfortunately damages them in their standing -- how can you rank a school without any hard numbers? So I guess the lesson is, do your research. Regardless of Seth's wonderful funding list, I'd still apply to Syracuse and Johns Hopkins if I had to do it all over again.

Title Change

2009-04-24T00:41:00.002-05:00

You might notice the small change to the title of my blog up top: from "Applying to the MFA in Creative Writing" to simply "The MFA in Creative Writing."

While I'll definitely be monitoring the MFA application season closely come next fall, as I transition these next few months from applicant to student, I think the revised blog title will give a more accurate picture as to where I stand in the process.

And one last bit of obvious advice as we exit application season: always doublecheck the emails you send out to schools. In my emailed response to Columbia College's acceptance letter, I accidentally referenced Western Michigan instead of Columbia College. A horrible, horrible mistake. Thankfully, the person who responded to me was more than gracious amidst my embarrassment, and didn't grind it in my face. You'd think an editor like me would have the chops to read and reread the emails he sends out to schools.

The Last One

2009-04-22T21:59:00.003-05:00

A letter was waiting in the mail for me today: an acceptance from Columbia College. Nothing much to say, as I've obviously already made my decision, but it's nice to get a final word on the final school. I immediately emailed them my "thanks, but no thanks."

Summer Reading

2009-04-22T12:00:00.012-05:00

I've been neglecting the blog for the past week or so, trying to get my moving situation to Champaign straightened out. The good news: I have an apartment, so I won't be homeless come fall.

At any rate, I received an email from one of my professors a couple weeks ago letting me know what we'd be reading in our craft class for the fall. And I don't know about the rest of you, but this is the kind of stuff that geeks me out. Books. Craft stuff. The kinds of books that can and will be taken apart, page by page, word by word. It's interesting, because I didn't always use to be this way. In high school, I absolutely hated those English classes, the ones where you read The Scarlett Letter or Jane Austen and then dissect it to death in a sort of faux-democratic style of consensus on what we thought about the book... except they weren't really our thoughts or opinions; they were the thoughts and opinions of the teachers, as dictated by their syllabus. And realistically, who in the world would expect 15-year-olds to express critical thinking about books that are completely outside of their realm of knowledge and world experience? Much less books that all took place before the 1900s? Why should they care? I often look back on those high school years with disgust. Is it any wonder why the population of active readers and book buyers decrease year after year? It's as if we wanted to ruin an entire generation to the idea of reading for pleasure during their most formative years.

Okay. That was a huge tangent and rant. Back to summer reading. The list of books as provided by my professor is about 6-8 titles long, including two craft books. Now, no one would ever accuse me of being well prepared, but being the nerd that I am, I went out and ordered three of the books from Amazon to get a head start. They are Alone With All That Could Happen: Rethinking Conventional Wisdom About the Craft of Fiction by David Jauss, Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris, and Shining at the Bottom of the Sea by Stephen Marche. Interestingly, I had the David Jauss book already marked for purchase six months ago -- I'm a huge sucker for craft books. And I've heard about the Joshua Ferris book, written completely in first person plural, which should be a great study, but I'm most intrigued by the Stephen Marche book -- a completely fabricated anthology about the island of Sanjania. In it, he creates a country and its culture from the ground up, which, to me, is nothing short of fascinating. As a writer, such a concept sounds so incredibly large and imposing. I have a hard enough time fabricating the lives and histories of invididuals and their families, and I simply cannot fathom doing the same for a population, a country, an entire culture. Heady stuff. I can't wait to get started reading.

Retrospective: The Statement of Purpose

2009-04-15T18:03:00.011-05:00

In light of Graduate School Deadline Day™, I thought I'd share a copy of the Statement of Purpose I submitted to all the MFA programs I applied to:

My primary goals for pursuing an MFA degree are to significantly improve my writing and to become an integral part of a vibrant, close-knit writing community. To me, both of these goals are intertwined. It is difficult to improve as a writer without the feedback of peers, and similarly, one cannot be a successful member of a writing community without the rigorous application to craft. As such, I have been fortunate to be a part of the same close writing group for the past two years. Through my group’s honest and careful feedback, my writing has vastly improved, and as a result, I have had two of my short stories published: in the Concho River Review, Fall 2007 Issue, and in the Potomac Review, Fall 2008 Issue. I know that without their support, I would not be anywhere near the writer I am today.

By the same token, I understand I still have a great deal to learn. There are many aspects of craft that continue to elude me. For example, I would like to know how to effectively utilize an unreliable narrator, or how to transition from a third-person limited point of view to an omniscient point of view within a single scene. These techniques can only be improved through instruction, careful study, and access to knowledgeable professors. In essence, the intense academic environment provided by the University of Illinois’ MFA program is something that cannot be replicated. I would relish the opportunity to work with and be critiqued by fellow students and professors in such a setting.

In addition to writing, I have various professional and personal strengths to offer to the University of Illinois’ MFA program. Currently, I work as an editor in the newswire industry. In my three years in this position, I have not only been promoted from Associate to Senior Editor, but have also gained extensive experience in the areas of copy editing, professional writing, and documentation writing. Additionally, spending time in a professional environment has taught me the discipline necessary to complete large and small projects on a daily basis. I am more than confident that my real world experience has equipped me with the skills and habits needed to be a successful member of an MFA program.

I am interested in the University of Illinois’ MFA program because of its blend of writing workshops, literature classes, and elective courses on publishing, professional writing, and teaching. The emphasis on a practical range of topics related to creative writing is something that I value highly in a program. I also appreciate the three-year program the University of Illinois provides for its students. While I would savor any chance to study writing at an elite MFA program, a third year would provide more time to research and complete a full manuscript. Additionally, I believe I have much to offer to the University of Illinois. My years of professional experience in copy editing, combined with my personal experience as a contributing member of a close-knit writing community, provides me with a great understanding of what it takes to be a part of a successful program.

Obviously, this SOP varied from school to school. I didn't alter it too much, but I did apply some liberal editing to the last paragraph based on the school, and details specific to each school. I personally think my SOP is a bit wooden, and definitely on the professional side. But then, much of my formal writing experience is steeped in professional and business writing, and I'd be lying if I said that this style wasn't comfortable for me for the Statement of Purpose. Should everyone utilize this voice? Of course not. Being natural in voice and style is important; like writing stories, people can tell when you're faking it.

I should probably include another paragraph of text. Below is a snippet that I placed in some of my SOPs (usually appearing after the second paragraph of the above Statement of Purpose) to the schools that would allow over 500 words:

In regards to my writing, I am interested in exploring the issues of community and culture as it relates to the children of immigrants -- first generation immigrants -- in the United States. I was born and raised in the mostly Caucasian, middle class suburbs of Chicago, yet grew up in a primarily Chinese household. Like my parents, I was not only a minority in name and appearance, but also in culture and community. Most of our family friends were Chinese, I attended Chinese school every Sunday for five years, and we spent entire summers visiting family in Hong Kong. Yet, unlike my parents, being an American was also a far larger part of my identity than it was to them. First generation immigrants are embedded in both cultures, and often, embracing one comes at the expense of the other. To a child or a teenager, this dichotomy is made more complex with issues of identity as it pertains to adolescence and becoming an adult. I want my writing to occupy this space of tension, where to a child, their culture, community, and identity are multi-faceted, complex issues.

A dash of personal background and writing interest. Did it help? To be honest, probably not. It certainly didn't hurt, though. Of all the schools that either waitlisted or accepted me, two (Western Michigan University and Roosevelt) received the "personal" version, and two (the University of Illinois and Notre Dame) received the "vanilla" version. Purdue's case was special, as they asked for an additional written statement answering the questions: "Whose work do you admire? What collection of poetry and/or works of fiction read in the last year have been important to you, and why?" It was fairly simple for me to fold in that one paragraph with some immigrant fiction I had been reading and which were important to me.

In general, I think this is an interesting point, because I had readers who, in general, liked the additional paragraph in my SOP. It gave it a "personal" touch. I, however, was rather ambivalent about the extra paragraph. It felt a little out of place in terms of tone and content. And if a school has even gotten to your SOP, it stands to reason that they've already read and loved your manuscript, and are simply making sure you are a fairly driven, yet normal individual. You hear it over and over again: the manuscript comes first. Which is the reason why, given everything -- the dozens of drafts and the dozens of hours I spent on my SOP -- the Statement of Purpose seems to me both less important and as important as you think. It's fairly important that you try to convey an honest and interesting portrayal of yourself in the SOP. For me, this was utilizing a businesslike approach. Yet, at the same time, there's probably a fairly easy watermark to pass, kind of like a "you must be this sane to ride" type of deal.

But I don't want to dismiss the inherent value in the personal details expressed in the Statement of Purpose. When I first met the Director of the University of Illinois' program, the first few questions she asked me were related to the information and details in my SOP. I was struck by that. In a way, it was her first impression of me as a person, which is something you can never take too lightly.

Retrospective: The Importance of Choosing Wisely

2009-04-14T12:02:00.017-05:00

The list of schools you choose to apply to is important. Even before you start applying in the months of November, December, and January, the very act of choosing is important. Why? The list is a malleable thing, right? If you don't like this school, just remove it, and if you like that school, just add it? Which is true. In fact, I was constantly tinkering with my school list weeks, days before I was set to start applying. I added a couple schools at the last second on a whim. I removed one on another whim. There's no doubt that choosing where to apply to is more art than science; these are the realities of applying to grad school. And if I had unlimited resources with unlimited man-hours, I would have applied to every last school in the country. But that's the problem -- who has over a thousand bucks to spare? Who has forty, fifty hours of free time to spend on applying to grad schools during the holidays? Resources are finite, and when applying, even if it is as many schools as twelve, thirteen, fourteen, you truly have to make every one count.

Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way. As wise man Tom Kealey says, there are many factors that one should keep in mind when compiling a list, each of which have varying degrees of importance, depending on the individual. But they are (in no particular order): funding, location, faculty, prestige, length of program, size of cohort. Give or take a few factors, depending on your personal preference. For me, funding and location trumped the list, which I imagine it probably did (and will) for many individuals. But let's forget about the what was most important to me. I think at the end of it all, there's an exceedingly important question everyone has to ask themselves before sinking the time, money, and energy into applications, a question that I did not always ask myself in compiling my schools list: When faced with a hypothetical acceptance from a particular school with no other acceptances, would you be able to, hands down, take that offer? This question obviously scales with what's important to you on the list. If funding is vital, then you'd have to ask yourself the same question, except include the "worst case scenario" funding situation -- ie, accepted to Columbia, but with no funding. Would you still take the offer with no other prospects on the horizon?

I know this seems like an exceedingly obvious question to ask, building a "worst case scenario" situation, but I can't tell you how difficult it was to be this honest with myself in creating the list. There was a tremendous pull to just throw any school that met my minimum standards on the list, and let them sort it out in the end. The problem was that this strategy was unreasonable when it came to application time. Was it really realistic to spend around $80 on application fees, printing materials, postage, and countless man-hours on a school in another state, another timezone that ultimately provided little to no funding? For me, such a scenario was unrealistic. While it's true that the first application is really the hardest, each following application did not become linearly easier to compile with time. If anything, the complexity of assembling all the materials stayed the same -- I simply became more adept with putting it together. And yet, I cannot tell you how many hours I spent checking and rechecking each item to make sure I had every "i" dotted, and still made significant mistakes; one on my manuscript, another on my applications. Mistakes can and will happen.

I guess what I'm saying is that my list could've been better constructed, with what I now know and what I have experienced. I don't regret the outcome, not for a second. Yet I wonder what my application season would've looked like had I omitted Syracuse (for location reasons) and Western Michigan (for funding reasons) from the list. If every other school had rejected me, save for WMU, I doubt that I would've been able to attend without a sniff of funding. If Syracuse had accepted me, I wonder how easy it would have been for me to say yes, based on personal situations. Would I have been better served to add the University of Minnesota and Southern Illinois in place of those schools? Who knows. Choosing between 2-4 acceptances is tough enough. Having to choose between waiting for next year's application season and an unfunded offer (or worse, a fully funded offer that you can't attend for personal/locational reasons) is tougher.

