This post is a little late and very long, so most of it is below the jump.
Per my previous post, I do not believe that MFA programs are killing US literature, or that they do more harm than good. I do believe though that they do some things much better than others, and we should be able to have an open and critical conversation about that.
1) We should be clear about what MFA programs can and can’t do
Some people react to the concept of an MFA program by saying you can’t be taught to write. This is substantially true. In fact, most MFA program faculty are aware of this, which is why every spring they spend hours a day reviewing application files in an attempt to only admit students who they think can write in the first place.
An MFA program also can’t teach you to have interesting things to say, though, as before, I am of the opinion that deciding to go to graduate school does not make you fundamentally less interesting, and does not negate the things that happen to you before, during, and after your decision to attend.
The purpose of an MFA program is not to teach you to write, or to teach you to be interesting, but to teach you to edit, which, if you are anything like most writers, is how you will spend most of your “writing” time. On my first day of graduate workshop, the instructor said that if 15% of the advice you got was useful, you were in a very good workshop. That number often seems about right to me, and while there have been days when I’ve been exceedingly grateful for that useful advice, what I really got from workshop was the ability to filter useless advice from useful advice—to be able to articulate to myself what I was trying to do, to dismiss the criticisms that were completely off base, to look at some criticisms that felt wrong and use them to identify what was going on with the work that the reader wasn’t getting it, and to listen to the criticism that seemed right, even if it meant doing work that was difficult, even if it meant ignoring the people who loved the story the way it was, because I knew it could be better. Developing this kind of filter is critical, not just for writers in MFA programs, but for all writers. Whether or not you ever set foot in a workshop, if you are successful as a writer, the world will be full of people who have things to say about your writing, and what it should be doing differently: agents, editors, publishers, reviewers, critics, your mom. Ideally, the skill set one develops in an MFA program helps you to cut through all of that noise faster. I have to say, I’ve been lucky enough to have never witnessed outright cruelty in an MFA workshop, though I’ve heard enough stories to believe that it happens with some regularity. I am not a person who believes you learn from cruelty (which, even if it’s based in honest criticism, is distinct from honesty). But, if as a writer your faith in your work can’t withstand mean criticism from one instructor, or from some person across the table, what’s going to happen to it when you get a dismissive rejection from the New Yorker, or a mean review? Your faith in your work, and your editorial instincts have to come from within, but sometimes nothing teaches you that faster than trying to listen to other people.
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