Welcome to the oughts
paperhaus February 13th, 2008
The Publishing Spot has interviewed author Tony D’Souza. Here he is on whether or not to get an MFA (his is from Notre Dame):
In the seventies, if you had a Iowa MFA, you could go to another school and start your own MFA, in the eighties you could get a job in the expanding MFAs, even in the early nineties your MFA could get you a full-time job at the university level.
But now? With an MFA you are lucky, really lucky, to get a full-time job teaching English 1 at a community college. Some of these programs really fleece people. Three years, $60,000. But still there are lines of people trying to get in.
Oughts as in the years between 2000 and 2010. Oughts as in, maybe I ought not get that MFA after all.
Thanks for the link, I really enjoy reading your blog.
I went to grad school for my journalism masters, and it turned out to be a really helpful way to improve my writing and orient myself in the writing community in New York.
Despite my good experience in an MFA of sorts, I always tell people what Tony D’Souza said as well. It’s a good thing to remember.
The only thing less important than an MFA is one man’s opinion of the importance of an MFA. Who gives a shit what one person says about anything? He ought to work on that stumble-bum of a paragraph about the cornfield. Sounds like fucking Yoda.