A Quote by Alice Mattison
Being part of a community of writers is huge. I really think that's why people go to MFA programs.
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Every once in a while someone says, 'You can't really learn anything, if you're really a writer then you wouldn't need to do it.' But I think what people need is the sense of not being alone. They go to MFA programs to be part of a community of people who care, and then you start caring about your friend who is trying to edit a magazine and your other friend who is stuck in the middle of her poem. There you have all kinds of things to worry about besides your own success.
My god, people are selling their work and people are reading it! The horror! That MFA programs have to advertise that they'll let you write YA or fantasy or what-have-you is just absurd, but we do, because the presumption is that they're closed to that sort of thing. You're offering an MFA in creative writing? Teach people how to write well, worry about that part, let the writers come up with the stories.
I think in terms of educating a group of readers, MFA programs are very good. I just think the model of MFA programs in which a young poet goes through the program, publishes a series of books, gets teaching jobs, that's a bit at risk.
I think the MFA programs have had a real effect on the state of American fiction, but I don't think it's a question of "this is written by someone with an MFA, and this isn't." I challenge anyone to identify a book in that way. It's totally impossible.
There are two MFA programs here at the University of Texas, and I read on the jury of both of them. And it's amazing to me how many really talented young writers seem to fear humor.
If you're part of any kind of writerly community, some of those people will have gone through MFA programs, and their thinking leaks into yours. So whatever changes MFAs have made to the culture, it's to the culture as a whole. It can't be pinned down to individual books in a way that some people would like to do.
The effects of MFA programs, and the rise of creative writing instruction more generally, are far more diffuse than people think. Even if you're a writer who has avoided institutions your whole life, you're still going to be reading a lot of writers who have MFAs, and are affiliated with universities.
I never really had novel-writing instruction like people do in MFA programs.
I did go to an MFA program, at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. For me, it worked perfectly. It was a small program. They only take five fiction writers a year, and they fund all of us - you don't go into debt to get an MFA. It's not like getting an MBA - you're not going to buy yourself out.
I think everything's a part and parcel of being in this profession, rejection being a huge, huge part of it, and I can't tell you how grateful I am for all those rejections because one thing that I understand is that you have to be really, really strong headed, you have to be very level headed, If you want to be in this industry.
I would be happier if people who went through MFA programs also were already, by then, deeply committed readers of poetry because we need readers of poetry as much as writers of poetry.
Being goal-oriented instead of self-oriented is crucial. I know so many people who want to be writers. But let me tell you, they really don't want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print. They don't want to go through the work of getting the damn book out. There is a huge difference.
Improv is such a huge part of my background, and a huge part of character discovery is really being inside the character and trying to think through them without the limitations of the script.
The most exciting thing about being on the road is the constant go, go, go! I love it!! I really don't have a second to think and I think that is so much fun! There is always something to do, I'm being pushed and being challenged and I really enjoy that part of my life.
I've never really felt that being part of a literary community is all that important. It can be extremely detrimental to a writer. It can damage successful writers by giving them an exalted sense of what they've done, and it can crush less successful writers by infecting them with envy and malice at an early stage in their careers.
A huge part of my identity is being a woman, and that's really important for me, and that's a big part of my self-expression, so I think it's really interesting sort of exploring what it means if someone doesn't have that.
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