Hawaii has it all. It's a tropical getaway with beautiful sandy beaches. Additionally, active volcanoes keep these islands growing. There's just one problem. This surfers' paradise has no CW MFA program. The University of Hawaii at Manoa offers the M.A. and Phd. That's it. Where is the darn MFA for serious writers? It's a hard pill to swallow. What's up with the Aloha State?
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Hawaii should be calling MFA applicants.
Hawaii has it all. It's a tropical getaway with beautiful sandy beaches. Additionally, active volcanoes keep these islands growing. There's just one problem. This surfers' paradise has no CW MFA program. The University of Hawaii at Manoa offers the M.A. and Phd. That's it. Where is the darn MFA for serious writers? It's a hard pill to swallow. What's up with the Aloha State?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
LOL. There's always U of Alaska.
Don't they have Manoa, which is an incredible literary journal?
Because of that journal I thought they had an MFA program and then I was disappointed when I found out that they don't.
Hawaii is doing itself a disservice. Alaska even has a significantly smaller amount of residents. Would-be MFA applicants in Hawaii are probably all hopping on a plane for programs in the continuous forty-eight. Sad because people residing in the forty-eight like leave to Hawaii for their honeymoons and a dream vacation. Yikes. What about Native Hawaiian writers?
If I can't bring the dog, I'm not going to apply anyway. ;)
I was seriously thinking about U of Alaska until I read on their site that most students live in dry cabins. It was mentioned briefly like it was some ideal getaway. Dry cabins? I did a search and found that meant NO RUNNING WATER. I may be from the boonies and have done my fair share of camping, but I couldn't fathom going to an outhouse in negative 30 degree weather (which is how cold it can get there!)...and another search online for apartments there with running water showed that they were out of my price range. :(
if only..maybe Hawaii has a writers alliance--seems miserable.
Some insights about Hawai'i.
There has been a serious brain drain in Hawai'i for the past 50 years or so. Most of the top high school students from the islands seek college education on the mainland. That's not to say the University of Hawai'i is a bad school; it's just that the top talent want to go elsewhere for college.
Hawai'i has serious budget problems due to a combination of bad economy, thrifty alums, state budget problems, reliance on the tourist industry, etc. If UH set up an MFA program, it would have a tough time competing for the "best" student writers because they would not be able to fund anyone and it's very expensive to live in Hawai'i. That's not to say no one would want to go there. It's just that there are serious money problems in Hawai'i that the rest of the country cannot imagine.
i hope good things happen for parties concerned in your beautiful state. people currently living in the forty-eight with the right attitude know that their is a wealth of experiences inside and outside the classroom at UH. stuff worth writing about.
Hawaii is not where I live now. I grew up there and know it very well, but like a lot of my classmates, we all left for mainland colleges. Even the UH students who want MAs seek it in the mainland. It seems mostly mainland students are attracted to Hawaii, not the other way around. Anyone from Hawaii who wants to write don't need UH; they go to Iowa or some other midwestern school. LOL! So, don't worry about the Native Hawaiian writers. They'll get their education on the mainland.
Post a Comment