On social media recently, I saw an author who was exceedingly upset that their publisher was not giving them the marketing and promotion support they felt their book deserved.

If you have even a modicum of knowledge about the publishing industry, then you know this is among the most common complaints. What made this particular author stand out, though, was that she publicly shared the list of demands she had emailed her publisher. These demands were numerous and significant: even one of the items would require hours of work from a marketer or publicist. I didn’t get a sense of which areas of support were most important to her, or if there was one overriding opportunity that she thought had been missed. Rather, it was as if her intent was to overwhelm the publisher with guilt, shame, or a sense they had utterly failed and now owed her big time.

I can assure you this method doesn’t work.

(You can catch up on all the previous columns here!)

Jane Friedman has spent her entire career in the book publishing industry, with a focus on author education and trend reporting. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals. Her latest book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (University of Chicago Press), received a starred review from Library Journal. In addition to serving on grant panels for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Creative Work Fund, she works with numerous organizations to bring transparency to the business of publishing.

Read more

Writers! Poets! Academics! New Yorkers! Here’s your bucket list for Nov 8-15:

• destroy distractions

• read your work to strangers

• make a trailer for your book

• take a poetic queer digital hike

• hydrate, eat well, sleep enough, and socialize

• get out of your comfort zone

• give writing poetry a go

• make social anxiety fear you

• power through your novel draft

• pitch that idea from your notes app to an editor

And none of it costs a thing.

Free sh!t going on this week

Read more

Welcome to Write or Die’s MFAs & more newsletter, a monthly column about career advancement in the literary space. Everything published here is free to enjoy, courtesy of our partnered universities. (Not interested? Turn off emails from this column here.)

Two realities of academic life are: you may not get into your first choice of school, and even your first-choice school may not be in a place you would choose to live.

All MFA programs have something to offer: every university gives you access to resources, faculty, and fellow writers. But still—as great as it is to be accepted into a program, even one with full funding—not all college towns are created equal. It’s understandable to wonder what it will be like to live in a particular culture, political environment, and climate.

We get this a lot with Tuscaloosa, especially from those who have never lived in, much less even visited the South. Most of us here have a story of telling a friend or family member that we’re moving to Alabama and getting a look that says: Alabama?

The place your program is located—the region, the state, the city—will influence your quality of life for a few years, but in a bloom-where-you’re-planted kind of way; making the most of anywhere you are is not only a good life skill, but one that leans on qualities that make one a good writer: attention, openness, and perseverance to name a few.

Much of what happens to us can’t be planned or predicted, but students who come here open to what happens, willing to explore and get involved, have an experience that shapes them in ways they could never have foreseen.

Jeremy Mauser is a third-year MFA student from Pennsylvania, and the last thing he imagined when he arrived in Tuscaloosa was that by his final year he’d be working as hard on his stand-up comedy as he is the novel he’s writing for his thesis.

While long a fan of stand-up, what started out as an impromptu lark at a local brewery’s open mic—thanks to the encouragement of a graduating student—turned into a regular gig hosting a different monthly stand-up event. He’s gotten so involved in the scene that he recently did an opening set for touring comedian Dan Alten and has fully embraced the challenge of developing his craft in this new art form. “I think it was my best performance yet as a comic, and it was made even more special by having so much support from the MFA,” Jeremy said.

While writing for comedy has improved his fiction, it’s also simply made life more fun and interesting. “Someone told me when I first got here that the students who get the most out of the MFA experience are the ones who become part of a second local community,” Jeremy said. “I came here for the academic program but I’m thrilled to have become so engaged with everything that Tuscaloosa has to offer.”

Jo Snow, originally from North Carolina, is in their fourth year of their MFA, and while they were admitted in poetry, their focus has been primarily creative nonfiction writing and book arts. Jo served as Program Assistant for the MFA last year, but has connected with the wider community teaching for the UA Young Writers Camp the last two summers.

The Young Writers Camp is a two-week-long day camp staffed and operated by MFA students each June, a long-running staple of the program benefiting kids and counselors alike.

“Summers in Tuscaloosa are tough,” Jo said. “Young Writer’s Camp has been the highlight and has made each summer I’ve spent in Tuscaloosa worth it.”

Because the camp lessons and activities change each year with the staff, MFA students can put their own unique stamp on what they offer. In addition to teaching a memorable ekphrastic poetry exercise, Jo has taught book-making and screenprinting skills, and last year led the entire camp in designing and printing the official camp T-shirt.

The experience has meant everything to Jo, and been an unexpected highlight of their time here. “Youth development makes my heart swell real big, and makes my mouth talk real fast. I can’t get enough of it. I can’t stop telling everyone how important it is. For bright adolescent and adult lives, it is imperative for children not only to feel free to express themselves but to be encouraged, too! That is at the core of our camp.”

So no, maybe it doesn’t much matter where you get your MFA—it’s always going to be on you to do the work, after all. But—the particular place where you get your MFA will, if you play it right, make all the difference in the world to you.

Founded in 1974, the University of Alabama MFA in Creative Writing is among the oldest writing programs in the country, known as a welcoming landing-place for developing artists with a rigorous yet flexible curriculum that fosters cross-genre experimentation. Their award-winning faculty work closely with students at all levels, culminating in an individual thesis project. Home to the prestigious literary magazine Black Warrior Review, the MFA also provides students with the opportunity to engage with a Visiting Writers Series, receive conference and research funding, and explore diverse teaching opportunities including through the Alabama Prison + Arts Fellowship.

The “platform question” is a continual thorn in my side for two reasons. The first is that a platform is the last thing a debut novelist or children’s writer should be thinking about. The second is that, for everyone else, there is no specific following that guarantees acceptance. While platform can be boiled down to numbers, mostly it is an abstraction, meaning publishing invented it—don’t forget that. You convince agents or editors you have one, and if that makes it sound like you need to possess some kind of magical quality, then yes you have the right idea.

But let’s back up and talk about that first reason.

(You can catch up on all the previous columns here!)

Jane Friedman has spent her entire career in the book publishing industry, with a focus on author education and trend reporting. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals. Her latest book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (University of Chicago Press), received a starred review from Library Journal. In addition to serving on grant panels for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Creative Work Fund, she works with numerous organizations to bring transparency to the business of publishing.

Read more

Hey there fellow writers!

How are we doing? Making friends? Making money? Making progress on that novel you’ve been meaning to write since 2014? If you aren’t doing any of it yet, you will be after you read this. I’ve got community events, cash prizes, poetry workshops, and the small matter of writing 50,000 words in 30 days for you this week. No big deal. Oh, and if you read till the end, you’ll find some lovely resources from our extended universe and an opportunity to get paid for your personal essays. Let’s get into it!

Free sh!t going on this week

Most of us know how isolating “being a writer” can be: there you are, staring at your draft (or worse, a blank page), wondering how on earth you ever put words together before; your readers (if you have any) are mostly strangers; you take an accidental gulp of day-old coffee on your desk and ask yourself: am I the only one going through this?

Or is it just me? Anyway, here are five places to find your people this week. Some writing, some talking, some parallel play. All free!

Read more

It’s the freakiest day of the year in America, so I thought I’d spend some time talking about cursèd drafts: the ones we wish would just die, but that keep pursuing us. Maybe there’s a character whose voice rings in your head long after you’ve abandoned their story; maybe a thrilling scene took shape inside an otherwise necrotic plot; or maybe you know exactly the structure you’re going for, but can’t figure out how to fill it in. You have reached the limits of your powers in the dark arts and cannot summon these drafts back to life on your own: you need an intervention. After all, the first pages of Carrie went into the trash before Tabitha King pulled them out, shook off the cigarette ashes, and convinced Stephen his first novel was worth continuing.

Read on to find out what kind of monster you’re dealing with, what to do about it, and the story witches and writing covens that can help you.

Read more

For more than a decade, I worked at a mid-size commercial publisher in the heart of midwestern America. We mainly published how-to books for enthusiast audiences, the sort of books that would sell in the four or five figures in their first year, then backlist and keep selling for many years. The goal wasn’t to hit a bestseller list (most books about knitting or woodworking are not bestseller material), but to produce modest wins and maybe occasionally enjoy a big breakout. (For this publisher, the biggest breakout of all time was The Art of Painting Animals on Rocks, a series that sold more than 1 million copies over its lifetime.)

You can catch up on all the previous columns here!

