Re: RARA-AVIS: MFA programs

From: Joy Matkowski (jmatkowski1@comcast.net)
Date: 06 Mar 2009

  • Next message: Don Lee: "Re: RARA-AVIS: MFA programs"

    That wasn't my experience in novel-writing class. I wrote a rather conventional mystery, and others in the class wrote hard-boiled crime fiction, science fiction, and a romance, among the majority literary types, and the instructor stuck up for our crime fiction. Granted, this wasn't Ivy League or MFA, but our instructor was a PEN Faulkner Award winner, which is fancy stuff. Joy

    Don Lee wrote:
    > It's true that straight-up lit programs (M.A. and PhD) do allow writing ABOUT genre, since essentially you can use the same critical tools whether you're talking about MOBY DICK or THE MALTESE FALCON, and the Literary Canon was exhausted years ago insofar as subject matter is concerned, but try turning in an SF story, crime, etc., into a workshop, and they just look at you like you put a dead squirrel on the table. It was frustrating.
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