Thunderroad12

This is low-hanging fruit, but the best book on writing I've read is George Saunders' A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. It is related to a course he teaches at Syracuse on the four great Russian story writers--Tolstoy, Chekov, Gogol, and Turgenev. It is wonderful and funny and fantastic to read whether or not you want to write stories, but especially fantastic and funny and wonderful if you want to write stories. Another book that's not as obvious is by Stephen King. It's called On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. A professor of mine assigned that as part of a class in undergrad, and I sneered at the author's name and then read it all in a day and a half. It's a wonderful book and inspired me to write every single day. A paragraph or a novella, but every single day. As far as a podcast, there's this guy named Jared McCormack who does interviews with students at various MFA programs around the country, and has a special episode here and there--one with George Saunders, for example. The episodes are usually about an hour, but well done and informative. The title is simply MFA Writers. I hope this helps and that you find what you're looking for, and good luck to you this MFA cycle. If you are a fiction writer, I sincerely hope you are the second best applicant at everywhere I applied. While I'm here--to milken--I am genuinely curious as to where you applied and your actual thoughts on your own hopes or chances of getting in somewhere. Without calling you names or going overboard on your pessimism, I'm more curious if you could turn that looking glass on yourself and offer a dispassionate assessment of your work and chances of getting into a top flight, or even not so top flight, MFA program? I'd be curious to read your introspection and hope you oblige me. Thanks!

Sorry, Notre Dame is the only other one I’m waiting on and they haven’t responded to my begging yet. Cowards!!! But I kid, I kid. Unless they don’t like weakness . . .

Continuing my notifications stemming from my own impatient neuroses—I just heard from NC State that they haven’t sent out all admissions notifications yet. They plan to notify all applicants by early April (!). This is per Shervon Cassim, the Assistant Director for their MFA program. I applied for the fiction track, so I’m uncertain if this applies to all tracks, but the email I just received implies that to be the case. … …… ……… I’d like to find whoever said no news is good news and kick him right in the dick. But I’m fine.

Just FYI for anyone applied to the fiction track for Johns Hopkins: They have contacted all waitlisted and accepted applicants and if you’re not in that group, then you’re on the rejected list. Formal notifications tho that effect will be going out soon. I don’t know about other tracks for certain, but I got the sense that was the case for them too. This is directly from James Arthur (Director of Graduate Studies). Full disclosure—I didn’t get in or get waitlisted. I’m just an impatient pain in the ass who wrote an email yesterday and got that response this morning. Sincere empathy to those who share my pain. Jealous congratulations to those who got good news.

Really? I’m hoping this whining comes from a place of jealousy rather than an ongoing character flaw on your part. I’ve been rejected by 10 schools this cycle. It sucks. It hurts. But I’m so happy that I can see someone else get into one of the top places in the world, which seems nearly impossible. That makes it seem not quite as impossible for me next cycle. Take that jealous energy and use it to better yourself and maybe you will get into Iowa next cycle. Trying to knock someone else down doesn’t make you taller. Be better.

Thanks for the explanation. I saw reference to it, but couldn’t find the genesis.

I’m probably going to regret this, but can anyone enlighten me? What is the New Yorker test?

Apparently not, as I just got a rejection from University of Wisconsin-Madison. They do work holidays!