Over the next few months, I’ll be asking a number of writer friends to answer (approximately) 5 questions about MFAs–whether they had MFA’s, or not, and how their MFA’s were structured, and how they would design their own private MFA. Again, I want to stress that I’m not against traditional MFA’s. But I am fascinated by the current debate about them. So this feature is about curiosity and learning about differently structured programs,and thinking about what what one gets from an MFA, or not. And it lets me introduce you to some of my favorite people and writers.
Mark McGurl’s recent article in The Los Angeles Review of Books, by the way, is an interesting order ventolin no prescription reflection on MFA’s and creative writing. Among the questions he answers are “Why does everyone hate creative writing programs so much?” and “Are writers ashamed of being writers?” But because I read so much contemporary fiction, I really appreciate what he has to say about contemporary novels:
“..I think what is going on in these indictments of the mediocrity of contemporary fiction is a kind of unacknowledged mourning. What is mourned is not good new novels, of which there are still plenty—of which there may be more than ever—but the passing of a culture in which the novel was more central than it is now…”