Ash...

Wahoooo! As a former bookseller, this is my JAM!
If you're cool with YA, Crier's War (Nina Varela) was a really fun lesbian fantasy. You're a former lit major, so you may have already read Song of Achilles (Madeline Miller), but if you haven't, that's a phenomenal place to see old stories merge with new voices (also GAY). I just read Chasm (Dorthea Tanning, yes, the surrealist painter), which was horror and off the wall and just amazing-- also relatively recently published (2003? 2004?) despite Tanning's age. I liked The Water Cure (Sophie Mackintosh) for its deeply unsettling, psychological elements. And now is not the moment I'd necessarily re-read Station Eleven (Emily St. John Mandel), but if you want some fictionalized plague in your life, that book was one of my favorites the year I read it.
Oh! And the biggest rec (in size and quality): The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton. I deeply believe that Catton will wind up being one of the largest literary voices of our generation, her talent is just unbelievable and her output is already tremendously impressive. The Luminaries is a why-done-it, an unraveling of a murder mystery. It's MASSIVE, so buckle up, but it's so artfully crafted that every little bit of length is done for a reason.
I love the books mentioned (Dillard! ah!) and want to tack on The Poet's Companion (Kim Addonizio) to the list of good craft books. Usually I find my next one by seeing who is being cited and talked about, and then reading their stuff, so I've found that it pays to start with something general and entry-level and hone in on forms/eras/critics that are interesting. The book I'm reading now referenced George Steiner's On Difficulty, and it sounded fascinating, so I plan to read that next  

I worked my way through all James Baldwin's fiction and now I guess I'm on to Baldwin's recommendations-- I'm reading City of Night by John Rechy and really enjoying it. I'm thinking I'll only read non-MFA writers for the next while to keep my writing dreams alive, lol ? (Rechy applied to a writing program at Columbia and was not admitted! Baldwin did not attend college!)

I'm reading "A Suitable Boy" by Vikram Seth. It was the biggest novel I could find in the bookstore a few years back, and through all the stuff I've been through the past few years, I promised myself I would read that to honor my recommitment to my writing and my novel and my love for literature and books. I'm only on the first couple of pages, but it's great so far.

Not sure if she counts as "up and coming," but I just read Sleep Donation by Karen Russell and loved it! Some of my classmates were disappointed by the ending, but I loved the language and worldbuilding.

On Rutgers Camden, my portal says "no decision." But since I never got called for an interview, I think I'm out. I do not know for sure, but I suspect if they call you, you are on their short list and so you'll either get an offer or waitlist. On the other hand, I am not sure of their funding situation (I think someone indicated they got a partial-funded offer), so things may be different this year, because it's likely people who make their shortlist will also probably get fully-funded offers from other programs, so Rutgers may be doing it differently this time. Wish I could be more helpful.

That's very helpful, thank you! I didn't even realize they did interviews lol

Not yet. Application still just says submitted

Ah, that's terrifying. How does one get into draft? I've been trying for the last couple of weeks.

Maybe I'm overthinking this, but I'm here wondering about whether the phrasing of the status updates are indicative of anything at all. For schools like Brown and UMich, my status just says 'Submitted' and for others, like Iowa and Maryland, there's 'In Progress' and 'Under Program Review' or some other variation. 
Does 'Submitted' literally mean that the application hasn't progressed beyond Admissions, or does 'Submitted' cover the movement of an application from Admissions to the Program to the moment the applicant finally gets the call? 

So far I’ve received one acceptance and one rejection..the waiting is killing me!!!
 
also I’ve created a Reddit for this which is a little bit of an easier platform. Let’s all freak out together. https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingMFA/

So far I’ve received one acceptance and one rejection..the waiting is killing me!!!
 
also I’ve created a Reddit for this which is a little bit of an easier platform. Let’s all freak out together. https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingMFA/

So far I’ve received one acceptance and one rejection..the waiting is killing me!!!
 
also I’ve created a Reddit for this which is a little bit of an easier platform. Let’s all freak out together. https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingMFA/

So far I’ve received one acceptance and one rejection..the waiting is killing me!!!
 
also I’ve created a Reddit for this which is a little bit of an easier platform. Let’s all freak out together. https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingMFA/