Gawker talks some smack about M.F.A. programs:
"Creative Writing MFA programs have always struck us as a bit of a scam. We mean, we respect that they provide workshop-leading jobs for writers who are qualified for little else, and we admire the work they do in the 'keeping entitled assholes who consider themselves artistes far away in Iowa where they can't annoy us' department."
This is all an introduction to a letter in Slate, in which someone from a "certain rather prestigious writing program" talks of how she's (or he's...could be a gay man) grown disenchanted with writing and unsure of her talent, in the face of more-talented classmates with "odious personalities". The main conflict for her, strangely, is that she is madly in love, and that she has realized that love is so much more important and wonderful than writing.
Of course it is, sister! But are the two mutually exclusive?
Here is what we should discuss:
Is this writer from Iowa? And, if so, WHO is it?!?!
6 comments:
First, I would like to say that I've been a total freakin' idiot. For over a MONTH I've been unable to post here or invite people (like a certain loveable Ms. Evans, surely as fine as Mr. Peterson), because I am an idiot. But now I've figured this out and since I live in a cold northeastern city where I know three people who never leave their warm, conjugal homes (hear me, Mike & Carol . . . ), I'll make up for lost time and emerge from months of abject wintertime misery, which I hope at least makes me a better human being, the way a happy puppy might be taught to heel thanks to a really fucking brutal choke chain. Second, I think we should make a rule never to link to Gawker, which represents everything evil in American society, which takes a perfectly excellent article on Salon, with some insightful advice to that young first-year fiction lass or lad (or perhaps it's Jason Lewis in love with himself?), and tweaks it so it's all like yeah everyone who goes to the Workshop is an insufferable fuck. Like Albert! Julia! Danielle! Josh (who just had another child!)! Nic! Argh. Some of the kindest, self-effacing, quietest, chillest people on the planet, literary or otherwise -- people who'd be eaten alive by those gawker fucks with way more ambition than talent, propelled by insecurity to rip those suspected of talent, and to rip them for being insufferable which is really the trait those insufferable Gawker fucks define. Yes. Ahem. I will most likely be moving back to their NYC lair this summer because I miss their ilk so much . . .
As per Ms. Kitten's proposal that this blog be used to record our defeats, I will admit to 63 rejections (no acceptances) in 2006! Ug. Hi.
And Blonde Ambition, please realize that Mr. Monroe wrote comments for me, albeit in shaky pencil.
And per the "sexless" comment, I've just invited Danielle to come tell all how WRONG that was. (Though, well, now that I think about it, everyone other than like five people, at least in the fiction side of things, were married with kids or in serious relationships or, well, sort of asexually odd. Is that so bad? Anything else would've made us "poets".
I agree with the No-Gawker rule. Also, how is it that I exchanged emails with Josh a couple of months ago, and he didn't tell me he was having another baby! Not sure if Rolnik reads this, but, Josh, if you're out there: Congatulations (again!) to you and the fam.
P.S.
Robert wrote me comments once...and they were typed. But that was only because I shamed him into writing them.
Maybe I'm just an asshole, but my sympathy meter's not exactly jumping for that letter writer's plight. I mean, you're in this MFA program you always dreamed about, you've got a fellowship, and your Prince Charming boyfriend is willing to drop whatever it is he's doing and move to Iowa City/Irvine/Ann Arbor/Wherever?
What's the dilemma? That you're having a moment of self-doubt about your writing? Let me clue you in on a little insider's secret: there's a support group for that, and it meets at the Foxhead every Tuesday night. Welcome to the Workshop.
http://rapidshare.com/files/14294458/Revolver.rar
I don't know what you fiction writers are on about. The poets of ought six are smokin' hot.
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