A survey of the journals whose stories have been consistently selected for The Best American Short Stories and the O. Henry Prize Stories includes The New Yorker, Glimmer Train, Harper's Magazine, Ecotone, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, Granta, The Kenyon Review, and The Iowa Review, among others. Several of these publications are run by universities, and the editorial staffs of these journals include academic writing teachers and students. I think whether these editors do it consciously or not, they must have some tendency to lean toward writers coming out of academia, simply because that's what they've learned is representative of quality writing. As an academic scientist, I can attest to picking up biases when evaluating the work of other scientists for publication. Simply put, I'm trained one way, so I'm going to rely on those lessons when judging the work of others. The other part of this discussion involves the cover letter that accompanies a short story submission. If covers letters matter to an editor, then degrees, just like publications, will probably impress them.
Luckily, exceptions to this rule are plentiful. Jennifer mentioned Alice Munro, a regular in The New Yorker, who never got her MFA. From the editorial side of things, some prestigious journals still look at submissions blind, meaning the cover letters and the writer's identity is removed before a story is judged.
The second part of this question was whether or not there is an "MFA-type" story. I'll start by saying that, while I have taken a few university writing and literature classes, I do not have an MFA, so I can't completely discuss this topic from my own experience. But, I do believe that academia promotes a more uniform style than would be around if every writer had to develop on their own. Again, techniques and philosophies are shared since that's the nature of education, so I think it's normal that writers coming from the same place risk sounding the same.
Is this a good thing for literature? Probably not. But, I think education is good, and if a writer is attempting to learn writing from others, uniformity may be impossible to avoid. Just as with the rules and preferences we discuss in our blogs, the writer is faced with the task of learning the rules and then daring to break them for the better. That second step is crucial, in my opinion. Without it, I don't believe any writer can be great.
I think there is perhaps, mostly, an education bias, not necessarily a MFA bias. It is SHOCKING to me when I see people with appalling grammar skills submitting work to agents and editors...
ReplyDeleteJeeze...I have an MA (lit). Do they have to have the "F" in there? LOL
ReplyDeleteHmm, I expected you to cover this topic from a different angle, because I once read that some agents cringe when they see "MFA." It might have been Bransford who posted about it, but I'm not sure.
ReplyDeleteTalent cannot be taught. I wonder how many of the classics were written by people with the equivalent degrees?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Beth that some of the basic rules of writing are shattered in many quieries and manuscripts. My hope is that helps the rest of us shine in comparison.
Davin, thank you for this post. As someone who plans to get her MFA, I must say that this news is disturbing. I would hate to have my work judged on my level of education. And I hate to have it judged now based of the fact that I don't have an MFA.
ReplyDeleteAs an English major with a BA in Creative Writing, I know that I struggled with the fact that many of the students started sounding the same in their writing. Thankfully, we had professors who saw the problem and encouraged unique ideas and writing styles. That is one of the ways I developed my own style and voice. Of course, 7 years later, I'm struggling to find it all over again since I didn't write for 5 years. My own fault, of course!
I agree with Rick. Talent cannot be taught. However, I do believe proper (and even simple) grammar can and should be taught. There just ain't no way I can say it any gooder. Ya know?
ReplyDeleteBeth, Good point. Yes, I'd agree that the bias, in situations where there is one, is probably due to education rather than a specific degree.
ReplyDeleteLitgirl, Honestly, I've always wondered that same thing myself. I'm not sure.
Justus, Jennifer's question was based on literary journals, so I avoided talk of agents. I'm sure some agents hate writers with an MFA, just as I'm sure some journal editors hate it.
Rick, I'm not sure how many of the classics were written by people with equivalent degrees...or if there was such a thing. Many of the classics were written my the upper class though, so education probably played a factor in many those cases. Of course, there will always be exceptions. I'm not sure if there is a trend one way or another. As for teaching, I'm a firm believe that a proper mentor can push an artist to be better. Whether the talent was already there or not is a different story.
Michelle, I hope this post wasn't disturbing. First of all, these are just my opinions. Second of all, I think the publishing world is faced with the impossible task of deciding on the quality of work in a very short amount of time. Factors other than the writing are bound to come into play, at least a little. I'm not sure an MFA is any more of a force than past publications, popularity, or inside contacts. To me, it's a system, and there are rules to the system that require some maneuvering.