The Semi-Final List

2009-04-10T23:20:00.011-05:00

Everyone loves lists. Here's mine (the semi-final version, with one school's response still yet unheard):

University of Illinois - officially accepted
Western Michigan University - accepted (turned down)
Roosevelt University (Chicago) - accepted (turned down)
Purdue University - waitlisted * (turned down)
University of Notre Dame - waitlisted (turned down)
University of Michigan - rejected
Washington University - rejected
University of Iowa - rejected
Indiana University - rejected
Syracuse University - rejected
Ohio State University - rejected
Johns Hopkins - rejected
Columbia College (Chicago) - no answer

* Purdue's selection process relies on a system where the top 15-20 candidates for poetry and fiction each are selected. Out of these candidates, the final slots are eventually filled with permission from the Director of Composition, who has final say. This selection process works as a kind of quasi-waitlist. Details of Purdue's process can be found here.

Some observations. A wise man would tell you that the MFA selection process is at times an incredibly luck-based and arbitrary process. There are countless stories of people getting into Iowa and being rejected from a small state school in the same year. Yet when examining my list, where I got in and waitlisted, and where I did not, there seems, at least to me, an obvious pattern. Simply, that I couldn't crack the very elite schools, the schools that populate the top 20, top 15 lists -- Syracuse, Iowa, Indiana, John Hopkins, Michigan. It seems like a simple enough explanation: I simply wasn't good enough this year. But although I love the simple explanations, I also think it's a little more complicated than that.

There's the obvious question of sample size. Thirteen schools and one year's worth of data is far too little for any meaningful result. And what about school aesthetics? I've also found in my communication with other potential MFAers this year that there seems to be an extremely high correlation between folks who got accepted into Illinois, who also got an offer from Purdue (or waitlisted) and Notre Dame, and vice versa. Coincidence? I don't know. You expect some measure of overlap between the students that schools will fight over -- talent is talent -- but I counted, including myself, about a half dozen people who got a positive response from more than one of the schools I mentioned above. That is an extremely high number for schools that will only have incoming cohorts of 3-5 students apiece. In my opinion, there's definitely a case of school specific aesthetics in play here. And uncoincidentally, it's also a regional pattern -- the schools in the same locations will get a huge overlap of students applying to all or most of the schools in the same general area.

Speculation, of course. All I have to go off of are the schools I've researched and read. I do wonder if these patterns appear in other regions as well. What about the schools in Florida? New York? North Carolina? If I were a betting man, I'd wager that there'd be an overlapping pattern of schools with similar aesthetics, along with a regional pattern of schools pulling from similar application bases and certain locations.

Winding Down

2009-04-05T10:43:00.003-05:00

This next week and a half will be a mad dash for those who are anxiously sitting on their waitlist spots, as people eventually make their decisions before April 15. Good luck! I'll be out of town during the upcoming week, and won't be making any posts in the meantime. However, when I get back, I do intend to do a full retrospective: what did I do wrong, what did I do right, and most importantly, what did I learn? I'm sure I'll have a lot to share; I also intend to post my statement of purpose, verbatim, as well as some other things. So we're not quite done yet (at least, not if you're an MFA nerd, like me).

Decision Time

2009-04-01T00:50:00.004-05:00

I've finally figured out how to add photos to my posts, and just in time too. As one can probably guess by the image, I've made a decision. Illinois will be my school, and Champaign-Urbana will be where I live for the next three years, and I couldn't be happier. In doing so, I've turned down my waitlist spot at Notre Dame, my spots at Roosevelt and Western Michigan, and my quasi-waitlist spot at Purdue. I hope they are of use to other individuals out there.

My visit to the campus on Monday was nothing short of fantastic. While I had always known that the faculty were helpful and enthusiastic in my communication with them, I was pleasantly surprised to find out how close-knit the student body was as well. They made my decision an easy one, and I look forward to working with them in the fall.

Now here is that part where I shamelessly plug my program: Why am I so excited about the University of Illinois?

It is a three-year, fully funded program. What does fully funded mean? You get approximately 11-12 thousand for the first year, and about 18 thousand for the remaining two years. That's incredible for a town as cheap as Champaign-Urbana.
You get to teach, a lot. In your first year, you teach one class, the second and third years, two classes. This may not appeal to everyone, but the prospect of teaching at the college level fills me with both excitement and dread. But mostly excitement.
If you don't want to teach so much, you can do other things. The great thing about the program is that you can forgo one of those teaching classes in your second and/or third years for other internship opportunities. There are individuals in the program who work with the program's lit magazine, Ninth Letter, who TA for biology classes, etc. There's a ton of flexibility with what you can do, which speaks to the value placed on the MFA students.
I mentioned this above, but there's a tremendous opportunity to work with the literary magazine, Ninth Letter. Not only is it a great resource to learn about the publishing industry, but you also to get to read slush! Okay, so most people wouldn't be excited by that, but I am. I'm also a glutton for punishment.
It's all about the people. I've always been a "big program" kind of guy, have always equated my prospects of meeting other great, decent people and writers as a pure numbers game -- the more people in your program, the greater chance you have to meet others of the same mind. But it's surprising how sometimes what you've always thought you wanted will often be vastly different from what you actually need. From what I can tell, the small community at the University of Illinois is close and supportive -- really, all I can ask for. Plus, I was fortunate to meet some of my prospective class while there, and they all appear to be great people. I can't wait to bring in U of I's class of 2009 with them.

I could go on, but I think I'll shut my trap for now. I know decisions are still being made, rejections and acceptances are still being issued, and funding situations still have to be hashed out. Good luck to everyone out there still waiting, hoping, and deciding. April 15th can't come soon enough.

News and Notes

2009-03-27T17:10:00.005-05:00

Seth has debuted another lengthy and thought-provoking article on his The Suburban Ecstasies, which can be accessed here: "The Best and Worst of 2008-9 Application Season." Not really a strict "best" or "worst" list, Seth's article is more a rumination on what MFA programs he thinks are headed up or down and everything in between. Really interesting stuff, but I think it's important to keep in mind that these are but one person's opinions, and as knowledgeable as Seth is on the subject of MFA programs, it would be unreasonable to expect him to wield expertise on all 300+ programs in the country, and similarly, to rely on his words alone as gospel. Nothing can replace meaningful individual research of a program.

In other news, I checked up on my Ohio State application status online, and found that I was rejected. Word on the MFA Blog is that nearly everyone's application has been updated, so check it out if you haven't heard from OSU yet. Annoyingly, I had to click on about three different buttons just to get to this view just to get the following message: "Your application for admission was not approved." Weaksauce. I was under no illusions that at this point in the game an OSU acceptance or waitlist was even possible, but a nicely worded rejection this is not. Here's hoping that the actual letter is a little more tactful.

The Dreaded Visit

2009-03-25T13:53:00.006-05:00

I've finally managed to find a clearing in my work schedule, and have set up a visit to the University of Illinois campus this weekend, March 29-30. I say "the dreaded visit" in the title of this post not because I don't want to visit, but because I have an almost allergic aversion to meeting new people, much less meeting new people that I inexplicably feel like I need to impress. Which makes no sense. Their aim is to impress me, not the other way around, right? Chalk it up to my neurotic personality.

At any rate, the application calendar season, while almost over with just three weeks left until April 15, is far from definitively finished for many applicants. Scanning the usual MFA resources (MFA Blog, the Speakeasy, TSE), it's clear that there are still countless individuals waiting to hear from half, sometimes nearly all their prospective schools. It strikes me as almost crazy that some people, through no fault of their own, have yet to hear from the majority of their schools with just three weeks to go. Uprooting your entire life and potentially moving halfway across the country in just four months is no small feat for any person. Throw in a girlfriend/boyfriend/significant other/wife/husband/children, then you've got a whole world of things to do, to prepare for, to worry about, never mind the whole process of actually considering offers between different schools and the hundreds of variables that can come out of that. Stress wrapped in a handbasket to say the least, and I haven't even mentioned wait lists. My heart goes out to all those who are still currently sitting on their hands, waiting for the phone to ring or the inbox to fill up. My advice? Call or email the program. We're sitting at three weeks from the April 15 deadline, and something (rude response or otherwise) is better than sitting in limbo.

Rejection #6

2009-03-21T11:59:00.003-05:00

My Johns Hopkins rejection finally arrived yesterday in the mail. A nice, personalized letter with my full name printed on it, as well as (as far as I can tell) a signature by the Chairman in real ink. It may sound silly, but I found it a nice touch in what is often a very impersonal process. That leaves three schools (counting Purdue) I'm waiting to hear final word from. Then I can get down to the business of choosing the program where I'll spend the next two to three years of my life.

Tuesday Review

2009-03-17T11:25:00.010-05:00

A rejection on Monday, via mail. The culprit: Syracuse. Not a big surprise, like the other rejections. This one is less painful than most of the others, as I'd been just waiting for the letter at this point, and the idea of picking up and moving all the way to the state of New York was a little unrealistic. It's good to know for sure, however.

Also an acceptance today, via phone call, from Roosevelt University at Chicago, which I unfortunately had to turn down.

At any rate, this past week and a half has been a doozy, by far the busiest in terms of rejection and acceptance news. It is interesting how in the course of five weeks (from the beginning of February to the first week of March) I got four responses, and in the last week and a half, I got six more. I guess this time of year is the real active part of the season. The revised list:

University of Illinois - accepted
Western Michigan University - accepted
Roosevelt University (Chicago) - accepted
Purdue University - waitlisted *
University of Notre Dame - waitlisted
University of Michigan - rejected
Washington University - rejected
University of Iowa - rejected
Indiana University - rejected
Syracuse University - rejected

* Purdue's selection process relies on a system where the top 15-20 candidates for poetry and fiction each are selected. Out of these candidates, the final slots are eventually filled with permission from the Director of Composition, who has final say. This selection process works as a kind of quasi-waitlist. Details of Purdue's process can be found here.

No news:

Ohio State University
Johns Hopkins
Columbia College (Chicago)

Waitlist #2

2009-03-14T15:24:00.006-05:00

My prayers to the gods of Acceptance and Rejection Letters last night must've been heard, because I received some nice news today in the mail. A waitlist letter from the University of Notre Dame. Very exciting.

Realistically speaking, I am about 95% sure I won't be able to go to Notre Dame, even if an offer opens up. Based on what I know about Notre Dame, they offer full tuition waivers for all their students (which is extremely nice), but only two funded TA positions. Chances are, any slot that becomes available will be one that provides no extra funding assistance (it stands to reason that the individuals who receive the TA positions are the ones least likely to turn down their offer), which makes Notre Dame a difficult call in comparison to my other offers. And it's definitely a shame, since Notre Dame is such a highly regarded program, with a wicked faculty. But my decision, once I make it, will open up the waitlist line a little bit for others, so keep hope alive!

A Rejection and an Acceptance

2009-03-13T19:24:00.012-05:00

Received rejection number four today, from Indiana University. A long time coming, really, and I can't say I'm terribly surprised. For a while, though, I was holding out hope that I was perhaps waitlisted, due to lack of response. Add to the fact that I've always held a special place in my heart for Indiana's focus on diversity in their MFA program makes the outcome a little disappointing, personally speaking. As a writer and a minority, I've always tried to make it a point to immerse myself in an environment that fosters diversity in not only skin color, but culture, voice, and experience. I have no doubt I'll be able to find this in whatever program and school I go to, but I'd be lying if I said this rejection didn't sting just a little.

My acceptance came via email from Western Michigan University. I'm pretty excited with the acceptance, with WMU possessing a fine program with a great faculty. Unfortunately, the offer is unfunded (I had been expecting there to be partial funding, based on my research of previous years), and based on a post with another Western Michigan acceptee (to the PhD program), it seems as if WMU does not have as much funding to provide their students this year as they have in previous years. This, of course, is complete hearsey on my part, so take it with a grain of salt. At any rate, a completely unfunded offer -- however prestigious the program -- is a tough pill to swallow, especially in comparison to the other offers I have on the table.

News and Notes

2009-03-12T11:44:00.007-05:00

On the MFA Blog a day ago, a poster informed that all the Syracuse acceptance offers have gone out (whether by mail or phonecall is unclear), and there is a waitlist of ten. The poster is on the waitlist and received notification by mail, so it appears that at least the waitlisters will get letters. I've also read a couple of posts of people receiving rejection letters from Syracuse already, so I'm assuming that everyone will receive letters of confirmation or rejection either way in a week or so.

A bit of good news for me. I received an email the other night from the director of Purdue's MFA program informing me that I was still in contention for their program, and asking that I sit tight. It was a very kind email, and very encouraging. In light of what I know about how Purdue selects their candidates (taken from the MFA Faculty Forum I), and in light of my current status, I feel fairly confident in assuming that I've been waitlisted by Purdue, regardless of what happens. At any rate, I'm trying as hard as I can not to count my chickens before all my eggs have hatched. I'm on a prospective list of up to twenty other fiction writers, all contending for about two remaining fiction slots. It's not exactly great odds, especially assuming the greatly elevated level of competition. All I can do at this point is cross my fingers.

