MFA programs

I'm bettin' not many folks 'in the know' will see this here, FTJ. You might want to post it in the 'Roundtable', too.

Sounds like a plan. Off we go....

US News and World Report puts out a ranking every year of the best.

Iowa is always at the top. Then Columbia, probably. Brown. Warren Wilson College. Hollins University. Johns Hopkins.

That's all I can think of at the moment. They've popped up like crazy pretty much everywhere in America, so it's not that difficult to find a reputable one. I went to Bard College, which has an MFA low-residency summer program, and it was a tremendous experience. Highly recommended.

Will is correct. Iowa occupies the top five or six places. Cornell and Stanford rank pretty well up there, among the others.

caw

FTJoshua said:

Furthermore, are there any good -- even decent -- distance MFA programs, from any of the schools you might mention above?

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I'm not a fan of MFA programs, but this one, at Warren Wilson College, has a fine reputation and the writers I know who've gone there speak well of it. It's partly in residence, but just for a few weeks at a time.

Here's the thing though: MFAs are all about literary fiction, and poetry, and very rarely, teaching writing, in some cases. MFA programs mostly don't do genre fiction.

When I was in college, I was obsessed with the idea of getting an MFA in fiction. I checked the U.S. News and World Report rankings every time they were issued. I still do keep up with it, out of habit. The list has stayed pretty static over the years: Iowa always ranks number 1, with Johns Hopkins University, University of Houston, University of Virginia, Columbia University, New York University, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, and University of California - Irvine always hovering around the top 10.

If you're more interested in genre writing than literary writing, the low-residency programs will likely be more helpful than the two-year residency programs. For example, Vermont College's MFA in Writing For Children is a low-residency program about which I've heard great things.

Medievalist said:

I'm not a fan of MFA programs, but this one, at Warren Wilson College, has a fine reputation and the writers I know who've gone there speak well of it. It's partly in residence, but just for a few weeks at a time.

Here's the thing though: MFAs are all about literary fiction, and poetry, and very rarely, teaching writing, in some cases. MFA programs mostly don't do genre fiction.

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Joe Haldeman is a graduate of the Iowa MFA program.

Though you are, in general, correct in your observation.

caw

The Iowa program is another one, and they do very much also include training in pedagogy. It's a damn fine English department, too.

Medievalist said:

The Iowa program is another one, and they do very much also include training in pedagogy. It's a damn fine English department, too.

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Plus, in summertime, you can sit outside the building and feed ducks along the river while you write. Verrrrrry bucolic.

caw

Medievalist said:

Here's the thing though: MFAs are all about literary fiction, and poetry, and very rarely, teaching writing, in some cases. MFA programs mostly don't do genre fiction.

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This is true.

One criticism I had with Bard is that they never talked about publishing.

I mean, I wanted to be a writer. That's why I went. But they never treated you as if you were an aspiring writer, you were simply a student. The word "publishing" was never uttered, not once.

OTOH, I heard that at Columbia, they spend a lot of time -- possibly too much -- talking about publishing and not enough talking about craft.

The Columbia program really began as an outgrowth of their publishing and editing program.

I got a BA from the UH creative writing program. My ten cents: the same people taught undergrads that taught grads. You will reach a point where more workshops hurt more than they help.

Writer's groups are cheaper, and perform all the same functions.

If you want to actually work a day job in the publishing biz, though, an MFA from Iowa or NYU will get you introduced to all the right people.

I would never go into debt over one, though.

As far as your quest for an MFA program, though, I think you are approaching this pig from the wrong end. Instead of worrying about ranking, worry about professors. Rankings have absolutely nothing to do with your work, or your ability to get published.

Find the authors you'd like to take workshops from, and see where they teach.

Rankings are about as useful to us as a waffle iron in a swimming pool.

I'd actually suggest, unless you're independently wealthy, that you go for an English M.A. You can still take the workshop courses, but you'll have a degree that's much much more employable.

Will Lavender said:

One criticism I had . . . is that they never talked about publishing.

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I'll definitely second this. I went through a program at a university listed by The MFA Handbook as a "sleeper school." While it wasn't the high-ranking bells-and-whistles kind of program you get at say, Iowa, it really was a decent education and the professors were very good. However, we didn't learn a thing about publishing from any of the coursework. I hadn't really been expecting to be schooled in the practical aspects, but it was still disappointing that we never talked about how to write something with the intent to sell it.

