Cristie

Oh wow this is dangerous?

Congratulations!!! Was this for fiction? o:

Just wanted to sign off and say "bye" to everyone on here! I chose my school and I'm moving on to obsessing about moving. (Just FYI - I still haven't heard from Univ Florida, Univ Alaska Fairbanks, Florida State Univ, or Northern Michigan. ?‍♀️
REMEMBER - there will be BOATLOADS of waitlist activity. People are getting in off of waitlists weeks before they normally do right now - most people applied to so many programs and will only go to one. 

HANG IN THERE and keep your hopes up! 

I think @corgeel14was saying that not following their dream feels weak. I don't think they were disparaging anyone else's dreams. 

I just meant in the context of doing something you know is safer. I'm sure a lot of us on this forum can agree that there are other careers paths that you don't hear nearly as much people warning you that you'll go hungry in. I obviously respect that kind of professional work or I wouldn't be considering it at all. That's to say, for me I fear I could be doing it out of self-doubt and fear of the future, and that seems weak. Not that anyone who wants to do that kind of work is weak for wanting that.

Just got waitlisted at Columbia for the Writing MFA in Poetry. Feeling very surreal and not sure whether I'm happy or devastated lol. So uh I guess if anyone else who got accepted doesn't plan to go, feel free to send those denials in and help me end my misery sooner rather than later ;0; 

Thanks, @Cristie! I have been making work in other disciplines (music, theatre, multimedia performance) on my own for a couple decades, though it's true that I've had the benefit of incredible collaborators. Some time ago, I reached out to two of the poetry instructors with whom I've been studying over the past year. Between the two of them, they attended both of the low-res programs to which I applied and had nothing but wonderful things to say about them. But I will take your advice and reach out again with the current situation. I am also going to reach out to a friend who is an accomplished and esteemed novelist; perhaps she knows some of the faculty here or there.
One fiction writer who attended Bennington said that he definitely feels that literary journals give his work more attention post-Bennington. I'm in it to devote concentrated time, energy, and study to developing my craft, but that certainly doesn't hurt!
Thanks so much for weighing in - very generous of you. I'll report back when I have news!

This is a tough one. If this were me, I'd have to really ask myself if I had the kind of self discipline a low-res would require. My poetry professor did one (in Maine?) and raves about it. But I need to be IN/AT school to learn best (covid taught me that). So I think it comes down to YOU, not them. I'd also email your chair, AND mentor/professor and pose the situation to them. Get 2 different professional opinions from those who know you and probably about those programs. Might want to write "urgent". Good luck, interested to see how you work out of this pickle! Lol. Give an update!

Accepted to University of New Orleans! Funding info to come. I didn't even have the three required references, how the fuck did that happen???

Anyone else doing the zoom meeting tomorrow for UMKC?

Just wanted to say good luck on mid-terms and big paper assignments for those of you who are also trying to keep up your GPA while going through this insanity. I know I'm like- read a page, check my email, read a page, check my email....(sigh). I feel like my life is on hold when I should be bouncing off the walls about graduating...virtually (which sucks too).
Come on normal....I miss you.

Someone else please admit that they are carrying their phone into the bathroom....Just in case.
lol

I will say that I didn't get to read every single application myself. I'm finishing my thesis right now so that would have been too much to put on me anyway. Fiction gets a lot of applications compared to poetry and nonfiction. I got to read about 35 that they picked out of the whole bunch as a sort of longlist for the 4 slots we have open. We all read every single page of every 30-page sample in that longlist and discussed them. I asked them how they narrow it down, and they said they look for something in the sample that sticks out, even if its just a really magical paragraph. I'm assuming this means they read more than just the first two pages. If they do cut it down, I'm assuming they would at least read the first five pages lol? I know it sounds harsh, but someone could pick up your book at the bookstore and tell within the first few pages if it works for them or not. I will add this to the list of things I ask in an email I'll send to them tonight. If you have any more, please let me know! I will be sure to get a direct answer from them, but I am pretty doubtful that they can read the entire 30 pages of every single application. I could be wrong though!
These professors have lots of experience and can definitely spot things quickly, but they are also human and might miss out on something amazing just due to the sheer amount of applications. That is a heartbreaking possibility I definitely thought about. One of the professors said a particular story "grew on them" as it went on, so they weren't in love with it within the first few pages but something made them want to keep reading. This is the reality of being a writer. When you send stories out for publication, they don't read every single page of every single submission. If they aren't interested by a certain page, then they might assume a reader of the journal wouldn't be either. It's rough to think about lolol. This is why I always put my most interesting stories at the beginning of my samples.

Congrats, I'm in the camp that waitlists can be a good thing. I wouldn't balk at getting waitlisted. I'd do a little dance because it's NOT a rejection...very validating for your feelings about your writing!

