I enjoyed reading this. I don't think L's conduct was really acceptable, telling another student to quit writing, for example. But I hope the professor tried to get him to tone it down before kicking him out. You'd hope there was a place for someone like him (talented and arrogant) in an MFA program. Aren't art students supposed to be arrogant?
My controversial opinion is that left-wing culture, which includes academia and publishing, has grown very feminine over the past couple decades, and most women are not as comfortable giving or receiving criticism as men are. Marketing and image management and playing the game, fitting in, are the most important things.
To me, Substack is the least-bad social media platform. And it's pretty minimal: it can just be a blog or a newsletter. I think it's a step in the right direction in that the algorithmic management is less intense than with other platforms. Yes, it exists to make money for its investors, but the strategy is to succeed in a small niche. And I think Elon Musk already tried to buy it. They turned down the offer.
This essay is very engaging. The irony pebbles in my shoe...such objectively good writing published on the very forum it denigrates.
We're relatively new here, having no other social media. This essay made me feel a little of my own desperation (and ambivalence), my own embarrassment and shame (for being here at all). Still, I try (fool myself?) to see substack as a refuge. A place where we can sing as loudly as we like-and sure, maybe out of key-with no fear of bothering anyone, and no expectation of applause. It's only a little more hopeful than a journal or diary, or than Emily Dickinson secretly binding her poems up into private booklets for the future. But at least here, someone passing by might hear us singing and pause a moment to listen.
I didn't have the guts to take a short story composition class in college. So forget about the MFA. I realized the difficulty, some people don't and happily write really crappy stories that are not even to be enjoyed via insults. I think Chekov has a hard time writing a great short story, and what's a great short story vs. novella? questions abound. great job. this is my favorite mfa themed essay I've read on this publication, maybe anywhere.
This is a great story that I really enjoyed reading. When I read that Kim L mentioned Knausgaard and Cusk as his two favorite writers, I was fist pumping. They are also two of my favorites. But I also have to be slightly critical of the characterization of Substack writers at the end, and it’s related to Knausgaard and Cusk. Kim L was obviously mentioning them as they were the two figureheads for autofiction in the 2010s, and as such, they became so successful in part because they put their private lives on display for the public. You say that marketing and self-promotion are a sin against literature, but Kim L’s heroes complicate that view by writing so explicitly about themselves (or, we might say, giving the appearance of doing so). It’s too simple to have real artists on one side and cynical strivers on the other; art and commerce have always been entangled, and maybe Knausgaard and Cusk provide a way to think about this fact and then make art that still feels true.
top tier stuff. IMO the 'public comment' of the workshop is less useful in itself than it is as a means for discovering your true readers and connecting with them. it seems like you two did, and it's too bad that that bond wasn't given the chance to develop. but yeah, the hardest part of the workshop is not being able to say that bad writing is bad, and when someone actually does it the thrill is, well, thrilling.
A really solid piece that points out accurately what all the hurt feelings and whininess around here never does: MFAs are credentialism and they are useful and they are not. Sometimes all at once, sometimes one more than the other two, or any other combination. Also completely correct on Substack and the desperate craving for clout it represents. One of my favorite workshop discoveries was from a guy who wrote intense, moving, and sharply rendered narratives of stoic desperation and hopelessness, and who cited Breece DJ Pancake as his primary influence. Pancake was truly magnificent, and this guy had drunk deep. Everything has an antecedent.
Very nice. There’s more to read in this “anti-MFA” piece than all the others of the genre collectively (most of which are formulaic button pushing). As usual, talent makes the difference, this writer’s sensitivity being at the center of their talent. As for the "anti-substack" portion of the piece, I’d say the substack boosters might keep an open mind—this is criticism that could be of value to you and your beloved.
A gutsy, insightful, and provocative piece. Love this line: "If I were as honest and principled as Kim L., I’d shout from the rooftops that marketing and self-promotion are a sin against literature. Every time I’m forced to do it, I feel complicit and debased." Perhaps I'd remove the word "marketing," or put "self-" before it. I think that's what the author meant.
I had someone very like this character as a student in a recent workshop. He was an excellent writer and an insightful reader but struggled with the communication skills he would need to get other authors to implement his advice. I say "struggled with" intentionally: caustic and off-putting criticism about works-in-progress isn't useful, and it results from either a fundamental misunderstanding or a misplaced emotional acting out on the part of the student (or teacher!) who delivers it. An unenviable struggle, in either case. It is not what a writer does who is truly confident in their own status and opinions.
