Gross asked him why he is going to school to learn to write. Franco answered:
"I felt that if I wanted to be serious about writing I should be around other writers. There's a romantic notion, like, uh, 'well if you want to be a writer just write.' But I don't know if this is true, but I had a professor at UCLA who just wrote a book on this very thing. And I think it turns out—I could be wrong—but I think 90 percent of fiction authors that are being published today went through MFA programs."
"I felt that if I wanted to be serious about writing I should be around other writers. There's a romantic notion, like, uh, 'well if you want to be a writer just write.' But I don't know if this is true, but I had a professor at UCLA who just wrote a book on this very thing. And I think it turns out—I could be wrong—but I think 90 percent of fiction authors that are being published today went through MFA programs."
This gave me pause—enough to look up the podcast and transcribe the passage above. I have no intention of pursuing another graduate degree, mostly for reasons of time and money, but also because I don't want to go through the trauma of taking the GRE again. (It turns out your GRE scores are only good for 10 years; just thinking about taking another long, standardized test makes my palms sweaty).
I wasn't sure how to test this premise—most published fiction writers do not put "MFA" after their names. But, of course, it turns out, other blogs and web sites have addressed this issue so I don't have to do any original research here.
I googled: (do fiction writers need an mfa?) [without quotes] just now and found the following answers*:
• Everywritersresource.com - Should I get an MFA in Creative Writing? The Good, Bad and Ugly. The answer is "maybe," but only if you write literary fiction.
• afterthemfa.com - A short post says: You don't need no stinkin' MFA, which links to a web site devoted to this idea, http://www.youdontneednomfa.org (Unfortunately, it hasn't been updated since Feb. 2007).
• A link to a book listed on Amazon, Portable MFA in Creative Writing, which purports to offer the "core knowledge of a prestigious $50,000 MFA program without paying tuition."
Most of the other hits, especially on the following windows, seemed to be links to specific MFA programs. So I tried a new search question, (do fiction writers need an MFA to get published?) This brought up such titles as:
• I Say "Phooey!" to the MFA in Writing: Let's Write Our Hearts Out Instead (from associatedcontent.com)
• The importance of MFA creative writing programs for writers (from helium.com)
• How to make a living writing short fiction (idea) (from everything2.com)
• I Say "Phooey!" to the MFA in Writing: Let's Write Our Hearts Out Instead (from associatedcontent.com)
• The importance of MFA creative writing programs for writers (from helium.com)
• How to make a living writing short fiction (idea) (from everything2.com)
So, based on this short Internet survey, whether you have an MFA or not, it looks like the chance of your being a struggling, unpaid writer are still very good.
* I know Google isn't AskJeeves, but plugging in random questions is sometimes a cool way to discover new web sites—I'd never seen any of these web sites before now.
* I know Google isn't AskJeeves, but plugging in random questions is sometimes a cool way to discover new web sites—I'd never seen any of these web sites before now.