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In watching all these terrific bits of advice come out for students applying for entrance to #MFA programs, I wanted to share something that happened to me during my own MFA. First: I was a bit lazy my first semester. Put up a couple of things I wasn& #39;t serious about. Mistake. /1
But then my second semester, I was taking courses with Very Famous Authors (two Pulitzer winners and a NYTimes bestseller) and realized I needed to step up my game. Worked hard on a weird little story I& #39;d been mulling over a while. Had problems, but I was proud of it. /2
But workshop was a nightmare. Students & instructor didn& #39;t slam it, they *pitied* it, and me. They were telling me it would be okay, I& #39;d write something better next time. Brutal. Didn& #39;t sleep for two days, started questioning everything, "What am I even doing here?" etc. /3
So I went into the office to pick up stories for the next week& #39;s workshop, ran into friends & was whining about how sad I was. Meanwhile the workshop administrator saw me in the hallway & tells someone in her office, "It& #39;s hers, it& #39;s her story." UGGGH. I& #39;m ready to bolt. /4
And out of the office pops the workshop director, a man who was so ferocious and feared that I& #39;d avoided taking a class with him. He hung out with Kurt Vonnegut and John Irving, for god& #39;s sake. He& #39;s got my story in his hands. I& #39;m dying. I consider dashing for the back door. /5
And he stops me and says, "This is extraordinary work." There were some other things he said, too, but I don& #39;t think I heard them. My head was buzzing. He *liked* it? The piece of crap everyone else hated? But he did. I& #39;m standing there trying to figure out what just happened. /6
I learned there isn& #39;t just one way to do this work. A thing you write that might be garbage to one person is magic to another. The workshop instructor who hated it? It wasn& #39;t his aesthetic. He was never going to like it. That& #39;s okay, because I wasn& #39;t writing it for him. /7
I revised that story several times after graduating & eventually published it in @pshares. And that director who stopped to tell me he saw something in it he liked? He probably saved my career. A little encouragement in that moment was the thing I needed most. /8