Shorty, I love grammar. When I was an undergraduate I worked as a writing tutor, and we were required to take two years of additional grammar classes while we had our job. I thought it was fascinating!
My sort of vague, unscientific observation is that participation in writing programs (either MFAs or summer programs or workshops or whatnot) matters more in the world of short stories and literary journals than it does in the world of agents and novels. Agents say to go ahead and put that into your query, because it probably means that the quality of your writing is above average, but not having an MFA is no bar to getting your ms read. I don't have an MFA or even a degree in literature; I was a political science major.
ReplyDeleteScott, I had a chance to meet with a handful of agents when I had the PEN fellowship. All of them stressed that the book mattered more than anything. But, I'd say about half of them did value the MFA and encouraged people to mention it in their query letters. I'm not sure that's any more scientific, but there you have it.
ReplyDeleteMy professors in the past have always said experience is what really matters. Always highlight your educational background when it deals with writing (BA in English, Creative Writing or MFA, MA in Creative Writing, etc.). Of course paying close attention to grammar is expected.
ReplyDeleteWow, I was clueless on this issue. I never thought it mattered. If the agent/editor likes your ms, they are not going to pass or accept based on your education. Now, I do have a BA in marketing and make a point to mention that in my queries. I don't know if they care, but it can't hurt.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Davin. This is a much more civilized discussion than often transpires when the MFA issue is raised!
ReplyDeleteI was curious about your opinion since you've had some success with short fiction, and I didn't think you had an MFA. But you also seem connected in the lit fic world--sometime if you feel like sharing, I'd be interested in your writing path--getting published, becoming an editor, and in particular the whole finalist thing at Glimmer Train!
Reason Reanimator, I hope you never decide to keep silent. I personally think this is a great venue for you to voice your thoughts. As is anywhere else. Some people won't like it, but that's life.
ReplyDeleteYou referenced the line "All of them stressed that the book mattered more than anything." I do believe they were being honest when they said that. Actually, most but not all of the agents seemed very honest when I met them. Here's the thing. The book matters, but it's not all about quality. To an agent, the value of a book is mostly monetary. What an agent thinks of as a "good" book is one that they think they can profit from. Most of the agents agreed that they often founds brilliant books that they loved that they couldn't take on. They didn't think certain works were publishable, even if they liked it. So, to me, what they mean when they say that the book matters is, "can it turn a profit." That is a separate issue from other things like having an MFA. Yes, popularity, degrees, influence definitely matters. That stuff also helps to sell the book.
A lot of people will probably agree with the sentiment that nothing but the written work should matter. That's a separate idea, in my mind, from publishing and from making any money from publishing. For my own personal self, I want quality writing. To that end, I've written a book that is the best I can do at the time. That's the artistic side. Now, I'm playing the publishing game because 1. I want to see if people will read my book and 2. the whole system is very fascinating to me. I'm enjoying the biases, the unfairness, it's a game to me for now. If I had to bet, I'd bet that I'll get discouraged pretty soon. It's already starting to happen, and I'm not even in the submission process at the moment.
Jennifer, I'm glad you found the post useful! My own path is a pretty boring one, I think. I'm not ultra-successful. I feel like I'm just starting to make some gains both in the quality of my writing and in the progress of my publishing. And, of course, it has a lot of luck involved as well. The second story I ever published went to a literary journal that specialized in beginners. The editor nominated my story for a Pushcart Prize, and that was that. Then, I joined an online writing group called Zoetrope, which I've mentioned here in the past. Again, some luck came into play. I posted a short piece for critique and a really wonderful and well-established writer noticed it. Her name was Kathy Fish. She's notorious for getting the work out on new writers. So, she sent a few emails and soon some people were talking about me without me knowing it. I posted a few more personal stories and a couple of them were selected by SmokeLong Quarterly, again because the editors were paying attention to me thanks to Kathy Fish. They nominated one of my stories for a Pushcart as well. Then, they got overwhelmed with submissions and asked a handful of people to join the editorial staff. I was one of the ones to said yes. I don't know how many people said no before they even decided to ask me.
