What is an MFA in Creative Writing?

I've earned one and I don't have the first clue what it means to anyone else.  I know why I studied and read and wrote and workshopped and listened and learned and presented but I couldn't tell you why anyone else did those things.

I wanted to learn how to write better.  Since my first three thriller novels were published by Berkley Books, I had been carrying around that same open secret that many published authors do.  I kept waiting for someone to simply walk up to me in a naked-emperor moment and say, "Man, those books sucked.  I've written 10 novels that no one will publish, or even look at, and every one of my books are better than any of your books.  How did you get someone to publish those?"

I'd be trapped and wounded and I'd be standing there facing my critic and facing the fact that the first words that would pop into my head would be, "Yeah, that's probably true.  I have no idea how I got that lucky."

So, I became a Stonecoaster.  I attended the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast MFA program. There, with the help of a handful of great professors and a herd of grad students, many of whom are brilliant, I learned to write better.  What I write now is better than what I wrote pre-MFA.  I learned.  I still have much more to learn, but I made progress.

If you want to enter an MFA in Creative Writing program to find a community of writers who will completely understand where you are coming from with your writing obsession, you'll likely find some of that.  It will be as welcoming as you are willing to face where you are up to in your writing.  Some writers are stronger and some weaker.  I don't know who sets the standards, or what the metric is, but good writing is like porn...you know it when you see it.  You'll probably even see some bad writing that will have you scratching your head.  Let that go too, because if you're there for the community, be open to everyone.  Some people will have no real understanding of the publishing industry, though they will insist they do or that they don't need to understand.  Still, every member has something to contribute, and the vast majority will be more knowledgeable than you are, better read than you are, more published than you are.  The best way into that community is with an open mind and open ears.

If you are after an MFA because you want to be a full-time, tenure-track professor at a small liberal arts college in pastoral New England or a prof at a major metropolitan university, I wish I could say that there are jobs for everyone.  In fact, I wish I could say there was one position like that for every 100 MFA's out there.  There are not.  You can adjunct or be an instructor and put in your time and maybe you'll find a position will open for you.  There are two things that will help you if teaching full-time at the tertiary level is why you earned an MFA.  Be willing to move anywhere in the country, especially places where most people don't want to live, and publish a bestseller.

I don't want to be a writer.  I want to be writing, and not necessarily but preferably for an audience of appreciative readers.  The MFA was a way to try and buttress my ego a bit, a way to build my skill and confidence a bit so that the rejections had more fortress to wear away before getting to the chewy center.   It's worked, at least somewhat.  I even look back at those thrillers written for Berkley with pride.  They aren't half bad.  Like any carpenter, I can see every tiny gaff, every missed swing of the hammer, but they accomplished their mission of providing entertainment and I feel I "smarted" them up a bit.  Since those books, and with what I learned to earn my MFA, I feel as though my writing, my craft, has improved.

There has been no post-MFA writing lull.  After I earned a B.S. in English, I admit I stopped reading for a while. With reading loads like a single World Lit course which required the purchase of 13 books (one of which was the Muqaddimah, a book written in 1377 by Ibn Khaldun on the philosophy of writing history) the bachelors degree put me off reading for a while.  I didn't read for pleasure for perhaps two years after earning that degree.  However, after earning my MFA, the only constraint on my writing has been time.  I have two novels in the works and there are 14 short stories making the rounds at various markets, in addition to a completed novel wandering about in six different NYC offices looking for a home.

I'm happy that I now get to feel good about that (most of the time) and the fact I've made what I hope are lifelong friendships with talented, generous, creative, and supportive people.

So I know what an MFA in Creative Writing is to me, and I'm more than satisfied.  I wish that same satisfaction for every MFA candidate and degree-holder.