The Hard Facts

In general, more students now apply to creative-writing programs than any other kind in English and often provide the requisite number of students to make the teaching of literature possible in an era of shrinking doctoral programs. The big question might be why, because the MFA is a teaching degree, and in its annual survey of academic positions AWP notes a steady decline in jobs for creative writers.

The total number of academic positions this year, for example, was 393, about half of what was available in 2003. And most of these are temporary assignments with no prospect of renewal. Moreover, while there are fewer jobs available for creative writers, there are more graduates than ever -8,000 job-seekers according to [D.W.] Fenza, competing for a mere 65 tenure-track teaching positions. Even Herman Melville, were he alive, wouldn't like those odds. A friend used to joke that by the time he qualified for a tenure-track job, you'd need a Nobel Prize in literature to get an interview.

Universities love to trot out their success stories, and it must be admitted that writing-program graduates form a virtual who's who of contemporary literature. Such writers as Philip Roth, Flannery O'Connor, Richard Ford, Lorrie Moore, Jane Smiley, Michael Chabon, Rick Russo, Mona Simpson and, more recently, Alice Sebold and Aimee Bender all did time in writing programs and credit their teachers for much of their success. Still, the fact is that most writers who graduate this year will neither publish their work nor find teaching positions any time soon.

Among other things, David Milofsky's article in the Denver Post utters aloud the not-so-concealed secret about American English departments: without Creative Writing, many of them might no longer exist. Only the infusion of creative writing students (undergraduate and graduate) each semester, being sent through their required literature courses, keeps some literature professors in business. Many of these students are perfectly happy to be taking these courses, as they understand that good writers know where their chosen forms come from and what the great writers of the past have done with these forms. Others, however, regard these required classes as a trial to be endured, not exactly what they had in mind when they decided Stephen King's job looked like a pretty good one.

The MFA degree in particular has become both increasingly coveted (by those who think it's the route to assured publication) and loudly dismissed (by those who resent the professionalization and academization of literature). The latter really overestimate the influence of MFA programs--while some graduates of the high-profile programs do seem to have a leg up in acquiring teaching positions, in getting agents, or attracting the attention of publishers, surely the majority of MFA graduates from the otherwise ordinary writing programs languish among the unpublished and the untenured. Those who pursue the MFA degree, especially in the more prestigious programs, must ultimately find them somewhat disappointing. How many diiferent ways are there to workshop a story or study a few prominent contemporary writers? Such programs surely do provide "contacts" for the aspiring writer, but is spending two or more years in graduate school worth it simply to come out with the names of a few people to call?

(Full disclosure: I have an M.A. in creative writing from a Midwestern state university, but not an MFA. I immediately entered a Ph.D program in literature, so I never really experienced either the networking games or the struggle to find a teaching position specifically in a creative writing program.)

At the end of the article, both Milofsky and AWP Executive Director Fenza seem to agree that creative writing programs are finally performing a valuable service:

So while programs in creative writing may not funnel their graduates into careers, neither do degrees in art, music, dance or theater. The answer seems to be what it's always been: Universities aren't vocational schools, and art must be its own reward. Even a hardened cynic might admit that developing a craft and extending your creative powers is a fair trade for a few years in a writing program.

Or as Fenza puts it, "Writing is such a lonely business that just having someone to read your work is precious."

While I agree that in American society, at least, "art must be its own reward," I'm not sure I can summon up more than a single cheer for Creative Writing in its current configuration. There's way too much career building and way too little literature involved. To the extent students are given a few years simply to write, to develop a sense of craft and of purpose, creative writing programs are modestly useful. Although I can't agree with Fenza that "having someone to read your work" means one must enroll in one of them. There are plenty of good readers outside of AWP-sanctioned academic institutions. If Creative Writing was at least producing such readers among the 7,935 graduates who won't get a tenure-track position, it might still be providing a useful service, but I'm not sure it's accomplishing that.

If you'd like to read some of my further thoughts on how creative writing programs could be made more useful, you might read this.

