Can you be an MFA dropout if you never get in the first place?

and the 3 reasons why not getting an MFA is for the best

Photo by akari kuramoto on Unsplash

I’m all about staying in integrity with myself and you all. This includes practicing radical honesty when I fail at something. If you’ve been around for a while, you know how Patreon and I were incompatible and how that panned out. I certainly pulled no punches in that one. 

So it should come as no surprise that when I failed to pursue an MFA, I would want to unpack it here. This is as much for my healing as for those among us who are nursing their own hidden wounds around this particular flavor of failure. 

Perhaps our little artist-academic wounds can hang out and feel less alone.

Where did this all begin? is where I often start when I think of this particular arch:

Interest seed is planted ➡️ obsession brews ➡️ I talk myself out of it for a while ➡️ try it anyway ➡️ fuck it up ➡️ try again ➡️ failure.

In this case, I can trace my first realization that perhaps I shouldn’t pursue an MFA in Creative Writing (even though I really, REALLY wanted to) when I first broached the topic with my first podcast guest, and one of my oldest friends, Naseem Jamnia. 

It’s one of the main topics of the episode that the writing workshop experience is a beast (to say the least) and they outline how they wish it had all gone differently. 

Countless others have issued calls to action for real change in the industry, not simply a band-aid solution of “increasing diversity” in the room. As a former DEI Director of 2+ years who is also a multi-marginalized person (queer, Afro-Indigenous, disabled), I’ve witnessed firsthand how simply increasing diversity alone does very little to solve the underlying problem. 

Implementing a diversity goal without meaningful internal changes first is like getting a new snake and telling the exotic pet shop you have what you need at home to take care of it. But all you do is keep them in the carrying case they gave you at the shop. Or you do put it in a tank, but it’s too small and the heat lamp burns and warps the cover. The environment is poorly set up so the snake always feels exposed and unsafe, so when you go to feed it or change out its water, it feels under attack. The snake’s nervous system is in shambles. The snake is beyond stressed. The snake gets sick in a way imperceptible to many (because that’s their nature). Then one day, the snake abruptly dies. 

Yes, I did use to keep snakes. And yes, I have felt like and often still feel like this snake.

I knew all of this and I still tried to apply for traditional writing programs. I told myself I was challenging myself by applying for an MFA program, a weeklong workshop, and a fellowship. Good writers challenge themselves, Emmy.

I feel so foolish now.

I cried while writing my literary analysis paper for the MFA program because it’s been over a decade since I’ve written a critical paper. And because my neurodiversity in high school and college went undiagnosed, I had these unsustainable workarounds I employed and I’d beat myself up for being bad at school even though I loved learning. I know I did my best with this one. While I can tell you what I tried to write about, that’s all the detail I can muster. 

I submitted short stories and pieces I’ve written recently and some I’ve been sitting on for years. I talked about how I mix my love of gothic horror with a more literary approach to storytelling. And I bore my soul about my baby. You know… that project you never have time for or think you’re not good enough to write now. But with their support, I said I could get there. Given the cultural ties and messages within my story, I said it could help people who felt like me and the people who made me feel that way in the first place. I pled my case to a faceless panel about how I believed my voice and my story made a difference and deserved support. 

And then I received this on April 9^th:

And this on April 24^th:

I’ve received emails from Northwestern that my application is incomplete months later because one of my required recommenders never submitted their letter of support.

I know what you may be thinking: why, Emmy? Why did you do it even though you knew from loved ones and your own experiences that it likely wouldn’t give you what you needed?

After lots of marinating, I think it comes down to 3 things:

1. I’m lonely and thought a more traditional writing program would give me what I needed. 

I’ve tried co-writing with a body double online plenty of times…but it’s easy to let that kind of commitment drop off when it’s just an hour of being online simultaneously. Plus, as an ADHDer, it easily takes 20-30 minutes for me to hit my stride. 

I sincerely thought it would somehow, some way it would be different for me…even with all the empirical experience to the opposite. 

I really thought I’d find my people and even if I got torn a new one in workshop, it would be okay because these mythical aforementioned people would have my back. 

I wouldn’t come out of an MFA program a worse writer or unable to write for years after the fact or a broker writer. 

It would be different and I’d be different…somehow. 

2. I have other loved ones with advanced degrees and my inability to get one makes me feel inadequate. 

Yes, to be ordained by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, you need a Master’s in Divinity. Intellectually, I understand my husband did not want to pursue academia. It’s a part of the training for his larger calling to serve as a pastor. 

Tell that to my squishy, fragile ego though. 

He’ll have a Master’s and you won’t. Everyone who knew you both in high school and college is judging you for never getting your shit together, Emmy. Are you also allergic to picking a calling of your own?

Also, I have sworn enemies who either have degrees or bitterly almost got them. And part of me thought getting an MFA or being selected for a prestigious fellowship would finally prove that they were wrong about me. 

You see? I was capable after all. I could make something of myself. I showed you, people who are blocked so you never would’ve seen this victory anyway. 

TLDR: I have a lot of shoulds floating in my head. Complex PTSD often makes it hard to separate what I want to do because I desire it from what I think I need to do to avenge a past version of myself. 

3. I thought once I had the prestige of some extra letters behind my name, I’d also have more power period. 

It practically feels like a villain origin story. Like… think about it:

I’d put myself through something I knew to be harmful hoping I’d come out of it better somehow. 

I told myself that the transformation would be worth betraying my values and needing to summon the worst parts of me to survive. 

I thought the secrets of the past, present, and future universe would be worth sipping the Water of Life (or the blue worm piss depending on your perspective) and inciting a holy war in my name I previously said I was vehemently against. 

Yes, that last one was a Dune reference. Besides, you get the idea.

No amount of self-sacrifice in the name of prestige or amassing power is worth it in the end. There’s always a price and the cost is usually that one thing that makes you most human.

Could I have continued to apply after getting these rejections? Of course.

Could I have appealed to the admissions crew to let me swap my recommender out since they let me down? It would be challenging, but it would likely get green-lit. 

But you know what’s a powerful teacher apart from the rejection itself? 

Time.

I've had ample time to think about these applications since I decided to apply, compiled my application materials, and paid my fees.

I’ve thought about if I did get in. I thought about what would happen if I didn’t. I had time to dream about being in Los Angeles in late June with other writers. I’ve had time to think about what my life would look like if I got passed up.

Even before realizing I was approaching rejection or failure, I had made peace with whatever outcome would happen. 

And I continued to write anyway. 

But the kicker is that I struggled to write the thing I actually want to get published one day because I had tied it to these external factors. Because I was waiting on acceptance or rejection after talking openly about it with total strangers. And this waiting for my acceptance, or rejection, made me feel like my big idea wasn’t worth writing about anymore. 

Could other programs let me in? Sure. Could it just have been the institution? Absolutely. But before I even think of putting myself back before the discriminating eyes of a panel like this again, I need to give myself permission to own my voice 100%. And honestly, if I don’t work on this idea, it means I push off my other big dream of being traditionally published one day.

You can’t get published as a regular, non-celebrity human if you don’t write anything in the first place.

I’m still settling into the knowledge I won’t be an MFA girlie after all. Most days I feel fine about it because I’m taking it as a lesson that when you’re rejected, it’s not always an invitation to try again. It’s an invitation to do something else entirely. 

Here’s to nourishing my inner artist instead of putting them in the boxing ring again. You can rest, recover, and simply show up now. 

If you’ve been fighting for a while, I hope you also can find that respite for your inner artist.