I think it is totally wrong to exclude a student like this from a workshop. I always tell my students that their opinions are their own and that they have the freedom to express them the way they want to. But I do also tell them when I think they're falling short of what I see as the workshop's purpose, which *is* to work on fiction constructively. Who cares which first draft "wins"? The opinions that matter, in this context, are the ones that beneficially influence the choices on the page.
This was something I talked to my student about and that he seemed to absorb and learn from, based on the different approach he ultimately took to writing his critiques and discussing his opinions in class. I think that's what the teacher should have done here (but who knows, maybe he tried; teaching is hard).
I don't have an opinion on MFAs (was never an option for me) and opened this essay in my inbox only because it came from ROL. I was so swept in and found it both moving and challenging. It is striking, though, the serious overlap between this view and that of other literary stack writers I respect. A rejection of snobbery. A call to admit some work is great and some not. A call to devour good books and write with all the greatness we can summon, even if it looks pretentious. Obviously, the tone here is sad and despondent (and now I need to know what happened to Kim L.), and it's probably not fair to take some kind of rah-rah inspiration from it, but I'm gonna.
Deconstruct and destroy mindset. Writers are being asked to evolve. We can sit and romanticize the golden age and writers like Delillo, Pynchon, and others all day. That's easy. We can complain about problems with Substack, marketing, and our new reality. We can weep over Kim, Kafka, and all the introverts or oddballs who can't play in the latest version of the game.
Nostalgic longing for the old way (while offering no solutions) is the easiest way to pimp the algorithm here. Time to start building, brother, or your just another obstacle toward creating a literary renaissance.
It’s a very sad essay about how academia destroys real creativity and dreams, leaving people cynical, bitter and suspicious of anything that reminds them of what they experienced while in grad school.
MFAs aren’t the only programs that can drain the creative souls from people. PhD programs are far worse. I know several people whose lives were ruined by attending PhD programs.
I liked the story. The commentary at the end made me question the story.
I enjoyed reading this. I don't think L's conduct was really acceptable, telling another student to quit writing, for example. But I hope the professor tried to get him to tone it down before kicking him out. You'd hope there was a place for someone like him (talented and arrogant) in an MFA program. Aren't art students supposed to be arrogant?
My controversial opinion is that left-wing culture, which includes academia and publishing, has grown very feminine over the past couple decades, and most women are not as comfortable giving or receiving criticism as men are. Marketing and image management and playing the game, fitting in, are the most important things.
To me, Substack is the least-bad social media platform. And it's pretty minimal: it can just be a blog or a newsletter. I think it's a step in the right direction in that the algorithmic management is less intense than with other platforms. Yes, it exists to make money for its investors, but the strategy is to succeed in a small niche. And I think Elon Musk already tried to buy it. They turned down the offer.
This essay is very engaging. The irony pebbles in my shoe...such objectively good writing published on the very forum it denigrates.
We're relatively new here, having no other social media. This essay made me feel a little of my own desperation (and ambivalence), my own embarrassment and shame (for being here at all). Still, I try (fool myself?) to see substack as a refuge. A place where we can sing as loudly as we like-and sure, maybe out of key-with no fear of bothering anyone, and no expectation of applause. It's only a little more hopeful than a journal or diary, or than Emily Dickinson secretly binding her poems up into private booklets for the future. But at least here, someone passing by might hear us singing and pause a moment to listen.
Well put
I didn't have the guts to take a short story composition class in college. So forget about the MFA. I realized the difficulty, some people don't and happily write really crappy stories that are not even to be enjoyed via insults. I think Chekov has a hard time writing a great short story, and what's a great short story vs. novella? questions abound. great job. this is my favorite mfa themed essay I've read on this publication, maybe anywhere.
