MFA Writers

In this episode, Jared talks with Katie Schorr of Hunter College about overcoming rejection and the failure to sell her first novel, finding her voice through the writing and revising process, and navigating the MFA while raising two kids. Katie Schorr earned her MFA in Fiction from Hunter College. She’s written for McSweeney’s and Motherly and she has also written and performed one-person shows at the UCB Theater, Ars Nova, and Joe’s Pub. She is an audiobook narrator and the mother of two young children, both of whom wish her stories were scarier. Find her at katieschorr.com. 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. BE PART OF THE SHOW — Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser, or Podcast Addict. — Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience. STAY CONNECTED Twitter: @MFAwriterspod Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast Facebook: MFA Writers Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

Welcome to Season 2! Jared is joined by Shreya Fadia of Indiana University Bloomington to discuss incorporating genre elements in literary work, making a career change from law to writing, and how editing Indiana Review has helped Shreya cope with rejection. Shreya Fadia is a third-year fiction candidate in the MFA program at Indiana University, where she currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Indiana Review. Her fiction appears or is forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Cream City Review, and The Florida Review Online. Before beginning her MFA, she practiced law in New York City. She is originally from Mumbai, India. This episode was requested by Jacie Juliana Andrews. Thank you for listening, Jacie! 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. BE PART OF THE SHOW — Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser, or Podcast Addict. — Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, please contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience. STAY CONNECTED Twitter: @MFAwriterspod Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast Facebook: MFA Writers Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

With deep gratitude, we have reached the end of Season 1. The pod team is taking a little vacation and launching Season 2 in two weeks. In the meantime, enjoy this rebroadcast of Music at Midnight, a podcast published by Hobart's Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo. You'll hear an interview between Jared (as interviewee!) and past guest Evan Fleischer (as interviewer!). They discuss MFA programs, what has surprised Jared about making this show, and graduate student unionization. Plus, Lily MacHugh reads an excerpt from a story.  Thank you for tuning into Season 1. Regular programming will return on August 17. Until then, take care of each other.  Subscribe to Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo: https://buffalobuffalobuffalo.substack.com Revisit Evan's episode of MFA Writers 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. Twitter: @MFAwriterspod Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast Facebook: MFA Writers Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

Drawing attention to American and Israeli occupation in the Middle East, Tarik Dobbs of the University of Minnesota crafts experimental poetry based on extensive research and personal experience. Tarik joins Jared to discuss the role of poetry in shaping political perspectives, writing as a collaborative process, and how universities can create a more inclusive and diverse academic community. Tarik Dobbs is an Arab American queer writer born in Dearborn, MI, on stolen land of the Chippewa, Ottawa, & Potawatomi people. Dobbs's poems appear in AGNI, APR, Best of the Net, Missouri Review Online, & Poetry Magazine. A 3rd-year MFA student at the University of Minnesota, Dobbs is Assistant Editor of Great River Review and founded Poetry Online, a nonprofit web magazine. Their poetry chapbook, "Dancing on the Tarmac," was selected by Gabrielle Calvocoressi (Yemassee, 2021). Find them at tarikdo.com. 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. Twitter: @MFAwriterspod Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast Facebook: MFA Writers Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

How do emotional pacing and narrative structure influence one another in a story? Jared talks to Aggie Stewart of the Newport MFA at Salve Regina University about her memoir, a braided narrative examining family trauma. They discuss embracing false starts and taking the scenic route to her MFA, a low-res program that lets students practice pitches with agents and editors, encourages cross-genre experimentation, and offers a residency in Havana, Cuba. Aggie Stewart is a Rhode Island-based writer and is going into her final semester in the Newport MFA program at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. Her MFA focus is creative nonfiction. She is currently writing a memoir about growing up in the shadow of her mother’s sister’s murder, an event which occurred when her mother was pregnant with her and that was kept a closely guarded family secret throughout her childhood. Aggie has a BA and MA in English Literature and worked as a technical and business writer and editor for many years before beginning work on her MFA. A certified yoga therapist and meditation teacher, Aggie also teaches others how meditation can support and facilitate the creation of literary art. 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. Twitter: @MFAwriterspod Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast Facebook: MFA Writers Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

