{"id":2056,"date":"2010-11-30T12:24:51","date_gmt":"2010-11-30T19:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2056"},"modified":"2010-11-30T12:24:51","modified_gmt":"2010-11-30T19:24:51","slug":"from-slate-americas-two-literary-cultures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2056","title":{"rendered":"From Slate, America’s Two Literary Cultures"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article on “America’s two distinct literary cultures<\/a>” (via University Diaries<\/em><\/a>) touched me because I almost went down the Master of Fine Arts<\/a> in writing road myself\u2014and of course I taught alongside people who had done so.<\/p>\n

After graduating from Reed College<\/a> with what amounted to a BFA, I was accepted into the MFA program at the U. of Montana, which I was drawn to because Richard Hugo<\/a> was there, and I really admired him. (Still do.)<\/p>\n

All the paperwork was done; I had only to take the Graduate Record Exam. The day came, I woke up, and I did not go to the testing. Instead I went to work in an advertising agency (the English major’s equivalent of being drafted, I used to joke).<\/p>\n

Then came years working in magazine publishing, then daily newspapers (definitely not the normal career path for journalism), a little while in book publishing, and finally p.r. for higher education\u2014until one night “some god or daemon” kicked me in the head and said “Graduate School. Religious Studies.”<\/p>\n

Which led, ironically enough, back to the English Department. A job’s a job.\u00a0 And I was on the fringe of this scene:<\/p>\n

Thus the fiction writer’s MFA increasingly resembles the poet’s old Ph.D.; not in the rigors of the degree itself\u2014getting an MFA is so easy<\/em>\u2014but in the way it immerses the writer in a professional academic network. She lives in a college town, and when she turns her gaze forward and outward, toward the future and the literary world at large, she sees not, primarily, the New York cluster of editors and agents and publishers but, rather, a matrix of hundreds of colleges with MFA programs, potential employers all, linked together by Poets & Writers<\/em>, AWP<\/a>, and summertime workshops at picturesque make-out camps like Sewanee and Bread Loaf. More links, more connections, are provided by the attractive, unread, university-funded literary quarterlies that are swapped between these places and by the endowments and discretionary funds that deliver an established writer-teacher from her home program to a different one, for a well-paid night or week, with everybody’s drinks expensed: This system of circulating patronage may have some pedagogical value but exists chiefly to supplement the income of the writer-teacher and, perhaps more important, to impress on the students the more glamorous side of becoming\u2014of aspiring to become\u2014a writer-teacher.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a provocative if wandering essay, full of little knife thrusts like ” the continued hunger of undergraduates for undemanding classes.”<\/p>\n

I never taught fiction or poetry, but I did teach some creative-nonfiction classes, and I will never know if I was really any good at it or not, because I was one of those “writer-professors preoccupied with their own work or their failure to produce any.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article on “America’s two distinct literary cultures” (via University Diaries) touched me because I almost went down the Master of Fine Arts in writing road myself\u2014and of course I taught alongside people who had done so. After graduating from Reed College with what amounted to a BFA, I was accepted into the MFA program […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-2056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-xa","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3646,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3646","url_meta":{"origin":2056,"position":0},"title":"Why is Saturn\/Cronus in Saturnalia?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"At this time of year, when the popular press runs articles on Christmas customs, a few rhetorical bases are always touched. The Christmas tree is a \"Pagan survival,\" that sort of thing. And that Christmas bears some relationship to the Roman celebration of Saturnalia. At Religion Nerd, Louis A. Ruprecht,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Greece\"","block_context":{"text":"Greece","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=greece"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1677,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1677","url_meta":{"origin":2056,"position":1},"title":"Teens, Vampires, and Seventeen magazine","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"If I were still teaching magazine writing, I would be sending students to this blog (which I found on Rod Dreher's blog). What a great feature-writing idea, albeit in blog form. (Which all goes to show how publishing is changing, &c. &c., and I am glad not to have to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"teens\"","block_context":{"text":"teens","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=teens"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3315,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3315","url_meta":{"origin":2056,"position":2},"title":"Astrology Conference Book Available for Preorder","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"From the announcement: The \u2018Astrologies\u2019 conference, organised by the Sophia Centre, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution on 24-25 July 2010 was the first gathering of academics working in the history and culture of modern astrology. The range of topics explored in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"astrology\"","block_context":{"text":"astrology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=astrology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1116,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1116","url_meta":{"origin":2056,"position":3},"title":"Gallimaufry with Stamps on It","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 The US Postal Service threatens to cut Saturday delivery, blaming the economy. I have been doing my part for the USPS--I started selling stuff on eBay. eBay must be the best thing to happen to the Postal Service in the last decade--all those people sending packages. \u00b6 An elaborate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"writing\"","block_context":{"text":"writing","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=writing"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4508,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4508","url_meta":{"origin":2056,"position":4},"title":"Call for Submissions: Preternature","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 27, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural Volume 3:2. Old Gods and Ancient Ones Call them pagan or ancient, earth-based or demonic, or by names like Hekate, Isis, Poseidon, Ereshkigal, Loki, and Anath, the Old Gods have\u00a0 been topics of energetic scholarly discussion, literary recreation, and artistic depiction for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":276,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=276","url_meta":{"origin":2056,"position":5},"title":"New blogs on writing Bitch\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 3, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"New blogs on writing Bitch Novelist: \"I suppose I should begin by telling you what this blog is for. I have no intention of being one of those bloggers with attitude, as in fuck you, you figure it out. I welcome readers of this blog as enthusiastically as I welcome\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2056"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2058,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056\/revisions\/2058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}