This is a great story that I really enjoyed reading. When I read that Kim L mentioned Knausgaard and Cusk as his two favorite writers, I was fist pumping. They are also two of my favorites. But I also have to be slightly critical of the characterization of Substack writers at the end, and it’s related to Knausgaard and Cusk. Kim L was obviously mentioning them as they were the two figureheads for autofiction in the 2010s, and as such, they became so successful in part because they put their private lives on display for the public. You say that marketing and self-promotion are a sin against literature, but Kim L’s heroes complicate that view by writing so explicitly about themselves (or, we might say, giving the appearance of doing so). It’s too simple to have real artists on one side and cynical strivers on the other; art and commerce have always been entangled, and maybe Knausgaard and Cusk provide a way to think about this fact and then make art that still feels true.
top tier stuff. IMO the 'public comment' of the workshop is less useful in itself than it is as a means for discovering your true readers and connecting with them. it seems like you two did, and it's too bad that that bond wasn't given the chance to develop. but yeah, the hardest part of the workshop is not being able to say that bad writing is bad, and when someone actually does it the thrill is, well, thrilling.
A really solid piece that points out accurately what all the hurt feelings and whininess around here never does: MFAs are credentialism and they are useful and they are not. Sometimes all at once, sometimes one more than the other two, or any other combination. Also completely correct on Substack and the desperate craving for clout it represents. One of my favorite workshop discoveries was from a guy who wrote intense, moving, and sharply rendered narratives of stoic desperation and hopelessness, and who cited Breece DJ Pancake as his primary influence. Pancake was truly magnificent, and this guy had drunk deep. Everything has an antecedent.
Amen brother
Very nice. There’s more to read in this “anti-MFA” piece than all the others of the genre collectively (most of which are formulaic button pushing). As usual, talent makes the difference, this writer’s sensitivity being at the center of their talent. As for the "anti-substack" portion of the piece, I’d say the substack boosters might keep an open mind—this is criticism that could be of value to you and your beloved.
A gutsy, insightful, and provocative piece. Love this line: "If I were as honest and principled as Kim L., I’d shout from the rooftops that marketing and self-promotion are a sin against literature. Every time I’m forced to do it, I feel complicit and debased." Perhaps I'd remove the word "marketing," or put "self-" before it. I think that's what the author meant.
I had someone very like this character as a student in a recent workshop. He was an excellent writer and an insightful reader but struggled with the communication skills he would need to get other authors to implement his advice. I say "struggled with" intentionally: caustic and off-putting criticism about works-in-progress isn't useful, and it results from either a fundamental misunderstanding or a misplaced emotional acting out on the part of the student (or teacher!) who delivers it. An unenviable struggle, in either case. It is not what a writer does who is truly confident in their own status and opinions.
I think it is totally wrong to exclude a student like this from a workshop. I always tell my students that their opinions are their own and that they have the freedom to express them the way they want to. But I do also tell them when I think they're falling short of what I see as the workshop's purpose, which *is* to work on fiction constructively. Who cares which first draft "wins"? The opinions that matter, in this context, are the ones that beneficially influence the choices on the page.
This was something I talked to my student about and that he seemed to absorb and learn from, based on the different approach he ultimately took to writing his critiques and discussing his opinions in class. I think that's what the teacher should have done here (but who knows, maybe he tried; teaching is hard).
I don't have an opinion on MFAs (was never an option for me) and opened this essay in my inbox only because it came from ROL. I was so swept in and found it both moving and challenging. It is striking, though, the serious overlap between this view and that of other literary stack writers I respect. A rejection of snobbery. A call to admit some work is great and some not. A call to devour good books and write with all the greatness we can summon, even if it looks pretentious. Obviously, the tone here is sad and despondent (and now I need to know what happened to Kim L.), and it's probably not fair to take some kind of rah-rah inspiration from it, but I'm gonna.
Even a garbage scow can still float.
Deconstruct and destroy mindset. Writers are being asked to evolve. We can sit and romanticize the golden age and writers like Delillo, Pynchon, and others all day. That's easy. We can complain about problems with Substack, marketing, and our new reality. We can weep over Kim, Kafka, and all the introverts or oddballs who can't play in the latest version of the game.
Nostalgic longing for the old way (while offering no solutions) is the easiest way to pimp the algorithm here. Time to start building, brother, or your just another obstacle toward creating a literary renaissance.
It’s a very sad essay about how academia destroys real creativity and dreams, leaving people cynical, bitter and suspicious of anything that reminds them of what they experienced while in grad school.
MFAs aren’t the only programs that can drain the creative souls from people. PhD programs are far worse. I know several people whose lives were ruined by attending PhD programs.
My feeling is that Kim L would have approved of your willingness to abdicate self-regard, to relinquish narrative control and risk ridicule.