The podcast team is on spring break, so we're rereleasing one of our favorite episodes to celebrate Dr. Taylor Byas's successful defense of her dissertation. Congratulations, Dr. Byas!

On the season 2 finale, Taylor Byas talks to Jared about how her fiction background helps her develop sharp images and accessible lines in her poetry while her poetic knowledge taught her to take more risks in her fiction. She also describes the value of a social media writing community (and how to build one), whether publishing success eliminates imposter syndrome (spoiler: it does not), and how her scholarly studies in her PhD program inform and enrich her creative work (and how to survive the comprehensive exam). MFA Writers will be back in your airwaves in August. Wishing you all a great summer, dear friends, and thank you for listening.

Taylor Byas is a Black Chicago native currently living in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she is now a PhD candidate and Yates scholar at the University of Cincinnati, and an Assistant Features Editor for The Rumpus. She is the 1st place winner of the 2020 Poetry Super Highway, the 2020 Frontier Poetry Award for New Poets Contests, the 2021 Adrienne Rich Poetry Prize, and a finalist for the 2020 Frontier OPEN Prize. She is the author of the chapbook Bloodwarm from Variant Lit, a second chapbook, Shutter, from Madhouse Press, and her debut full-length, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times, forthcoming from Soft Skull Press in Spring of 2023. She is represented by Rena Rossner of the Deborah Harris Agency. Find her at her website www.taylorbyas.com and on Twitter @TaylorByas3.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

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129 – Sympathy For The Devil