** UPDATE **

A vigilant poster on TSE contacted Notre Dame and revealed that "letters (and all MFA-related activity) is running at least two weeks behind schedule." Ack. Someone did indeed post an acceptance on TSE on Monday to Notre Dame by phone call. I'm going to hedge and hypothesize that it is one of those "early" acceptances where the school notifies their top candidate(s) with their best funding package. At any rate, it looks like we're going to be at least a week or two waiting for any further word (acceptances, waitlists, rejections) from Notre Dame. Sit tight.

Update

2009-03-10T11:08:00.007-05:00

A small bit of news. A generous poster on the Speakeasy Forums notified that he/she had been accepted into Notre Dame's MFA program for fiction by phone call yesterday afternoon. No word on whether all acceptances will be contacted by phone call or not; however, this person did say that the official acceptances will be arriving by mail next week. Since Notre Dame's program is small (5 fiction, 5 poetry), I'd expect them to be able to call all their prospects in the next few days, though this is just speculation on my part.

Like most people at this point, I have but a handful of actual rejections, and probably a half dozen or so implied rejections running around on my list. What to do? I'd prefer to give the University of Illinois an answer on their generous offer sooner rather than later, which is predicated on a handful of schools that I'd seriously consider offers from (in comparison to U of I's program, location, and outstanding funding) -- schools such as Purdue, Notre Dame, and Indiana University. The lack of a rejection letter keeps me in a sort of decision limbo. So as much as I hate it, I have resolved to contact the schools that I at least know have sent out acceptance and rejection letters to some of their students already (Purdue) by the end of the week. While I'd rather not bother anyone and remain comfortably anonymous through the whole process, the allure of knowing rather than just fantasizing about being on some phantom waitlist -- or worse, accepted, I just don't know yet, which is another level of delusion -- is too powerful. I need the rejection in hard writing. End of story. Move on to school number two.

I know there are many others out there who are in the same situation of "limbo rejection." How are you dealing with it? Any plans on contacting schools, coping with it?

What's on tap? (Part 2)

2009-03-06T23:11:00.011-06:00

Coming up this weekend and next week:

Rejection letters from Johns Hopkins, expected by early next week, if not tomorrow. Rejection letters from Syracuse, too. Supposedly, the rumor on The Suburban Ecstasies is that the faculty at Notre Dame are finalizing their acceptances this week, and will start to notify next week. I know, I said the same thing last week, sorry! That's the problem with rumors. The big question, though: where the heck is my Purdue rejection letter?

Link of the week:

Wordle -- A glorified word counting utility, really, but it's actually pretty cool. Enter your story (or poem) into the application, press "Go," and watch your words populate into a word cloud. The most frequent words will appear in larger font, all the way down to the less (proportionally) frequent words. This site's also pretty interesting in determining what words you may rely on too much. I placed one of my application stories in it and got "like" as the most frequent word. Apparently I rely a lot on similes. That, or my main character talks like a valley girl.

Rejection #3

2009-03-04T20:59:00.004-06:00

Iowa rejection is number three, via mail. The letter itself is short and sweet, fifty words at most. Interesting bit of information: "This year, eight hundred forty-two people applied for twenty-five spaces." That's for fiction, which is a 3% acceptance rate. Yikes. There's also been rumblings about how the school has had to make financial cuts this year due to the economy and flood damages, and how some of the funding money that would've normally been there in previous years (at least for the first year students) isn't there this year. While an acceptance would've been nice, I have to wonder how hard of a decision it would've been to get an acceptance from the top writing school in the country, but with no financial support at all. Silver lining, but I'm glad I don't have to make that choice.

Rejection #2

2009-03-02T15:03:00.010-06:00

The Michigan rejection came in the mail today, and like the Washington University rejection, this one is very kind, very gracious. A snippet: "Please know that our decision is meant to negate neither your talent nor your prospects -- it is simply our collective judgment that others have first claim on our attention at present... We wish you every success in pursuing further study." I know a rejection by any other name is still a rejection, but I am nonetheless incredibly grateful for the supportive and kind words, even if they are in stock letter form.

Also interesting, the letter quoted that "this was among the most impressive group of applicants in the program's history, and also the most numerous," accepting fewer than "5% of our applicants." I'm sure they say that every year is among their "most impressive group of applicants," but in terms of pure numbers, I had heard that Michigan had received more than 700 applications this year, which, of course, goes hand in hand with plummeting acceptance rates. With application numbers being quoted as being up across the board anywhere from 50-100%, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone how competitive this year is and will continue to be in comparison to years past.

At any rate, it's good to finally know about Michigan. That brings my batting average to one out of three, which I fully expect to get much worse in the coming days:

University of Illinois - accepted
University of Michigan - rejected
Washington University - rejected

Schools that I expect rejections from, based on news/already notified acceptances/general pessimism:

University of Iowa
Ohio State University
Indiana University
Purdue University
John Hopkins

And the rest (schools that have had little to no acceptance news as of yet):

University of Notre Dame
Syracuse University
Western Michigan University
Columbia College (Chicago)
Roosevelt University (Chicago)

What's on tap?

2009-02-27T16:33:00.008-06:00

Coming up next week:

Rejection letters from Michigan. Rejection (and maybe some acceptance?) letters from Iowa. And word that Notre Dame is finalizing their fiction acceptances. They may be contacting those fine people as early as next week. But don't quote me on that last one.

A couple links:

If the desire to write a book about Africa should ever strike you, read this essay first: http://www.granta.com/Magazine/92/How-to-Write-About-Africa?view=articleAllPages.

Racialicious Blog -- Okay, so the title's a little flaky, but the content is incredible. From the site: "Racialicious is a blog about the intersection of race and pop culture." Race? Pop culture? What's not to like?

Rejection Time

2009-02-26T19:17:00.005-06:00

Got my first non-implied rejection today, from Washington University (in St. Louis) via mail, which was expected. Don't really feel bad or good about it; I think relieved is the most accurate word. Not relieved at being rejected by a quality school, mind you, but relieved that I can finally cross it off my list and move on. I know I have several "implied" rejections running around in the back of my mind (yes, I know, there's no such thing as an implied rejection, but I'm much better at giving advice than taking it), which has been an unending source annoyance and stress. But then, we've all been going through this.

About halfway through the season. Cheers!

The Science of Acceptances

2009-02-22T11:23:00.009-06:00

A lot of things happened this week in the world of MFA acceptances. (All of this info is, of course, courtesy of Seth Abramson's The Suburban Ectasies.)

A bunch of the top 50 programs started sending out their acceptances: Michigan 2/18, Iowa 2/18, Massachusetts at Amherst 2/17-2/18, Washington 2/19, Syracuse 2/20, and so on. What can we interpret from these string of acceptances if you did not receive a phone call, an email, or a letter in the mail? Not much, I'm afraid. Each school's process is so vastly different. From what I've been able to gather, for example, Michigan sends out their acceptances (as they have in years past) via email, in one single blast. They do the same with their waitlists the next day. Chances are, then, that if you did not receive an email from them on 2/18 or 2/19, then there is a heavy suggestion of an implied rejection. But it gets murkier with other schools. The first word of acceptance from Iowa came on 2/18 via phone call. However, people are still receiving calls from Iowa as of this post today -- Sunday -- and further still I've heard that there are people who receive acceptances via email later. And then, of course, this all gets murkier with the majority of other programs, the ones with much smaller classes -- say, 3-5 people accepted in either poetry or fiction -- like Purdue, Illinois, or Minnesota. Their recorded acceptances, according to the Suburban Ectasies?

Purdue: 2/11 (poetry), then five days later, 2/16 (fiction)
Illinois: 1/31 (fiction), then over a week later, 2/9 (poetry)
Minnesota: 1/23 (fiction, poetry), then three weeks later, 2/18 (fiction, creative non-fiction)

Understanding each school's pattern of acceptances, when they will come, in what form, and why is like reading tea leaves. Certainly, there are explanations, reasonable explanations, for this seemingly random scatter of acceptances. For example, you could conclude from these dates that a school like Purdue or Illinois probably has each specialty's faculty (fiction or poetry) notify their students on their own schedule, separate of each other. You could also conclude from Minnesota's numbers that they do a sort of rolling acceptance -- a few here, a few there. And even further, to quote Seth: "...programs often admit one or two persons early, with an eye toward nominating them for some kind of fellowship or special aid dispensation..." Important, because those early early acceptances by some of these schools may not necessarily represent ALL of their fiction or poetry slots.

The point of all this? Simply, there are many possible reasons for why and when a school contacts a student, all of them plausible, but at the end of the day, it's still speculation. The fact is, a school like Notre Dame has been recorded as accepting someone for poetry on 2/6, and no one else. But is this completely true? Their classes are relatively small (10 acceptances, five in poetry and fiction, I assume), which means that out of the hundreds of applications received, only ten people truly know if they've been accepted, and the decision to share that information is theirs. What if they didn't know about the resources such as the Speakeasy forums, Seth's Suburban Ecstasies, the MFA Blog? And even if they did, who says that they'd want to share them publicly? Those acceptances, for all intents and purposes would've been like they've never existed if they weren't reported. The point is, for all of Seth's incredibly hard work with the community and his database of acceptances, we're still looking at a sample size that is probably only a fraction (perhaps a large fraction) of the true MFA applicant population.

I have no doubt that as the years go by, and as the MFA community becomes better informed, with more transparency on both ends -- with both the schools involved and the applying population -- we'll get a more holistic view of acceptance times that is much more accurate. Heck, the acceptance database right now is pretty darn accurate as is. But it is absolutely NOT the complete picture, the end all, be all. As Seth and countless others have reiterated over and over again, an implied rejection (hearing nothing) from a school is not a rejection at all. Until one gets that sheet of paper in the mail, keep hope alive!

AWP

2009-02-16T11:51:00.014-06:00

Fun, fun, fun. The AWP Conference in Chicago was the first AWP Conference I've ever attended -- the second writer's conference I've been to. The first one was Indiana University's Summer Writing Conference in 2006, which was incredibly fun as well. It was there that I met two of the three group members of my current writing group, and it was there that the lessons of writing were truly ingrained in me -- writing on a daily basis, taking risks with voice and character, etc. -- but where IU's conference was small, intimate, and personal, with only 200-250 people attending at the most, the AWP Conference was huge. Sprawling. Taking place at the Hilton Chicago Hotel in the loop (downtown, for all you non-Chicagoans), there were thousands of writers, milling around, talking about craft, lecturing on craft, reading from their works, inspiring each other. It was incredible. I'd never been in that kind of atmosphere before, not on that level anyway, and it really blew my mind. That there would be so many people in one place, all of them invested in the one thing that, really, no one outside of the community even knew existed: writing.

A not-so-short list of the things I did, the things I loved, and the things I noticed at the AWP Conference:

AWP Swag: A nifty all-cloth (with zipper) AWP tote bag. A lanyard with my name on it. A shiny, bible-thick guidebook in every tote bag. A nifty little highlighter with the AWP logo on it.
Seminar of the weekend: "Midwest Confidential" with Barrie Jean Borich, Bao Phi, Ander Monson, Andre Perry, Ira Sukrungruang, Cheryl Strayed. Being a Midwestern nerd (I'll coin the phrase right now, why not?), I'm very interested in and often write about the experiences of Midwesterners. This seminar featured a writer from the Southeast suburbs of Chicago, a writer from a small town in Minnesota, a writer from the upper peninsula in Michigan, a Vietnamese writer raised in Minnesota, a Thai writer raised in Chicago, and an African American writer in Iowa City. And, as you can imagine, all of their experiences are wildly different. If that isn't a slice of America so perfectly encapsulated in the Midwest, I don't know what is.
Most frustrating seminar of the weekend: "Hip-hop and the Future of the Black Writer." The title is pretty self explanatory, and I had been hoping that the presenters would speak to problems and possible solutions on the synthesis of popular culture and hip hop (especially with the younger generation), and literature. But there was actually very little attention given to the subject of writing. Instead, it was dominated (despite a couple of very interesting essays) by platitudes on hip-hop and children. I was a bit disappointed that I was unable to take anything away from that seminar.
Writers I got to see read: Stuart Dybek, Charles Baxter. Charles Baxter was replacing a sick James Alan McPherson, and read passages from Mr. McPherson's work and some of his own. Mr. Baxter's reading was particularly moving. I'd never heard him read before, and he has this very deliberate manner about him -- in speech and mannerisms -- which made for a captivating show. Never mind the fact that his short stories are wonderful.
Writers whose seminars I got to sit in on: Robert Olen Butler, Steve Almond, Achy Obejas, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Robert Boswell. I was a little starstruck to be in the same room as Robert Olen Butler, who spoke very passionately about the value of life experience for writing. Also, Luis Urrea is a fantastic speaker. He tells great stories, and has an absolutely wicked sense of humor.
Attended a fundraiser for a lit mag. Swanky. In one of the penthouse suites at the top of the hotel with an absolutely gorgeous view of the lakefront.
Sat in on ten seminars in total. Five on the first day, two on the second, and three on the final day. I quickly learned that pacing is key. Doing five seminars on the first day was an absolute beating -- each seminar is an hour and fifteen minutes long, with fifteen minute intervals in between each one. By the time the third seminar rolled around on Thursday, I was sucking air. Frankly, there's only so many consecutive hours one can take on the subject of controlling narrative distance before it all starts to sound the same. I wisely dialed it back on Friday and Saturday.
Got to peruse the prodigious book fair, but did not buy (one of my two regrets) any lit mags. I was overwhelmed by the volume of choices -- there were, literally, hundreds of book stands -- and indecision stopped me from purchasing anything.
My other regret? I chickened out at Bennigan's for lunch, and didn't choose their world famous Monte Cristo sandwich. What is the Monte Cristo? From the Bennigan's website: "A delicious combination of ham and turkey, plus Swiss and American cheeses on wheat bread. Lightly battered and fried until golden. Dusted with powdered sugar and served with red raspberry preserves for dipping." A heart attack on a plate, and I avoided it. I can't tell you how incredibly disappointed I am in myself.

