2022 Creative Writing MFA Applicants Forum

[humbledarrogance]

Northwestern rejection.

[humbledarrogance]

i think i might be done writing if i get rejected everywhere again. this is my second time doing this and obviously i haven't improved one bit no matter how hard i worked. i just dont have what it takes. i just dont have it. if i cant even make a waitlist im done forever.

[mrvisser]

1 hour ago, humbledarrogance said:

i think i might be done writing if i get rejected everywhere again. this is my second time doing this and obviously i haven't improved one bit no matter how hard i worked. i just dont have what it takes. i just dont have it. if i cant even make a waitlist im done forever.

I know nothing about your writing, so as far as I know it could be great or could be absolute shit, but I don't think MFA acceptances should be the absolute barometer of your self-confidence in writing. I think a lot of MFA programs have specific things they're looking for in their students, and there seem to be some general trends in the drab, realism-heavy work that comes out of a lot of these programs. Could be that you just don't fit the mold of some of these ADCOMs. I've seen the work of some people with across-the-board acceptances that I thought was devoid of anything profound or interesting, but ticked all the trendy boxes. 

[poopdoop123]

In all honesty, if a couple of rejections are enough to put you out of the game, then maybe you should take a break and reflect on what you want to do and what you consider good writing and what makes good writing good. I don't think it's bad to stop and turn around a few times and decide if you want to pursue both an MFA and writing in general.

 

I'm not trying to be discouraging, but this is a field with a lot of rejection.

Edited February 2, 2022 by poopdoop123

[humbledarrogance]

 

3 hours ago, poopdoop123 said:

In all honesty, if a couple of rejections are enough to put you out of the game, then maybe you should take a break and reflect on what you want to do and what you consider good writing and what makes good writing good. I don't think it's bad to stop and turn around a few times and decide if you want to pursue both an MFA and writing in general.

 

I'm not trying to be discouraging, but this is a field with a lot of rejection.

im just being dramatic. and unhealthily venting my frustrations. also im just extremely hard on myself because i want more than good. i want to be great and write great things. anyone can be a good writer, anyone can produce something good. we all can write something good, but i want to write something great. it's not that i need the programs to achieve what i want to do in writing. it's just the resources these schools hoard and the connections they help to cultivate and harbor that would be helpful to me. at the end of the day i know i can and will write anywhere at anytime in any way i choose.

[itsbeenandy]

8 hours ago, humbledarrogance said:

 

im just being dramatic. and unhealthily venting my frustrations. also im just extremely hard on myself because i want more than good. i want to be great and write great things. anyone can be a good writer, anyone can produce something good. we all can write something good, but i want to write something great. it's not that i need the programs to achieve what i want to do in writing. it's just the resources these schools hoard and the connections they help to cultivate and harbor that would be helpful to me. at the end of the day i know i can and will write anywhere at anytime in any way i choose.

As someone who applied to MFAs a decade ago and essentially quit writing due to 100% rejections, I relate to ye. But this whole thing is crapshoot. There are more spots in the NFL than at top programs. It took me a long time to build my confidence back up, to even want to write again, but the upside was I discovered that I DID want to and got better (we'll see) at divorcing it from certain outcomes.  This is the loneliest, most isolating path you can pursue in life, it's enough to make you crazy, you are inventing more reasons to hate and doubt yourself than already exist. But have faith that your worth can't be measured by something as subjective and improbable as all this. 

Edited February 3, 2022 by itsbeenandy

[MDP]

Since some of us are needing a morale boost, I thought I would compile a post.

Some Successful Writers Without MFAs:

• Patrick Modiano
• Alice Munro
• E.E. Cummings (college dropout)
• Kurt Vonnegut (“You can’t teach people to write well. Writing well is something God lets you do or declines to let you do. Most bright people know that, but writers’ conferences continue to multiply in the good old American summertime.”)
• Jonathan Franzen
• Helen Oyeyemi (dropout! "To those in MFA programs I’d say stick with it if you can but don’t feel bad if your mind is crooked like mine is and you find you’ve got to leave.")
• Lemony Snicket (who remembers these? My childhood, lol)
• Robert Frost (college dropout)

Granted, I did have to hunt for these names, and they do seem to be the exception rather than the rule. It's the sad fact of the publishing world. I interned briefly at a top publisher in NYC, and it was a pretty harsh reality check re: the state of publishing (at least in the US): not much has changed in the past 50 or so years. The institutions of the MFA and American publishing have remained affluent, white, cishet-dominated environments (with of course the occasional and refreshing examples.) For those interested in a successful press that uplifts marginalized voices, check out One World, a subsidiary of Penguin.

Here are some of my favorite articles about the Creative Writing MFA:

• MFA vs. NYC, an essay many of you have likely read already, but check it out if not. It was also expanded into a great book if you really want to soothe your mind re: the possibility of not getting an MFA. (Bookshop.org is a great site btw, every purchase funds brick and mortar small bookstores! Much better than Amazon!) 
• Some cool stats/analysis of the MFA and the language used in it. (Spoiler: homogeneity!)

