In Defense of MFA Programs
By Celeste Ng
Lev Raphael
I was at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst MFA program for two and a half years back when it was rated in the top ten, for whatever that’s worth. The workshops kept me writing and turning in stories, even when I wasn’t in the mood, a good lesson to learn for a writer like me who later ended up doing a lot of print reviewing on tight deadlines.
I enjoyed the company of my fellow students in what was in effect a giant writers group. Were they all good writers or even good critics of each other’s work? No. But the enthusiasm for writing and reading was powerful. I can still remember finding a friend at lunch who was glowing because she’d been reading Richard Wilbur’s “The Mind-Reader.” I only knew him through his Moliere translations, and was thrilled myself by the poem when I read it right there at the cafeteria table. But that was only one POV; another friend said after a reading Wilbur did in Amherst: “God, he uses so many old words!” We definitely didn’t march in lock step.
Certainly there can be downsides to an MFA program as well—and Raphael admits that. But the reason for attending an MFA program that I hear most often involves not practical help with writing but something more psychological. As Raphael puts it, “Taking those two and a half years for the program was taking myself seriously.”
Judging by the passionate response to this essay, though, it’s likely that the debate over MFA programs (worth it, or waste?) will continue for some time.
I finally got around to reading “The Road,” by Cormac McCarthy. It’s extremely well-written – better written than any American writing I’ve read since “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,” by Carson McCullers. McCarthy is the antithesis of an MFA student. He is limited in terms of his subject matter (and punctuation!), but there is something to be said for coming up through the school of hard knocks. There is no easy way to develop that kind of skill.
The debate about MFA programs is not about the benefits for individual students. The debate is about their effect on literature as a whole.
This is a common misdirection in all fields: focusing on the individual benefit of something illusory while ignoring its detriment to the field. The shelves are filled with books explaining how to get ahead in business or politics by exploiting cognitive biases and other decision-making flaws, few of which ever consider what happens to business or politics as a whole when it gets flooded with irrational decision-making.
That MFA programs can help individuals get ahead hardly matters if, in the process, literature as a whole is deluged with credentialed yet bad writers.
Am I being too harsh? The effect of MFA programs on literature is summed up like this: “Were they all good writers or even good critics of each other’s work? No.” Then why should they be credentialed above other writers and critics? By Raphael’s own admission, his MFA program was a mixed bunch, not even “all good” much less the best of the good. Presumably most of these bad writers/critics now have the stamp of MFA approval. Hurray for literature!
Any influence that corrupts merit-based rewards in any field should be discouraged. If good writers need the intensity of writing groups to keep them writing, they can get together and do this for themselves, for free, and without deceptive credentialing.
Mr. Leith is exactly right. The problem is that his point-of-view is being increasingly marginalized within the literary community. There remain hordes of con men/spokespersons wanting to get everyone into the writer industry. For those who have MFA degress– especially if they’ve invested much money and time to attain it– the very existence of uncredentialed “outsider” writers is troubling. The professionalization of an art leads to less creativity and more conformity– competence replacing new ideas.