Degrees in creative writing

Building up networks? I have tremendous networking through my local writing circle. I didn't do the degree thing. I only have a couple of small one day workshops under my belt. If you're thinking about networking, just start doing it. Is that what you mean? Contacts?

ascribe:
Are they helpful? I'm thinking more in terms of building up networks rather than polishing the writing.

Click to expand...

It depends on the course and its reputation and what networks you want to build.

If you're looking at a creative writing course in London, then you're more likely to get access to agents (I think I'm right in saying that Birkbeck, Goldsmiths and City all have 'meet the agent type events' incorporated into their programmes), although the University of East Anglia course also has no problem in attracting agent attention (and is usually cited as offering the best creative writing programme in the UK). However, I don't think it's worth doing a course solely to try and network on that basis.

I'm doing a degree course at the moment and am finding it useful outside the contacts issue (which is more a secondary concern for me anyway), in that I'm learning a great deal about the craft, am getting exposed to different opinions and am forced to knuckle down and actually write.

MM

If networking is your goal, the internet is your friend. Every other writer on the planet blogs, has his/her own site or (gasp!) hangs out at writing boards like this one.

I don't know if it's different in the UK, but if I were thinking of a creative writing graduate degree here in the States, I wouldn't do it because I wanted to network. There was no networking whatsoever in my MFA program. We just, you know, studied writing.

Networking is overrated anyway. You can network every day and twice on Sunday, and if you don't have any skill or talent it won't mean a thing. Learn how to write well, read a lot (a whole lot), study the craft -- those are the real tricks of this trade.

Networking does not much at all for the typical aspiring writer. In my opinion.

I have a BA majoring in Creative Writing. Never mind why.

I would recommend doing a creative writing degree for only two reasons; 1) to find like-minded writers for help and support; 2) to get you actually writing something.

A third reason would be to learn critical thinking and cultural theory, but that will depend on the University you choose and the minor subjects you take.

I found in my course there were very few people actually intending to be writers so finding writers to exchange ideas and critiques with did not eventuate. I also was not allowed to work on novel-writing because work was expected to be self-contained and based on class exercises. This was disappointing.

The cultural studies units I took were the only thing that made the degree worth doing. I found that learning cultural and critical theory (eg, Marxism, Structuralism, Derrida, Foucault) changed the way I looked at the world and ultimately influenced my writing for the better.

Just my experience. Note that I went to an Australian university.

Hi Ascribe

I don't know what sort of thing you write, but one note of caution is that writing degree courses - especially University of East Anglia, so I've heard - can be misery for anyone who wants to write genre.

A lot of the people who teach them seem to automatically treat anything that whiffs of fantasy, crime, horror...anything other than 'high lit' - as something to be discouraged, dismissed, and just, generally, dissed.

Although please note this is only what I have heard from others, I haven't been on one of these courses myself. I have tended to go on short writing courses geared to genre - where the first phrase out of the instructor's mouth isn't so likely to be 'yuck, elves!'

If you want to actually meet agents, etc., I would suggest going to conventions and/or writing festivals, depending on your preference - check their websites to see who's attending. Or join a writing group which, like the one I belong to, occasionally invites agents, publishers and writers as guest speakers.

Best of luck!

Broadswordbabe:
one note of caution is that writing degree courses - especially University of East Anglia, so I've heard - can be misery for anyone who wants to write genre.

Click to expand...

That's a good point. UEA is pretty open in stating that it's looking for people who want to write literary fiction and having been to the Birkbeck open evening, I can say that they seem to take a pretty similar approach (particularly if you want to write fantasy, SF or romance).

Goldsmiths and City are definitely more genre-friendly. I believe that Lancaster offers a distance-learning MA that's also more genre-friendly.

MM

I did a creative writing course with the Open University. I didn't enjoy it at all! For what that's worth.

I am currently enrolled at an Australian University doing a Bachelor of Communications degree. I am planning on doing writing as my major. My aim in going back to study is to:

1. keep my brain active (I'm a stay at home mum),
2. work on different types of writing (personal essays, travel writing, screenwriting, etc), and
3. to actually get some writing done.

As for networking, I use the internet and writers groups. I visit other writers blogs and websites and I have recently joined this forum. I attend writers conferences whenever I can and meet other writers at my local writers group and I am also in a book club.