About our columnist

Jane Friedman has spent her entire career in the book publishing industry, with a focus on author education and trend reporting. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals. Her latest book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (University of Chicago Press), received a starred review from Library Journal. In addition to serving on grant panels for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Creative Work Fund, she works with numerous organizations to bring transparency to the business of publishing. Learn more at JaneFriedman.com.

Read more

Hello dear write-or-diers writers!

Do you like to write?

How about write about writing?

Specifically, about your writing life…in whatever shape or capacity or chaos-ity that might be…

Well, then, drum roll please because we are announcing our inaugural open submission call and it’s fully free to submit + we’ll pay $100 per published piece.

Here’s a quick low-down (god, am I dating myself by using this lingo…and that…you know what I don’t care, I love being 31):

We want personal essays about the writing life: the rejections and the near-misses, the day jobs and the late nights, the workshop or class or program or random walk that changed everything oorrr the one that nearly made you quit. If it’s true and it’s about writing, and only YOU (NOT an AI-bot) could have written it, we want to read it.

nitty-gritty submission details + link to submit below ↓

Read more

Hello, friends!

I know, I know. When I started this column, I promised to pop in twice a month, and last Sunday I signed off with “See you in November!” But well… some free things are too sweet not to share, so here we are.

Free sh!t going on this week

This week’s lineup is a little bit cozy and a little bit creepy, but in a fun way… you’ll see!

Read more

For the majority of work I engage in—especially with individuals or small operations—I work without a formal, written contract. I partner with numerous instructors throughout the year, and I pay them in the four figures, often without a contract. I’ve worked with conferences on a handshake agreement only. I don’t issue a formal contract with newsletter sponsors. And so on.

Have I ever regretted it? No, and that’s because the minute you have to refer back to the contract in a one-on-one business relationship to enforce behavior or terms—“Here’s what the contract says”—there’s a good chance that relationship is over. Or, at the very least, you have a serious problem on your hands and the contract won’t fix it.

Let me break things down to help demonstrate my point and make all this practical for you!

Read more

Hello, friends! I’m back with a bunch of cool stuff that will cost you nothing but might just enrich your life (or even yourself). This week, I’ve got lovely communal events (free), exciting funding opportunities (also free), and a bunch of helpful resources made by our team (the freest). Off we go!

Free sh!t going on this month

Read more

Subscribe now

In Erin’s own words, here’s what How to Become a Better Writer is all about:

It’s hard to become a better writer alone—and it’s hard to commit to an MFA. In between, there is a vast writing education market: celebrity author workshops, writing centers, craft newsletters, coaches, retreats, accountability groups, and more. But without accreditation, or any guarantee that a writer you admire will be a great teacher, how do you tell a transformative experience from back-patting and slide decks of Googleable information?

I’ve spent the past decade building and overseeing programs at GrubStreet, the U.S.’s largest independent writing center, and I’ve become an expert in how writers learn. Every two weeks, I’ll help you evaluate your options and figure out what you need right now. We’ll work through common questions and misgivings, flag the hallmarks of quality programs, and I’ll hand-select standout opportunities that can help you learn craft, get feedback, and become a better writer.”

Last month, Garth Greenwell published an elegant, viral (by literary essay standards!) anti-workshop screed, and then a follow up on his Substack. In the first essay, “Why I Don’t Believe in Workshop Anymore,” he declares the traditional workshop “fraudulent,” and says that fresh new writing doesn’t actually benefit from a roomful of compulsory opinions. The many voices around the table amount to either cacophony or group think, and the workshop rushes to pruning at a moment when all a draft needs is water and light. “Who thought this was the way to educate an artist?” he asks.

Both posts are good reading for anyone evaluating their options for improving their writing—they make important points around finding sympathetic readers, aesthetic risk-taking, and bad teaching models. But they are really most relevant to folks considering, or regretting, studying creative writing at a university in the traditional “cone of silence” model. For everyone else, there are thousands of creative writing workshops available a la carte, and most of them have long since abandoned the model Greenwell takes to task, where the writer sits silently as their fledgling work gets picked apart.

