Overview of an MFA Course: Intro to Creative Writing Studies

Out of all the courses I teach, this is the one that is the most open-ended. This is a first-semester course, and it’s designed to prepare new MFA students to become graduate students, but it’s also meant to serve as an introduction to professionalization.

Not every program requires a course like this, and some programs may highlight different aspects. At Texas Tech, for example, I took a 1-hour Professional Development Curriculum every semester, and in addition, a 3-hour course that focused on revision for publication, and then steps to publication. But most graduate programs are interested in professionalizing their students to one degree or another, and in the creative writing world, that usually means a discussion of the academic world, of publishing in general, and of creating a career as a creative writer.

When I teach this course, I start with becoming a graduate student who is also a creative writer, and here’s what I focus on:

1. We read Book One, Chapter One of Courtney Maum’s Before and After the Book Deal. Maum does a great job of discussing why someone would get an MFA in the first place, but also what to do without one. (See also “Do You Really Need an MFA to be a Novelist?” and “Becoming a Novelist Without an MFA.”) But she also talks about fundamental process issues, things like setting up goals and schedules and finding your voice as a writer. I find it’s a really great introduction to the questions we want to start asking (and answering!) during your MFA program.

2. We read the Table of Contents (so students can get a good idea of the scope of the book) and Chapter One of Wendy Laura Belcher’s Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks. I don’t think most MFA students are there to publish scholarly work, but I think it’s a good intro to that process, and also to time management in general. (Though I do think that it’s a bit misleading to say that you can write a journal article in 3 months, and then step one tells you to start with something you’ve already written). If you’re trying to recreate an MFA at home because you want to write novels, you can skip this one.

3. We read Part One of Jane Friedman’s The Business of Being a Writer. (Review here.) In this section, Friedman discusses making a life as a writer, including how to build a career, whether or not to pursue an MFA, and how to answer the question we all want to ask: Can I make a living doing this?

Next, we talk about the business aspect of this field, and here are some key homework assignments:

1. Basically, all of the rest of Book One in Before and After the Book Deal. In this section, Maum discusses where to submit, how to submit, and how to follow up. She discusses pitches and rejections, financial challenges of writing, and then she talks about the thing everyone wants to talk about: how to get your book project represented, and what happens when your book sells. This is a great overview of the query and submission process, and usually during this section of the course, we’ll have visitors: usually agents and authors will pop in and talk about their experiences and give some advice.

2. We’ll also read Part Three: Getting Published in The Business of Being a Writer. There’s a lot of overlap between Friedman and Maum, but there’s also a lot of great information in both books, so we read both. I find that most students really can’t get enough of this frank industry conversation — we’re dying to know as much as we can about a very opaque business.

3. We talk about conferences, and we discuss the differences between workshop conferences (like Sewanee, Bread Loaf, or Tin House), academic creative writing conferences (AWP or NonfictioNOW (really glad to see this conference back in 2025, by the way!)), and commercial or genre conferences and conferences for readers (Texas Book Festival, Bouchercon, etc.). We identify at least one place where we feel that our writing might fit, and we set it as a career goal.

4. We talk about literary journal submissions, using both the Maum and Friedman texts, and we open accounts on Submittable and identify a target dream journal.

5. We discuss university and independent presses, and we try to have at least one acquiring editor visit the class to talk about that process. We also talk about indie publishing (which we used to call self-publishing).

6. We also talk about PLATFORM! This is a big discussion among writers, and we identify one or two writers who are doing something we might envision for ourselves. This might look like a blog, a social media presence, etc.

We end the course by discussing how to build a life that supports creative writing, and for many MFA students, this includes teaching in a university. Here we focus on:

1. Discussing what the academic job market looks like. We look at the Creative Writing Wiki (here’s this year’s), the AWP job board, and the Chronicle of Higher Ed. We also read The Business of Being a Writer, Chapters 25-26, and excerpts from Karen Kelsky’s The Professor Is In. I do want to note that much PhD professionalization involves preparing job documents, which are so much more work than you imagine. And you have to know that the people who are competing with you for that job have gone through that professionalization process and likely have pristine, thoughtful documents. We discuss where to get help (faculty members, thesis chairs, writing centers) with your own documents.

I also ask each student to do one project, exploring a topic that speaks to them and helps their career. They present this project to the class, and thus, everyone benefits from the work that’s been done by this student. Here are a few examples of projects people have done:

1. Written a query letter and researched agents for their novel, creating a targeted list

2. Researched how to write for established intellectual property (i.e. this student emailed Disney’s legal department to discover how to become a writer for Disney’s IP)

3. Created a calendar of screenwriting fellowship application dates, describing each opportunity

In short, this course is meant to give you a glimpse of the world you are trying to enter. It is meant to help you envision how you’ll enter this world, and what your place might be. I want students to leave with concrete steps that will help them start to establish their own career. I also want students to feel more comfortable — the writing industry is very much an insider/outsider industry, and I want them to start to understand how it works, to the extent that we can.