goodcynara

I just made the waitlist at Maryland for fiction!

Frankly, I find it's mostly a statistics game.  Obviously, as someone deeply invested in writing and the continued study of it (to become a published author, a professor, etc.), 'improving' it will always be part of the process, but that aspect will always be up to the unknown variables we all face when applying to any school.  It has very little to do with us.
How can we know that our writing is 'better' somehow in the context of grad school applications?  However, if we apply to more schools, then at least we are giving ourselves a wider net, if not necessarily a higher chance of success.
I too will be w0rking on my portfolio, knowing full well that my writing could've been stellar now but just not appealing to the people who read it.  I will never know if 'improving' it will change that around; maybe by strengthening it, I've reduced my chances at one school or another, and perhaps strengthened my chances at a school I haven't even applied to.
I'm trying to be extra careful so my words aren't misunderstood, haha, and I'm certainly not going to tell you what to feel or not to feel, but being rejected or even waitlisted (and not getting in) has so little to do with the writing in the grand scheme of things.
Ironically, that's what "they're looking for" but we just can't know what that is, and all we can do is keep working on our words for our own damn selves, and keep trying, hoping we manage to cup the bottle just, and we can screw the cap back on before the lightning bolt is gone for good.
Chin up!  There is an audience out in the world for every single author.  Every single one.  And in the meantime, in the words of Lawrence of Arabia, himself: "The trick...is not minding that it hurts."

I got rejected across the board last year, survived my suicide attempt 11 months ago, and got waitlisted at my top choice today. I know that those of you who want this more than anything will succeed. Keep trying, you can do it if you keep trying.

Hi, 
My plan is if I don't get funding to try to find a full time job at the school-as long as they offer tuition discount to full time employees.. so you are getting paid and a deep discount. Most have a lot of listings on their employment pages. If you REALLY want to go, work a year and while there, also work towards applying for everything you possibly can for the second year. And most universities have really great benefits too. Sometimes the schedule doesn't work out but most professors I've worked for are willing to work around class schedules or work something out. Just a thought. 
Good Luck, 
Cristie

I’M SO EXCITED FOR YOU!!! Congrats!! 

GUYS I JUST GOT AN EMAIL THAT I'M ON THE WAITLIST FOR MARYLAND AND THERE'S A GOOD CHANCE A SPOT WILL OPEN UP. I'M GONNA FUCKING CRY!!!!!

As we inch ever closer to that April 15th deadline, I’m wondering how folx plan on handling accepting/denying when they are hoping to come off a waitlist. I’ve got one fully funded offer, one acceptance with waitlisted funding, and two waitlists for admission. While I want to be considerate to those on the waitlist for the school I’ve gotten a good offer from, I am really hoping in coming off of one of my own waitlists. What happens if I wait until 4/15, don’t hear anything from my waitlists, accept the one full offer I’ve got, and then get a call from my preferred school the next day? Are my hands tied? Am I bound to the program I committed to reluctantly not a full day prior?
I realize this is a pretty sweet position to be in, and I will be honored and excited to go to any of the schools I applied to. But man, it’ll suck to commit to one and then hear back shortly after from my dream school. It feels like a vicious cycle, as the folx I’m waiting on to decline their offers (so I can have them) are likely waiting on the very same thing from some other lucky person at some other awesome program. Advice, thoughts, slaps of reality welcome. 

I believe usually acceptances are out around the last week of March. Hope they are on schedule this year! They'd have to notify one way or another by April 15. 

Hey all,
Boston U. sends results out by the end of March or beginning of April?  I don't have Facebook so I can't even join Draft (not entirely true: I created an account just to use there and it was deleted by Facebook within five minutes of its creation, haha, not sure if that's a sign...) and checking the results page seems to indicate maybe one person gets called in late February, and then people are notified they are rejected by the second week of April or so?
This is my only school left (Iowa doesn't count since clearly that's a rejection, so waiting on the letter to arrive), and although I may have believed my chances there to be statistically better than they really are, I'd love to know if anyone has a rough estimate of when they start contacting potential candidates.
Thank you in advance!

Yeah I was wondering who actually teaches there. There are so many adjunct/part-time faculty listed. 
I love the faculty at NYU and it is a much smaller program. But then I read this (source: https://www.pw.org/content/portraits_from_MFA_nation ). 
 

