First of all, I want to tell you about a fun new side project I’m doing. I am going to write a novel (or perhaps a novella) by writing one very short chapter every week (about 1,000 words) or so and posting it online. I’m trying to get people to “subscribe” to it for free so that you will receive notification each time I post a new chapter. I simply have to know that someone is going to read what I write, or I have very little motivation to write. This is not going to be Pulitzer Prize winning fiction. This is going to be “pulp” fiction or “popular” fiction. It probably won’t bring you to a state of enlightenment, but my hope is that it will be interesting enough to keep coming back each week. It will give you something short to read and it will give me something short to write. Please go to somewherewestofrockyford.blogspot.com, read about it, and register your email. You will then need to check your email and click on a link in your email from “feedburner” that will verify your registration. I’m trying to get 100 free subscribers before this coming Monday when I post the first chapter.
Now, I want to respond to several
questions I received last week in response to my blog post. The response to last week’s blog post has
been quite positive; I thank you for that.
If anyone was bothered by it in any way, those folks have not come to me
with their concerns. Like I said last
week, I’m different than a lot of pastors.
I appreciate your acceptance of my difference and even your support for
my other interests.
The main questions that folks had for me
this past week have been in regard to my statement that it is a dream of mine, a
dream that won’t go away, for me to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree in
Creative Writing. I mentioned last week
that I have voluntarily put that dream on the shelf two times—once to take the
path of building a relationship with Danielle (that one worked out!) and once
to take the path to become the pastor of this congregation (that one is working
out too!). I do not regret either
decision. The great Christian spiritual
writer Richard J. Foster is fond of saying that wisdom is “knowing what to do at
the moment it needs to be done.” I
believe that I was acting wisely both times I set my dream aside. That does not, however, mean that the dream
goes away. It just gets moved to the
proverbial backburner, but it keeps simmering.
Some of you wanted to know how I could ever achieve that dream. The short answer is, “I don’t know.” The longer answer follows.
The first thing you need to know is that
not every college or university offers a degree in Master of Fine Arts in
Creative Writing. There are only a few
schools that do in the state of Ohio. The
second thing you need to know is that the majority of MFA programs are
traditional residential programs. That
means that you go to school full time for two years. During those two years you take graduate
courses and teach undergraduate courses.
Quite often your tuition is paid through the stipend you earn from
teaching. All your other bills, however,
are not. To earn an MFA in this way, you
need to have a ton of money saved up, live with your parents, have a spouse
that supports the family, or take on a large amount of student loan debt. This is why the vast majority of MFA students
are people in their young twenties who just earned their undergraduate
degrees. I do not have a ton of money saved. Living with my parents is not an option. Danielle works very hard but does not earn
enough as a teacher’s aide to support the family. Within a year, we will have finally (after
thirteen years of monthly payments) be out from under student loan debt. I refuse to enter back into this kind of debt
again. As Proverbs 22:7 says, “The rich
rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.” I’m about to be free of that “slavery.” Why would I want to go back into bondage,
especially for a degree that doesn’t pay off financially? The most important reasons, however, that I
wouldn’t fulfill my dream this way is that it would not be good for my family
and because I love being pastor of this church.
So the traditional option is out, and I’m okay with that. There is another option, however. But there are some obstacles there as well.
Over the past decade or so, several
colleges and universities have started to offer what is called a “low residency”
MFA program. It is a model that is
almost exactly the same as the Doctor of Ministry degree that is offered by
most seminaries. In a “low residency”
MFA program, you go to campus for 10-14 days in January and 10-14 days in
July. A couple of programs even offer an
option where you go away just once for 14 days in the summer. During those “residencies” you take intensive
classes. Throughout the rest of the year
you work on your writing projects, work long distance with a writing mentor,
and “workshop” your writings through online chat groups. Most low residency programs are still just
two years. You get to keep your fulltime
job, and this option works very well for students with family and work
responsibilities. However, there is a
catch. Because the low residency model
makes it to where an MFA student cannot teach during the program and there is
little to no scholarships or financial aid available, these programs end up being very expensive.
There is another issue with low
residency MFA programs. That issue is
that the majority of them are offered by private universities. This makes them very expensive (again without
the scholarships and financial aid offered to undergraduates at the same
school). There are some public
universities offering this model of program, like Murray State in Kentucky and the University of Alaska, but
there are no low residency programs at all, let alone public university low
residency programs, in the state of Ohio.