Comments

[bky]

Is it true that the MFA is a "teaching degree"? I have seen other MFAers write just the opposite: chiding students who think that getting an MFA is a step toward getting a job teaching in an MFA program; arguing that the MFA was designed to teach a craft, analogous to the journalism masters or masters degrees in subjects like economics and statistics, where the intent is that students go forth and practice rather than teach.

Either way it seems that the large number of people going this route are poorly served. If they think it's a teaching degree, they will be disappointed by not getting a job, and if its a practical degree, they will be disappointed if they still can't write. And isn't that the fate of most people who get an MFA, they still can't write? Which is not to say that most of the people who are successful writers these days don't have MFA degrees -- that's different. But most who get the degree end up not writing or if they do write, not well and without much publication success. (No, I'm not saying published = good writing.)

What is the opportunity cost of an MFA? You spend two years doing that when you could have spent those two years ... doing anything else you can imagine, and some of those possibilities have got to be better for a whole lot of people than two years in grad school.

I speak from experience here, having spent 6 years getting a PhD in a non-literary subject which when all is said and done, I don't have talent or aptitude in. What a waste of time, and my one proper regret in life. I have a lot of empathy for people who are likewise wasting their time in MFA programs. They're not bad in general, but is it really gonna be good for you?

[Jimmy Beck]

Some disorganized thoughts (what do you expect from an MFA):

1) I wouldn't trade my two years getting an MFA for anything. Unfettered time to write and think, hanging out and reading and talking about books--it was an amazing gift, albeit an expensive one. Whatever stigma is attached to the degree itself, the process was 95% positive for me.

2) A teaching degree? Well, if you count teaching 5 sections of freshman comp and/or intro creative writing as an adjunct like some of my MFA pals do just so they can live hand-to-mouth, then yeah. But the ones with good teaching jobs are the ones who've published books, gotten stories in the New Yorker etc.

3) It's true that creative Writing may not be providing a useful service in terms of getting people jobs. And though it's a tired argument that I've little stomach for, I'm prepared to grant that there is such a thing as "the workshop story" that's technically proficient but boring and pointless. But whatever the crimes of the creative writing teacher, I'd argue that they pale next to those of the literary theorist and her endless signifiers and the way in which Derrida, Foucault and Barthes have supplanted any kind of real understanding of or reverence for storytelling in university English depts. When I started taking creative writing classes, there were two creative writers--one poet and one fiction writer--in a department of 20+. The same ratio holds true at the school where I now work. In both places, I believe most of the theorists look down their noses at the writers--they (the writers) are amusing at best, but they are not scholars and can't be expected to know how to really parse a text. One of my teachers (at a school w/o an MFA program) once told me that she believed her colleagues viewed her as a kind of mascot--she was to be trotted out whenever the time came to show a literarily inclined (and deep-pocketed) alum "Look! She's been in the New Yorker!" So, to the extent that creative writers in the academy can remind students of the pleasures of reading and writing fiction and poetry having nothing to do with theory, I would argue that they do indeed perform a service.

[bky]

By the way, in my first comment, I'm not asking is the MFA gonna help people get a job, because I had always thought it was not intended to be a preparation for teaching. But for all those people going in because they want to improve themselves as writers, is this the best way to do it? On the one end, you see all these people coming out with good books that they worked on while doing the MFA. I guess that worked for them, but possibly other routes would have worked out too.

I suspect that for a large plurality or more of any given MFA class, the MFA was the easiest to think of but not the best possible way to live those two years. I'm not referring to Jimmy Beck's experience in graduate school, but to mine. I would advise anybody thinking about the MFA to think really hard about what they could do instead with those two years and weigh their options. Just because you're young doesn't mean that big decisions don't incurr opportunity costs.

I think Evan S Connell's advice was to get the least demanding, the least emotionally involving, job that is sufficient to cover your material needs, and write. He applied that before the ubiquity of the MFA program, so that probably wasn't among his options, but his advice is something to consider.