ReplyDeleteThe other break I had was that I got into a program called the PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship. This is in Southern California and promoted itself as a unique program that sought out to be as beneficial as an MFA without taking as long. It was geared toward minority writers who haven't been born into the system. I sent in an excerpt of my novel to apply. There were only about 70 applicants, and 8 people were selected, so it wasn't incredibly selective. That 8-month fellowship was a big time sink for me last year, but it also helped in many ways. I got to meet a bunch of agents and writers, including people like Janet Fitch. It sort of helped plug me into the network, even though now I feel like I've pulled the plug again because I suck at maintaining those sorts of relationships. That fellowship also paid for a writing class taught by Mary Yukari Waters, and it was in that class that I wrote the story that placed in the Glimmer Train contest. Of course, in my cover letter to the contest I mentioned things like the fellowship. I'm not sure if it helped, but it probably did a little.
Sorry for rambling. I just didn't want to waste a blog post on this stuff.
Thanks for answering, Davin. Not at all rambling! I think most people here will be interested in your story.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like a little bit of being in the right place at the right time, but also a lot of effort and diligence as well. You wrote the stories that got the attention and did the "big time sink" etc.
I'm curious whether you write short fiction because you love it or if you see the publishing creds plus the contacts generated as a result as part of the "game" of getting your novel published. In other words, is the novel your true love?
Thanks again, and I promise that after this I'll stop peppering you with questions. For awhile. ;)
I don't have an MFA, but I wonder why the bias? Aren't there qualified writers writing for literary journals on the basis of the content they write? That's very discouraging, but no more than my situation. I wasn't trained as a writer. I was trained in finance. So I have nothing to put in my cover letter. Nothing of value that would set me apart from the average Joe. No credentials whatsoever in writing. I feel it will hurt, but we'll see. Interesting post Davin. I enjoyed the discussion. :)
ReplyDeleteReason: The agents I know are looking for books that they can sell (otherwise, they starve) as well as books that they love that they think won't be best sellers but will make money for publishers. Publishers have to make money, so they print a lot of crappy celebrity bios and how-to books and hastily-written current events titles, but they also print a lot of high quality literature. Every amazing book I've read has been published by the same publishers who put out celeb bios. You can't blame free-market capitalism on publishing.
ReplyDeleteI don't think there's a successful agent working who would turn down a beautifully written, compelling book written by a nobody. Readers, in general, don't care about an author's credentials. Publicity dollars are allocated by publishers based on how big they think the market for the book is. Certainly they don't have a brilliant track record of predicting what will sell, but new authors get published every year anyway. I've met a lot of published authors over the last several months, and few of them have MFAs or even degrees in literature or English. What they all have in common is that they wrote books that agents believed in, that publishers believed in because they were books these people thought readers would buy.
The "blockbuster" model is clearly broken and the publishing industry knows it's in trouble, but nobody is going to turn their back on a well-written book that will probably have an audience.
I have no "platform." I have laughable pub credits. I don't have any sort of degree related to writing. But my agent will be putting my novel out on submission very soon, because I wrote a good book. Publishing is run by finance guys, but the people who acquire, edit and promote books are almost all of them readers and lovers of books.
I love the passion you have for writing. I also really loved the premise of your story about the woman who wanted to grow extra heads and arms. Very cool stuff.
Scott mentioned something that I meant to say but forgot. I agree that agents and publishers balance their books, meaning that they will sell the popular stuff in the hopes of being able to publish quality wor at the same time. The best situation is when work is good and popular, but that's not always the case.
ReplyDeleteScott, as a reader, I will admit to caring about a reader's credentials, though. I don't think I would have discovered Jhumpa Lahiri or Yasunari Kawabata if I wasn't looking to read award winners. I used that as a selection criteria when I first started writing because I was overwhelmed by how many books were out there. Now, I try harder to pick up books at random and give them a chance. It's very time consuming, and from the few books I've ended up selecting, they have actually been coinciding with the awards that I respect.
Other things like blurbs and word of mouth also matter to me. Whether or not they should is a different matter. I just don't know how else to choose when I'm in the bookstore facing a wall of those things.
