John, you should go back and read my post about two posts back. If they're a waste of time, they still managed to turn out quite a few pulitzer prize winners, a nobel prize winner or two, and people like Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Carver, John Irving...
Just picked up Vikram Chandin's new collection of short stories, and he's an MFA from University of Houston.
I also quoted from the Iowa Writer's Workshop website -- those course have been hardly taught by "failed" authors -- they've had people like Robert Frost on faculty. Raymond Carver and O'Connor returned as faculty. I know SUNY had Galway Kinnell for awhile and Fl. Atlantic U had some notables too.
There are good MFA's and bad ones. You're describing bad ones. If you think that's the only kind out there, you really need to pull your head out of your arse...
I think much of this hostility toward programs by people who obviously know nothing about them comes from some kind of envy or feeling of inferiority.
Get over it. Write if you're a writer. Find support somewhere if you can't get into a good program -- find other writers you respect and give and take good input. But don't take out your feelings of inadequacy on people legitimately, and often successfully, developing their talents.
Jim
PS I'm not an MFA, in case you were wondering.
-----Original Message-----
From: "John Gedsudski" <john_gedsudski@hotmail.com>
To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
Date: Sun, 01 Sep 2002 14:39:02 +0000
Subject: Re: Re: intelligence of the author vs. intelligence of the characters
>What you did say in your previous post was that those programs were a
>complete waste of time. That's mistaken.
Actually, if she did say that, she's right on target. I would add they are a
waste of money and energy too. Just a bunch of pretentious wanna-bes who
should be writing from their hearts not from some manual dispersed by a
failed writer (most likely a professor or two of creative writing or the
like).
Great writers write from experience, such as Conrad whom spent most of his
youth at sea. Utterly ignorant of English at twenty, yet he still became one
of the best stylists and maganged a few great novels in that language...
The list goes on- Scott as the Princeton dropout, Papa earning his credits
via field experience, and of course the great J.D. Salinger, three colleges
and "no degrees". Didn't he go to Columbia but take courses for no credit?
My point is a practical-minded uncle and a life full of promise is what can
initiate the germintation of seeds where great writing may grow. Not an
"MFA" where a good writer may be surrounded by people who will tell him/her
how to write, while stiffling any creative drive they have and forcing them
to live like the others in the program; a life of quiet desperation (but
with a Master's degree no less!)
-John
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Received on Sun Sep 1 13:06:03 2002
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