The "Unwholesome" Side of MFA Programs | Lionel Shriver | Big Think
Вставка
- Опубліковано 22 сер 2024
- The "Unwholesome" Side of MFA Programs
New videos DAILY: bigth.ink/youtube
Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos: bigth.ink/Edge
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While there is value to graduate writing degrees, so many of the young writers encouraged by their MFA professors aren’t going to make it. This leaves Shriver uneasy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lionel Shriver:
Lionel Shriver's latest novel, "So Much for That," was published in March 2010. Other novels include the New York Times bestseller "The Post-Birthday World" and the international bestseller "We Need to Talk About Kevin," which won the 2005 Orange Prize and has now sold over a million copies worldwide. Earlier books include "Double Fault," "A Perfectly Good Family," and "Checker and the Derailleurs." Her novels have been translated into twenty-five languages. Her journalism has appeared in the Guardian, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. She lives in London.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIPT:
Question: What do you think of MFA programs?
Lionel Shriver: I'm very torn about them. I have to confess, I did get an MFA from Columbia University. And I can't say that I regret it exactly. I didn't have a bad time, I had some interesting teachers; I'm still in touch with one of them. And we've become friends. I am still friends with some of the students that I met at Columbia. My very best friend I met at Columbia. So it's a little mystifying why my immediate impulse is to diss MFA programs. But I sometimes feel in retrospect that I should have gotten a proper education in something like history, something substantive. If I'm going to be honest, what I really needed in my early 20s wasn't audience; I wasn't developed enough as a writer to be publishing. So I couldn't achieve that audience through getting short stories in The New Yorker. Frankly at this point in time, I'm still not getting short stories in The New Yorker. But I'm working on it.
So it is not a dumb thing for me to do. And therefore I can't really tell other people who were in a similar situation and have a similar need to have people read their work that they shouldn't do it. But it does have a kind of indulgent, middle-class gestalt. The grim truth is that most people who get MFAs will not go on to be professional writers and therefore when I've been on the other side of it and occasionally taught creative writing, I felt a little bit guilty because so many of the people that you should be encouraging, because there's no point to it if you're not encouraging, are not going to make it. And I think that's true across the board in the arts. My husband is a jazz drummer and he has the same sense of queasiness about teaching jazz drumming. There's more of a career in teaching jazz than there is in playing it right now, and so at the very best, most of the students are going to go on to become jazz instructors. So there's something a little corrupt in that, something unwholesome. And I share his discomfort in participating in it.
Recorded on March 12, 2010
I was accepted into a writing program years ago at a junior college. The instructors that I had were great. I learned the foundational rules to writing which I've never stopped using. But the real secret that I learned in that program was to see the parts of my life that make a story worth reading. I found my voice. They don't teach you this in a writing program. You either learn this on your own or you don't. I noticed that the majority of the students in the program were writing to someone else's expectation, but they lacked a knowledge of self which I believe gives a writer depth. Potential MFA students should do their research about whether a writing program fulfills their expectations. And I also believe a student should practice the craft of writing on their own for a few years. If you haven't spent hours in front of a computer searching to make your sentences glow and move the story forward you aren't yet a writer. It's important to agonize over your work. This is how grit transforms into pearls.
You're teaching a craft that's intrinsically valuable. Just because something is not instrumentally valuable in our society today, doesn't mean that it's unwholesome.
With this mindset teaching how to manipulate people would be more wholesome then teaching one to paint.
Do you think a capitalist society is "wholesome"? A system that depends on money manipulators to rip off the working class?
Unfortunately it is not, just because the square shape won't fit in the circle outline doesn't mean the square aint a shape.
I went to an "elite" creative writing program, the first day of which, while we could still get our money back, the director reminded us that we were not there for the degree as a means to secure future jobs, but to write. Rarely will any of us make a living at it, no matter how talented we might be. I received a first class education there for the price of a fancy car or small house, though I couldn't afford a studio apartment. The program taught be to save my own life.
Currently in a BFA program and the faculty is pushing that we go on to some MFA because thats how you network in the art world and become successful fine artists. But I don't know if its worth getting in debt over.
Surely nobody would go to graduate school in the humanities unless both their tuition and their living expenses were somehow funded through the program?
Actually, lots of people pay for their educations.
I love my MFA program; we're very publishing-oriented and I really enjoy being in a small, specialized community of writers for the first time in my life.
peppermint23 What program is it if you don’t mind giving them a shout out?
You got an MFA and had an audience and you feel queasy so other people shoudn't? Is it unwholesome to take tennis lessons? Painting? Singing? Join a club? MFA programs are safe places to try to be a writer--and to develop a side of your selfhood you might not discover otherwise. It's an individual choice and I can't believe a best selling author who WENT TO AN MFA PROGRAM feels like going on U tube and telling people it's unwholesome to seek friendship and encouragement and instruction. Maybe YOU are the problem, not the program? Maybe you should just write quietly.
Bah! say I. Come on, come all. We have a ball, and our alumni find lots and lots of ways to have audiences (that aren't the New Yorker, Lionel). Happily.
Sandra Scofield, Faculty, Solstice MFA low-res program; author of 10 books. Also a student of landscape painting, mokuhanga printmaking, and keyboarding.
Amen Sandra! What this says is that it's "unwholesome" to pursue dreams. We might as well give up on life altogether since most of what we hope for rarely plays out as expected. The narrative reminds me of parents who decide what career path their children should take. I thought she was going to say something insightful.
I think what she's trying to say is that most students go to these programs believing that it will get them published and lead a life as a professional writer. Sadly this isn't true. She feels uneasy because she feels like she's profiting off selling them this false dream. However, I will admit that this is easy to fix. Just tell them that writing can't be taught and even if you're great, there are plenty of factors that can impede you from getting published, let alone living off writing. All that being said, if you still want to do it, do it. Who knows, you may write the next best seller.
Thank you for honest and very clear explanation of this dilemma. society does not want artists but will encourage the market of teaching concepts and theories without having the students enter the reality of their work.
Let's talk about Kevin now
Why was this made? It's utterly pointless.
As someone who attended an MFA writing program, albeit 25 years ago, this is about the most honest take on what's essentially a racket. Also helps that Lionel Shriver is an successful writer, which isn't a knock.
Who says you need to make a career out of it? Hone your writing because it’s fun.
I got my MFA from Goddard College. It's a progressive and forward thinking MFA program. That's why I chose to go there.
I'm applying to that program, but uncertain if I'm prepared; any advice on how you got in?
I think you'll have a blast. How I got in? I filled in the application, got some good references, and worked really hard on my writing portfolio. Truth be told, it's not so much getting in that is the issue. Not really. Some MFA programs are like this, but for Goddard, you have to be willing to do the work. It's a lot.
Thanks!
I took a writing program years ago, it was a tenth month course at a junior college. I saw alot of sloppy writing, alot of experimental writing and alot of kitchen sink drama. Only a few writers were ever original or thought inspiring. After taking the creative writing program I learned that a student has to enter the craft with an assurance that they see their message, in all their nuance and mode, smack dab in their writing. They must recognize their voice and see their reflection amongst the sentences and semi colons. The intangibles of great writing soar only after years of practice.
Complete waste of whatever this woman is going on about.
Preach!
.......