MFA darling
Dirty GU ballet slippers against the subway grate
Last October, I began the arduous process of applying to masters programs in creative writing, with a concentration in fiction.
In order to complete my applications, I paid hundreds of dollars in fees, and cold called my undergraduate English department daily, scouring the earth to find old professors, who’d long since abandoned the Virginia Tech stratosphere. Some had truly disappeared, and left my desperate pleas for recommendations unread or unanswered. One, using very delicate phrasing, agreed to write me a letter if I truly needed it, but encouraged me to give up on the idea, or at least consider more “realistic options,” such as pursuing a graduate degree in literature. This admittedly stung, but it was a piece of highly logical feedback that I elected to ignore. I labored on with tempered hopes.
My occupation as a server monopolizes most nights and weekends, but leaves my days gloriously free. In my quest for admission, I’d found a new sort of devout routine; I’d wake up early, go get an 8 dollar latte, and type for hours on my $250 HP laptop that essentially only possesses the operating capacity to open and run Google Docs. I had personal essays, academic statements, statements of purpose, and essays in literary criticism to complete, as well as of course, the beast of the entire process, my primary fiction sample, expected to be around 20-30 pages. All of this in the hopes that I would be admitted into, what in many ways, seems now akin to a fantasy— a fully funded MFA program.
I salivated over the idea of being acknowledged as a writer, of finally escaping the restaurant industry to focus on the only pursuit in my working life that has ever given me a real sense of joy— writing. And sharing that writing with others! What a wondrous thing it was to have completed and submitted all of my applications, and to be able to reply truthfully to pestering questions about the trajectory of my life. No longer was I simply a 25 year old server collecting dust in a vaguely horse themed restaurant, I was a sophisticated lady in a state of academic waiting. As Jane Austen once remarked, though she was writing about falling in love, my creative endeavors gave me both “something to think of,” and “a sort of distinction among [my] companions.” It was a hopeful time.
But then came March and April, and with it, an onslaught of emails that regretted to inform me that I would not be offered admission, because, at the risk of oversimplifying things, these programs didn’t want me. I had known that this outcome was a very real possibility, but still, I spiraled. What was it about me, about my writing, that was so unattractive to those on the admission boards? Was it the multiple paragraphs I included detailing my disgust with men, and how I believe, most of them are saddled with life-long, inescapable sexual perversions that wreak havoc on all women and the state of the world? Did I write too much about the F-slur, about gay animals, about suicidal ideations, about bugs? Was it just simply indigestible? Or worse, the worst thing I can possibly think of, was it boring?
I’ll never know their thoughts because they all maintain that they cannot offer any feedback on my submission, but in the weeks that have followed, I’ve decided that I don’t care. All I can say for certain is that my writing didn’t resonate with them, and all I can hope for is that one day, it resonates with someone else. Though I do wish I could have my money back.