The AWP Conference was probably the most fun I've had in months, which is even more amazing considering that I was really doing more pure learning from a craft standpoint than I ever did in an entire semester at college. Though, that doesn't really say anything, as I was an absolutely awful college student. Next year's AWP Conference is in Denver. I'm already marking my calendar.

See you at the AWP!

2009-02-11T16:48:00.004-06:00

The Association of Writers & Writing Programs' (AWP) Conference is just around the corner, which means education and information on writing and writing programs for the next three days straight. What is the AWP? Go here for details. Then read my general thoughts on the value of attending the AWP Conference here. You can still register to attend the conference, so don't miss out if you happen to live in Chicago. Have fun, to all those attending, I know I will!

The Lottery

2009-02-06T18:06:00.010-06:00

What is it about the writing community that makes it so neurotic when it comes to acceptance/rejection season for MFAs? This is something that we ("we" being those souls applying to MFAs) are all guilty of, myself completely included. You know what I'm talking about. The collective nervousness. The nail biting. The hundreds, maybe thousands, of posts on every tiny detail every single day. Does this community dynamic exist (and I'm asking earnestly here, because I do not know) in other graduate disciplines?

Consider: You're finishing high school. Your GPA is so and so, your SAT scores are so and so, your extracurriculars are so and so, and so forth. Very definite, objective. All the fields on the applications are filled out with little room for subjective information (maybe an essay at most), and at the end of the day, after you've sent all your applications to the half dozen schools of your choice (maybe two "safeties" and two "reaches"), you hear back in a couple months, and that is that. What I personally remember of my application experience as a high schooler was that it'd be nice to go to NYU, but that I'd settle for the other schools if they'd have me.

Now maybe you were a different kind of student. An achiever. Many of my friends were. I knew a couple students who had their hearts dead set on Northwestern or Harvard or whatever. But the vast majority of people treated the whole process as what it was: a numbers game. If you made the cutoff for this SAT score, and you were ranked this highly in your class, you'd probably make it into this school. Sure, there's always some measure of hand-wringing about the whole process -- hope is sometimes a tortuous thing -- but for the most part, everyone knew where they'd get accepted and where they'd get rejected.

What I realized the other day, was how much like the lottery the MFA acceptance process is. You just don't know. You may hit that jackpot and win the million dollar prize, but then, you may get nada, like everyone else. Now, I'm not talking about the faculty side of things. I'm sure when they read all of the manuscripts side by side it becomes exceedingly clear which are heads and shoulders above the others. Rather, I'm talking about the applicant. The writer. Is there any other profession where it is normal, even expected, to operate on an island? Without criticism or feedback or comparison? Or community? Even worse for the beginning writer, where all it would seem, at first, to be a proper writer would be to put pen to paper, and nothing else. But let's forget about the beginning writer for a moment. We all know how important community is to the writing process, right? We have our writing groups, our forums where we go to for advice, our friends, our family. Yet even then, I would argue that it is all too common to fall into that trap, where you put your head down and write -- in confinement -- for days and weeks without end.

This kind of isolation, which is so necessary for the act of writing, yet so contrary to the concepts of criticism and feedback in nearly every discipline (writing or not), is what makes acceptance season so difficult. It makes an already subjective process even more uncertain. You may know that your story has better movement than Jane Doe's story in workshop or crisper dialogue than John Smith's in your writing group -- but what is it against fifty stories? A hundred? You just don't know.

Funding Wars

2009-02-03T18:15:00.017-06:00

I would like to direct your attention to an article published last year in The Altlantic here, courtesy of Nillywilly on the Speakeasy Forums. It comes in at a hefty 10-11 pages, and touches on all the important (and interesting) MFA-related topics such as funding, prestige, alumni, faculty, etc.

Most interesting to me was the segment on "Funding" on pages 4-6 of the article, which goes into great detail about the "funding wars" occurring with the elite programs, the Virginia's, Iowa's, Michigan's, Texas', Irvine's, of the country. Specifically, what struck me was how much like college sports recruiting the whole process was. If you know anything about college recruiting (football and basketball being the most glamorous of the college sports), you'd understand that an "arms race" of funding and courting occurs between schools in the furious grab to sign the best of the best every year -- and has been going for years, decades. In fact, whole communities and websites have popped up around the concept of recruitment -- ever wanted to know who were the top defensive backs of 2009's high school class? Well, now you can find out here.

And what do these elite sport schools do to court the very best? They provide scholarships. Waive tuitions. Promise the best and the brightest coaches. Offer the most sophisticated and state-of-the-art training facilities and gyms. Is this so different from what's happening with the MFA? As Edward Delany intimates in his article, the most prestigious MFA programs "bid" over the finest talents with higher and higher stipends, better and bigger-named faculty, and varied and inventive classes and programs. It's wildly interesting to me, to suddenly realize that this is really just what college football and basketball have been doing for decades -- now in the very subjective arena of creative writing programs.

Statement of Purpose, Redux

2009-02-03T01:00:00.013-06:00

I've been re-examining the comments on the MFA Faculty Forum I post on the MFA Blog. Now that everyone's commented, I've specifically noticed that there seemed to be a large emphasis (noted by the directors and faculty; the people who make the application decisions) of the value of Statements of Purposes/Personal Statements. In fact, five out of the eleven contributors exactly mention the importance of SOPs in their evaluation process, which has caused me to revise my original thoughts on the SOP.

First, let's get the obvious out of the way. Application season is all but over, and theorizing at this point in the game is little but "armchair quarterbacking." I understand that. But that doesn't mean we can't pore over every single minutiae, every little crumb of research, right? Right.

With that out of the way, I've noticed that one of the reoccurring themes on faculty members' views on SOPs was how it can (or cannot) speak directly to the applicant's desire and commitment to the craft of writing. The most illuminating quote on SOPs to me was what Mary Biddinger of Northeast Ohio had to say:

"I would encourage statement of purpose writers to 'be themselves' as much as possible, while maintaining a sense of audience, of course. The best statements work in tandem with the writing samples, leaving readers with a lasting overall impression. Students are often surprised when I meet them for the first time and remember some detail from their statement, but the good ones are quite memorable."

Some valuable words, in my opinion. What will a great SOP do? Ideally, it will speak to your passions and motivations as a writer. It will tell the reader what is important to the writer, but won't do so explicitly or (to borrow from Holden Caulfield) sound phony. It'll speak from the heart, and although that may sound corny, it's essentially what writers do implicitly with their writing anyways. Why not their SOPs?

I think what I realize now about SOPs is that it isn't necessarily an issue of templating or style. Business-like, casual, conversational -- does it really matter? What matters is what feels comfortable, what matters is that it tells your story, in your own words. If you fake it, people can and will be able to tell. As for my own SOP -- I do plan on sharing it after most of the acceptances have been sent out -- I used a semi-formal business letter approach. But rereading it, I think I can say that I did it not because I felt it was the style or template that allowed me to most effectively maximize my chances, but because it was what felt most comfortable to me in communicating what my writing was about, and what I was all about. And that, I think, is the most important thing.

Acceptance!

2009-02-02T01:11:00.004-06:00

I got a letter of acceptance into the University of Illinois' MFA program on Friday, and frankly, I've been too busy geeking out the entire weekend to do anything but hyperventilate. Well, that and reread the letter every two hours just to make sure it's real. I'm thrilled to be given a chance to be a part of such an outstanding program. I'm sure I'll have more to say on this subject, but for now, I think conciseness is probably the smarter way to go for this post before I start blathering like an idiot.

Regardless, it's still extremely early in the game for everyone (both those who haven't and have heard back from schools). We're barely scratching February. Keep your chin up, your gameface on, and try to stay sane.

(I know. Easier said than done.)

Competition

2009-01-19T16:55:00.011-06:00

What happens when the faculty in charge of accepting and rejecting applicants from MFA programs voice their process on the MFA Blog? You get one of the most informative and insightful comment sections you'll ever read on the extremely subjective process that is deciding who gets in and who doesn't. I don't think it's any exaggeration that if you've already applied to MFAs this year or are planning on applying for next year, that this post is a must-read.

The comment that really caught my eye was Mr. Porter Shreve's (of Purdue University) observation: "Based on what I’ve seen thus far we’re looking at record numbers and one of the most talented pools of applicants I’ve come across at the four schools where I’ve served on admissions: the University of Michigan, the University of Oregon, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and here at Purdue." First off, it's a very frightening comment. But, as I had previously noted on the Speakeasy Forum, and in a previous blog post, it's also not surprising in the least. I've been researching MFA programs since the winter of last year in preparation for this season, and nearly all the resources -- the relative popularity of Tom Kealey's MFA Handbook, his website, funding opportunities, etc. -- and articles I've read suggest that MFAs are a hot item. Frankly speaking, applications to MFA programs have been increasing for years, and will continue to increase without plateau, much less decrease, for the near future. Which, of course, means more competition.

It's not terribly surprising. The money's there. As long as schools are fully funding students to do nothing but teach and write, I can't imagine a situation where this idea won't be appealing to people out there -- both the talented and untalented. Creative writing and poetry hold a romantic spot in the hearts of many in the United States -- how many times have you heard "oh, I have to finish that book" from total strangers, characters on TV, in movies? Why couldn't they do it for real? And as a poster on the Speakeasy notes, in this economy, it stands to reason that there is much more incentive for people to reconsider their options on "doing it for real." Why not weather the economic storm with a writing program? Sure, you'll be making peanuts, but you'll love what you're doing, which is more than you can (probably) say about your current job, which you may or may not have by the end of this year. It simply makes sense.

I know I sound like Debbie Downer right now. But I think adjusting expectation is one of the most important things to keeping sane during this trying time of year. Does this mean you can't have hope? Well, no, not necessarily. Hope is a good thing. It's what gets me through my days. At this point, all I'm trying to avoid is delusion.

On Bad Writing

2009-01-18T18:08:00.010-06:00

In between the days and weeks spent vacillating between being convinced that I'll be summarily rejected from every school I applied to and wondering which campus would be more picturesque, a more satisfying experience, I managed to (briefly) distract myself from the worries of waiting when I stumbled on some of my old writing. Really old writing. The stuff I had written as parts of exercises for my very first Creative Writing class ever, in college. Also some stuff I had written outside of class, but sadly, no less painful to read. Oh, and 60-70 pages worth of junk written for the National Writing Month of November. What did I do with this bounty of writing? I read it.

What's the point of all this? First, never throw (or delete) anything away. What may not save you from embarrassment will surely more than make up in hilarity years down the road. Second, reading the stuff I wrote four, five years ago is highly informative. It's so easy to see all the mistakes, the cliches, the false starts, the corny endings I had used ad-naseum in those stories. It also brings me back to my old processes as a writer. I suddenly remember where I wrote this story, why I wrote that story, how I came to this idea or that. To me, it's incredibly informative, because it shows me where I have come from and how I came to be where I am, and in some ways, reminds me how to capture the naive, childish passions that made me excited to write in the first place. Finally, it also serves as a reminder as to how far I've come as a writer and how incredibly far I still have to go.

