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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'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'd been mulling over a while. Had problems, but I was proud of it. /2
But workshop was a nightmare. Students & instructor didn't slam it, they *pitied* it, and me. They were telling me it would be okay, I'd write something better next time. Brutal. Didn'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'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's hers, it's her story." UGGGH. I'm ready to bolt. /4
And out of the office pops the workshop director, a man who was so ferocious and feared that I'd avoided taking a class with him. He hung out with Kurt Vonnegut and John Irving, for god's sake. He's got my story in his hands. I'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't think I heard them. My head was buzzing. He *liked* it? The piece of crap everyone else hated? But he did. I'm standing there trying to figure out what just happened. /6
I learned there isn'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't his aesthetic. He was never going to like it. That's okay, because I wasn'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
So for #MFA students: don't take one setback at fatal. No one person has all the answers, including your workshop leaders. And workshop leaders: remember the encouragement. Sometimes it's what your students need the most. /END
