online writing classes and MFAs

I'm currently working on an MFA through Albertus Magnus College. It's mostly online with three in-person meetings a semester, but I think they've opened up the in-person stuff to people calling in. We've only had one person call in during the year I've been in the program, though, and that was a guy who was sick at home (but usually came in).

I enjoy the program, but I'll admit that I wouldn't do it if my G.I. Bill wasn't paying for it. It's been pretty good so far, and I've found the program challenges me to go in directions I wouldn't go on my own, like writing creative nonfiction (which I still hate, but was good for me as a writer). It's also great to meet others who love writing. I'm not normally the type to join a writing group (go being an introvert!), and neither are many of my classmates. So we all enjoy the fact that we can get together and be cautious and shy about sharing our stuff, and yet support one another anyway.

I'm currently working through an MFA at the University of New Hampshire. Not online. Expensive. There is "some" funding. My first year, I received a half tuition waiver and this second year I've received a TA which covers full tuition. Because I received the TA, they have asked me to stick around for a 5th semester, which will cost me roughly $300 out of pocket, but I won't be taking classes.

The program is good. And I've learned a lot from the instructors--stuff I'd be floundering around with over the next several years if I were working on my own. But there are several programs out there that are fully funded.

Here's a list of fully-funded programs: https://themfayears.com/fully-funded-programs/


Often, these programs offer a monthly or bi-weekly stipend and often require you to teach a class or work on some other university/program project, such as a literary journal. The fully funded programs have stiff competition to get in. I've chosen UNH for several different reasons: 1) I live in New Hampshire and am location-bound (i.e., I have kids) 2) my wife got into the program and I was intimately familiar with the work that students were producing in the program 3) I think it's worth the money.

There are problems with my MFA, which I feel are typical of most MFA programs. There is a tendency to shun genre fiction, there is a bigger tendency to shun writing for money, and there is a lack of knowledge concerning how the publishing world has totally changed over the last several years. There is not much contact with literary agencies, publishing houses, or literary journals.

There has also been a trend in recent years for people to peruse two MFA degrees. Often, people will be admitted into a lower ranking school (such as UNH) and then apply to a fully funded program. In the first program, they hone their skills and pay through the teeth and in the second program they are fully funded given a stipend and given actual time to write.

The MFA program is also a terminal degree, which means you will be able to teach creative writing at the university/college level, but you're only going to get a full time gig if you have a published book otherwise you're going to languish in the community college system for low pay or do the adjunct thing which is even lower pay and pays less than a TA. It is a weird world we live in, to have an advanced degree and to be paid under minimum wage.

Keep in mind though too that people like Zadie Smith do not have any sort of MFA or master's degree or PhD and she is teaching full-time at New York University as a tenured professor which means she can't be fired unless she does something really really really stupid.

You do not need an MFA to write. You do not always need an MFA to teach. An MFA is an indulgence.

All of that being said, I would not be where I am today as a writer if it were not for UNH.

There are several writing centers around the U.S. you could join or sign up for classes instead at a much lower cost.
You can read about some of them here:
https://www.bustle.com/articles/48484-13-amazing-non-profit-writing-centers-around-the-country-to-love-because-an-mfa-isnt-everything

Also, look around your local area. Just recently, I've discovered the New Hampshire Writer's Project, and I'm also considering starting my own workshop. Your local library is a good place to start a search.

I learned to write for free.

It is my feeling that MFAs are generally more useful for literary fiction unless they are one of the few run by and for genre/commercial fiction writers. I pursued my PhD at a school that had a respected MFA run by an award winning author. Much of the value of the program was the direct mentoring by that author bringing graduates into the local literary community/industry.

Brandon Sanderson has online writing classes up on youtube, completely free. He's a successful author and a lecturer of creative writing.

I would start there and see how useful you find his classes.

Keep in mind that a MFA doesn't get you much unless you intend to teach. And that any craft, such as writing, requires both knowledge and skill. Knowledge is from learning, which you can do remotely, but skill only comes from doing. If you just attend online courses or watch YouTube videos and you don't actually write, you're never going to learn.

The benefit with most MFA coursework is the peer and professor review. There's no reason you can't do your own projects that are out of your comfort zone to extend your skills, but everybody needs an affirmation of some sort that their work is good. A writer's group, review sessions or even the millions of adoring fans at your book signings can provide that.

Jeff

I mean, plenty of people used an MFA to break through as a writer--it just has to be one that focuses on (and achieves) that outcome. Naturally they tend to be hard to get into and generally chose people who are on the verge of breaking through.

Harlequin said:

Brandon Sanderson has online writing classes up on youtube, completely free. He's a successful author and a lecturer of creative writing.

I would start there and see how useful you find his classes.

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He also co-hosts a podcast called Writing Excuses that has a TON of free writing information. I can't recommend the podcast enough. Not only do they go over basics of writing (characters, plots, world-building) but they often talk about the experience of being an author and what the publishing industry is like. They bring in a lot of guests to interview, too.

EvilPenguin said:

He also co-hosts a podcast called Writing Excuses that has a TON of free writing information. I can't recommend the podcast enough. Not only do they go over basics of writing (characters, plots, world-building) but they often talk about the experience of being an author and what the publishing industry is like. They bring in a lot of guests to interview, too.

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Seconded! this is a great podcast!

veinglory said:

It is my feeling that MFAs are generally more useful for literary fiction

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I'm not sure if I agree with this. I think that's the perception. For good reason that perception exists. Most of us are kinda rather snobbish about genre fiction, but I think many of us also confuse the trope for the genre, as opposed to the genre utilizing a trope.