Lastly, a great interview by Kurt Vonnegut. So many excellent writing tips about writing fiction and existing outside the bounds of the publishing machine. On breaking into the field without the usual stuffy trajectory:

VONNEGUT

All of a sudden, critics wanted me squashed like a bug. And it wasn’t just that I had money all of a sudden, either. The hidden complaint was that I was barbarous, that I wrote without having made a systematic study of great literature, that I was no gentleman, since I had done hack writing so cheerfully for vulgar magazines—that I had not paid my academic dues.

INTERVIEWER

You had not suffered?

VONNEGUT

I had suffered, all right—but as a badly educated person in vulgar company and in a vulgar trade. It was dishonorable enough that I perverted art for money. I then topped that felony by becoming, as I say, fabulously well-to-do. Well, that’s just too damn bad for me and for everybody. I’m completely in print, so we’re all stuck with me and stuck with my books.

And on "teaching" writing:

INTERVIEWER

Do you really think creative writing can be taught?

VONNEGUT

About the same way golf can be taught. A pro can point out obvious flaws in your swing. [...] I don’t have the will to teach anymore. I only know the theory.

INTERVIEWER

Could you put the theory into a few words?

VONNEGUT

It was stated by Paul Engle—the founder of the Writers Workshop at Iowa. He told me that, if the workshop ever got a building of its own, these words should be inscribed over the entrance: “Don’t take it all so seriously.”

---------------

Sending love to everybody. Try to do something nice for yourself and for another person today, that's what always makes me feel less shit. Writing and reading silly stuff has also helped. But in general, this process just sucks. Higher academia is designed to make us all feel like crap. But our community will always persevere  

Edited February 3, 2022 by MDP
Link/typo

[Ogilvie]

5 hours ago, MDP said:

Some Successful Writers Without MFAs:

• Patrick Modiano
• Alice Munro
• E.E. Cummings (college dropout)
• Kurt Vonnegut (“You can’t teach people to write well. Writing well is something God lets you do or declines to let you do. Most bright people know that, but writers’ conferences continue to multiply in the good old American summertime.”)
• Jonathan Franzen
• Helen Oyeyemi (dropout! "To those in MFA programs I’d say stick with it if you can but don’t feel bad if your mind is crooked like mine is and you find you’ve got to leave.")
• Lemony Snicket (who remembers these? My childhood, lol)
• Robert Frost (college dropout)

Granted, I did have to hunt for these names, and they do seem to be the exception rather than the rule. It's the sad fact of the publishing world. I interned briefly at a top publisher in NYC, and it was a pretty harsh reality check re: the state of publishing (at least in the US): not much has changed in the past 50 or so years.

 

These writers are not exceptions. Most famous writers within the time period you're referencing did not have MFA's. 

Just to name a few with no research required: Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Thomas Pynchon, Don Delillo, Philip Roth.

Many others who are less famous, or non-American, or playwrights, etc.

Plus the entire history of writing before the MFA was invented.

[MDP]

58 minutes ago, Ogilvie said:

These writers are not exceptions. Most famous writers within the time period you're referencing did not have MFA's. 

Just to name a few with no research required: Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Thomas Pynchon, Don Delillo, Philip Roth.

Many others who are less famous, or non-American, or playwrights, etc.

Plus the entire history of writing before the MFA was invented.

I meant that these writers would be the exceptions in today's literary climate. But as the rest of my post says, an MFA by no means guarantees good writing or professional success. The MFA and the publishing industry have changed tremendously since Baldwin, Pynchon, Roth, etc. were writing, so it's apples and oranges regardless. Toni Morrison wrote the Bluest Eye while working at Random House, something you almost never see today. The roles of author/publisher look much different today than they did in the 70's. 

Edited February 3, 2022 by MDP
Typo

[koechophe]

On 2/2/2022 at 11:03 AM, humbledarrogance said:

i should have done this. would have saved myself the humiliation.

Please, don't ever try to decide your worth as a writer based on something so elitist and asinine as a test of "is my work similar to the New Yorker" test. 

Some of the most brilliant writers I've ever had the pleasure of reading would fail that test. Post-modernism itself would've failed that test a century ago.

I know I'll get flack from the troll for posting this, but I don't care. You do the literary world a great disservice when you try and mimic the style of other people (especially the often elitist paradigms of the New Yorker) and squash your own voice in the process. 

[poem for her]

just found out i got into northwestern for fiction this week (still in shock)! my first response so far. wishing everyone good vibes + good luck as decisions continue to roll in!

[CHRISTOPHER QUANG BUI]

1 hour ago, poem for her said:

just found out i got into northwestern for fiction this week (still in shock)! my first response so far. wishing everyone good vibes + good luck as decisions continue to roll in!