For a few hundred dollars and a few hours a week, workshops are a lifeline for writers poking away at drafts alone. They provide a protected space to write, share your work, engage with new writing, and have conversations with other adults who are trying their hand at something difficult and fun and often very beautiful. No one muddling through manuscripts on their own should take these things for granted. What happens in workshop is a radical departure from regular adult life, and for most of us, it’s our very best option for growing as writers. If you’ve achieved Garth Greenwell status and have access to the world’s smartest writer friends and editors, you’re probably fine. If you’re not there yet, keep reading.

Read more

Hey friends, we’re back with Jane’s second column for us and um let’s just say it reminded me of my favorite catch-phrase from one of my almost-favorite movies, Zombieland.

Now then, if you missed last week’s column here it is (it was all about business partners):

Alright now, I give it over the Jane!

I’ll never forget being at a friend’s party when I was cornered by her father, a lifelong surgeon, whose weekend hobby was photography. My friend had raved to him about my skills and knowledge about the business of writing and publishing, so he hoped I could tell him the necessary steps to earn money for his photography once he retired.

At first, I wasn’t sure what he meant, but after asking him a few questions, I realized that he assumed there was a 1-2-3 step process to becoming a paid photographer—the same kind of process that he followed to become a surgeon. But there is no process. When it comes to art, you can’t force people to like what you create, much less pay for it. Supply far exceeds demand in most creative fields. But the surgeon imagined that if he secured the right credentials or met the right people or paid someone to promote his art, he would level up “automagically.”

Jane Friedman has spent her entire career in the book publishing industry, with a focus on author education and trend reporting. This column, THE BUSINESS OF BEING A WRITER tackles career strategy and industry myth-busting across every publishing path for writers at each stage.

Subscribe now

Read more

To celebrate the launch of this monthy Monday column, take 25% off a monthly or annual full subscription to Write or Die Magazine.

But hurry → This flash sale ends in ~24 hours.

25% off a paid subscription nowww

In Caitlin’s own words, The State of Publishing is:

Business guidance for writers can often fall into one of two traps: generic ‘you can do it’ encouragement or panic-driven reactions to current headlines. This column is neither. It offers instead a clear-eyed look at how writing careers are built, funded, and sustained over many years, no matter how the landscape changes. It doesn’t matter if you write short or long, go traditional or indie, or what genre and category you prefer: learn how to pursue a career that’s true to your own creative goals, without sacrificing your values.

Read more

Subscribe now

In Jane’s own words, here’s what this column covers:

Business guidance for writers can often fall into one of two traps: generic ‘you can do it’ encouragement or panic-driven reactions to current headlines. This column is neither. It offers instead a clear-eyed look at how writing careers are built, funded, and sustained over many years, no matter how the landscape changes. It doesn’t matter if you write short or long, go traditional or indie, or what genre and category you prefer: learn how to pursue a career that’s true to your own creative goals, without sacrificing your values.

Read more

Hello, friends!

I want to say “long time no see,” but you haven’t seen me before. So hi hello and good day to you all, my name is anna, and I’ll be your guide to cool writing stuff that, much like J-Lo’s love, don’t cost a thing. Being a writer is hard enough without having to pay for your place in this world every step of the way. So I’ll pop in twice a…

Read more

October is a time a for ruin and rust and orange leaves and dying things and strange creatures guarding homes and oh isn’t it sweet and perfect that it’s also the time Forever Workshop dies only to rise again, phoenixing forward into the newly resurrected and reinvigorated Write or Die Magazine. I heartily welcome you, dear writers, into a new chapter and an exciting adventure. Me and Mort that is, our new mascot (ahem, yes she’s a vulture):

Naturally you might wonder, what on earth is this thing—this Write or Die Magazine, new and improved apparently—and you might poke and prod it like something crackling in the the ashes. Well, let me shed some light…

What is Write or Die Magazine?

The writing world can feel like a wonderful, creative place as much as it can a panicky, persnickety, confusing one. Write or Die helps you navigate these lands with clarity, knowledge, and excitement. The writing world professionals we work with have been in their fields for decades and they want to give you the kind of advice and education that’ll help you grow as a writer, understand the industry, and build a sustainable creative career.

Our focus is on these key pillars

Education: Not only will you learn how to keep improving your craft, but we’ll also be diving into something that you don’t really see anywhere: namely, an in-depth analysis of the kinds of educational paths available to writers at any step of their practice and careers.