Thomas Keneally (author of Shindler's Ark), once said that you don't need to have a degree to be a writer. It just comes down to personal choice.

Good luck!

My B.A. was in English though not specifically in Creative Writing. I had an option to concentrate in writing but decided against it because my thoughts were that I should read read read read read (which also helped to have a minor in history) as a way of creating a depth of knowledge that would help me in writing. It worked.

I have never been a fan of people telling me how or what I should write, so I decided against the creative writing tract. A course here or there (I thoroughly enjoyed learning screen writing and fell in love with the medium) never hurts, but I think college in general will help with contacts. That being said I believe that better contacts are made at the Graduate level as they are more in tune with the profession that you will be specializing in. If you are looking for contacts, get a job at a publishing company or get a Masters(I am trying this myself).

I am not saying that a degree in Creative Writing is bad or redundant, it was just not for me. I started a thread similar to this one before I re-entered college and got mixed reviews, such as I see in this thread.

Good luck with it all.

I worked closely with people in a graduate MFA program (though I myself was a literature student). In my experience, it was more workshops, more conferences, a chance to work with some published writers, and a lot of other deadlines and responsibilities. For example, many of the MFA students taught courses or had editing duties in campus literary journals.

I'd say that the opportunities for networking were there (moreso at the graduate level than the undergraduate, of course), but they weren't handed to you on a silver platter. My friends still had to work at it and get their schmooze on.

I have a MFA in creative writing. I chose it because of the focus on craft. I am successfully working as a writer and editor, and the degree gave me a leg up on the competition. I can also teach if I want to go that route.

You do make connections with up-and-coming writers who are with you in the program as well as established writers who are teaching/visiting. It is not a guarantee that these will ever help you other than to be a good reference on the resume.

You have to decide what you want, and what you want out of it. You only get out of a degree program what you are willing to put into it.

Does Thomas Pynchon network, or does he just scribe genius? The writing is all that makes or breaks you in this field.

If the people you like to read have MFAs, than maybe you should go get one, too.

I bet you like to read lots of writers that got different kind of degrees.

I got a BA in writing, and three of the five workshops were helpful. One was a painful, annoying waste of time, and one wasn't much of anything.

I also - when I left these programs - found more than a few local writer groups, and noticed how they were all much, much cheaper.

ascribe said:

The reason I asked the question was that I read Marina Lewycka found it helpful in getting her first novel published. Obviously she has the talent or she wouldn't have been on the course but I wondered if it was who she knew rather than what she knew that gave her that extra edge.

Click to expand...

I took my MA at the same place as Marina did: Sheffield Hallam University. All tutoring on the writing MA is done by professional, published writers who are tutors second. It's common for the best students to be referred to the tutors' agents and editors, and I know of several people who have been published as a result.

There's a very active programme of masterclasses, too, which are given by visiting editors, agents and producers. It was a fantastic course, and I'd love to do it all again.

I keep debating with myself whether I should go for an MFA in Creative writing. I applied to a bunch of schools three years ago and was resoundingly rejected from all of them. After getting over the rejection with a couple of months of overeating I said, screw'em, I'll write on my own. I joined a good writers group (with folk far more knowledgable than a newbie like me) and I finished my first novel three months ago and entered it into Delacorte's YA contest. Right now I'm knee-deep in the rough draft of my second novel.

I had never taken a novel-writing class and I wrote my novel anyway. I've always been a voracious reader and I have an English Lit degree from years ago, but that's about it.

But still the thought of an MFA is lingering. Everyone seems to be getting an MFA nowadays like a tattoo. I've been studying Hollins Univerisity's MA/MFA in children's lit and and I LOVE the curriculum they have. Part of me still thinks about getting a Masters even though I'm writing my stories without it....

I plan on getting a BA in Writing from Ithaca with a concentration in Creative Writing, for what it's worth. Or maybe I shall get a BA in Creative Writing for someone else. I know it's what I want to major in, though. Ithaca just seems like it's more open to genre writing than some of the others I've seen, and they even have classes in Fantasy, Science Fiction, Humor, etc.

Just figured you might want to know someone else is planning on getting a degree!