“I thought you’d already given up blogging,” some of you might say. Granted, it’s been a while since I’ve been actively engaged in maintaining this blog, so your reaction is justified. No, what I mean is, I’m giving up teaching writing. This is a tough decision, because in the last few years, I’ve seen some really amazing things with my writing students and private instruction clients. There have been people in my Legacy of Words classes that swore to me they couldn’t write a

It is easy for me to rack up a list of “some day” items. Some people call it long-term planning, and others call it having a “bucket list” mentality. Whatever term you use, I’m prone to have a list of “hope to/want to” things when it comes to my creative life and my personal life. Some Day I’ll MFA In my 20’s and early 30’s, one of the big “some day” things on my list was to get my MFA in creative writing. Even as I bounced around from classroom teacher to law school applican

<img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-893" class="size-medium wp-image-893 lazyload" title="396749_308593349181782_1300271794_n" src="https://ericswyatt.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/396749_308593349181782_1300271794_n.jpg?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="235" /> Belinda Nicoll (center) is a Queen's University of Charlotte, MFA graduate. She is writing a serialized account of her MFA experience and sharing it on her blog. Here, Belinda is pictured with our friend and fello

Not a traditional blog post, but, instead two links: First, my writer friend, Andrea Cumbo of Andilit.com, has been so kind as to feature a new blog post from me on her website. So, you can follow this link to read my bloggy thoughts for today. The article is entitled, “Write about what has the potential to ruin your life.” Yes, it is an extra step, an extra click, but I think if you take a few minutes to look around Andi’s website and blog while you are there, you’ll become

I knew it before I graduated. I even talked about it in my graduating seminar presentation. The post-MFA writing life is difficult. As I sat on the porch with a cup of coffee and my daily free writing notebook, I wrote these words. “Too many choices. That’s where I am. Too many options without urgency to focus on any one thing. So much on my mind, it’s like a 1,000 piece puzzle with no corner pieces, no edges, no picture on the box to reference.” I am a bit overwhelmed and un

How does one monetize an MFA (Creative Writing) degree? I’ll let you know once I’ve figured it out. Sure, there is the possibility of a job teaching creative writing (fiction, please!) at the college or high school level. Based on feedback from fellow students, and knowing my own interests and background, I think I’d do a fine job teaching fiction. But teaching jobs can be hard to come by. It only makes sense to “branch out” and find other ways to put my skills and passions t

I finished my MFA last week. Queens has a “fifth residency” as a component of the low-residency MFA program. The fifth residency is quite different from the first four. During the first four semesters, you come into residency having read a stack of books and armed with your own stacks of stories to workshop. You have to tackle the first four residencies with abandon, hit the ground running at a break-neck pace; there is no choice in that matter. <img class="size-medium wp-ima

One of the exciting, and scary, things about turning the page on another chapter in life is the way the world sort of opens up, for a minute. There are all of these paths to take and decisions have to be made along the way. For the last two years (plus a few months, truth be told) I’ve been living in a paint-by-numbers world. The MFA program isn’t dauntingly structured. It isn’t like I didn’t enjoy (almost) every minute of it. But, to be fair, a degree program is supposed to

Things have been quiet. I know it. I am at my graduating residency and I’ve not had a chance to blog, or respond to emails, or post comments. We will return to regular programming soon. I am reading from my short story collection in less than an hour. I must be off!!! Happy Writing! #blog #graduation #mfa #queens

I love this time of year. From a traditional, spiritual standpoint, we’re reaching the end of the anticipation of Advent and we are entering the hope of Christmas. From a seasonal, naturist point of view, we have reached the “darkest night of the year” and from this point on, the days, which have grown depressingly short, will lengthen and more sunlight will be with us. From a personal perspective, I’ve had the privilege of spending the last two weeks with my aging grandfathe

