October 1 is the deadline for joining us in the next
semester at Converse for the low-residency MFA program. We would love to have you learn more about
our program, and if it feels right to you, to apply and start up with us in
January. You can get all the important details on the website, here.
But here’s what the website can’t tell you:
--How personal this program is, how welcoming our students
are to everyone, no matter your age, or where you’re from, or what your writing
background is, how our students form tight and lasting and forever bonds with one another, how supportive our students are.
--How much the faculty members care, about the art and craft
of the written word, about the program, about helping students become better
writers.
--How our students succeed—yes, with the expected and
exciting book and journal publications and awards—but also in the moments that
aren’t listed with a line on a c.v. I’ve
seen major breakthroughs during the course of a semester, and during the course
of the program; writing lives have been transformed. I’ve been inspired by students who have
worked harder than I could imagine anyone working to get it right—that ending,
the structure of that critical paper—and I have been brought to tears when
someone tackles “the” story they know they need to write but have been afraid
of, until now, until they find the courage or permission they need. I’ve read works of precision that started as fast,
15-minute exercises in workshop. I’ve
seen students accomplish amazing things in their work, impossible things, things that have thrilled me as a teacher and a writer and a reader.
--How much we pack into those days of residency, how we
forget about the outer world because we’re alive in the world of the word, how
each craft talk and lecture and reading and discussion over dinner feels in direct
dialogue with the others, how much a head can spin with new ideas and inspiration,
how joyful it is to sit with a group of writers past one, two, three in the morning,
talking books and beer, telling stories, laughing at jokes where the punchline
is “Kafka.”
--How lucky it feels to belong to this vibrant community of
writers.
There are lots of writing programs, and I can’t say which
one is “best” or even “best for you.”
All I can say is that this program is something special. Every time I jump in my car to start the
drive down south, chills snake my spine, and I push hard on the gas so I get
there faster.
