Ephemera from a research project:

- The Best American Short Stories anthology debuted in 1915.

- Early favorites of the Best American Short Stories series included Fannie Hurst, Sherwood Anderson and Wilbur Daniel Steele.

- Wilbur Daniel Steele? (don’t google, just keep reading).

- In This Side of Paradise (1920), a character of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s says Fannie Hurst and her ilk are “not producing among ‘em one story or novel that will last 10 years.”

- F. Scott’s first story in Best American was “Two for a Cent,” 1922

- In 1923, the first year Ernest Hemingway made it into Best American Short Stories, his name was spelled “Hemenway” in the table of contents.

- First appearances by others you’d expect: Willa Cather, 1929; Irvin S. Cobb, 1916; Theodore Dreiser, 1916; William Faulkner, 1931; Langston Hughes, 1934; Ring Lardner, 1922; Meridel Le Sueur, 1927; Sinclair Lewis, 1918; Dorothy Parker, 1928; Katherine Anne Porter, 1930; William Saroyan, 1935; John Steinbeck, 1938; Eudora Welty, 1938; and Thomas Wolfe, 1935.

- Louis Adamic, whose socialist chronicles of Los Angeles are now almost impossible to find, appears in the 1931 Best American Short Stories with “The Enigma.”

- Wilbur Daniel Steele appear in 8 of the anthology’s first 11 years. His 1917 bio reads with the straightforward modesty of someone whose fame preceeds him: “Born in Greensboro, NC, 1886. Educated at University of Denver. Studied are in Denver, Boston and Paris. First short story, “On Ebb Tide,” Success [magazine?], 1910. Lives in Provincetown, Mass.” These movies and TV shows were based on his work, which included these plays. When he donated his papers to Stanford, he wrote this later bio. I’m pretty sure none of his work remains in print today.

Got any questions about Best American Short Stories from 1915 to 1940? Ask now. They’re all in my living room.

In class, one of the younger grad students — who is, on the whole, smart, kind and hardworking — was giving feedback that seemed off (circa 1972, a father wouldn’t change a diaper, because they were so locked into traditional roles). So I chimed in: San Francisco’s hippie scene was huge in 1967, a half million people showed up for a rock show in Woodstock in 1969, thousands had marched on Washington for civil rights and against the Vietnam War. Every week Life Magazine had some new feature on protests, communes, hippies — exposing the mainstream audience to (often photogenic) flower children. “By 1969,” I said, “the cultural revolution was well under way.”

“Not in my house!” Our professor exclaimed. “Not in Indiana!”*

“Your parents didn’t get Life?” I asked. “They didn’t watch Walter Cronkite?”

No, I was told. No no no.

That’s right. Indiana. Still waiting for the news that the sixties happened.

* The story we were discussing was not set in the professor’s house or Indiana.

The eternal MFA question has cropped up in a couple of places and I can’t confine my comments to comments. So here goes. I went to AWP. I’m in a writing program, a full-time student getting an MFA in fiction.

I wasn’t sure I’d do it. First I had to clean up my Bachelor’s degree, then take the GRE, then throw $50 or so at a bunch of grad schools. There was no guarantee I’d get in anyplace. I wager, all told, about 1 in 20 do.

If I had walked into the bank that once gave me a mortgage and told them I’d like tens of thousands of dollars to sit in a room and write for a couple of years, they would still be laughing. But the federal government is doing exactly that, all because I’m getting the coveted MFA. But other than scoring those loans, why get an MFA, exactly?

Nick Matamas says it’s because those magic letters open the door to a great teaching job. Ah, no.

This year my school has conducted a search for an assistant fiction professor. How many applications did we get for that one job? About 200. They all had MFAs and had published at least one book. So the odds of getting a tenure-track position with your MFA are 10 times worse than getting that MFA in the first place.

Yikes, no wonder people are getting PhDs in creative writing. It takes that or a bestseller to stand out.

So why get an MFA? For the sage writing advice? Well, you have to pick the right program for that. Many times with ficiton this means picking a program with professors you like. If I’d read Brian Evenson’s work 18 months ago, I definitely would have applied to Brown; as it was, even Robert Coover wasn’t enough to get me to return to Rhode Island. But writers take sabbaticals, jump ship, or maybe just don’t teach all that much. Picking a program isn’t like looking at a menu at Denny’s: all dishes are subject to change. They might never serve the Moons Over My Hammy again.

OK. MFA for your workshop colleagues? This should be a reason. I mean, graduates who have nice things to say about the degree usually cite this as a chief benefit. But you don’t get to pick your fellow students; some will be great readers of your work, others are bound to be clueless. Honestly, you’ll probably get better returns forming a writing group of your own.

So is there really any reason to get an MFA? Yes. It gives you time to write. Me. It gives me time to write.

I can complain about many things: one professor had us regularly meditate during workshop, my thesis advisor made me cry, job prospects are bleak and I haven’t been this broke since Reagan was president. But I have time to write. And with that, my complaints seem minor. As Gwenda says, I have a novel to write. And the time to get it written.

Here at Pitt we’re looking for a new fiction professor; a huge pack of candidates has been narrowed down to finalists. I don’t know the specifics of what I’m allowed to say, so I don’t think I can mention how many finalists. Just, finalists.

Tomorrow the finalists start their visits.

And what visits they are! Each candidate must do a reading; sit for two interviews; attend a reception; and meet with grad students. Those are just the bits I know about. I bet there are also dinners and meetings with the dean and faculty.

Perhaps there are timed mile runs, pop quizzes, vision tests and codebreaking exercises.

As a grad student, I’ll be spending an awful lot of time tagging along to meet these (indeterminate number of) finalists this week. The schedule is kinda nuts, actually.

But at least I’ll just be a spectator. Imagine being the specimen. Must be exhausting.