Hello friends!
I hope you are having fun on your summer vacation, if you get a summer vacation. My summer vacation is coming up, and posting might be, as Tai Frasier said, sporadic in the coming weeks. Not zero, but less. I am endeavoring to A: take an actual vacation with my family and not do work at all (shocking! novel!) and B: spend the rest of August catching up on reading and queries. I will be closed to queries Aug 1- Sept 5 to this end. If you’re still in line, stay in line.
Before we get on to today’s Q&A, let’s hear a word from our sponsor.
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Now, on to today’s questions:
K asks: I'm in a season with my fiction writing where I really want to push myself to the next level (specifically: more literary), beyond what working with beta readers and developmental editors has taught me. At one point I'd hoped that working with an editor at a traditional publisher would be a big education, but it seems like editors are so overwhelmed that they're looking for more turnkey projects than they used to, and that collaboration would be lighter touch. I'd like to stay proactive and keep pushing myself. An MFA isn't in the budget (and are they truly worth it?) so I'm considering an online course or workshop, but there are so many options! Could you offer some insider suggestions re: the best places for continuing writing education?
I got an MFA. It was worth it, to me, because it was A: basically free and B: gave me what I wanted—time to focus on writing. This was also twenty-five years ago and everything is different now. So no, I would not recommend you go into debt and get an MFA. (If you got a scholarship or it was otherwise funded and you can take the time away to do that, then sure, but that is available to like .01% of us so I get it.) You don’t need to go to an MFA program to learn how to write, “more literary” or otherwise. You
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