Yes, definitely. Also, it's just true that people -- editors, agents, other writers, etc -- give greater deference to Brown MFAs than they do to folks with MFAs from other, less selective/prestigious programs. For better or worse, it does improve your chances of success. Might as well just be honest about that

Also, personally, I live in Providence lmao
(I didn't actually apply to Brown this year, but I will apply next round, assuming that I don't get full funding at the one place where I applied)

1,100 applications at Brown this year across all genres, for 12 spots total (also across all genres), which is almost below 1%. Nice!

Thanks for this. Agreed. This is my first time round and when I started researching this MFA process I read a lot of stuff about it, as did probably most people here. I recall some one saying "people get rejected who have published in top-tier lit mags or have book contracts with prestigious publishers." Of course, Adcoms may decide such accomplished writers may not get much out of an MFA, but it's impossible to know what they are looking for. I sense from this community a ton of intelligence, articulateness, passion for the transformative value of language, and I am sure any number of us could thrive in most programs. I know from personal experience, having been writing on and off for 8 yrs with some published success and a lot of rejection, it's hard to tell with whom your work will resonate. At the end of day, the rejections have been good for me because I've developed a rhino skin, which has helped me in this application process. But whatever happens (I am still waiting on most of my decisions), I know I have to keep writing. It's what I think about all the time, even when I'm not writing (which is not good sometimes for my job life). Writing is how I try to make "sense" of our precious existence; it's my therapy and, when the work comes together, I feel a rush like nothing else and I suspect most of us here feel the same. 

We get use to hearing "no," it's part of the writer thing, getting a "yes" feels surreal. I'm right there with you. I got an email from SLC about an upcoming event for accepted applicants today and squealed like a piggy. No matter what any of your other schools say, you got one, that's all that matters. Dance and go crush that job interview!

Yeah! Sit in that glory! We put a lot of work into these applications and as writers, it feels even more personal, because we're applying with pieces of our creativity which is an incredibly vulnerable place to be. Any forward movement deserves to be celebrated. Go have a dance party!

Hey, you got an acceptance and that's a wonderful thing. It just takes the right person to read your work and connect to it and you found it. Congrats!

Got my Brown rejection but I also just got my first acceptance! California College of the Arts sent me my letter of acceptance last night and it feels like a huge weight off. Of course, the world is keeping my ego in check by giving me my first grad acceptance followed by a grad school rejection, and a job rejection in the course of 10 hours, but we keep pushing forward! 

Hey Fiction Writers - Thought this event, Submission Roulette - A Live, Candid Look at How Editors Read from Electric Lit might be of interest (text below copied from email):
 
First impressions count—and they never count more than when you’re trying to impress an editor who has 1,500 submissions to read. Editors often say that they can tell within the first page whether a story will be worth accepting, so how do you make your first page really shine? Join us on Wednesday, March 17 at 6 PM for the third event in our Spring Salon Series to find out.
BUY TICKETS Eavesdrop on our evaluation process—and vie to get your story noticed—with Recommended Reading editors Halimah Marcus and Brandon Taylor. They’ll be reading opening pages submitted just for the occasion, sharing their reactions and thought processes as they go. Submit your own first page anonymously to see if your story has what it takes to catch our editors’ eyes, or simply tune in to see how other writers fare.

Tickets are $10 for the public and $5 for Electric Lit members (check your email for the coupon code). Our virtual events are replacing our in-person fundraising efforts during the pandemic, and all proceeds support Electric Literature’s mission to make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. If you can’t make the live broadcast, a recording will be available to ticket holders after the event has concluded.
BUY TICKETS Submission Instructions: You can find the link to submit in the chat, on the right-hand side of the event page. (Please note, you will only see the chat if you are registered for the event.) If you are unable to find the submission portal or have questions about submitting, email preety@electricliterature.com.
Please submit one page of fiction, double spaced, in 12 pt, Times New Roman font. Your submission should be the first page of a story or novel chapter that you would like to submit (to a literary magazine, agent, MFA program, etc.). Do not include any identifying information on the document. You may submit only one entry.

We will select and anonymize a dozen or so submissions to read and respond to during the salon. Prescreens will be conducted by other RR editors so Brandon and Halimah will read the work for the first time live on Crowdcast. 

Submissions are optional. You are welcome to attend the salon without submitting. Please be advised that these pages are being evaluated for the purpose of the salon only, that a positive response does not constitute an agreement to publish, and that not all submissions will be read during the salon. For information on how to submit your stories for publication in Electric Literature, please visit our submissions page.
BUY TICKETS Halimah Marcus is the executive director of Electric Literature and the editor-in-chief of Recommended Reading. She is also the editor of Horse Girls, an anthology that reclaims and recasts the horse girl stereotype, forthcoming from Harper Perennial in August 2021. Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Literary Review, The Southampton Review, Indiana Review, Gulf Coast, One Story, BOMB, and elsewhere.