I interned as an editorial assistant though, and learned a lot about the business end of writing that way. I'd never written a cover letter, or a query for that matter, but by reading hundreds of cover letters, I got to see firsthand what worked and what didn't. The editor took an active interest in her interns as potential future editors themselves, and she spent a lot of time teaching me to proof and copyedit, as well as typeset. The more time I spent at the journal, the more responsibility I was given, and by the end, she had me line-editing and doing contest screening.

Based on my experience, I think one of the drawbacks of a low-residency program would simply be missing the opportunity to get involved in publishing. A lot of universities publish literary journals, and most of them have a staff largely made up of MFA candidates.

Sorry, FTJoshua--I know all this isn't really addressing the OP . In regards to the original question, I get the impression that many people go into MFA programs with an idea that they want to teach, and then graduate to find that there are a lot of candidates for very few jobs. It's better in publishing, although the starting pay certainly isn't great. I've known a lot people who've gone on to do administrative though, and to write copy for various corporations, so it seems that an MFA can still give you an edge non-English-department fields.

Medievalist said:

I'd actually suggest, unless you're independently wealthy, that you go for an English M.A. You can still take the workshop courses, but you'll have a degree that's much much more employable.

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I don't know. I feel like my MFA really helped me. It's not often you see thriller writers with MFAs (at least to my knowledge), and I think that's a thing that Crown is definitely interested in using in promotion of the novel. My foreign agent got an e-mail from Korea when the book was first sold asking about personal information, and they were especially interested in the MFA.

But writers are born; no MFA program on the planet can turn a decent writer into a great writer. What they do, though, is they expose your work to a bunch of people. That can be a tremendous confidence-builder. I worked non-stop in grad school because I was so...excited all the time to have someone -- teachers and students alike -- read my work.

Yes, a writers' group will do that. But the level of intensity, at least in our program, is higher.

MFA

There are a fair number of good MFA programs around, just make sure you get a real one that actually talks about publishing. And you really should find one that talks about writing genre fiction, if that's what you want to write.

From my experience, an MFA is more highly thought of inside publishing than an M.A. in English, but an M.A. is English is more highly thought of, and more valuable, outside of writing and publishing.

MFA programs have changed the last few years, and more and more are dealing with real world writing and publishing. The Iowa program is considered one of the best, but unless it's changed recently, it doesn't deal with the kind of publishing and writing most of us do.

US News and World Report list colleges who buy ads, never forget that. I don't think there is any question that the University of Iowa is known as the top MFA program. Warren Wilson is also on my list.

Iowa

dub said:

US News and World Report list colleges who buy ads, never forget that. I don't think there is any question that the University of Iowa is known as the top MFA program. Warren Wilson is also on my list.

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Iowa is considered the top program by most, but I have no idea why. I didn't go there, but I have interviewed several writers who did, and what they told me made me extremely glad I did go somewhere else.

I found that I had read more books by Iowa Workshop grads than all the other MFA programs added together. Simple observation is all.

Is James Gunn still teaching at Kansas? As he's a genre (science fiction) writer, I figured the program'd have a little commercial lean.

Other than that, I'm a cynic. I spoke to an MFA grad who said the prime reason to get an MFA is to teach MFA classes. Another called MFA writing "self-indulgent navel-gazing." Let's call it a bias.

Honestly, the way to pick an MFA program, like any other grad program, is to first look at the faculty. Who are they? What have they written? Then the courses and requirements -- what does it look like they're emphasizing? Writing for small presses, academic presses, genre fiction, writing instruction/pedagogy? What's the workshop system like? Do you study lit too? How much time is spent on worshop/writing vs. classroom lecture/discussion?

Narrow it down to two or three, tops, and then look for current students and alums -- where are the alums now? What are they doing? What have they published? Try to visit the school and talk to faculty and current students. Honestly, the people you work with are key in any graduate degree program. They really are.

Anthony Ravenscroft said:

I found that I had read more books by Iowa Workshop grads than all the other MFA programs added together. Simple observation is all.
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But what kind of books? Again, just from my experience, Iowa is not the best MFA program if you want to write genre fiction, and deal with real world publishing. I think many Iowa grads publish books not because Iowa is a terribly good MFA program, but because its reputation draws the most talented writers, particularly literary writers.

Jamesaritchie said:

I think many Iowa grads publish books not because Iowa is a terribly good MFA program, but because its reputation draws the most talented writers, particularly literary writers.

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It's also one of the best funded James, and that makes an enormous difference in grad programs.

Jamesaritchie said:

Iowa is considered the top program by most, but I have no idea why. I didn't go there, but I have interviewed several writers who did, and what they told me made me extremely glad I did go somewhere else.

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Years ago I took a grad course from their correspondent division and really enjoyed it. It was all by mail (before email/Internet were widespread.)