MFA Confidential: Applying to Creative Writing Programs
Sponsored by Poetic Justice Institute & The Creative Writing Program
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Poet and scholar Sally Mao shares advice on applying to graduate MFA creative writing programs and MFA student life with our Fordham community.
Sally Wen Mao is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection The Kingdom of Surfaces (Graywolf Press, 2023), and the debut fiction collection Ninetails (Penguin Books). She is also the author of two previous poetry collections, Oculus (Graywolf Press, 2019), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Mad Honey Symposium (Alice James Books, 2014). The recipient of two Pushcart Prizes and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, she was recently a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library and a Shearing Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute.
By far the most common question was about time: how do you know when you’re ready for a graduate-level education –– and what it means to be ready for it. Sally’s advice was not to overthink it; unlike many others, she believes that the key factor of a successful MFA experience isn’t timing, but craft. Her suggestion was to ask ourselves if, as writers, we have a vision that we are willing to commit to fully for several years, and a sample we are able to stand behind, rather than worrying about being too young or too old to begin work on an MFA.
Another popular topic was that of choosing the place to go. One of Sally’s biggest suggestions was to start by looking at funding –– in her opinion, it’s not worth it to pay for an MFA, so she recommends looking at fully-funded programs, or those that offer teaching positions if that is something that interests us. Outside of finances, she invites us to consider what type of environment suits our lifestyle: for her, studying in Cornell was a far more rural experience than she would have liked. Additionally, she confirmed that looking at faculty would be a useful tool for narrowing down our options –– but warned us that there is a chance that certain faculty members we were excited about would be on academic leave, so relying on faculty for MFA selection is not always the wisest option. Sally also reminded us that if we were not accepted one year, there would be no harm in applying in the future, and that persistence and consistent improvement would set our applications apart from the rest.
Overall, the meeting served to dissuade many of the students’ anxieties about the MFA application process. Through her frank, conversational style, Sally Wen Mao was able to shed light on many parts of the process that were previously confusing, or frightening, while not underplaying the importance of program selection and application quality. As a graduating senior, this virtual session helped me think more clearly about my options after Fordham, as well as build a valuable connection. ~ Yev Gelman