Writing Resources

Lee Martin, author of Such a Life and many other fantastic works of fiction and nonfiction, adds valuable perspective on the reality of life after an MFA program in his two-part post. In the second, "Post MFA Advice Part Two," he writes,

"It can be a shock to find yourself away from the setting that meant so much to you, that workshop room where people paid such close attention to your work, those professors’ offices where your mentors did their very best to help your talents develop. It’s doubly hard if your life hands you some sadness to deal with at the same time you doubt your abilities. The MFA is not always a golden ticket. That’s for sure.

Here’s something I’ll confess: that feeling of self-doubt has never completely disappeared for me. I still have times when I wonder whether I’m good enough; I imagine other writers feel the same way. The one thing I know for sure (and I think everyone who so kindly responded to my call for their post-MFA stories would agree) is that writing is a necessity for me, and it always was even in those days when I wasn’t publishing and was seriously thinking about giving it all up. The only problem was I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop thinking of story ideas, couldn’t stop shaping sentences until they pleased me, couldn’t stop “writing” even when I wasn’t."

Martin surveyed his Ohio State University MFA graduates and posted a selection of their responses about life after the MFA. Helpful reading and sound advice!