Reason Reanimator, in regard to you trying to disprove Scott's point about agents passing up on good books, I think you're wrongly assuming that agents, or anybody, will agree on whether or not a book is beautiful. That part isn't objective, so I don't think your argument is valid. A lot of the readers here would be bored to tears by the books I have on my shelf. That doesn't make those books good or bad. So, while I agree with you that agents will pass up books that they love, I don't agree that the fact that most books have been rejected helps to prove your point.
Jennifer, in regard to your short fiction questions, it's sort of a mixture of both for me. I do love short fiction. I've found some really amazing short stories, the works of Alice Munro being among the very best for me. So, even if they didn't help in publication world, I'd still be writing them. But, there is some strategy involved. First of all, I don't currently have an impressive publication record. Most if not all of my publications are in small journals, journals that agents would probably not care about. But, if you get into enough of them, I do think it makes your query letter look a little more impressive. So, the game part of my short story publications is that I rarely try to get a short story published in the same journal twice because that's harder to express in a short query letter. So, I spread them around. There's also a sense of climbing up the ladder. Whether it's true or not, I think getting into small publications helps your chances of getting into bigger publications, which helps your chances of catching an agent's interest. In other words, I'm hoping getting into The Storyteller helps me to get into Noo Journal, which helps me to get into SmokeLong, then Indiana Review, then Ploughshares, then The New Yorker, etc. But, the other good thing about publishing in smaller journals is that you can get some awards and make some contacts. I think those things help for publication.
ReplyDelete"I used that as a selection criteria when I first started writing because I was overwhelmed by how many books were out there."
ReplyDeleteI tried to read a lot of books from the NYT bestseller list. That didn't turn out too well; some of those books, uh, suck.
I'm not impressed by all of the Nobel Prize winners or all of the Pulitzer winners either.
ReplyDeleteReason: I was polite to you, but you responded with condescension and profanity. That wasn't nice.
ReplyDeleteYou're correct, Reason Reanimator. I'm sorry. But, I think I interpreted Scott's comment more accurately than you did. I think when he said, "I don't think there's a successful agent working who would turn down a beautifully written, compelling book written by a nobody" that he was referring to the agent thinking the book was beautiful, not Scott personally. Maybe I'm wrong.
ReplyDeleteDavin: Yes, that's the sense I meant to convey.
ReplyDelete"That wasn't nice"? Scott, you're going to make me tear up with your non-profanity. Not really. I know your secret of contrast. It won't work on me!
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to nitpick but I see this a lot-- MFA programs being referred to as "academia." The work coming out of MFA programs may be "academic" in the derogatory sense, but academia as an institution is more scholarly in nature than what goes on in MFA programs. Academe = scholarly research. MFA programs= institutionalization of writing. There is a difference.
ReplyDeleteSomehow I stumbled across this blog (procrastinating as per my usual writing routine...) and I felt compelled to comment, as someone with her MFA.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure about the bias out there, as I have had my fair share of rejection slips, MFA and all. I've had some successes as well though, and I'm compelled to give myself credit for those, not my degree.
While I agree that there could be writers who come away from programs with their work transformed into some sort of institutionalized prose, I did not see that happening in my program. And I know that for myself personally, in both the MFA program and at Writer's Workshops I've attended, my focus is always to push myself against the grain.
Mella, Thanks a lot for your comments! It's good to get some insight from an insider. It sounds to me like you are making some smart decisions. Going against the grain is important, and is getting a good education, at least in my opinion. (I'm better at learning from others than learning on my own.) I think you have a winning combination. As will all things, there are probably wide differences among literary journals. I'll bet some places care about an MFA while others don't.
ReplyDeleteThe literary expectations of the supervising professors for my Masters degree in writing did more to damage me as a writer than all the rejection slips I've ever received put together. Still, I'm glad I did it, because it looks good on the CV and, in some surreal, weird way I experienced tremendous growth as a writer simply because I refused to accept the professors' assessment of my writing talent.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the day, I believe my Master's is going to make no difference to whether I'm published or not. The fulfillment of that dream rests on two things: writing a great book, and having a lucky break that brings that great book to the attention of an agent or publisher who is prepared to take a chance on an unknown.