So my choice would be either to pay private school tuition or
out-of-state public school tuition, which are pretty close to the same. Then you also have to pay for travel to and
from, as well as for room and board during your residencies. While this option has greater possibility for
me than the residential programs, since I do not have an extra $25,000-$30,000
lying around, this is almost certainly never going to happen either. After all, if I was able to save up that much
money, wouldn’t it make more sense to spend it to send my kids to college,
rather than to earn a second master’s degree?
It makes me sad, but such is life.
I have just become aware today, as I have been writing this post, that there is, perhaps, a third (and maybe fourth) option. There are now a couple of schools, such
as the University of Texas at El Paso and the University of Arkansas at
Monticello, that are offering programs that are 100% online. There are obvious advantages to these
programs, but there are two very big disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage is that a big part
of the MFA in Creative Writing experience is being a part of a community of
writers. In that way it is similar to
seminary. Many seminaries continue to
refuse to offer online programs because they believe (and perhaps rightly so)
that the experience of academic and spiritual community is essential. Many writing programs feel the same way, and
in a “perfect world” this is true. But
people have responsibilities. The second
disadvantage is that, while technically an MFA qualifies you to teach creative
writing at the undergraduate level, chances are that the person who is
reviewing your resume is going to know that your program was online and not
residential or even low residency. My
guess is that there is a great deal of prejudice in that regard. “If you were a really good writer/writing
teacher you wouldn’t have had to go to school online.” That is not necessarily true, but perception
is reality isn’t it?
A possible fourth option is that there is an online program called a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies in Writing
from Western New Mexico University. This
degree, however, does not necessarily qualify you to teach creative writing at the
college level but it does (presumably) help your writing, it is shorter, and it is much less
expensive.
So all that being said, I have to decide
how important that dream is, and whether or not the dream really is to earn an
MFA in Creative Writing or to become a better (and someday published!)
writer. Is the dream to be able to teach
a creative writing class at a college?
Fulltime creative writing teaching positions are extremely hard to get
(virtually impossible), they pay less than what I make as your pastor, and if it comes down to someone with an MFA from the online
program at UTEP or from a first-class residential program like Iowa or Michigan or even
good regional schools like Bowling Green or Miami (Ohio) we all know who would
get the job. So teaching (at least in
any fulltime way) creative writing is a pipe dream; it’s not going to
happen. It would still be nice to have
the degree, perhaps from a program like UTEP, that would make me eligible to
teach creative writing as an adjunct, let’s say at local schools like Southern State
Community College, Wilmington College, or OU-Chillicothe.
I would enjoy that experience a great deal. The one semester I taught undergraduate New Testament was one of the top experiences of my life. More than anything, however, I really just want to become a better
fiction writer. I can do that without an
MFA degree, (after all Stephen King doesn’t have one) although the instruction
and workshop experience (group feedback and revision) usually accelerates the
growth and gives a great deal of inspiration.
I asked a friend of mine who graduated from the perennial number one MFA
program, Iowa, what is important in an MFA.
He said, “a community of writers and deadlines.” After all, an MFA degree won’t get your
writing published “just because.” It
doesn’t usually hurt your case but ultimately it is your writing that speaks
for itself.
So don’t worry; I’m not going to run off
and enroll in a residential MFA in Creative Writing program. That would be ridiculously stupid on my
part. I’m not going to enroll in a low
residency MFA anytime soon—unless someone has $30,000 burning a hole in their
pocket that they want to give me. I am,
however, going to look into the online MFA at UTEP and the MAIS at Western New
Mexico State University, and if one of those might be a viable option I might use my continuing education money toward that program. It isn't a traditional thing for a pastor to do with that money, but most pastoral conferences bore me, and a Doctor of Ministry degree just doesn't get my heart racing the way a writing program does. While these online programs
wouldn’t be my “perfect world” choices, if my real goal is just to become a
better fiction writer than they might be the wise choices. So, again, I’m not going anywhere. I love being your pastor; I just love writing
fiction too.
Again, if you haven’t done it already,
please go to somewherewestofrockyford.blogspot.com and register your email
address.
Next week, I’ll get back to more overtly
spiritual matters.
Peace,
Everett