Brandon Taylor is the author of the acclaimed novel Real Life, which has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. The editor-at-large of Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading and a staff writer at Lit Hub, he holds graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Iowa, where he was an Iowa Arts Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in fiction.
 
https://www.crowdcast.io/electriclit

Hey Fiction Writers - Thought this event, Submission Roulette - A Live, Candid Look at How Editors Read from Electric Lit might be of interest (text below copied from email):
 
First impressions count—and they never count more than when you’re trying to impress an editor who has 1,500 submissions to read. Editors often say that they can tell within the first page whether a story will be worth accepting, so how do you make your first page really shine? Join us on Wednesday, March 17 at 6 PM for the third event in our Spring Salon Series to find out.
BUY TICKETS Eavesdrop on our evaluation process—and vie to get your story noticed—with Recommended Reading editors Halimah Marcus and Brandon Taylor. They’ll be reading opening pages submitted just for the occasion, sharing their reactions and thought processes as they go. Submit your own first page anonymously to see if your story has what it takes to catch our editors’ eyes, or simply tune in to see how other writers fare.

Tickets are $10 for the public and $5 for Electric Lit members (check your email for the coupon code). Our virtual events are replacing our in-person fundraising efforts during the pandemic, and all proceeds support Electric Literature’s mission to make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. If you can’t make the live broadcast, a recording will be available to ticket holders after the event has concluded.
BUY TICKETS Submission Instructions: You can find the link to submit in the chat, on the right-hand side of the event page. (Please note, you will only see the chat if you are registered for the event.) If you are unable to find the submission portal or have questions about submitting, email preety@electricliterature.com.
Please submit one page of fiction, double spaced, in 12 pt, Times New Roman font. Your submission should be the first page of a story or novel chapter that you would like to submit (to a literary magazine, agent, MFA program, etc.). Do not include any identifying information on the document. You may submit only one entry.

We will select and anonymize a dozen or so submissions to read and respond to during the salon. Prescreens will be conducted by other RR editors so Brandon and Halimah will read the work for the first time live on Crowdcast. 

Submissions are optional. You are welcome to attend the salon without submitting. Please be advised that these pages are being evaluated for the purpose of the salon only, that a positive response does not constitute an agreement to publish, and that not all submissions will be read during the salon. For information on how to submit your stories for publication in Electric Literature, please visit our submissions page.
BUY TICKETS Halimah Marcus is the executive director of Electric Literature and the editor-in-chief of Recommended Reading. She is also the editor of Horse Girls, an anthology that reclaims and recasts the horse girl stereotype, forthcoming from Harper Perennial in August 2021. Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Literary Review, The Southampton Review, Indiana Review, Gulf Coast, One Story, BOMB, and elsewhere.

Brandon Taylor is the author of the acclaimed novel Real Life, which has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. The editor-at-large of Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading and a staff writer at Lit Hub, he holds graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Iowa, where he was an Iowa Arts Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in fiction.
 
https://www.crowdcast.io/electriclit

Hey Fiction Writers - Thought this event, Submission Roulette - A Live, Candid Look at How Editors Read from Electric Lit might be of interest (text below copied from email):
 
First impressions count—and they never count more than when you’re trying to impress an editor who has 1,500 submissions to read. Editors often say that they can tell within the first page whether a story will be worth accepting, so how do you make your first page really shine? Join us on Wednesday, March 17 at 6 PM for the third event in our Spring Salon Series to find out.
BUY TICKETS Eavesdrop on our evaluation process—and vie to get your story noticed—with Recommended Reading editors Halimah Marcus and Brandon Taylor. They’ll be reading opening pages submitted just for the occasion, sharing their reactions and thought processes as they go. Submit your own first page anonymously to see if your story has what it takes to catch our editors’ eyes, or simply tune in to see how other writers fare.

Tickets are $10 for the public and $5 for Electric Lit members (check your email for the coupon code). Our virtual events are replacing our in-person fundraising efforts during the pandemic, and all proceeds support Electric Literature’s mission to make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. If you can’t make the live broadcast, a recording will be available to ticket holders after the event has concluded.
BUY TICKETS Submission Instructions: You can find the link to submit in the chat, on the right-hand side of the event page. (Please note, you will only see the chat if you are registered for the event.) If you are unable to find the submission portal or have questions about submitting, email preety@electricliterature.com.
Please submit one page of fiction, double spaced, in 12 pt, Times New Roman font. Your submission should be the first page of a story or novel chapter that you would like to submit (to a literary magazine, agent, MFA program, etc.). Do not include any identifying information on the document. You may submit only one entry.

