with Adriann Ranta

Alison Hawthorne Deming is an acclaimed poet and essayist, as well as acting director of the University of Arizona's MFA creative writing program. She is the author of six books as well as numerous essays and poems published in assorted compilations. Deming is the recipient of a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University, two NEA Fellowships, a Pushcart Prize, and a fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. More information on Deming's published works and college teachings can be found on her website: http://www.alisonhawthornedeming.com.

AR: Just to start off really basic, can you give a brief idea of what an MFA entails?

AHD: An MFA here is a two year program, some schools it’s a three year program, but a Masters of Fine Arts is considered the terminal degree in creative writing. As opposed to an MA which is considered preparation for a PHD, an MFA is considered the completion of a so called professional training in creative writing. What it really does is provide a supportive environment and instruction. It gives people a couple of years to take their writing really seriously and what can they do with that. It’s no guarantee or preparation for teaching… there are the lucky few who do get teaching jobs, but choosing to write poetry or fiction or non-fiction, you’re choosing a life where the career track may be more circuitous than in other fields.

AR: Is an MFA more for someone to get into teaching or to hone something for publishing?

AHD: People who are trying to become writers. It’s not a preparation for teaching, though it helps and we do provide training in teaching for those who have graduate teaching internships. An MFA is considered a studio academic degree. So it’s closer in a way to a painting degree or an art degree where you’re spending some time working in the studio. It’s a slightly different degree than other degrees in the English department.

AR: As a published author yourself, what is your perspective on the current publishing market? Do you have to work harder at it these days?

AHD: Well the thing is I write out an artistic imperative. I don’t write for the market. I write the things that seem important to me to write and if someone wants to publish them I’m extremely happy. If someone doesn’t want to publish them, I’m disappointed, but… you know, I’m not writing for the money. I’m writing for the satisfaction and the artistic practice itself. Just like anybody I want the validation and the recognition in the publication.
So is it harder?  Well, it’s hard because university presses are really poor and they’ve always been a main stay of artistic writing. The New York houses are market-driven now so there’s less interest in real literary works. I can’t complain personally. I’ve got good publishers who are really terrific to me. So I’m not having a horrible time.
There’s always a lot that’s always turning over in the literary world: new magazines, new publishers, and new small presses. So there’s still a great breadth of possibility out there. As long as you’re not going to the one…  like ‘I’ll only publish in the New Yorker."

AR: So the students that do enroll in an MFA, do you think they’re more in it for that artistic imperative?

AHD: I think most of them are doing it because they want to be writers. They want to live the life of the writer. I mean, of course they want success and money and fame, they want the sense of accomplishment… I think that more and more they feel the pressure to try to answer while they’re in graduate school but they can’t… ‘How am I going to support myself and be a responsible adult.’ It’s a tough one, because there just aren’t [any born writers.]
I’ll say something else about debut authors… I think it’s really important that young writers, or emerging authors, or debut authors, I think it’s really important that they stay and work to build literary culture from the ground up: start a reading series, start a magazine, start a ‘zine, start a small press publishing house. Low end, just make sure that all of this stuff that’s happening at the grass roots make a really rich culture. Because that is extremely important to counteract this high-end, market-driven thing.

AR: So being a debut author is notoriously hard, do you think that this high-end market is just making it harder?

AHD: Sure, definitely. It has. On the other hand it’s gotten harder in that arena, but it’s gotten easier on the internet. You have ‘zines, you have a blogosphere, you have all kinds of opportunities on the web that are new and explosive. You’re publishing something in one spot one week and then you go back and it’s on 20 different blogs… there’s this immediate dispersal. There’s not any money involved, but in terms of literary conversations, it’s very interesting and exciting. And we don’t know where that’s going to end up.

AR: What do you think is so important about the workshop in a creative writing MFA?

AHD: The workshop provides you with an audience. One of the things you need to learn as a writer is how is your work is coming across to others. And you just can’t tell, you can’t know that when you’re just starting out. You think it’s coming across clear as anything and you get in a workshop setting and you realize people haven’t got a clue what you’re trying to say! So having an audience is really important, just in developing your own critical sensibilities as a writer. It’s also just great to be together with people who share the interest in writing because it makes you feel a little less crazy for choosing something like that. ‘Hey, look at all these other people, they’re just as crazy as I am!’

AR: What benefits do you think the MFA graduates can expect during the querying process? Do you think it’s something worthwhile to note in a query letter?

AHD: I think it’s worthwhile to note because it indicates seriousness and commitment. It says I wasn’t just drinking a six-pack and sitting on the porch and writing pretty poems. I took a couple years out of my life to really see what I could do. Then if they don’t like the work, they don’t like the work.

AR: I read from an agent somewhere that MFA graduates tend to write “predictable and formulaic” stuff. What are your thoughts on that?

AHD: I don’t agree with that at all. That’s what people always say… they always say ‘everyone that comes out of Iowa writes the same way,’ but I just don’t think it’s true. There may have been a period when it was true, but I think right now there’s tremendous aesthetic variety in what’s going on in American letters. A lot of that is coming out of MFA poets and other genres… You’ve got experimental stuff, you have identity politics, main stream traditional forms going on. I don’t think it’s true. It may be true about some programs but I think it’s a particularly rich and diverse kind in the MFA programs.

AR: Do you notice trends in MFA programs or do you concentrate more on classic examples of good writing?

AHD: Well both, there’s a lot of interest in hybrid forms right now. Like breaking down the genres… like ‘well is it fiction or is it non-fiction?’ Well, in some aspects there are elements of fiction and elements of non-fiction. There’s a lot of interest in the lyric essay, which is form of essay that has a lot in common with poetry. I think that’s one of the things that are important in a lot of programs right now. A lot of students coming in seem to be asking a lot of the same questions. ‘Well, can I work in two genres?

AR: How necessary is an MFA to a potential writer? You can still publish without one... right?

AHD: I don’t think it’s necessary at all. It’s not for everybody. I think it can speed up a writer’s growth. It can give them community; it can help them with networking… making friends who down the road will be publishing journals and maybe running small presses. All those things are really helpful. But it’s not for everybody. Some people need to just go off and write. They’re just more private kinds of people. There are plenty of examples of brilliant writing that didn’t have anything to do with an academic setting. But it’s a lonely enterprise and I think it can be really helpful. It really does speed up the progress… it may take 10 years to learn those lessons as a writer and they might be able to learn them in two or three years in an MFA program. Because of the intensity of the conversation.
I don’t think it’s essential but it is almost like a union card. It says I’ve been through the workshop process, I know what it is from the inside out and I’m prepared to teach that. It’s definitely an asset for college teaching jobs. AR: What additional insights do you have for people considering an MFA in creative writing?

AHD: Pick a place you want to live for two or three years, because you’re not just picking a program, you’re picking a place. That is going to affect your writing.
Ask questions about who’s really going to be teaching there in the time you’re studying there. Faculty in creative writing programs can be mobile. They go on leave, they change jobs, they go to South America for the year, so it’s important to ask who ‘will I be studying with.’ If you’re determined to study with Mark Jody, or Jody Graham, you need to find out if they’re really going to be teaching the course.