That’s amazing! Congratulations. What other programs did you apply to (if you dont mind my asking)? 

[mrvisser]

Florida State poetry acceptance on Draft.

[Ydrl]

Got into fsu!!!

[mrvisser]

9 minutes ago, Ydrl said:

Got into fsu!!!

Woohoo! Congrats! When I posted about the acceptance on Draft I was hoping you'd have some news. I know you really wanted that one!

[CHRISTOPHER QUANG BUI]

44 minutes ago, Ydrl said:

Got into fsu!!!

Sick! Congratulations. That’s great news. What other programs did you apply to? Is this your first season of apps? Sorry if you’ve mentioned this elsewhere. 

[poem for her]

On 2/3/2022 at 5:21 PM, CHRISTOPHER QUANG BUI said:

That’s amazing! Congratulations. What other programs did you apply to (if you dont mind my asking)? 

thank you so much! i applied to the following schools for the fiction MFA: brown university, university of michigan, university of texas at austin (michener center), cornell university, johns hopkins university, northwestern litowitz program, vanderbilt university, and washington university in st. louis!

 

[Rm714]

1 hour ago, Ydrl said:

Got into fsu!!!

I'm so happy for you! Yay!

[mrvisser]

On 2/3/2022 at 6:46 PM, poem for her said:

thank you so much! i applied to the following schools for the fiction MFA: brown university, university of michigan, university of texas at austin (michener center), cornell university, johns hopkins university, northwestern litowitz program, vanderbilt university, and washington university in st. louis!

We've got five in common. Congrats on already getting an acceptance and good luck on the rest!

[poem for her]

1 hour ago, mrvisser said:

We've got five in common. Congrats on already getting an acceptance and good luck on the rest!

omg, nice! best of luck to you ♥️

[floralhell]

1 hour ago, Artel said:

@koechophe does not understand the New Yorker test, which is not silly and the only objective test that can get your admission result instantly. The great thing about the test is you don’t need expert writers to judge for it. The test is simple. Get three illiterates together. Show them 2 stories of yours, and four from the New Yorker. Tell them to pick the stories that seem the odd man out. If they pick your two stories, that means you are among the 80% of MFA applicants that are instantly rejected from the top programs. Among the top 20% of applicants there is some subjectivity, so the same people won’t always be accepted across the board.

The current system is just nuts. @mrvisserhas no way to know if any Adcomm would instantly tell him that he is in the 80%. Is he? I don’t know. It isn’t a good sign that he has been rejected in the past, but many in the top 20% get rejected too. We all need some preliminary data, the same way a high school kids is instantly told by a counselor that his GPA entirely rules him out for Harvard.

@koechophe currently will not pass the New Yorker test. I reach that conclusion from viewing his writing. It is best he know sooner rather than later. This doesn’t mean he won’t pass the test one day. It doesn’t mean he won’t one day be a good writer. He just hasn’t yet picked up on a lot of the things literary fiction values. Picking up on these things isn't some mysterious process. Someone could quite simply point the things out. But at his stage, he would not believe them. He needs to continue the gradual process of picking these things up on his own through more reading.l

“Some of the most brilliant writers I've ever had the pleasure of reading would fail that test. Post-modernism itself would've failed that test a century ago.” This is false, unless someone writes an experimental piece that will obviously stand out. There are objective conventions in literary fiction.

@Ydrl: Does FSU mean Florida State University? Is it fully funded? I've kind of been assuming you would fail the poetry version of the New Yorker test. I mean, I don't know poetry. I don't know if there is a test that will work for it. I don't even know if 80% of poetry applicants are rejected after one page.

What exactly gives you the authority to tell others whether or not they will fail a test they aren't interested in "taking?" Obviously you must have been incredibly successful in your attempts to get into MFA programs if you have this much insight into the process. Clearly, you have been so successful that you can lecture other people. Does your work pass this New Yorker test? Are you now in a fully funded program? Or are you just trying your best as well? Tell me, if you were to teach at one of these fully funded programs would you be so condescending to your students? 

Edited February 4, 2022 by floralhell

[MDP]

13 hours ago, Ydrl said:

Got into fsu!!!

CONGRATULATIONS!!! What a huge win!!! ❤️ 

[Ydrl]

@floralhell don't reply to the troll

[sassydragon]

14 hours ago, Ydrl said:

Got into fsu!!!

Yay, congratulations!!!

[koechophe]

@floralhell I appreciate the sentiment, but it's best not to engage with them. This troll has been here for several years now, making a legitimately massive stream of new accounts, and is just looking for a fight. I replied to the other poster because I wanted to do what I could to dissuade them from actually being discouraged by the test the troll proposed. 

I know from experience that as much as it might be tempting to engage, doing so often turns this thread into a massive argument with the troll, which isn't good. 

Edited February 4, 2022 by koechophe