That said, an MFA course normally does not go for the dragons or the spaceships, but it is about the people, the characters in the story that matter the most, IMHO, to any piece of creative fiction writing, and I think you can go a long way honing that skill working within the limitations of the literary genre. If you're going to do an MFA with the intention of writing dragons, maybe certainly be aware of that bias and write for your audience, craft the characters then take what you've learned and apply it to the genre of your choice outside of class. That is, of course, avoiding the elephant in the room, and gain absolute zero skills in world building.

Being a SF/F person, most of my experience is through the genre fiction-lens which I'm not sure is what you write or not. Like amerigina, I'm doing an MFA at a low residency genre-friendly program (Stonecoast's Popular Fiction) and have a BA in creative writing (true, the school was more genre-tolerant than most). The BA taught me to write a lot, write fast, and hit my deadlines. The MFA is far more relaxed and receptive to what I'm doing that the BA was. It's teaching me more of the business side to writing (the networking and the talking and the contacts and the meeting people) than necessarily the craft, but there's craft elements in there too (workshops, seminars, and so on). It's a fairly balanced program, but it does have an academic slant to it. There's a 7,000-8,000 word research paper/academic project in the program's third semester, plus your graduating thesis (about 40,000-ish words of prose?).

While I think that much of it could be learned on your own without the formal education, I also think MFAs, workshops, and writing programs can fast-track a writer's development a bit. Because you're producing a lot of work in a short period of time with the structure of deadlines and expectations, plus the potential feedback from other writers and/or the instructor, I've noticed people tend to leap and bound through skill development (at least, early on; the more you do it, though, the fewer Eureka! moments you have, imo). BUT its expensive and definitely not for everyone. The MFA structure works for the now-me. Past-me struggled with the BA a lot. I'm grateful for it being there, I wouldn't be the writer I am today without it, I learned a great deal, and I made contacts and connections with awesome people, but at the same time, it was horribly stressful.

Stonecoast, much less stressful though less accessible, seeing that it's in Maine and I live in Illinois. Most of my schooling happens online in the six month semesters between the residencies (which are ten-day intensive workshops; if you've ever been to a convention, it's like the longest convention ever but with a lot less free time). The residencies are very regimented and scheduled, whereas the six months between are spent working one-on-one with a mentor (usually remotely). The faculty are active, practicing, publishing writers and the program's goal is (primarily) to prepare students for writing careers, and they're getting pretty good at presenting different routes and forms of publication as viable.

Just as a note, simply applying for MFAs can be expensive. Colleges and universities usually ask for an application fee (I think mine was $50). If my current life-situation didn't support my pursing this, I don't think I'd be able to do it.

I've never done the Gotham Writer's Workshop, but I can second (third?) watching Brandon Sanderson's lectures and the Writing Excuses podcast is great. For in-person, genre-friendly workshops, there's Clarion, Clarion West, Odyssey, and Viable Paradise as the big ones, but a lot of conventions and conferences have a writing track. Online, maybe Litreactor? I've never taken a class through them but they seem fairly average in price for online writing workshops, and they seem fairly widespread when it comes to genre and category offerings. Oh! And Odyssey has online courses available, in addition to the workshop.

oh man gumandsoda MFA may not be your ticket at all. The focus is on the short story, not the novel. You'd still have to write the novel outside of a structured environment. I'd suggest maybe looking for a writing group, or forming your own writing group with people you trust.

What's your PhD in? I keep going back and forth about doing one in literature.

stevebargdill said:

oh man gumandsoda MFA may not be your ticket at all. The focus is on the short story, not the novel. You'd still have to write the novel outside of a structured environment. I'd suggest maybe looking for a writing group, or forming your own writing group with people you trust.

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Nnnnnnot necessarily. It depends on the program. My undergrad, yes, was short stories, and pretty much any program ascribing to the Iowa Method will be short stories, but the MFA I'm doing right now is fairly open to novels. Coincidentally, I'm currently in a workshop focusing just on long-form fiction. In my (limited) experience, though, if you want to write a novel in an MFA, you're probably going to have to advocate for it. MFAs (or, really, formal workshops in general) tend to be slated more for idea generation, which does lend itself to short fiction, rather than long-term projects BUT if the MFA is open to novels and you go in and say, Yes, I want to work on this novel and I need the structure of this program to do so, I'd argue that the faculty should be willing to work with you. Your experience probably won't look like everyone else's in the program but *shrug*

I'd second the writing group, though, regardless of if you go for an MFA or not.

People keep saying I need to do a rhet and comp but no no no. I'm already playing the adjunct game and teach at 4 campuses, one of which I was told to assume food stamps and state heating assistance is considered part of my pay and all I could think was when did higher education become McDonald's and Walmart? I too love teaching though, and would have a hard time giving it up. I might transition into teaching my own stuff outside of academia. I'm experimenting with a creative writing class this summer, and have an email list of interested people already. So we'll see. If it works out, I'll make in a month what I make in 4 months.

My MFA program expects a long work - either novel or memoir/creative non fiction. In fact, it's a requirement to graduate. So, I wouldn't say that all MFAs are geared towards short stories. We are expected to produce some shorter pieces, which isn't really my forte, but I've found it a good learning experience.

Yes yes yes gumandsoda! This semester was my first teaching creative writing and I still can't believe how much students wrote! I have portfolios that are 50-70 pages! Makes me wonder if we're teaching rhet comp wrong. If that's your end goal, to teach creative writing, I'd say go for it. If you got the PhD, the MFA will be a breeze. This semester I had six classes between teaching and taking and turned in all my work in on time no sweat.