But it's also a fun ride, if you can weather, even find amusement in the truly cringe-worthy examples. Here are some choice bits of some of the stuff I wrote in college:

"...It was as if I was being torn from two unseen forces. One was pulling me to pound on the door, to see what lay behind it for me. The other pulled me in the opposite direction, pleading my to save my soul, to run away like a coward but to live to fight another day..."

Poorly written and over-dramatic much? Brings chills of embarrassment down my spine. Here's another gem:

"...Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and armed with a Masters in Computer Avionics, Rice felt like he could change the world for the better..."

Yes. The main character's name was Rice, as in the grain. Ah well. They can't all be winners.

The Road

2009-01-14T16:19:00.008-06:00

Just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I realize there's nothing I can really say about this book that hasn't already been said, except that you really need to read it if you haven't already. As a piece of art and literature, it's pretty freaking brilliant, but more than that, it manages to be incredibly accessible while maintaining a level of prose that is still fairly difficult in terms of pure craft. Probably the reason why (well, Oprah certainly helps too) it has been so successful both critically and comercially. Oh, and it's being made into a movie as well, so you'll definitely want to catch the book before it comes out to avoid being the person who ends up reading the book when the movie's all popular. Not a mistake I'll make twice after Fight Club.

The Wrestler

2009-01-12T23:42:00.011-06:00

I hope there are others out there who have seen The Wrestler so at least they can understand the unrequited love I'm about to lavish on this movie. For everyone else -- go see The Wrestler. It's the best movie I've seen in years, a pure character study, a movie that hasn't made me feel this way about a fictional movie character since Half Nelson. Plus, it's also crushingly sad. Always a good combination. For the people who have seen the movie, continue below.

***Warning: Spoilers Below***

I am a short story lover. What struck me so clearly about The Wrestler when it was over was how much like a short story it is, in structure, form, and arc. Specifically, the scope of the plot is not very wide, and little to nothing really happens from beginning to end, in terms of significant character movement. Main character Randy "The Ram" Robinson wrestles. A health complication severely limits his wrestling way of life. He tries to amend his relationship with his daughter, but fails. He tries to start a relationship with a stripper named Cassidy, but fails, in a different way. Randy goes back to wrestling, and literally gives his life to it. Yes, The Ram dies, which is a rather big plot moment, but his death feels more like a natural progression rather than a turn in the story. His death happens off screen, is heavily implied, and is an infinitely more graceful note than "oh my god the main character has just kicked the bucket, which is your cue to cry your eyes out" type of ending. There's no cheap trick. There's no smoke and mirrors. The way the piece is structured, it couldn't have ended any other way without being less than perfect. (And personally speaking, the ending is perfect.)

This is what's so unique about The Wrestler. It has such an economy of story and a control of scope that appears in so many great short stories -- "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver comes to mind. It gets you caring about the little characters and the little things. Did you ever think you'd find yourself getting teary-eyed for an over-the-hill professional wrestler, whose body has been abused by men the size of linebackers and countless steroids and drugs, who frequents a strip bar enough to be known by name, who hasn't seen his daughter in years, maybe decades?

Nothing life changing or revolutionary ends up happening in the end. But in a story like this, that's the way it's supposed to be, right? There's a place for the movie or book, where the teacher inspires the school against all odds, or where the leader compels his people to successfully overthrow the tyrant, or where the good guys emphatically triumph over the bad guys. Those are good stories, long stories, epic stories. But there are so few stories like The Wrestler. A true short story. A story modest in scope and breadth, but more than makes up in depth and heart. A story that possesses an inevitability without cheapness, and shows us a man who ultimately decides to die for the one thing he's ever truly loved in his life, something that has in turn, however cruelly, has always loved him back, because he's never known any other way. To change would be too hard, and to change would be a completely different kind of story.

Waiting -- An Addendum

2009-01-07T18:06:00.010-06:00

Getting back on the writing wagon is harder than I had anticipated. For one thing, it's something that I haven't done in over a month, maybe two. Starting cold, especially after a significant delay is the hardest part of writing. For me, it feels so awkward, so unlike learning how to ride a bike again. There's nothing comfortable about the process; I'll spend an hour here, an hour there listlessly typing a few sentences, then deleting them, then typing a few more. Needless to say, I'm horribly jealous of those who can block all the distractions out, and start and stop at will.

Worse, getting back into the writing habit is infinitely harder, at least for me, with this whole "waiting to hear back from schools" business. And I can only imagine that it'll get harder the close we get to February. Imagine: You know exactly when and by what method each of your top five schools will let their applicants know who has been accepted. You've circled the days on your calendar in a big fat red marker and you're just counting down until that fateful morning when you wake up, receive the call, and run outside in your underwear with joy. But wait. What happens when those days, weeks, passes and no word? Then what?

Not every school will accept you. There's bound to be some rejections -- in fact, it'd be a safe bet to say that the majority of schools you apply to will reject you. That's why we apply to so many. So what happens when February 7th passes by and you hear nothing but crickets? It seems to me like some sort of horrible punishment, an awful torture to subject yourself to. The thing is, these dates are not hard and fast -- in fact, they're anything but. They may give or take a week from year to year. Some students may get the call earlier because they were the ones that the faculty could come to the quickest consensus on. Other students, much later. Some schools roll out their admissions -- a call to three students today, a call to the other three next week. There's the waitlisted folks. A hundred reasons why you may not hear from your beloved school on February 7th, but for all intents and purposes, it'll feel like a bald-faced rejection if you don't get that call. So you wait. And you wait some more. And you still hear nothing. It's the waiting that's excruciating, because even though you know that there's a hundred reasons why one person hears back one day and one another day, the longer you go without hearing, the more and more the odds are falling against your favor. Yet, until that rejection letter comes in the mail, there'll always be that sliver of hope, which is undoubtedly the worst part because it'll make you vascillate between the greatest of joys and lowest of despairs.

Yet, does all this stop me from checking those dates and reading those blogs and visiting those forums? Hell no.

January Blues

2009-01-05T13:11:00.004-06:00

What a weekend. Finished my John Hopkins application, which is now in the mail. And in my infinite wisdom, I realized (while filling out the Hopkins application) that I had been answering a very important question on the previous applications as "No," which should have been "Yes." I won't bore you with the exact details, but I think it's sufficient to note that this incorrect answer could very well cost me an acceptance as far as the Graduate Schools are concerned. So I spent all of Sunday afternoon and evening poring over my previous 10 submitted applications to see which ones I gave incorrect information to and which ones I did not. As far as I can tell, only three schools have been impacted, which I frantically emailed last night, begging them to change the information. I have no idea if this can be done, as all three are well past their deadlines, but I don't know what other recourse I have. As of this post, I haven't heard anything back.

So you can imagine how much of a nervous wreck I am now. Three schools in limbo (one of which I'd give an arm and a leg to go to), all of which I still have no idea what to do with. Top it off with a horrible anger and disgust with myself that makes me want to punch a wall and tear my hair out.

Add to this, all the various resources and websites that will tease you unmercifully with thoughts and fantasies of school acceptances. We've entered the perilous "dead time" period where all we have to do in the month of January (and February) is wait, wait, wait. And what do we all do with this free time? We go to The Suburban Ecstasies and check out the Application Response Time list. We browse the Speakeasy Forum and read the ever popular Have you heard yet? thread from beginning to end. We do whatever we can to pour salt into our wounds and torture our fragile psyches. Why do we do this? I don't know. All I know is that as much as I had promised that I'd stay as far away as possible from these websites to preserve what little sanity I have left, I know that I'll probably be reading them daily. What can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment.

Got Motivation?

2008-12-29T14:20:00.009-06:00

Damn you John Hopkins and your "different" Statement of Purpose. I'll be honest. It's been awfully hard for me to get up and writing this thing. The fact that John Hopkins' SOP asks for something so vastly different -- a critique of your work rather than a simple, "state your goals and dreams, blah blah blah" -- has severely complicated the enjoyment of my otherwise lazy and uneventful holiday break. My original SOP probably took me 10-15 hours to compose in its entirety, with about close to a dozen rewrites. But then, I was able to slot that SOP to 7-8 schools with only minor changes, and spent maybe a couple hours more heavily editing it for those remaining 2-3 schools. Easy. Minimum work (relatively speaking) for maximum coverage.

With John Hopkins? I could easily spend (and have probably already spent close to) the same amount of time writing my original SOP. The problem is it's for one school. Don't misunderstand -- I would love to go to John Hopkins, I would take that acceptance in a heartbeat if they gave it to me. But the reality is, I'm probably not going to go there. With an acceptance rate of under 5%, I have to be truthful with myself. We're talking about maximum work for minimum coverage.

Add in the fact that I've "come down" from my hard working high, applying to schools a couple weeks ago. A couple weeks ago, when I was in the thick of it, spending 2-4 hours a day checking and double checking each application, reading and rereading each story, making sure I had the right address on each envelope, it would've been easier. There was a kind of purpose in my single minded misery. I wouldn't have minded taking on one more thing back then. Nowadays, motivation is such a bitch. I wake up (or come back from work), stare at the SOP, and think, "I can do this tomorrow. I have so much time." Then I go watch a movie. Or play solitaire. Or read a book. Or write an entry for this blog. Anything but work on that stupid John Hopkins SOP.

What next?

2008-12-24T12:03:00.006-06:00

It's an inevitable question. You've finished all your applications. You've sent your recommendors gift cards thanking them for their work. You've paid all your bills and application fees, hoping that the little money you have left will be enough for graduate school next year. So what's next?

With the very large likelihood of staring down a long, bitterly cold, two-three month winter before hearing anything from the thirteen schools I had applied to, I figured it would be a good exercise, maybe even therapeutic, to take up some kind of activity in the interim to busy myself. But what kind of activities? I made a list of requirements (because I love lists so much) that a potential activity had to fulfill:

1. It had to be cheap.
2. It had to be time consuming.
3. One of the activities has to be in the realm of writing.

I think the third point is the most important. As a default, I think we all realize that writing is naturally going to be one of the things that we pick right up when our applications are all finished. It occupies us. It's what we do. At the same time (and I don't think I'd be alone in saying this), unless you're the kind of person has tremendous amount of self-motivation, writing in this time of year, especially when all we can think about is how and when schools will accept or reject us, is a very difficult prospect. Making writing fun again through some kind of activity is a necessity.

The most obvious way to do this is taking some Creative Writing classes. Something local is always convenient, and if you live in a big enough city, you can probably find some form of "Continuing Studies" Creative Writing courses at the major university, and to a lesser extent, at the community college. But are they any good? It depends. I've taken my fair share of Creative Writing classes at nearly every level of college, except graduate -- I've taken classes as an undergrad at Purdue, as a post-grad student at the Graham School of Continuing Studies (Chicago University), and community college classes at the College of Lake County. To be completely honest, the only class that had any "meat" on it was the one I took as an undergrad at Purdue, and even then, I don't know how much of an honest assessment that is, since I was just starting out as a writer. The main problem with every other class I've taken (and I suppose you could include my Purdue experience in there as well) is that these courses are intended for beginners. They were the kinds of courses where by halfway through the semester only half of the students showed up (the ones who hadn't had their stories critiqued in class yet), and where we were still learning the mantra of "show, don't tell." It's an unfortunate fact, as "Fiction II" or "Advanced Creative Writing" courses are, in my experience, far and few between.

I don't want to say there isn't any value in beginning-level courses. On a community-level, it's a great place to meet other writers. Sure, you'll bump into a lot of beginners the majority of which don't even stick with writing, but once in a while, you'll run into other passionate, outstanding writers. All of the people in my first writing group came from the Graham School class. It's also a great way to simply get started writing again; the communal act of writing (not to mention the strict deadlines) makes it purposeful.

I am, however, a big proponent of Writing Conferences. Typically, conferences don't satisfy points one and two of my list (cheap and time consuming), but where they lack in sustained distraction and price, they more than make up in sheer fun. I attended Indiana University's Summer Writing Conference a couple years ago, and it was incredible. For a full week I was immersed, without any outside interfering media -- little internet access, no TV, etc. -- surrounded by nothing but the beautiful Bloomington campus and other passionate, dedicated writers, talking, eating, breathing, and sleeping nothing but writing. In fact, to this day, two out of the three writing group members in my current writing group I met from that conference, both of which are good friends.

