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5(ish) Questions: Brian Oliu’s Own MFA

Brian Oliu is the dear friend of my dear friends Elizabeth and Colin, and teaches creative writing at the University of Alabama. He’s just come out with his first book–more about that below. Through the wonders of social media, we’ve had grand exchanges about 80’s music (he’s also a DJ) and karaoke standards. And about writing. Despite my Luddite misgivings about poetry involving technology, video games, and Craigslist, there’s clearly a great deal of generous heart behind his work. I love this line from one of his Craigslist lyric essays: “You always opted for gin: you only trust things that you can see through: windows, keyholes.” Please welcome Brian to the “(private) MFA” series!

1. Did you go through an MFA program? If so, how was it structured?

I received my MFA from the University of Alabama in 2009. One of the appeals of the program was the fact that it was a three-year program with the option of a fourth year (which I took advantage of), as well as the fact that it wasn’t genre-specific. I classify myself as a non-fiction writer and I was able to take non-fiction courses as well as fiction and poetry.

2. If you were to design your own private MFA for yourself—either before or after going through your MFA program—what would it look like, and why? What would be your goals? How would you challenge yourself, solicit feedback, create a writing community? (Or, none of those things?)

I think the purpose of the MFA is first and foremost to give people the opportunity to write, which brings forth the other purpose of the MFA: to determine if people actually want to write and pursue it further. The MFA gives people the opportunity to see all of the things that go along with writing/being a writer. Furthermore, it gives writers the chance to teach, edit, get involved with the publishing aspect, so on and so forth and figure out if these are things that people would like to go forward with. Some folks realize that they want to write and only write, and thus go into jobs unrelated to the writing world. I think the other thing that is important about the MFA is that it provides a sense of camaraderie (if one is lucky with their program, as I was!) as well as finding an audience for one’s work in addition to finding folks who are good readers of one’s work. So, if it were up to me, I’d have everyone get involved in all of those facets: working on a literary journal, designing a chapbook, teaching creative writing to undergraduates/high schoolers, etc. As for ‘improving writing’ I do feel as if having readers and receiving feedback is important, although I think the drive to write is more important: thus some semblance of deadlines would be effective, as would a focus on the idea of a larger project–if the members of the MFA community could understand the larger ideas and projects that each writer is attempting to create, I think the feedback would be even more helpful, as a lot of workshop
seems to be explaining the context of each piece: one of the most beneficial classes I took at Alabama was a novel workshop where we all got to know each other’s work over the course of a semester.

3. Do you teach creative writing, or do you teach in an MFA program now? How do you measure student progress, or grading?

I teach creative writing on the undergraduate level: I teach mostly upper-level courses- mostly ‘prose tour’ classes where we examine a bunch of different types of fiction and non-fiction and attempt to emulate the style of the writing or the concepts that are brought forward. On occasion I teach highly specialized courses as well–I have taught a class on the lyric essay as well as a class on video games/games in general as literature.

Furthermore, I’m a member of the Slash Pine Projects, which is a collective here in Tuscaloosa that puts out chapbooks, puts on poetry festivals, and tries to bring art to the community. I have approximately 20 interns, all undergraduates at the University of Alabama specializing in everything from English Literature to Creative Writing to Book Arts. One of the things that I hold most important when teaching creative writing is to view everyone as an artist and as a writer, no matter what level of writing they are currently at: some are Creative Writing minors who take their work very seriously, others are taking Creative Writing as an elective and know that they just enjoy writing poetry and would like to take a class on it and learn how to make themselves better writers. As a result, instead of grading or writing notes, I e-mail every one of my students after receiving their work and enter a dialog with them: tell them what I saw, and what I perceived that they were trying to do with the story. If they want line edits, I’ll be more than happy to do that, but overall I want to talk about the feel of the pieces and what the goals of the students are.

4. If you do teach creative writing, what is the most important thing that you try to teach your students, and why that? And how do you try to accomplish that goal?

To me, the most important thing to teach is simply to write. I try to debunk myths about writing: I’m very open about my relationship with writing as well as my process and I let them know that there’s no such thing as a muse–that I am struggling with finding time to write as well as with what to write about as much as they are. I like to talk a great deal about beginnings and ways to get over their conceived idea of ‘writer’s block’ (which I don’t believe in either!) as well as learning to think about themselves as writers, collaborators, and readers. Writing is exciting and beautiful and magical–the creation of something out of nothing and I just try to pass on that joy, first and foremost. To borrow from the excellent Dear Sugar on The Rumpus, I want them to “write like motherfuckers”.

