Mailbag, Sunday, February 7, 2010

Can't....keep....up....

But keep the comments rolling. There's plenty to talk about!

Mailbag, Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

It's only been a few days since the last mailbag, but as we near 1,000 comments, it seems like a good time for a fresh one.

Congratulations to those who've heard good news from programs, and best wishes to everyone still waiting. Remember, it's still very early.

Mailbag, Friday January 29, 2010

Time for a new mailbag!

Get the CW MFA in Hong Kong

This made some of us do double takes when we initially heard about it. Do you want to get a low-residency CW MFA in China? The City University of Hong Kong has a new program. Be warned that students will need to travel. We don't know how they'll get any writing done as "unofficial" tourists in a big Asian metropolis.

Mailbag, Friday, January 22

Lots of good discussion going on concerning, amongst other things: Is-my-application-complete anxiety, typo anxiety, plan Bs, teaching abroad, the weather conditions of various programs, how to distract yourselves from the aforementioned anxieties, what makes for good teaching and good critiques, and books to read. Did I miss any major threads?

Some links, gathered up top here for ease of access:

Seth's application response time database, which is up and running for the 2010 season.

(Some other resources Seth has made available at this time: Lists of low res programs, creative writing PhD programs, playwriting/dramaturgy programs, and screen/scriptwriting programs.)

As Seth has noted in the comments, he'll be posting a bunch of other good stuff on February 1st, once his contractual obligations to PW magazine allow it, so check back on the Suburban Ecstasies blog then.

And here are a few awesome ways to distract yourselves from general application anxieties, grabbed from various comments (thank you, commentators.)

Puppy webcam!

A poem! "It's the time when we are waiting to be told."

Satirical stick figure games!

Add your own favorite books to read, websites to visit, and things to do to reduce the anxiety, below, as well as open season on other topics, of course.

Mailbag, Monday, January 18, 5.53 p.m.

Great discussions, y'all. Keep it up!

New Mailbag, Tuesday, January 12, 8.05 p.m.

My, you guys are chatty! That's a good thing, by the way. Good to see all the mutual support going on.

Let me know if these new mailbags are coming too frequently now. I don't want to actually interrupt the conversation.

One question I want to throw out here for consideration, though, because I see it get asked a lot and then answered in various ways: Do you have to stick to the page limit for your creative writing samples?

My take, for what it's worth is: don't go over, but it's OK to go under. Often, I think it's OK to go under by quite a bit - more than most of you think. 15 pages for a 25 page limit? No problem! If the 15 pages are strong, they'll get you in. You don't need to "pad" your manuscript with other material (particularly if it isn't as strong) out of fear that your application will seem sparse. One good story/excerpt/set of poems is enough.

Going over is much more problematic. None of the people reading these manuscripts are going to rub their hands with glee when they see a longer-than-it-should-be sample and say, "Oh goody! This one ignored the instructions!" Most of the time, they know if they want you - or at least if your application merits further consideration - in the first 10 pages. If a school has a tight page limit, and I know some do, I say, edit down, or send something shorter if you can.

That said, I don't want to freak anyone out. What has been sent has been sent. Have faith in the work, trust (and learn from) the process, and see what happens. If they love your work, chances are they are not going to nix you over a couple of extra pages.

Weigh in with your opinions on this, and other issues, below.

Another New Mailbag, January 8, 2010

Because of the high volume, I'm going to endeavor to update the mailbag after 200 comments -- only one page of scrolling. Feel free to email me if I miss that comment point.

The MFA Program-Off for Nonfiction MFA Students

I wanted to draw attention to this contest, open to any existing nonfiction MFA students out there. It's organized by Creative Nonfiction, and their guidelines state:

Win a reading at the 2010 AWP Conference in Denver, publication in the summer 2010 issue of CNF, and bragging rights for your program!

Judge: Barbara Lounsberry
co-author (with Gay Talese) of Writing Creative Nonfiction: The Literature of Reality

Read their full contest submission guidelines here.

NEW MAILBAG! Monday, Dec. 28, 2009

388 comments and counting? Wowzers! You guys have been busy. Somebody noted, around comment number 320, that it was time for a new mailbag and yes, it is. So start afresh with your comments, questions, and mutual support, below.