Fantasy. Sci fi. Literary absurdist fiction. Keith Enterante of San Diego State University’s novel excerpt has it all. He joins Jared to talk about the support and warmth of his program, the importance of starting and finishing pieces, and how the best writing lights up your nerve endings. Keith Enterante is a writer with an MFA from San Diego State University, where he spent three years drafting his third book, an absurdist fantasy titled Man-so-called-kind (previously titled Phooka Road). The opening chapter received an Honorable Mention for the AWP Intro Journals Awards; the book will be going on submission to agents later this summer. Find him on TikTok @k.enterante. 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. Twitter: @MFAwriterspod Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast Facebook: MFA Writers Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

Pursuing an MFA is not only about improving your own writing, but also that of your peers. Evan Fleischer of Emerson College talks to Jared about how the workshop is like teaching, how editing at Hobart benefits his work, and how the best writing is full of surprises. He also does a pretty good Bob Dylan impression. Evan Fleischer is set to graduate from Emerson College with a MFA in fiction at the end of 2021. He has been a fiction editor at Hobart Pulp for two and a half years. He has also worked as a ghostwriter, a research assistant, and as a freelance writer. 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. Twitter: @MFAwriterspod Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast Facebook: MFA Writers Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

Humor. Experimentation. Sound play. Ellie Black of the University of Mississippi talks to Jared about how her poetry has gotten increasingly weird, the influence of the Gurlesque movement, and the benefits of a high faculty-to-student ratio. Ellie Black is a poetry MFA candidate entering her third year at the University of Mississippi and the incoming senior poetry editor of the Yalobusha Review. Her poetry can be found in Black Warrior Review, DIAGRAM, Booth, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. Find her at her website, elliekblack.com, on Twitter at @elliekblack, and Instagram at @ellie.kb. 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. Twitter: @MFAwriterspod Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast Facebook: MFA Writers Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

What does a bilingual MFA program look like in practice? Antonio Villaseñor-Baca of the University of Texas El Paso joins Jared to talk about studying cross-genre work in English and Spanish, launching a music magazine between degrees, and how reading a diverse canon helped him take pride in his Xicanx identity. Antonio Villaseñor-Baca is a Xicanx bilingual journalist, photographer, poet and writer from El Paso, Texas. He spends his time listening to music and working towards his MFA in creative writing at the University of Texas at El Paso, where he taught Rhetoric and Writing Studies courses. Antonio also serves as an online editor for Minero Magazine and has written for YR Media, 18-to-29 Now, Borderzine, and El Paso Inc. He has published poetry in Rio Grande Review, Mojave Heart Review, and Norte/Sur. He focuses on short fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and visual/photographic narrative. Find him at his magazine Con Safos Magazine. 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. Twitter: @MFAwriterspod Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast Facebook: MFA Writers Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

Creative writing workshops have remained largely unchanged since their creation in 1936. But what if there’s a better, more empowering, more inclusive way? Jared talks to Felicia Rose Chavez about her new book, The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom. They unpack MFA student advocacy, discuss the benefits of collaboration over competition, and reconceptualize the workshop. Felicia Rose Chavez is an award-winning educator with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Iowa. She is author of The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom and co-editor of The BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNEXT with Willie Perdomo and Jose Olivarez. Felicia’s teaching career began in Chicago, where she served as Program Director to Young Chicago Authors and founded GirlSpeak, a feminist webzine for high school students. She went on to teach writing at the University of New Mexico, where she was distinguished as the Most Innovative Instructor of the Year, the University of Iowa, where she was distinguished as the Outstanding Instructor of the Year, and Colorado College, where she received the Theodore Roosevelt Collins Outstanding Faculty Award. Her creative scholarship earned her a Ronald E. McNair Fellowship, a University of Iowa Graduate Dean’s Fellowship, a Riley Scholar Fellowship, and a Hadley Creatives Fellowship. Originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, she currently serves as the Creativity and Innovation Scholar-in-Residence at Colorado College. For more information about The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop, and to access a multi-genre compilation of contemporary writers of color and progressive online publishing platforms, please visit www.antiracistworkshop.com. Follow Felicia on Instagram at @feliciarosechavez and on Twitter @writerantiracist. 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. Twitter: @MFAwriterspod Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast Facebook: MFA Writers Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com