Publishing: If you wanted to just write for yourself, you probably wouldn’t be here, that is…anywhere on the internet. We want to offer clear, actionable insights alongside data-informed deep dives on what’s happening in the publishing space today and how that impacts you as a working writer in the world.

Career: Knowing how to write well and knowing how to write what sells can feel like two opposing things sometimes. We want to help bridge the gap here and also assist writers in every aspect of the practical economics of the writing life. We will also discuss how writers can position and promote themselves as well as building an organic, online presence.

Free Writing Resources: Alongside exclusive content for our paid subscribers, everyone will be able to benefit from biweekly free writing opportunities, resources, and other writer related goodies (free) that we gather, research, vet, and share.

& in addition to the above…

The Archive: The complete Forever Workshop archive replete with hundreds of posts on craft, education, writing advice, interviews, remains available to you.

What you’ll find here

Over all of October, we’ll be rolling out our special columns and you’ll learn more about each one in-depth soon, but here’s a preview of what’s to come!

• The Business of Being a Writer with Jane Friedman, every week (starting Thur, Oct 8). Career strategy and industry myth-busting across every publishing path.

• How to Become a Better Writer with Erin Weiss, every other week (starting Sat, Oct 17). Which classes, workshops, MFAs, coaches and retreats are worth your time and money, from GrubStreet’s Senior Director of Education.

• The State of Publishing Today with Caitlin Scarano, every month (starting Mon, Oct 12). Data-backed reporting on what’s happening in publishing right now, and what it means for you.

• Free Sh!t for Writers with Anna Kot, twice a month, free (starting Sun, Oct 4). Free contests, events and resources, rounded up for you.

• MFAs & more with Ciera Miller, every month, free (starting Fri, Nov 6). Career advancement in the literary world, courtesy of our partner universities.

  

UPCOMING SUBMISSION CALLS!

Oh yes, my friends, yes, we SHALL we be opening for submissions from YOU, our readers who we know are also dedicated writers. Very soon you’ll hear from us about our first ever sub call, but I want you to know:

General submissions will be FREE and we will be PAYING all the writers we publish. And…just another little hint, polish your personal essay muscles for the first call.

Who is Write or Die Magazine for

Writers at every stage, from the never-published to the much-published.

• If you have a finished draft and no idea what to do with it, you’re in the right place.

• If you’re submitting to literary magazines while holding down a day job and writing a novel, you’re in the right place.

• If you have three books out and still can’t tell a good residency from a bad one, you’re in the right place.

• If you’re building a writing career and want to make smarter decisions about it, you’re in the right place.

  

Alright, what it’s gonna cost me?

Nothing, or $10 a month. Everyone who subscribes to Write or Die Magazine gets plenty for free. Paid members get, well, everything. We are not affiliated with any big backers or VCs. As part of the Chill Subs family, Write or Die Magazine is an independent, collective effort to help improve writers’ creative lives in an ethical, sustainable way. Read more about subscription membership benefits & perks here!

Subscribe now

Hey friends,

Welcome to another edition of Tell Us Something We Don’t Know… where we ask our favorite literary experts about their specialist subject.

In Part 2 of our Q&A on Alternative Writing Forms, we’re talking all about the magic that happens when you create work that engages directly with audiences through performance, live readings & interactive fiction.

The Takeaways:

• How to build performative work from the skills and niches you already have

• Why interactivity (and breaking the fourth wall) is so much fun

• How including the audience in the process can transform your art

• Different approaches to writing with performance in mind

• Why collaboration is one of the most valuable things you can do as an artist

And, by the end of this Q&A, perhaps you’ll have a few new ideas for bringing your writing to life as an interactive performance…

Subscribe now

Meet the experts:

Representing the world of audio fiction is Joseph Fink, co-creator of the hit fiction podcast Welcome to Night Vale and the Audible Original Unlicensed. He is also the creator of Alice Isn’t Dead and a NYT bestselling author. Joseph says the model for Night Vale’s unique approach to narrative was inspired by off-Broadway black box theater in New York City:

There’s not really money for set, costumes, or much of a cast, so it all comes down to: “How fully can you be transported by just a person standing on stage and telling you a story?” And often the answer is: “Very!” So that’s what we try to replicate with our audio fiction: doing as much as possible with the simplest ingredients. With just a voice telling you this story, can we fully transport you to a different place?