Which is why I strongly suggest, for the upcoming winter months, going to the AWP 2009 Conference this year in Chicago, February 11-14, 2009 Why? First, unlike the usual summer conferences at most major schools, the price of admission is only $185 if you aren't a member, $40 if you're a student! That's incredibly cheap. The Indiana Writers Conference was about $500 to participate, and ran me about $1,000 total for room, board, transportation, and food. Second, check out the schedule of events starting Thursday. Over a hundred events for just one day. Interested in readings by alumni from the University of Michigan? They got that. Want to learn about censorship in creative writing? They got that too. The graphic novel as a literary form? Ditto. Friday and Saturday's schedules are more of the same. Just the idea of wall to wall seminars on nothing but writing, writing, writing for three straight days makes me salivate.

So that's what I'll be doing. It was a stroke of fortune for me to have this year's AWP Conference in Chicago (free room and board). But even then, I think you'd be doing yourself a disservice missing out on this conference if you can afford it, especially considering how much cheaper it is than most summer conferences. And if you can't afford it? Well... there's always the Creative Writing course down the street.

$1,138

2008-12-20T19:55:00.012-06:00

School is expensive. We all know that. But with a little luck and a lot of preparation, school is something we won't have to pay a dime for. Yet, looking over my last two month's credit card bills, I've come to realize that the actual act of applying to schools is pretty darn expensive too. Thirteen schools, thirteen application fees. GRE test fees. Training materials. Mailing applications through priority mail. It all adds up. Consider my application fees alone:

Columbia College - $35
Roosevelt University - $25
Notre Dame - $35
University of Michigan - $60
John Hopkins - $75
Syracuse - $75
Ohio State University - $40
Washington University (St. Louis) - $45
University of Illinois - $60
University of Iowa - $60
Indiana University - $50
Western Michigan - $40
Purdue University - $55

Thirteen schools, thirteen application fees for a total of $655. Wow. But the fun doesn't stop there. Let's look at all the fees associated with the GREs:

GRE Test - $140 to take the test once, which I did.
GRE Scores Reports - Four school reports were free, but anything over that was extra. Extra score reports will cost you $20 a pop. It's a freaking scam, but you can read my earlier posts to get an idea on how I feel about the ETS. I had to send score reports for 11 schools, which means I paid for seven schools, for a total of $140.
Miscellaneous testing materials - I spent a bit on extra preparation materials. I bought Barron's GRE Test Prep, which was $25, access to tests on MyGRETutor.com, which was $5, and the tests on 800score.com, which was $20. All for a total of $50.

So that brings the GRE fees to a total of $330. And we're not done just yet. Mailing the applications was also a surprising amount of change too:

Materials - Manila folders, new printer cartridge, envelopes, mailing labels, and a whole ream of printing paper. Total: approximately $75.
Priority mail through USPS - I mailed each application over priority mail using the USPS, which provided a nice confirmation number for each application to let me know when each was mailed. They ran approximately $6 each, which was $78.

Okay. So let's total this up. Application fees - $655. GRE fees - $330. Mailing fees - $153. Total: $1,138. Yep. That's over a grand.

I'm sure I've missed some miscellaneous fees. Paper, research materials, etc. But this rough estimation is probably a fairly accurate total. Happily, I can say that I can afford this. I have a great full time job with benefits and I get paid pretty well. The question is, how in the world can anyone else afford this? What about the part-timer? What about the student who just comes out of undergraduate school, with a boatload of loans to pay back? What about the person who's working on a minimum wage without benefits? Great writers come from all walks of life. Yet at an average of $88 a school, it's unfortunate that only the privileged can truly afford to apply to school without sacrificing an arm and a leg. And all of this is, of course, with no guarantee of admission.

The point? I don't really have one, I guess. I wanted to complain, mainly, about the time and effort and money invested into all of this, with the very large possibility of no admission. But then, looking at this extraordinarily large total -- $1,138 -- and then looking at how easily I was able to afford it... the thought makes me thankful.

John Hopkins Statement of Purpose

2008-12-18T17:42:00.009-06:00

Ten of my thirteen applications are now in the bag and mailed off, with two of them (Roosevelt University and Columbia College) having due dates on February 2nd. So as of this post, I'm currently staring down John Hopkins as my last application to finish before I can start to relax again. The word "relax" used in this way is a relative term, of course, as I expect to be a nervous wreck waiting to hear back from schools over the next few months, but that's another post for another day.

So this is what John Hopkins wants in a Statement of Purpose, as requested from their website: "MFA applicants should include in their writing sample a two-page introduction and critique of their work. This statement should give admissions faculty a view to the scope and thoughtfulness of the work submitted and a sense of the student's ability to contribute in the writing workshops."

My first thought when reading this request: Weird. Possibly the weirdest hoop any school has asked me to jump through so far, and that's including the University of Michigan asking me to scan a copy of my undergraduate transcript and upload it to their online application. At first glance, though strange, John Hopkins' request to, in essence, "critique" your own writing seems simple enough, especially for those of us who've been in dedicated writing groups or have taken creative writing classes. I've probably done this same exercise for other people's stories a few dozen times, if not more. And I do pride myself in giving what I think is insightful and meaningful feedback. If nothing else, I always want writers who read my feedback to know I've actually taken the time to read and absorb their stories.

It sounds like an easy enough exercise, right? Maybe. What I've noticed in my half-assed attempts at critiquing my own pieces is that it's incredibly hard to tune out that little voice who questions every sentence I write. "Does that sound too arrogant?" "Is this analysis correct?" "Should I be more confident in my voice here?" First, I'm deathly afraid of sounding like amateur hour when writing anything theory-related when it comes to analysis in this context. Especially when dealing with a school with as much academic prestige as John Hopkins. Second, I've found that in contrast to writing critiques for other people, it's startlingly difficult to bluntly state criticism or praise as simple fact. To me, it feels like there's a strange sort of "presumptuousness" in doing so. The last thing I'd want is to make a number of assumptions about my story that would make the applications committee scratch their heads or disagree with.

I know I'm being ridiculous. Analysis and assumption is precisely what they're looking for. They want us to "give admissions faculty a view to the scope and thoughtfulness of the work submitted and a sense of the student's ability to contribute in the writing workshops." That sounds like a critique to me. To be anything other authoritative and an expert of your own story would be shortchanging yourself.

Mistakes

2008-12-16T18:14:00.006-06:00

It had to happen sooner or later. With eight out of my 13 school portfolios currently in the mail, I finally found a typo in one of my stories. Even worse, the way in which I found the typo was especially excruciating. I was casually reading a random section -- the last two pages of my second portfolio story -- when I got the second to last sentence, and read: "She felt the weight of his head come against on her shoulder." Horrible. You read and reread your story a bajillion times to proof for these kinds of things, and when you're nearly free and clear, you find an error sitting there, poking you in the face, in a read-through that is entirely random. The worst part of it all was the randomness in how I found the error. If I had chosen any other section to read, then what? If I hadn't decided to review my story for fun, then what? I would've been oblivious, thinking that everything was okay, and the reviewers would've been reading my story, thinking that I couldn't even cobble a simple sentence together.

Okay. So I'm exaggerating. I know this error won't sink me. After a couple days of pulling my hair out, I've finally come to my senses, and certainly understand that in the entire scheme of things, this isn't a big deal. Of all the thousands of words we write for the dozens of applications and forms we fill out, this is but a drop in the bucket. And never mind the fact that we're talking about maybe a couple thousand other applicants with their thousands of words and dozens of forms. Errors happen. If a school likes your work, and as long as you're not making ten grammatical mistakes a page, then they'll give you a chance. I understand this. But to have an error come at the very last part of the second to last sentence of my last story... Man, does that suck. And as a matter of principle, I can't help but to be angry at myself. You work so hard for so long, planning and planning, just to have something like this happen -- and you really can't blame anyone but yourself. And that's probably the worst part.

The List, Part Two

2008-12-16T00:49:00.005-06:00

I neglected to mention in my last post that I consider Roosevelt and Columbia College as my backup schools. While I understand there’s no such thing as a “safety” school, I also know that the competition for schools without significant (if any) funding is vastly lower. This is definitely the case for most major metropolitan schools -- schools located in NY, Chicago, and San Francisco -- and as such, one can see that their acceptance rates (taken from Seth Abramson’s Suburban Ecstasies) are much more forgiving, with Columbia College running at about 16%, for example. Why? Major cities have built-in populations from where they can pull potential applicants. In contrast, it’s easy to imagine how schools in tiny towns such as Bloomington, IN or Champaign, IL lack that natural population advantage. To attract talent, small towns have to develop and offer outstanding funding to compensate.

This isn’t necessarily an indictment on the quality of schools in major cities. Columbia College, Roosevelt, and Northwestern’s are fine programs. Yet one can see where the bulk of applications go every year. They follow the money. And why shouldn’t they? As Tom Kealey says, unless you’re independently wealthy, there’s no good reason to go into debt for an MFA degree.

So with that in mind, the rest of my list is heavily based on funding. Of the remaining 11 schools, eight of them provide full or near full funding. The other three provide significant funding (one of them Iowa). Here they are:

Notre Dame
University of Michigan
John Hopkins
Syracuse University
Ohio State University
Washington University (in St. Louis)
University of Illinois
Iowa University
Indiana University
Western Michigan University
Purdue University

Starting Over

2008-12-09T15:59:00.004-06:00

So I've been missing in action for a little over a month now, and thought it would be nice to give the blog an update or two. Where have I been? Applying to schools, like everyone else. Suffice to say, I vastly underestimated the amount of time and energy it'd take me to even begin the application process. I've researched and prepared for this busy month for over a year to make sure I had all my ducks in a row come application season, and yet it wasn't enough. It's definitely one of those situations where you don't realize the enormity of the task in front of you until you actually do it.

At any rate, things are getting better. Slightly. I now have a little breathing room, and as of today, five of my 14 applications are in the mail, with another four set to be finished by this weekend. Being absent for a month was not what I had in mind, and by now, I'm sure much of my experiences/advice is moot for the people who've already finished applications. But that doesn't mean we can't talk about it, or even better, agonize over what we could've done/should've done, while waiting anxiously for the next two and a half months, driving our loved ones up the walls. At least, that's what I have planned for the holidays. Cheers!

The Statement of Purpose, Post-Halloween Edition

2008-11-01T17:22:00.010-05:00

How important is the SOP really? An important question, I think, to put things into perspective and to save yourself from potentially unnecessary stress. Based on what I've found, not as much as you think. Okay, so you can't come off arrogant or crazy or unable to write, but let's look at the facts. The first thing the vast majority of the programs will do is read your manuscript. It's something that I've read over and over again from a dozen different sources, and it makes sense as a rule. As a program you'll want to give due diligence to the most important aspect of an application before anything else; you'll want to give talent and ability -- what have you -- a first shot above everything else. Programs want that next star writer, they crave it. If a selection committee has gotten past your manuscript enough to give your SOP a chance, then you're already miles ahead of most everyone else -- i.e., the people whose manuscripts have already been disregarded.

So where does that leave the SOP? I've made it a habit of collecting SOPs from kind souls who have offered theirs online or personally (people who've been accepted and attend programs like Johns Hopkins, Western Michigan, Illinois University), and have come to the conclusion that there are two kinds of "basic" SOP styles. The first kind is the standard "business letter" approach. You state your goals for wanting to go to a particular program, outline your accomplishments and achievements, and mention why you'd be such a great addition to their community. It's a lot like a cover letter for a job, except longer, with perhaps a little more background information. The second kind of SOP is the "story" approach. A little quirky in practice, this method tries to charm the reader with a lot more personal, biographic information, told in a more casual voice. And of course, there are those that fall in between.

Quite a range, as one can see. And yet, all (I have five in total) of my examples of SOPs from ex-applicants are people who have gotten into some very good, reputable schools. I think this is valuable to realize because it shows there isn't a one-size-fits all kind of thought here. The plain truth of the matter is that if a school is reading your SOP, then they've already read your manuscript, and will plan to read your letters of rec, comb through your transcript, glance at your GRE scores. Basically, they've gotten to a point where they like your work, and are past the point of "Is this person talented enough?" and have moved to "Is this person a good fit?" It's an important distinction because your goals and SOP will be vastly different if your primary worry is to impress the committee rather than to convince them that you'd be a good, humble, and willing student.

So. My rules of thumb for the SOP: Be genuine (credited to my girlfriend). Be proud of your accomplishments. But be modest. Be willing to learn. Be generous with compliments to the program in question. And most of all, be honest.