[Sherryl]

Here in Australia we don't have MFAs. A student at university can study a Bachelor's degree then go on and do a Masters or Phd, and a large proportion of that can be a creative work such as a novel.
I teach in a "Lower" course (in the minds of those who teach degrees, that is) which is the US equivalent of a community college. Our students study for 2 years and receive a Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing. I carried out a survey a couple of years ago, devising questionnaires for students, teachers and publishers, and the results confirmed what I had suspected.
Publishers said they don't take any notice of a writer's qualifications, however glossy. They read the words on the page and the book gets published because of them (or not - usually not). Students dreamed of being published, but nearly all of them were realistic enough to know it was a difficult road. And I have to say that in our course we make sure that students understand the publishing industry and how it works - we raise no false hopes!
And teachers said they didn't expect all of the students would get published either. Aims included creating better readers, teaching students how to use the English language more effectively, and improving writing and editing skills.
By the way, our course does not focus only on creative writing - we teach editing, book production, script writing and computer skills, among others. The two years is like an early apprenticeship, and then it's up to them what and where they take what they have gained. Many end up with jobs in the industry, for example.
I teach fiction, poetry and writing children's books. I doubt that I would have more than one or two students each year who I genuinely believe have the talent and skills to "make it". And the bottom line is - none of them will make it without perseverance. Without the self-faith and drive to ignore the rejection letters, to keep learning and improving long after the course is over.
I also believe there are plenty of talented writers who can succeed perfectly well without any kind of course at all. I like the comment about being able to spend two years doing nothing but writing, reading and talking about it all. Sounds like heaven. I'd do the MFA just for that.

[Robert Nagle]

My thoughts:
http://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/?p=83398277

[Michael Blowhard]

What I hear is something related to what you're saying but maybe a little different. It's that the Theory emphasis in traditional lit departments has alienated many kids. They still love books and writing, and want to hang out and read and study, but they can't stand the overintellectualization. So they wind up in Creative Writing instead, where matters are considerably more practical (at least where finding out about how writing works goes) than they are in traditional English Depts.

Nice and helpful posting, btw. Thanks.

[David Milofsky]

Just to clarify, when I said the MFA is a teaching degree I meant to distinguish it from other ways of learning to write, e.g. working on a newspaper, participating in a group of writers, etc. The reason AWP championed the degree in the first place was that at the time writers in the academy were being penalized for not having the Ph.d. Thus it was important that the MFA be recognized (as it is in Art and Theatre) as being the relevant equivalent in order for creative writers to be hired and promoted. As the first head of AWP's Program Director's Council, much of my time was spent writing supporting letters for writers who were up for tenure. I believe that reading the entire article will make this clear to anyone. I certainly did not say or imply that pursuing the MFA is the only way to learn to write, though I happen to think being in workshop during your developing years as a writer can only help, despite the dangers of the so-called workshop story. Speaking personally (as Jimmy did), I entered the MFA program at UMass as a refugee from a Ph.d program with no expectations of finding employment just because I had another degree. I had been given a teaching assistantship and was looking for a chance to spend three years focussing on my writing. Beyond that, no one promised me anything. For me, it worked pretty well. My thesis was published and then I did get a tenure-track job. But my goal was only to spend some time in a congenial environment working on fiction. I think that's still a legitimate reason to enter a program. My primary reason for writing the piece was to alert those who may be thinking about an MFA program to the actual state of things regarding jobs. As a professor in an MFA program, I feel pretty strongly about that but I also agree with Dan that sometimes universities gloss these facts over in their eagerness to draw new students. Still Fenza's right when he says our main obligation is to let people know the situation and then let them make up their own minds. After all, there are plenty of unemployed lawyers and engineers out there these days as well and no one has to make apolotgies for programs in those fields. In any case, I appreciate the feedback from all of you. This is exactly what I hoped would come from writing the column.

[Mary Jane]

I do consider an MFA to be a teaching degree, because my husband has authored over a dozen books and nearly 200 short stories and is also demonstrably a very good teacher, but none of the university English departments in the area would give him the time of day if he applied for a job as a writing instructor because he does not have an MFA.

Yes, you can't get a job with an MFA if you don't have solid publishing credits, but solid publishing credits won't get you a job by themselves, either.

[Gloria, Writer Reading]

I just wrote a cynical MFA post on my blog yesterday and have several others up my sleeve for future posts, scattered in between other topics. This is a very helpful and interesting post.