Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘Michigan MFA news’

Interviews |

Those Magic Carbons: A Conversation with Eileen Pollack

by Brian Short

Brian Short talks to fiction guru Eileen Pollack about the juggling act of writing fiction, teaching writing, and directing the Creative Writing MFA program at the University of Michigan. Her advice to writers: Be bold.

“The first thing I love, when I read, is the language. I can’t read anything where I don’t like the voice. What else do I like? I like plot, I like setting, I like humor, I like boldness. I think part of it has to do with being female. No one ever told Philip Roth to be more timid or nice, to have nicer characters or less sex, to not be as broad. And when a woman tests boundaries, it’s seen as unbecoming. We’re supposed to write these quiet, domestic stories or novels. I’ve just never been one to do that.”


Shop Talk |

P&W: Top 50 creative writing programs, and a conversation with Jonathan Karp

by Anne Stameshkin

The numbers are in…and the top 50 creative writing MFA programs are ranked in the new issue of Poets & Writers. Here’s an excerpt from the accompanying article by Seth Abramson, who compiled the list based on extensive research. (Note: The full article is available only in the print edition.) Abramson admits the difficulties of quantifying and comparing MFA program experiences: [T]he evils of educational rankings are indeed legion and do urge caution on the part of any prospective analyst of MFA programs. At base it is impossible to quantify or predict the experience any one MFA candidate will have […]


Shop Talk |

Say You're One of Them is Oprah Book Club pick!!

by Anne Stameshkin

Warm congratulations, Uwem. FWR is thrilled that so many more people will know about and read your stories because of this endorsement. And Oprah, kudos for picking a story collection! Learn more about Say You’re One of Them here; read “An Ex-Mas Feast,” the collection’s first story (previously published in the New Yorker); and check out FWR Associate Editor Jeremiah Chamberlin’s interview with Uwem (for Granta).



Literary Partners