Mailbag, Friday December 4, 2009

How about a new mailbag for all your last minute, the-deadlines-are-upon-us questions!

I also wanted to draw your attention to this guide to personal-statement writing, drawn from the comments in the last mailbag.

Finally, I had an applicant contact me looking for information on playwriting MFAs - not a topic that seems to get discussed much around these parts. Does anyone know of any resources on this? Leave that info, and your other comments, below.

Click Happy

There's a handy list of MFA related links if you click on "MFA Resource Database" over there: ==>

And I have also just compiled another set of links -- some funny, some scary, some just plain useful -- on the links page of my website.

Feel free to leave additional suggestions in the comments.

New Mailbag, Friday November 13, 2009

I thought I'd start a new mailbag as it's close to the deadline for the first applications for many of you and I'm sure the questions are piling up.

You can hold off on lists of schools for now as that was part of Seth's research, which is on hiatus.

With Thanks

I appreciate how supportive everyone's been over the past three years. I've decided to end my work on MFA programs. That means a number of things, including removing myself as an administrator (or having any special posting privileges whatsoever) for this blog. It's Tom's blog, in any case, and I know he'll continue to offer this blog as a service to all of you, so there shouldn't be any significant effect to this. I wish all of you the very best in the future. I apologize for the briefness of this message; I imagine anything I would have said I've said elsewhere here, or simply elsewhere, and better. I hope I've helped some of you, at least a little, over the years. And I hope I get to meet some of you in the months and years ahead. Be well everyone.

A Response to AWP

The Suburban Ecstasies responds to the AWP's recent open letter here.

November Mailbag/Where Are You Applying?

Anything goes, below. If you do happen to share your application list, please remember to mention your genre, too. And most importantly: Keep your spirits up! This tends to be a tough time for applicants; know that you're not alone, that things aren't as bad as they seem, and that you have the full support and best wishes of all of us who've already gone through the process. However you might be feeling right now, the reality is that with courage and perseverance you will reach the finish-line! Trite, I know, but I can say from experience that it's true. So screw the haters, hoist the black flag, and (as H.L. Mencken said) start slittin' throats.

Reaction to the Poets & Writers MFA Rankings

Early reports suggest that by and large the rankings have been received extremely well, and seen for the probative starting-point they intend to be--however imperfect they are, and however much (particularly with the unscientific portion of the rankings comprised by the applicant poll) it will take years to continue refining the methodology for the project. As to that part of the rankings that constitute the first-ever hard-data funding ranking, selectivity ranking, and postgraduate ranking (and the handful of data-based assessments published also), there's been no criticism, and the consensus seems to be these will help applicants in the months and years ahead.

I want to thank all of you who've sent along words of support and encouragement to me in the past few days. As the P&W article says (several times), no ranking can or should claim to be a conclusive assessment of program quality, nor be a primary element in any applicant's matriculation determination--but I do hope these rankings can be one tool among many in a field where (for too long) critical admissions and funding information have been systematically withheld from the programs' most important and invested constituents: applicants.

[Poets & Writers rankings #1 to #52 can be found here, and #53 to #142 here; an excerpt from the methodology article is here].

Those interested in getting the programs' (much less circumspect than bloggers') reactions to the rankings can follow these links: Brooklyn College; George Mason University; Rutgers University at Newark; Southern Illinois University (2, 3); University of Wisconsin-Madison (2); University of Virginia (2, 3, 4, 5); University of Minnesota (scroll down); University of Oregon; University of North Carolina at Greensboro; University of North Carolina at Wilmington (2); Vanderbilt University; Indiana University; University of Iowa (2, 3, 4, 5, 6); University of Texas; University of Wyoming (scroll down); University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The rankings have also been covered by The New York Daily News & (among other online media) by Bookfox, The Rumpus (2), and Fiction Writers Review.

Best New American Voices 2010

The VQR blog has a review of the Best New American Voice 2010 anthology, which came out recently. Best New American Voices, for those that don't know it, features work submitted by MFA programs and writing conferences across the country. It's a good way to check out the quality of work being produced by MFA students from various programs (though it's by no means the only indicator, of course).

The VQR blog post also mentions the "rumored demise" of the yearly anthology -- anyone know more about this?