We will select and anonymize a dozen or so submissions to read and respond to during the salon. Prescreens will be conducted by other RR editors so Brandon and Halimah will read the work for the first time live on Crowdcast. 

Submissions are optional. You are welcome to attend the salon without submitting. Please be advised that these pages are being evaluated for the purpose of the salon only, that a positive response does not constitute an agreement to publish, and that not all submissions will be read during the salon. For information on how to submit your stories for publication in Electric Literature, please visit our submissions page.
BUY TICKETS Halimah Marcus is the executive director of Electric Literature and the editor-in-chief of Recommended Reading. She is also the editor of Horse Girls, an anthology that reclaims and recasts the horse girl stereotype, forthcoming from Harper Perennial in August 2021. Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Literary Review, The Southampton Review, Indiana Review, Gulf Coast, One Story, BOMB, and elsewhere.

Brandon Taylor is the author of the acclaimed novel Real Life, which has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. The editor-at-large of Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading and a staff writer at Lit Hub, he holds graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Iowa, where he was an Iowa Arts Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in fiction.
 
https://www.crowdcast.io/electriclit

Hey Fiction Writers - Thought this event, Submission Roulette - A Live, Candid Look at How Editors Read from Electric Lit might be of interest (text below copied from email):
 
First impressions count—and they never count more than when you’re trying to impress an editor who has 1,500 submissions to read. Editors often say that they can tell within the first page whether a story will be worth accepting, so how do you make your first page really shine? Join us on Wednesday, March 17 at 6 PM for the third event in our Spring Salon Series to find out.
BUY TICKETS Eavesdrop on our evaluation process—and vie to get your story noticed—with Recommended Reading editors Halimah Marcus and Brandon Taylor. They’ll be reading opening pages submitted just for the occasion, sharing their reactions and thought processes as they go. Submit your own first page anonymously to see if your story has what it takes to catch our editors’ eyes, or simply tune in to see how other writers fare.

Tickets are $10 for the public and $5 for Electric Lit members (check your email for the coupon code). Our virtual events are replacing our in-person fundraising efforts during the pandemic, and all proceeds support Electric Literature’s mission to make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. If you can’t make the live broadcast, a recording will be available to ticket holders after the event has concluded.
BUY TICKETS Submission Instructions: You can find the link to submit in the chat, on the right-hand side of the event page. (Please note, you will only see the chat if you are registered for the event.) If you are unable to find the submission portal or have questions about submitting, email preety@electricliterature.com.
Please submit one page of fiction, double spaced, in 12 pt, Times New Roman font. Your submission should be the first page of a story or novel chapter that you would like to submit (to a literary magazine, agent, MFA program, etc.). Do not include any identifying information on the document. You may submit only one entry.

We will select and anonymize a dozen or so submissions to read and respond to during the salon. Prescreens will be conducted by other RR editors so Brandon and Halimah will read the work for the first time live on Crowdcast. 

Submissions are optional. You are welcome to attend the salon without submitting. Please be advised that these pages are being evaluated for the purpose of the salon only, that a positive response does not constitute an agreement to publish, and that not all submissions will be read during the salon. For information on how to submit your stories for publication in Electric Literature, please visit our submissions page.
BUY TICKETS Halimah Marcus is the executive director of Electric Literature and the editor-in-chief of Recommended Reading. She is also the editor of Horse Girls, an anthology that reclaims and recasts the horse girl stereotype, forthcoming from Harper Perennial in August 2021. Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Literary Review, The Southampton Review, Indiana Review, Gulf Coast, One Story, BOMB, and elsewhere.

Brandon Taylor is the author of the acclaimed novel Real Life, which has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. The editor-at-large of Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading and a staff writer at Lit Hub, he holds graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Iowa, where he was an Iowa Arts Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in fiction.
 
https://www.crowdcast.io/electriclit

Thanks for this!

How kind of you. I find it easier to pull my energy back from dead ends. That way, I have more to contribute to active connections. I've had a lot of practice, though; I'm also an actor. We eat rejection for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

Nothing yet. I applied in poetry/Integrated Media.

Anyone hear back from Cal Arts - Creative Writing yet?