I waited so long to have a blog that it turns out I actually have a lot to say about MFA programs, so I’ve divided this into two posts: one about the legitimate conversations we might be having about MFA programs and what they can and can’t do, and one about the stupid conversations that get in the way. This post got longer than I intended, so part two, Smart Conversations about MFA programs, will probably go up tomorrow.
A lot of complaints about MFA programs start with the assertion that writers should be “living,” instead of going to school. Understandably, writers with MFAs tend to get defensive when the conversation is opened this way. Most people, I would venture, tend to get defensive when the conversation opens with “how do you feel about the fact that you’re not a real human being?” If going to graduate school was supposed to provide me with some kind of injunction against “real life,” against emergency phone calls from friends and family, physical and financial threats and challenges faced by people I love, money worries, racism, heartbreak, and the uncertainty of living in a world that seems constantly on the brink of large scale disaster, then the Iowa Writers’ Workshop has some serious explaining to do, because I never got my exemption paperwork. I know a number of people who got married, divorced, or had kids during their MFA programs, I guess they’ll be disappointed to find out that these weren’t “real,” life events from which they learned things or by which they were changed. A number of people in MFA programs have full time jobs while they attend; it’s too bad the fact of their being in graduate school negates whatever else they are doing in the world.
Certainly, there are a handful of shallow, petty people in MFA programs, and people who can’t see outside of their own experience or empathize with people unlike them. That’s because there are handfuls of shallow, petty, narcissistic people in the world, 22 year olds and 40 year olds and 80 year olds, writers and doctors and homemakers. If you are 22 years old and it has never occurred to you that most of the world lives and thinks differently than you do, the problem is probably not your MFA program. In any case, it’s not like the alternative to an MFA is going to be forced humanity training that will make you a different and better human being.
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