Since 2012, the podcast has gathered a cult following and critical acclaim, taking the fictional radio show on the road with tours across the world:

“Night Vale’s unforgettable live shows bring the audience into the story in surprising and thrilling ways. Over the years, our live shows have become the heart of the Night Vale experience. They are unique theatrical evenings that take you to our weird little town in a way you can’t get from listening to the podcast at home.”

And our interactive fiction connoisseur Katy Naylor is the founder & Void in Chief of the Voidspace, a community platform for interactive fiction, performance and playable art. She describes her work as “a playable literary medium” — think branching narratives and choose-your-own-adventure:

Storytelling and quality of writing are front and centre, but equally important is that the reader is given agency in some way. [And] because audience agency is at the heart of interactive fiction, I’m always thinking about the audience’s journey and how that perspective can change how they will perceive the piece.

Building on the success of Voidspace Lit, in 2023 Katy launched an annual festival of live events, narrative games and experimental performance pieces — which is exactly what we’re going to talk about today!

Find out more about Katy and Joseph’s work (along with comic essayist Aubrey Hirsch) in Part 1 of Writing Alternative Forms here:

And read on to find out how these creators write with a live audience in mind…

Read more

Welcome to The Forever Workshop’s MFA Newsletter, a monthly column about career advancement in the literary space. Everything published here is free to enjoy, courtesy of our partnered universities. (Not interested? Turn off emails from this column here.)

We’ve all heard it.

“Don’t pay for your MFA.”

We’ve filled out applications for Iowa, Johns Hopkins, Oregon State, Brown–in hopes that we’d be accepted into their fully-funded programs. But maybe rejections were all we received, since of the hundreds of MFA programs in the country, only 53 are fully-funded, and they’re small, selective. For example, Vanderbilt only accepts four students per cohort.

Dominique Weldon mentioned the phrase when I asked if she’d applied to any fully-funded MFA programs. Like most emerging writers, her undergraduate professors warned her against spending thousands of dollars on a degree that sometimes has little to no return on investment. So, heeding their advice, she spent a year researching programs to apply to, prioritizing fully-funded ones. But her list also included MFAs that appealed to her personally. “I was willing to take a partially-funded program that worked better for my life and goals,” Dominique shared, which is how she ended up applying to Butler University. Although it wasn’t fully-funded, she wanted to stay in the Midwest and she was interested in the Butler community.

After she was accepted into Butler’s MFA program, Dominique reached out to ask if they had any scholarships that she didn’t know about. “They offered me a $10,000 scholarship,” she told me. It wouldn’t cover her whole degree, but Butler’s MFA checked other boxes that she deemed more important. To make up the remaining cost, Dominique worked part-time and took advantage of the opportunities that Butler offered, like a teaching assistantship and working as the Nonfiction Editor for the program’s literary journal, Booth, both which paid a stipend. She did have to take out loans, but the amount she has to pay back is feasible for her, especially since she doesn’t have any debt from undergrad. “My number one goal was to get better at my craft,” Dominique said, and so getting this education was worth the money.

Like Dominique, Katie Mihalek prioritized location. She applied to MFAs near Boston because she and her partner lived there, and she wanted to stay local after spending years having their relationship long-distance. “Having a partner and him having this stable job allowed me [...] to have a little more flexibility,” Katie shared, because this meant that she had help with paying the mortgage and everyday expenses. So although she applied to fully-funded programs, she was comfortable with ultimately choosing to earn her MFA at Emerson College.

The biggest chunk of Katie’s funding came from part-time jobs and loans–between starting and finishing her MFA, she worked at a farmer’s market, sold furniture, and taught in Emerson College’s first year writing program. “If you’re a staff member or already a teacher, you can get tuition waived as a full-time student,” Katie explained, though because she was a part-time professor, those benefits didn’t apply to her. But if you’re currently working full-time at a college that houses an MFA program, you can see if those benefits would apply to you.

After her MFA, Katie worked as an AmeriCorps fellow for MassPoetry, which gave her a $7,500 Education Award at the end of her service year. “This could be applied to future tuition or a loan, so I applied it to my loans,” Katie said. Emerson College is one of the many colleges in the country who partner with AmeriCorps to pay for current tuition as well. Although Emerson doesn’t, some MFA programs even offer discounted tuition to national service volunteers specifically.