Hey Everyone!
I just wanted to say I will be attending University of New Hampshire's MFA Creative Writing program in the fall! If any of you are as well I would love to say hi!

That's because you are a truth-teller. I was a cop for a bit and all I ever did was tell the truth. When I left that career, I couldn't write nonfiction...I was so mentally blocked there. But I told myself I was tired of seeing and telling all the ugly truths. I used fiction as a way to escape that often morbid reality. So I get the bad shit you see and how it sticks with you. Not everyone will agree with me, but I found that writing in third person, past tense really helped me detach from that issue I was having (from a truth-telling profession). All those times I wished the ending for people would have been different...I wrote it that way-the way I wish it could have been. Maybe try that. The guy with the bird...I'd read that one.

I love to push the limits in nonfiction though...using metaphor, imagination and dreams, skewed memories, etc. Creative nonfiction or autofiction (it's ok to break the rules a bit).
And for Blackhole...when I get stumped. I just open a dictionary, blindly flip to a page and put my finger down. Then I look at all the other words on that one page that I can use...the brain starts putting things together and boom...story. What I'm saying is that sometimes writing prompts help. Word a day calendars, google writing prompt lists. You like Leonard-he's powerful. Turn a song into a story. Music is a great writing inspiration too. I wrote an entire novel over an old Echo and the Bunnymen song. Over a single line about a blue moon that caught me. Another over the line "on the edge of seventeen"- and I bet we could all write a story based on that line alone. I've used Stevie Nix, Black Sabbath, Cowboy Junkies...all kinds of music. People watching...in the grocery, stuck in traffic...keep a notepad on your dash for stoplight inspiration...make them all serial killers, escaped prisoners, lovers or whatever your thing is. Everyone around you is a possible character. I'm already intrigued by the people you've mentioned so far. Use them.
I'd love to hear what others do when they hit that wall. 
Team Edward... Oubukibun...(not really, but the Twilight thing made me chuckle).  

Look at Poet & Writers grad program database...it tells the incoming class size for each program. Not that it's true for THIS year, but a general idea at least. 

WAITLISTED AT NYU. JUST NOW. I KNOW THATS NOT NECESSARILY THE BEST NEWS BUT THEY WERE MY TOP CHOICE AND I FEEL LIKE THIS IS STILL SO VALIDATING RN??? ITS NOT THE WORST NEWS??

I love to push the limits in nonfiction though...using metaphor, imagination and dreams, skewed memories, etc. Creative nonfiction or autofiction (it's ok to break the rules a bit).
And for Blackhole...when I get stumped. I just open a dictionary, blindly flip to a page and put my finger down. Then I look at all the other words on that one page that I can use...the brain starts putting things together and boom...story. What I'm saying is that sometimes writing prompts help. Word a day calendars, google writing prompt lists. You like Leonard-he's powerful. Turn a song into a story. Music is a great writing inspiration too. I wrote an entire novel over an old Echo and the Bunnymen song. Over a single line about a blue moon that caught me. Another over the line "on the edge of seventeen"- and I bet we could all write a story based on that line alone. I've used Stevie Nix, Black Sabbath, Cowboy Junkies...all kinds of music. People watching...in the grocery, stuck in traffic...keep a notepad on your dash for stoplight inspiration...make them all serial killers, escaped prisoners, lovers or whatever your thing is. Everyone around you is a possible character. I'm already intrigued by the people you've mentioned so far. Use them.
I'd love to hear what others do when they hit that wall. 
Team Edward... Oubukibun...(not really, but the Twilight thing made me chuckle).  

LSU rejection. makes it four rejections so far. I guess my writing sucks. Or maybe I chose the wrong program. Or maybe I am an idiot. I have never written fiction and submitted a bunch of non-fiction stuff all patched/stitched together. I guess this is a reminder that I need to take it more seriously than I did and for the wrong reasons (needed to get out of my job and my country). 
I thought about it and I guess it doesn't hurt so bad. I drank extra coffee today and now going to watch a horror film about zombies on Netflix. that's a good way to stop thinking about how everything sucks and how everything is better than being chased by the undead.

Pee-wee Herman comes to mind

Yeah, it was like a dry dildo. Not great. 

OMG I'm out of hearts. WTH? How can I be out of hearts??? So, I heart this and the other one too. You guys make me laugh. 

i would love almost nothing more than to have “the least merit” in the class of the school i’ve been waitlisted for, and i’m also very proud to even be waitlisted, i think it can be both of those “over characterizations” without it being necessarily a bad thing. i think it really just comes down to what we like to tell ourselves, something like that can be encouraging and make some writers work harder, but regardless i don’t think there’s any accurate way to measure whether or not something like that is true. it’s all very subjective and also it just doesn’t do us any good to pit ourselves as writers up against each other like that.