My initial post about the pros and cons of an MFA has continued to draw a lot of traffic to my blog, which tells me this is one of those topics that people are consistently interested in. (No, you don’t have to be a social media guru to figure that one out…) I’ve received a number of comments on that post, and also, several potential MFA students have emailed me with questions and asked for some advice about pursuing the Creative Writing masters-level degree. Let me give you

I blog about my MFA experience, the schedule and “process” of getting my degree in Creative Writing, to give readers who are considering pursuing an MFA a taste of that life. So, today, I’m thinking about the issue of TIME. Time to write. Time to grow. Time with other writers. One of the benefits people often cite for pursuing a creative writing MFA is this one (or some variation of it): If I go after a Creative Writing degree, I’ll have (or make) the time to write more often

I read two interesting articles recently, and they both give some insight into the Masters of Fine Arts programs, but in two very different ways. I thought they might be interesting reads for folks who are considering applying (or have recently applied) to an MFA program. Get a Real Degree Writing for the London Review of Books, critic Elif Batuman makes the claim that “…a schism has opened up between literary scholarship and creative writing.” The author of this piece goes o

If you were to look at the blog stats chart for my blog, you’d see that last week saw more than double the usual web traffic here at Stories I Read, Stories I Tell. Biggest. Week. Ever. Not just the number of pure visitors, but also in the number of emails and discussions and follow-up questions I received. What the heck happened? On Monday I posted the first of what I planned to be a series of posts on whether or not a Creative Writing MFA is right for you as a writer. It wa

One week early, that’s how! Ha! But seriously…When I was at the May on-campus residency for my MFA, I thought through what I needed to accomplish over the next eight months or so, prior to my graduation in January. Here’s my list of “to-dos” for graduation: Re-write the first 2/3 of the novel-in-progress (done!) Finish the last 1/3 of the novel-in-progress (not yet…not until January, likely) Submit and place three stories in lit mags or online journals (40+ submissions, one s

Thanks to some fabulous Twitter folks and the Creative Writing MFA Blog, this has been a stellar week here on the Stories I Read, Stories I Tell blog. Lot’s of great traffic and discussion focused on my post, To MFA, Or Not. I wanted to re-cap the other posts from the week, and hope to deflect a little of the spotlight on those posts as well. I tracked down some good deals at Amazon for music to write by. I offered up a combined exercise for fiction writers and legacy/persona

As someone who is wrapping up my MFA studies (January is coming fast!) I’ve had several discussions, recently, about the pros and cons of a formal study of creative writing. First, let me say that I’ve been really happy with my decision to go after my Masters of Fine Arts via the low-residency program at Queens University of Charlotte. I’ve worked with some amazing writers (Jonathan Dee, Jenny Offill, Naeem Murr, Ann Cummins, Fred Leebron, and Ashley Warlick) and I’ve learned

This marks my 100th post to Stories I Read, Stories I tell. A nice little milestone. Thanks to those of you who stop in and check out my mildly entertaining ramblings from time to time. I really do appreciate it. It’s Friday, and time to be friendly, once again. I want to take a minute to congratulate one of my instructors in the Queens University MFA program, Jonathan Dee. I worked with Jonathan my first semester at Queens. I was working on a novel for most of the semester,

On Fridays on Twitter there is a tradition known as “Follow Friday” where Tweeters (or Tweeps) share the names of people they follow and find worthy of a special mention. Here, on my blog, I try to put up a “Friendly Friday” post from time to time, featuring my friends, co-writers, and literary acquaintances in the hopes of helping readers connect with new writers. I have several friends and fellow writers from my Queens Universtiy MFA program who have work available on Amazo

So, let me dig into today’s thoughts on writing. I’ve been working on a novel for a while now. That’s pretty typical. Most writers (there ARE exceptions) don’t sit down and spit out a novel in some long mental purging that is well-plotted and coherent in one pass. I’m not putting any time line on this writing, except that one of the goals I hope to have accomplished by the end of my MFA (January, 2012) is to have this book finished and polished and ready to be read by agents