National service is what funded both of Brandon Hubbard’s MFAs, his first earned at Lesley University, his second in progress at the Brooklyn Writers Foundry. Brandon served in the U.S. Army Reserve in the 2000s; this made him eligible for the Post-9/11 GI Bill, which, for him, covered 36 months worth of higher education and provided a housing stipend to help with the cost of residencies. Without this funding, Brandon said, “it wouldn’t have been an option for [him] to get an MFA.”

Brandon didn’t apply to any fully-funded programs, and neither did Amy Lees, a Navy veteran who also attends the Brooklyn Writers Foundry. “I didn’t want to go into a program with a lot of strings attached, and I wasn’t looking to relocate,” Amy explained. Brandon was in a similar mindset. “Applying and not getting in [to a fully-funded program] deterred me because I didn’t want to lose a year, six months,” he said. “I wanted to get it done.” These goals led Brandon and Amy to low-residency programs, and so fully-funded programs weren’t an option because none of them offer the low-residency model.

“I don’t want to come off as a platform for selling the GI bill to writers,” Brandon shared. Amy echoed his sentiment: “It’s a little chaotic for that.” But if you’re currently in the military, Amy recommends “[leveraging] as much of the education benefits as humanly possible.”

While Amy is still earning her degree, she’s set to be published in the EcoTheo Review this winter. Dominique now teaches for the Indiana Writers Center, a job which she landed because of teaching while getting her MFA. Katie now attends the University of Rhode Island, and she said her MFA was “worth it to pay and get to where [she is] now, which is a fully-funded PhD in English, with a creative dissertation but doing a lot of critical work and maintaining poetic practice on the side.”

So here’s my hot take: apply to the MFAs that aren’t fully-funded, the ones your professors warned you against, in addition to fully-funded programs. I’m not saying go into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt for them, but there are ways to fund your MFA without taking out huge loans.

Applying to MFA programs that aren’t fully-funded allowed these writers to fulfill their artistic goals, and they wouldn’t have been able to achieve them if they waited for an acceptance to a fully-funded program or if they gave up when the rejections came in. But if you do apply for an MFA you have to pay for, remember to make intentional financial decisions, be honest with yourself about what you can afford, and supplement the tuition with outside aid. If you want a place to start exploring, many of our MFA partners offer competitive or partial funding, in addition to all of the opportunities they provide their students (not least, access to Chill Subs!).

“If you live and breathe writing and want to be in community with other writers,” Dominique said, “go for the partially-funded program.” She doesn’t regret it, and neither will you.

How did your fund your MFA? Let us know in the comments!

Leave a comment

Hey friends,

Welcome to another edition of Tell Us Something We Don’t Know… where we ask a bunch of literary experts about their specialist subject.

Many of us here at The Forever Workshop tend to write in ‘traditional’ formats — novels, short fiction, poetry, memoir, personal essays — but have you ever considered exploring something a little different when it comes to form?

Today we’ve invited some of our favorite creatives to tell us all about the alternative forms they use to craft unique and innovative stories — from comics to audio drama to interactive fiction.

Our Experts:

Joseph Fink is the co-creator of the hit fiction podcast Welcome to Night Vale and the Audible Original Unlicensed. He is also the creator of Alice Isn’t Dead and a NYT bestselling author.

is the author of Graphic Rage: Comics on Gender, Justice, and Life as a Woman in America. Her comics have appeared in Vox, The Washington Post, TIME, Businessweek and elsewhere.

Katy Naylor is the founder & Void in Chief of the Voidspace, a community platform for interactive fiction, performance and playable art. She hopes that you will come along and play.

Subscribe now

The Takeaways:

• How different forms can grab a reader’s attention, create deeper connection, and include them in the narrative journey

• The differences and similarities between traditional and more unusual formats

• Why experimenting with alternative approaches can open up whole new layers to your writing

• Tips on getting started with a new medium and how to avoid common issues

• Insights on publishing and producing alternative forms of writing

And hopefully, by the end of this Q&A, you’ll be inspired to experiment with telling your own stories in a brand new way.

Now, time to pick the brains of our trio of creative masterminds…

Read more