Happy Halloween

2008-10-31T12:53:00.003-05:00

No MFA-related information today, but here are a couple funny Halloween-related links:

someecards.com, Halloween edition. Send these to your friends, and they will applaud your wittiness.

Who doesn't love The Onion?

What will I be doing this Halloween? Probably writing some Statements of Purpose. Yes, I know how to have fun.

Standard Operating Procedures

2008-10-27T15:53:00.004-05:00

I like to procrastinate as much as the next person: for example, I have this daily compulsion that involves looking through my list of potential schools, which brings me great comfort, and manages to feel like I'm doing work, without ever having done anything. But as the days go by, and as the month of December and January edge incrementally closer, I find the solace I used to get from list-looking is growing less and less, replaced by... well, panic. The culprit? Statements of Purpose.

On paper, the SOP seems easy enough. Let's take University of Indiana's blurb on what they want from your SOP: " There is no single formula for personal statements. Your personal statement is how you introduce yourself to us-not only as a writer but also as a human being. We want to hear an honest voice, and one that shares our commitment to writing and learning about writing. We want to discern whether the applicant will be a productive and valuable member of our MFA program." Simple, right? But in that seemingly innocuous statement, there lies a maddeningly open requirement: there are no requirements. Talk about whatever you want; tell us about yourself. Well, that's great. There are about a hundred things I could say, a hundred reasons why your program should take me. This represents the most intimidating kind of SOP requirement, in my opinion -- the one that asks you to simply "impress us." Do I talk about my background and how it has informed my writing? What about the writing community and how important it is to me? What about my education, my major, my time in college? Or how about the time spent away from school, how I've take creative writing classes and have been part of the same writing group for the past two years? Or should I just smoosh it all together? I've written and rewritten probably four or five drafts this kind of SOP, each one vastly different from another, and I currently still have no idea where I'm going to go.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there's the school that will ask you, very specifically, what they want from the SOP. Consider the University of Illinois' blurb: "This statement should be a precise and powerfully written intellectual biography. What writers or authors, courses, literary works, critical texts have influenced you? What critical questions, historical or national issues, disciplinary or interdisciplinary interests do you hope to pursue in graduate school and beyond? Why? Why at Illinois in particular?" Very specific, and in many ways, much easier to write. But an issue rears its head when dealing with this kind of SOP: it becomes much more difficult to slot in a SOP from one school to another. The questions you answer and the specific praise that you lavish on the University of Illinois does not easily translate to Syracuse's SOP or Ohio State's SOP. Depending on the specificity of what those schools ask of your SOP, you will find yourself tooling and retooling that 500-600 word essay over and over and over again.

All part of the job, I know. Schools expect this, and quite frankly the moment you decide to apply to grad school, you should expect this. But the sheer number of different SOPs carefully tailored for over a dozen different schools is incredibly intimidating and brings chills down my spine. A month and half until the first application is due? Procrastination. I'm good at that.

Purdue's Funding

2008-10-24T14:19:00.008-05:00

An excellent post on the MFA Blog on Purdue's funding for their Creative Writing students, which you can find here. Best of all, it's straight from the Associate Director of Purdue's Creative Writing program, so you can pretty much take it as gospel.

As to the stipend amount, $13,000 is definitely livable, and up to $19,000 is downright comfortable. The key is the cost of living in West Lafayette, which is incredibly low. When I was an undergrad at Purdue, I lived in what was considered some very swanky accommodations location-wise (extremely close to campus), and paid barely more than $500 a month. You could easily get into the $400 range if you consider housing off of campus. Plus, everything is cheap. Food is cheap, utilities are cheap, even the bars are cheap. If memory serves me correctly, they have 25-cent beer nights at the Cactus bar on Tuesdays... but don't quote me on that.

It's all nice, if you can get it. Consider Purdue's Creative Writing admission rates in 2007, per Seth Abramson's admissions writeup: 100 applications, 4 acceptances. And that's for Fiction alone. Yikes. That's a 4% acceptance rate in 2007. 2009? Probably lower, to be completely honest. If you just double the amount of applications (something I can see happening very easily), then you're looking at a 2% acceptance rate. Programs like Purdue, which offer stellar funding for their students, have and will continue to get all kinds of press -- the posting on the MFA blog, the large mention in Poets & Writers article, and so on. That Purdue had only gotten 100 applications in 2007 shows how much of an unknown it was just a few years ago, yet how incredibly competitive it was and will still further become.

The MFA -- What is it good for?

2008-10-22T13:09:00.013-05:00

Poking around the Poets & Writers Speakeasy Forums, I found an interesting active thread here (you'll have to register on the forum to read the thread) discussing the "value" of an MFA in Creative Writing. Actually, it originally started out as a thread on how editors and committees select pieces for their magazines, but then sort of morphed (as all threads invariably do) into something entirely different. The discussion on the value of writing programs was very interesting, in my opinion. As one poster notes: "...I've always been a Cassandra, but here goes. The housing boom and bust. The mortgage boom and bust. The investment banking boom and bust. The MFA in Creative Writing boom and bust. The line cannot hold. In a lot of ways, I believe the MFA in CW to be a rather decadent pursuit. It is born of a society that is willing and able to pay out thousands for the time off and writing community... that can be gotten for far less."

Good points, I think. I've harbored these same thoughts for some time. And the word "decadent" especially hits the nail on the head for me. What substantiave gain will an MFA in Creative Writing get you, at the end of the day? A teaching position at a University? No, especially since most positions require one or two book publications in order to be seriously considered. Publication? Hardly. Potential and two quarters is still just fifty cents. While a program may invest in your potential, may give you the tools, the resources, the environment to succeed, publication is still an area in which all writers will have incredible odds stacked against them -- all this, assuming you even put in the time and effort to sell yourself. At most, an MFA in Creative Writing will get you a teaching gig at the high school or community college. Which is fine, but not the same kind of mileage you'd get out of a Masters degree in most any other area -- I mean, look at what an MBA from Harvard will get you, for crying out loud. Which brings me back to the original word: "decadent." An MFA in Creative Writing is a luxury. Who has the time or the energy to transplant their entire life, move to an entirely different city for two, three years? Nevermind the fact if you have a significant other or a family or without the means to pay for school or to move. Not many people can do the things that MFA students can do -- write, read, and teach all day, seven days a week -- even the willing.

Paper or Plastic?

2008-10-18T12:24:00.008-05:00

My recommendation materials have been, to quote Stevie Wonder, "signed, sealed, and delivered" to my recommendors and I feel great. You'd think that such a thing would be a simple enough affair -- ask your three people to write you some letters -- but as I found out in my research, recommendations, if done properly and on time, are a complicated affair. Can you accommodate the timeline of all of your recommendors? What level of involvement should you have with your recommendors? Butout of all the questions I had to answer, the one that was the far most difficult to answer was whether I wanted to send the materials to my recommendors by paper or email.

You might notice that nowadays most major schools encourage their applicants to use their online applications. And in general, this is a great idea, for both the school and the applicant. There's little to no paper or ink used, the computerized applications have a far less likely hood of being lost or delayed, etc. These schools even extend their online capabilities to recommendations. It seems simple enough. Just enter your recommendor's information into an online form, and the school's system will email them instructions on how to upload their letters online. Maybe even answer a couple questions. No muss, no fuss, right? Maybe. When I sat down and really thought about what was being asked of each of my recommendors, I began to realize how daunting the process was going to be. I'm applying to fourteen schools -- which means fourteen customized letters, fourteen cover sheets, fourteen different forms or general questions each school is asking. And while it would seem easy enough to put that into email terms -- electronic forms are easier to handle than paper ones, right? -- several problems rear their heads. For starters, if my email inbox is any indication of how most people keep and organize their emails, then I couldn't realistically expect my recommendors to keep track of each of the fourteen emails the schools would be sending them. Plus, we'd be talking about fourteen emails in the span of 1-2 hours (logging into a school's account and filling out all 3 recommendors' information takes at least 5-10 minutes each), not all at once. If I'm sending emails to someone's account over the span of 1-2 hours, then we'd be talking about fourteen emails intermixed with perhaps a dozen or so other personal emails. And on top of all that consider this note, which is a warning that some schools, like Notre Dame and the University of Indiana, put during their email submission process: Please note that notification emails will indicate "University of Notre Dame - the Graduate School" as the sender but will come from support@ApplyYourself.com. If they use a spam-blocking tool, please ask them to add this email address to their list of known/safe addresses. What? Spam-blockers? What kind of email account doesn't have some form of spam blocking software in this day and age? The opportunities for an email or two slipping through the cracks are simply too great.

I understand that at this point, I probably sound like a raving paranoid lunatic, but consider this: Whose job is it to make the process as simple and easy as possible? Whose job is it to make sure all the letters are received and sent on time without fuss? If a school or two falls through the cracks, who's going to worry about it -- you or the recommendor? Certainly, if your recommendor is a decent human being -- and they all are, or we wouldn't ask them to write us words of praise -- then they might ask about where this or that school's email went, but would you really expect them to look out for your big picture? At the end of the day, you are your own greatest advocate. It's as simple as that. And if you don't do the dirty work, if you don't follow up and make sure that what needs to be done actually gets done, then no one else will.

Which is why I decided to go low-tech and send out the letters by paper. One big package, with all fourteen envelopes and the correct cover letters, and one big manila envelope inside for them to mail the entire thing back to me when they're done. And when I get them back, I'll know exactly where they're going and when, and if something goes wrong, it'll be because I didn't do something right. Am I a control freak? Most certainly. But I'd rather put it in my hands than someone else's.

F is for Funding

2008-10-16T17:44:00.005-05:00

I'll have a writeup on the subject of funding one of these days, but here's some required reading, provided by Seth Abramson on the Poets & Writers website. A great article that touches on a lot of the salient points for the discerning MFA applicant -- how one type of funding differs from another, what's important in funding dollars, etc. -- as well as an in-depth look at the top funded programs in the country. An excellent place to get started for your own research on the behemoth that is MFA program funding. And trust me, research is a necessity.

GRE Thoughts, Part Two

2008-10-10T15:53:00.006-05:00

Welcome to my random thoughts on the GREs, part two. Part one can be found here. It occurred to me yesterday that I needed to give a little more background to where I'm coming from educationally to give a little bit more perspective on my scores. I graduated from college four years ago from Purdue with a degree in Genetics with a horrible 2.46 GPA. Suffice to say that I have never been a very hard worker. But I've always been a pretty good standardized tester. In the month leading up to my test on September 13, I first took a baseline practice test just to see how badly my verbal skills had declined in college and got a 500-550 score. Following that, I studied semi-regularly on the weekends, taking practice tests, memorizing words. When I was about a week out before the real thing, I went into "hardcore" mode and studied nonstop using the strategies I outlined in my GRE thoughts, part one. Additionally, I did some very light studying on the math and essay sections.

On to the various websites and resources, as promised in my previous post.

Barron's GRE Guide -- This was the first thing I bought in preparation for the test, and was my base resource. It's basically everything you'd expect from a GRE guidebook -- complete with five paper practice tests, one CAT test (on a CD), general study strategies, a "most frequent word" list (weighing in at 333 words), and a much more massive 3,500-word list. To be honest, I have no idea why the 3,500-word list was in there. Unless you buy this book a year to six months outside of the test, there's no way anyone would be able to reliably memorize all those words. And even then, it's not going to cover all the possible words you would potentially see on the test. Simply put, the best way to get that tasty 700+ GRE score is to be generally well read -- something that comes from decades of reading regularly. For the more realistic studier, the "most frequent word" list was by and far the most valuable thing in the book (and something that is in every respectable GRE guidebook -- Princeton, Kaplan, etc.). As I mentioned in my last post, I saw at least 7-10 words on test that were on the list, a larger portion than I would've expected. Memorize that list. At the end of it all, I took all the paper practice tests and the CAT test on the CD-Rom, and got scores consistently in the 600-650ish range. The CAT test I scored a 550.

MyGRETutor.com -- I stumbled on this website after I had exhausted all the practice tests that the Baron's guide had to offer. This site has hundreds of test questions (the first ten on each section are free) and one free CAT. There are also four other tests that can be unlocked, as well as the other test questions, for $5. The cheap price of the tests should've been a warning sign, but I didn't do my research and promptly paid to access the rest of the tests. In short, this site is horrible. The practice questions are inexact, vague, and confusing. While I'd never hold the GREs up on a pedestal as paragons of testing standards -- you can always count on their questions as at least definite. It's a very bad sign when you read through the answers of a test and find yourself saying "really?" over and over again. Even worse, there were at least a few grammatical errors on the reading comprehension sections of their tests. So yeah. Not very reputable. To give you an idea of how accurate their internal CAT scoring was, I scored on the five tests as high as 710 and as low as 540.