5. What have you read lately that’s just blown you away?

Lidia Yuknavitch‘s The Chronology of Water is absolutely stunning. A beautiful memoir. I also re-read Christian Bobin’s A Little Party Dress recently and it was even lovelier the second time through. Sarah Goldstein’s Fables is gorgeous.

6. What are you working on now? Do you have anything coming out? Can you say a little bit more about it here?

I assembled an eBook of Tuscaloosa writers called ‘Tuscaloosa Runs This’ to help generate donations for tornado recovery efforts. Furthermore, my book of Tuscaloosa Craigslist Missed Connections, ‘So You Know It’s Me’, was released in June on Tiny Hardcore Press. Other than that, been putting some finishing touches on a manuscript based off of 8-bit Nintendo games, and I’ve started a book collaboration with a book that my grandfather wrote in Catalan on long-distance running.

Thanks for playing, Brian! I like seeing how the MFA for you is about exposing students to “the things that go along with being a writer.’ And how you seem to teach writing and approach writing itself as opportunity and drive–more about inclusivity and community, less about hypercritical judging and evaluation along the way. I’m grateful for you taking the time to write here. Maybe we’ll get to meet, with Colin and Elizabeth, at AWP; it’s coming to Seattle in 2014.

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5(ish) Questions: Elizabeth Wade’s Own Private MFA

My friend Elizabeth and I have bonded over food, Twitter, grief, writing, and many things  in between. She has been an informal writing mentor for me in this private MFA process, and while she’s  published quite a bit (poetry, essay, memoir, creative nonfiction), she doesn’t have an MFA, herself. I’ve admired her bold and sensual writing for a while now, seeing various pieces online (more about where to find her writing below). She’s married to a longtime dear friend, Colin Rafferty, which is how we met. I’m happy to introduce her here, as the inaugural guest poster in my “Other People’s (Private) MFA” series.

1. Did you go through an MFA program? If so, how was it structured?

I do not have an MFA, and I’m not sure I’ll ever pursue one. I’ve told myself that if I ever reach a point where I can’t find the time or the community I need to do the writing I want to do, I’ll think about my commitment to writing, and, assuming it still holds, I’ll then consider the MFA. From my vantage point, those two things–time to write and a writing community–appear to be the most valuable aspects of an MFA program. For those reasons, I’d probably gravitate toward a longer, residential program instead of more compressed options.

2. If you were to design your own private MFA for yourself—either before or after going through your MFA program—what would it look like, and why?

I’d love to answer the question you’ve actually asked–what I would do. But I think it’s more honest to tell you what I have done in “my own private MFA” (thanks for the term!), and to acknowledge that it hasn’t all been intentional or well-conceived.

I spent several years running from writing, for various and complicated reasons, most of them concerning my twenty-something-self trying to figure out how to make her way in the world, and exactly what sort of way she hoped to make. Eventually, I realized that writing was an essential part of that way. I think that realization was an important thing for me–it took embarking on a life without writing to make me see how crucial writing is to the life I want to live.

Once I acknowledged that, I started setting my life up to make it conducive to writing. Some things—and, frankly, some people—weren’t really amenable to my choices. I got out of a bad relationship in part (though certainly not entirely) because my then-partner disparaged my longing to be a writer and actually referred to his belief that someday I would “wake up and realize this writing thing isn’t real life.” When I did go back to graduate school, I was too scared to acknowledge my fervent belief that my critical sensibilities and my writerly tendencies are intricately connected, so I applied to PhD programs and pretended for a time that my creative work was outside of my academic interests.

I was wrong about that, and things got easier once I sorted that out. So here are the things I’ve done in “my own private MFA” that I’d recommend for others.

