callmecalliope

Hi all! I am a first timer and new to GradCafe and hoping to apply to UCI's MFA in Creative Writing in Fiction this year. I hold a BA in Classical Studies and a M.Ed in Higher Education College Student Affairs Leadership from a state university. I write novels and short stories. My first novel (Adult Fantasy Romance -- Queer and Spicy) was published by a small Indie Publisher in 2022 and I have another coming out this year, as well as several short stories published in Anthologies. Though I don't have a degree in Writing or English, my focus in Classics was Grammar, Language, and Storytelling and I focused on research in my M.Ed on some of my own identities that I write about in my fiction. My question is: as someone who write Genre Fiction, does UCI look down on this? I want to get an MFA to continue to improve my craft and write words that matter and last, and I do that through fiction and occasionally literary fiction? I am a first generation student and currently work for a Center for Teaching and Learning at my Alma Mater and my passion is in good teaching, so there are a lot of reasons I care about getting an MFA (and maybe a PhD eventually?) but are my published works TOO commercial for an MFA? Thank you and GOOD LUCK!