800score.com -- Frustrated by MyGRETutor.com, I continued to search online for a resource of reputable (and accurate) CATs to practice, and found this site. They're a pure test site, and offer five CATs to download for $20. I did a little bit of research, sampled a little bit of their free test, and went ahead and paid for their product. Much much better. The questions were better worded, more precise, and, most importantly, had answers that did not leave me scratching my head. My test score range was 540 to 600, a much tighter band of numbers, which is indicative of a more accurate test.

The ETS website -- ETS provides two free CATs for download from their website, both of which I scored 630 on. They can be found here. There's not too much to say, except that these tests come straight from the horse's mouth, and (unsurprisingly) yielded the scores that were most similar to my eventual score. A definite download, since they are free (though not really, since you pay through the nose to just take the test, never mind the $20 fee you pay per school to send the test!) and since they will be most representative of the GRE test you'll be taking.

Notice the wide range of scores that I got on each of the CATs above:

Barron's: 550-650
MyGRETutor.com: 540-710
800score.com: 540-600
ETS website: 630

The lesson? The GRE's computer adaptive tests are notoriously difficult to emulate without the exact scoring system utilized by the ETS and without the amount of data that the ETS has at their fingertips. My actual score was 650, which was a bit higher than I expected, but one that makes sense in retrospect. It was the score that was closest to the practice tests provided by the ETS. You'd almost expect the other resources to want to underscore people -- which I believe they do -- because it simply makes sense as a business practice; lower expectations are much easier to deal with than higher ones. So what do we take from this? Find and take as many tests as you can afford. But do your research, and stay away from the poor websites. Interpret your scores with a large grain of salt. And most importantly, have faith in your abilities!

GRE Thoughts

2008-10-07T15:52:00.007-05:00

Ah, the GREs. The GREs manage walk the frustrating line of being barely important enough to an application to warrant studying for. Many top schools don’t "require" the GREs, but as some websites gently suggest (like Iowa in this link -- scroll down to point 4 under "Other Notes on Admission and Residency Requirements"), scores can often affect funding. And whenever funding dollars are involved, you can be sure that it is important enough to put time and study into. Some insights and strategies I learned when preparing for the GREs:

I took the test on September 13th, and got a 650 on the Verbal, a 680 on the Math, and a 6.0 on the essay section. Verbal, of course, is the big kahuna of the GREs, and really the only score that the schools will care about. My basic strategy for the Verbal portion consisted of two basic rules:

1) Memorize the "most frequent word" lists provided by any of the Barron's/Kaplan/Princeton study books. This was important to my success. Already have a gigantic vocabulary? Great. You'll do wonderfully on the test, and will have nothing to worry about. But for the rest of us, it’s impractical and unrealistic to even attempt to memorize the 3,500 word lists provided by the preparation books. The "most frequent word" list represents a much more realistic and efficient way of targeting words that you'd be likely to see on a test. My prep book's list was a little over 300 words, which I managed to cram in about two weeks before the test. During the test I recognized at least 7-10 words from that list, which was a significant portion of the test.

2) Take as many practice tests as you can. Myself, I took at least 20 practice tests from a variety of sources. I can’t stress how important it was to me to take those practice tests. As much as the ETS would like you to believe, the GREs are not a measure of practical knowledge, but really a measure of well you can take the GREs. The problems on the Verbal section of the GREs, especially the analogy questions, require a large amount of familiarity to have any kind of success. So in addition to the relearning those baseline strategies you’d use for the SATs or ACTs back in high school (eliminating obvious answers, etc.), I was able to improve my pattern recognition of certain kinds of questions through a ton of repetition. Cramming works.

Another tricky aspect of the GREs is the fact that they are Computer Adaptive Tests (CATs) conducted on computers, as opposed to paper tests. What is a CAT? In essence, it’s a test that “adapts” its question difficulty based on how many questions you answer correctly or incorrectly. The more consecutive questions you get correct on a test, the more difficult a test becomes, and vice versa, all to eventually determine your final score. But there's more than that. Since the test uses the thirty questions to zero in on your score, it tends to weight the first 15 questions more heavily than the last 15. For example, before you answer even one question, your initial score, like everyone else's, will be set on the average of the bell curve of all those who've previously taken the test (somewhere around 400-500). If you answer the first question right, the computer will nudge you up into the tier of questions intended for 500-600 scoring folks, and if you were to get it wrong, the computer will shift you down into the tier for the 300-400 folks. As the test progresses, those large point swings will get smaller and smaller as the computer "figures out" the appropriate level of difficulty of questions for you. By the end of the test, a correct question will only be work 10-20 points each. Keep in mind that while my math above is hypothetical (I don’t really know if the point swings are 100 at the beginning or not), the process is the same.

As you can see, the first 10 or so questions are incredibly important to moving into the highest possible tiers, as you can only move your score so much once you get into the later stages of the test. One of the most common criticisms of the GREs is that the test unfairly punishes those who make mistakes early on without much hope for improvement later. But if you go into the GREs knowing this, you can similarly use this to your advantage. With 30 minutes to answer 30 questions, I knew I wasn't going to get every single question right, but I took the extra time on the first 10 questions to carefully answer them and to make sure that I got as many right as I possibly could. In fact, I probably employed this strategy a little too effectively -- at one point I had about 14 minutes to answer the remaining 20 questions -- and had to really rush in order to answer every single question. I had no doubt I probably answered more questions incorrectly on the second half of the test, yet I still got (in my own estimation) a pretty good score. So while it may feel counterintuitive as a test-taking strategy to front weight your time on the test, it really is something worth thinking about.

In my next post I'll go a little bit deeper into the resources and tests I used for preparation for the GREs.

Useful Links and Resources, Part Two

2008-10-03T13:21:00.009-05:00

A few more links to some spiffy articles, all published in 2007 by The Atlantic Monthly. The first is a ranking of the "Best of the Best" Creative Writing programs in the United States, found here. It's not as comprehensive as some of the rankings you'd find elsewhere, like on The Suburban Ecstasies, but it's a nice place to start, and is a list based on informal research and interviews conducted by one man, Edward Delaney. The following two links provide the real "meat" of the MFA-related content, found here and here. The first is a sister article that is meant to accompany the "Best of the Best" rankings; it's Mr. Delaney's appraisal of what makes a great Creative Writing program, taking a look at selectivity, funding, faculty, and alumni. The second link is an in-depth interview by The Atlantic of Mr. Delaney's experiences researching Creative Writing programs.

What I found most valuable was reading about Mr. Delaney's experiences as both an insider and an outsider to the process, working as a journalist, a professor, and a writer. He provides a lot of great insights. Enjoy!

Useful Links and Resources

2008-10-01T11:29:00.013-05:00

Tom Kealey's The Creative Writing MFA Handbook -- If you're starting the application process from scratch, this is the book to begin with. Lots of great baseline information such as funding, the application process, interviews, advice. Buy this book and read it. It won't give you everything you need to know, but it will give you a place (a very big place) to start. I can't imagine how I could have possibly known where to start without this resource with so many things to prioritize and research.

MFA Blog -- I visit this site on a daily basis. It's the "web version" of the book described above. Contributors post on all subjects relating to the application process -- information on prospective programs, studying for the GREs, etc. There's also a very helpful little community of other fellow applicants who comment regularly. A great extension of Tom Kealey's book.

Poets & Writers Speakeasy Forum -- A forum with a great community. You'll have to register to read and write posts, but it's well worth it. Members are knowledgeable, kind, and more than willing to help. If there's a question to ask, no matter how obscure, you can be sure there's an answer. Important sub-forums to visit: "MFA Programs," "Sending Your Work Out," and "Rejection Letters." I have no doubt that this place will be my home when the prime application months (November, December) and subsequent rejection months (February, March) roll around.

The Suburban Ecstasies -- Seth Abramson's blog, where you come for the incredible resource on MFA programs and stay for the political commentary. On his blog, Seth has compiled an amazing amount of research on MFA Program Rankings for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, Acceptance Rates, and even Application Response Times. Why? Because he's just a really nice guy. You won't find this kind of information readily available anywhere else on the internet, especially the Acceptance Rates and Response Times. Just click on the link I've provided and in the right-hand bar you'll see all the resources I've described (you may have to scroll down a bit to see all of them).

I'll also put all these links in my "Useful Links and Resources" section on the right-hand bar for quick access.

The Experience Factor

2008-09-27T13:19:00.003-05:00

In last week's post, which can be found here, I missed one point in my "The case for:" section. Namely, it's a good thing that I've been out of college for four years before applying to an MFA in Creative Writing. But why? Why wouldn't I want to get cracking at that next Great American Novel™ as soon as possible? Why in the world would I, anyone, want to waste their time not doing the single most thing they love?

Here's the problem. When I graduated, my writing wasn't very good. Which is an obvious point. No one's writing ever is good the first time around. And that's the reason why you apply to grad school in the first place -- to grow, to write, to learn. But the thing is, I managed to do all those things in my time out of school. I improved. Probably not with the same intensity or rigor that only school can provide, but I learned a whole lot of other stuff in the meantime. Stuff like working an 8-5 job I hated. Working an 8-5 job I enjoyed. Traveling to Prague. Making new friends. Going to writing conferences. Joining writing groups. Traveling to Hong Kong. I could go on. My point is, there's a bit of wisdom and value in being outside of the sheltered academic world. I can say without hesitation that I was able to do a lot of things I couldn't do in school.

Simply put, I wasn't ready at 22 -- both in writing ability and maturity. Yet, what's right for me isn't right for everyone. I understand that. Some people are ready the moment they get out of undergrad. Some people need ten years. Others fifteen. There's no magic number. And I'm not even sure that four is the magic number for me. Maybe I should have applied last year. Maybe I need to mature and develop as a writer for a couple more years. I don't know. All I know is that it feels right, and at the end of the day, it's really all we can ever go by.

In the beginning...

2008-09-25T15:48:00.000-05:00

About a year ago, after getting my first story published, I began to think that maybe, just maybe, I could live the dream. Get into a top-notch creative writing program and get paid -- paid! -- to do nothing but write (and maybe teach) for two full years. So I went out and bought a copy of Tom Kealey's excellent MFA handbook and started to save money in the hopes of making my dream a reality.

Now it's almost October and applications are due in three months. Where do I stand? What have I done (or haven't done) that would convince a faculty to take me? What have I done (or haven't done) that would convince a faculty to throw my application into a garbage can and light that garbage can on fire?

The case for:

I have a degree. So far so good. That degree happens to be a BS in Genetics from Purdue University, 2004. While that may sound impressive, it's actually quite horrible -- see the "The case against:" section down below.
I currently have a job that I'm quite good at in the very relevant area of editing, and I even have the word "Senior" in my title.
I've had two short stories published.
My Verbal GRE score isn't half bad (650).

The case against:

My GPA, weighing in at an awful 2.46. No, I'm not making that up. This, besides my manuscript of course, will be the thing that sinks me. To all you undergrads looking towards grad school: I can't stress how important it is to finish with a decent GPA. While having a sub-3.0 GPA won't immediately sink your chances for an MFA (an MFA in Creative Writing being one of the few degrees out there that don't always require a GPA minimum) it will be a barrier to you for a number of schools. Why? A GPA minimum is one that the Graduate School (not to be confused with the program) will often require. There are the occasions where the Creative Writing program has enough autonomy where they can take whomever they want, but as with a lot of places, you have to get accepted into the Graduate School first -- thus the GPA minimum.
I lack a "relevant" degree. This is more important to some schools than others, but having a non-English degree ranges from very mildly important to not important at all. This is kind of a throwaway point.
My referees are not former professors or teachers. Two of them are supervisors and one is a writing group chum. I don't know if this is a valid "case against," as I've been out of school for about four years, but it illustrates how important it is to kiss ass while in school and to keep in contact with past teachers.

So there we have it. To be honest, my GPA blemish scares me to death more than anything else. In compiling my list of schools, I've had to cross off at least a half dozen schools on that basis alone. I've also since emailed a handful others asking if the GPA requirements would immediately disqualify me from contention. Needless to say, it's been a huge source of stress for me of late, and I can't emphasize enough how important it is to get good grades in school. Yeesh. I sound like my mom.

Obviously all of the above is moot in relation to my writing. But I can't account for my manuscript, which no one can tell you is any good until you actually do the deed and submit your work. And, of course, it's always too late when you find out that your work isn't good enough, but that's the nature of the beast, isn't it?