Has anyone attended the MFA creating writing program at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop?
getshorty75 asked:
Has anyone matriculated from the M.F.A. program creative writing program at U. of IA? I have some questions. I’ve been told that the atmosphere is highly political, the students rich, spoiled, cliquish, hostile. I’ve been told that screaming matches break out during class, students talk shit about other students (not so much the quality of their work as perceived character flaws). I’ve been told that students who are promising writers go to Iowa and are so thoroughly disillusioned by the politics, cliques, and Social Darwinism inherent in the community, that they never write another word. Is any of this true? The picture I have is of a bunch of country club kids and trust-funded hipsters who want to be the next Anne Rice or Michael Cunningham and not have to actually work for a living.
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Filed Under Other - Education |
Tagged With Hipsters, Promising Writers, Social Darwinism
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One Response to “Has anyone attended the MFA creating writing program at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop?”
Although I haven’t the same input that you’ve had, I’ve always regarded this as primarily a “literary novelist” elitist hangout, insiders only and intellectually incestuous. The sequence goes: Professor A. attends the Workshop…returns to his Ivy Venue and teaches Grad Student B., who faithfully replicates stylistics of Prof. A., and thus segues into a New PhD…Newbie gets gig in another Ivy Venue and creates his own faithful coterie of clones…they busily critique each others’ work, create more grad students in their image, write more of the same [mirrors facing mirrors] and the beat goes on.
If you pick up a novel which has been brilliantly reviewed [check the back cover] and find a total absence of moveable parts and a cast of characters you cannot imagine as ever being alive….go to the inside back flap and see if the writer went to Iowa. Chances are they did. Nuf sed?