  • Surround yourself with a variety of talented writers and readers. You won’t agree with them all in issues of aesthetics or craft, and that’s okay, even good. Learn from them. Talk with them extensively about writing and reading, about art and process and anything else that comes up.
  • Find a local writing group. Take a class.
  • Go to AWP, the yearly conference of writers and writing programs, and spend a lot of time in the book fair. Find some journals you love (one of mine is Hayden’s Ferry Review, which published the first prose poem I ever wrote ) and support them loyally. Read them. Subscribe to them.
  • Read voraciously. Think about what you read. Consider why it works or doesn’t work. Talk to others about what they read. Ask people you admire what they are reading. Ask what you should be reading.
  • Read in different genres and forms and time periods and traditions. Read classics from the canon–I especially like Homer, Donne, and Woolf, but you should read enough to figure out who you like and why.
  • Read contemporary work–start with Brian Oliu‘s new collection So You Know It’s Me, any of Beth Ann Fennelly‘s poetry collections, and the weekly advice column Dear Sugar. Read anything that interests you–not just literary works, but history and biography and field guides and maps and instructional booklets and anything else you can get your eyes on.
  • Memorize the writing of other people. This works best if you’re into poetry, of course, but I think you could pull off flash prose pieces, too. Let words generic ventolin percolate. Let them be the rhythm that undergirds your daily life. You know how songs can get stuck in your head sometimes? Try to switch out songs for poems.
  • Write your ass off. This is something that gets overlooked a lot, which is weird. But a lot of writers–at time, myself included–go through phrases where they pretend that writing is a mystical thing that just comes to you. Sometimes it does, and that’s lovely. But in my experience, that’s rare. Be attentive enough to listen–if you notice your inner voice or your muse or whatever you want to call it tugging at you with an opening line or an idea, then certainly be mindful of that. But don’t sit around and wait for it. Write. Get a schedule going. Have regular times when you commit to writing. Sometimes you’ll produce crap. But sometimes you won’t, and that is good.
  • You’ll read a lot about people who write every day. This is interesting to me, though I’ve never really done it. If it works for you, fine. If not, that’s fine, too. My point isn’t that you have to write for any arbitrary period of time. Rather, it’s that you should allocate times to write and stick to those. Don’t cancel or postpone them for quotidian things. Keep those appointments as if they were sacred. They are.
  • Once you get a sense of what you do well, experiment with something different. If you write long forms, try shorter ones. If you’re a poet, try your hand at prose. Write a review, a letter, a list. Find things in your daily life that are not usually approached as writing opportunities, and make them writing opportunities.
  • Eventually, find readers you trust to look at your work. Accept criticism. Be willing to change things, but always know how to stay true to your vision. Recognize that your vision may not always be marketable or publishable. Figure out your priorities, and proceed accordingly.
  • To the extent that you’re able, think about working in projects or units. I picked this up from my friend & fellow writer Brian Oliu, who’s also one of my favorite people to engage in conversations about writing. Writing a poem or essay or story is like planting a tree. Be mindful of the forest.

3. Do you teach creative writing, or do you teach in an MFA program now? How do you measure student progress, or grading?

I currently teach literature and writing (i.e,, composition) courses at the University of Mary Washington. I do include some creative work in most of my classes, and I generally try to stress process. Work rarely emerges fully-formed. The real work of writing is in revision, and I try to teach my students that.

4. What have you read lately that’s just blown you away?

This essay on writing and gender by Lidia Yuknavitch. And this benefit e-book of Alabama writers in the wake of the deadly tornadoes that hit the state in April: (full disclosure: I have a piece in this collection, but that’s not why I’m plugging it. See the essay by B.J. Hollars. See the poem by M.C. Hyland. These are the stories of my town and her people. Please read them.) And this debut short story collection by Alissa Nutting.

5. What are you working on now? Do you have anything coming out? Can you say a little bit more about it here?

I’m wrapping up a sequence of prose poems that synthesizes the protagonist’s medical history with a love story.
I’ve been writing a lot about grief this year.
I’m pretty sure my next project is going to concern the circus.

Later this year, I’ll have pieces from the prose poem sequence out with Packingtown Review, Kenyon Review Online, AGNI, and Shadowbox Magazine. I also have two nonfiction shorts forthcoming this year from Sweet. These pieces concern the recent death of my younger brother, Austin–or, maybe it’s more accurate to say they concern me as I learned to deal with his death. And my poem “Selling the Saddle” will be out in Cave Wall next year. This is a longer poem that traverses everything from sex to death, from tampons to Kentucky basketball legends. It sprawls. I kind of love it.

These are all great journals, and I’m thrilled to be included in them. Also, I tend to post little “behind-the-writing” pieces on my blog for each publication. To read those and see my previous publications, please see this site.

Many thanks, Elizabeth! As I said to you once, I look forward to some distant kitchen where we will bake and cook and eat and write together into the wee hours of the morning.