Interesting thoughts that have been brought up here! I hope BYU’s MFA is a success.

I really enjoyed my BYU experience, but not so much the actual creative writing track. For one thing, at that time they lumped all kinds of creative writers into one workshop, which made only a little more sense than lumping those learning French, Spanish, and Chinese into one class. For another, the theory courses were very ambiguous and ethereal and academic and didn’t provide any practical training for a creative writer. The emphasis seemed to be more on preparing me for a PhD program, since the MA is not a terminal degree. I did like some of the workshop experience, but the professor never said anything, so it did seem like students teaching students. My favorite class of the whole degree was the Mo lit reading class I took from Eugene England.

My BYU MA gave me some great things. It turned me on to Mormon literature, the AML, etc. which have continued as abiding interests in my life. And it was through the MA program that I got an (extremely boring) summer internship in the LDS Church’s curriculum dept. which then directly led to a less-boring full-time stint at the Ensign magazine and a subsequent reasonably well paid career in corporate marketing communications. However, as far as preparing me to become an actual published creative writer, the program did less for me than two years of participating in a good writer’s group and studying books and magazines put out by the likes of Writers Digest would have done.

While I can see benefits to MA and MFA programs, I come down on the side of thinking it’s too often all just a big pipe dream for the students. It’s a lot like the multilevel marketing industry in which I work: everyone wants to launch their own successful home-based biz and make money, but fewer than 1% actually make it. If a program in law or dentistry had those job-placement odds, it would fail. So I think MFA programs should be a lot more realistic and should include a lot more practical emphasis on carving out a workable writing life. I almost wonder if most creative writing degrees should possibly be simply a tag-on minor to some real vocational degree, meaning one with reasonable odds for providing a lifetime remunerative career.

And hawkgirl, I agree that BYU’s MFA will offer Utah writers seeking that particular degree more choice. Although the U of U’s MFA is really good, it isn’t the right fit for everybody. I’m excited to see what BYU’s program produces.

And Shawn, you make some really good points. As far as an MFA being a “gamble,” though, so many worthwhile endeavors don’t offer a guaranteed outcome. Seeking to be a published writer is itself an incredibly precarious choice. Although you don’t have to invest a whole lot of *money* into writing (like you would an MFA), you’re still investing tons of time and creative energy and there’s no guarantee at all public success will come of it. I would also argue that even if I hadn’t found a part-time teaching job or had some (small) literary success after my MFA, I still would have found the experience more worthwhile than almost anything else I’ve done in my life. Of course, that’s my own personal experience, but my MFA was worth every penny. (And as to point number three . . . society didn’t pay for my MFA. I did. .

Robin and Moriah, I think part of the problem is Robin has a pretty broad definition of “creativity,” and Moriah’s is more narrow. While I agree with Robin that all of us have the potential to be “creative” in the broad sense of the word–even if that creativity is expressed in, say, coming up with ingenious new ways to organize one’s closet–I also agree with Moriah, especially when we narrow the definition to “artistic creativity.” Just as I’ll never be an athlete, some people will never be artists. And that’s okay.

Your mother created and raised you and I can’t help but feel sorry that her daughter cannot see any creativity in her

You know, I DO get the metaphor and simile and hyperbole and symbolism and whatnot.

It doesn’t take a genius to make a baby, and my mother still can’t spin art out of whole cloth. Really, you need not be sad on my or my mother’s behalf.

I repeat: There are a lot of people in this world who can’t and it’s GOOD that they can’t. They have other talents. Peace exists in one’s soul when one recognizes the talents that one has and DOES THAT instead of wishing and pining over what talents one doesn’t have.

I have faith that there’s lots of room in the Celestial Kingdom for mathematicians and accountants and lawyers and philosophers to do what they do without needing to be creative, and I hope they’re there because I need those kinds of people to help prop me up when I get lost in my head for days at a time.

My husband does NOT have a creative bone in his body but what he does allows me to do what I do. It’s the whole wind-beneath-my-wings cliche come to life. And I have NEVER said it was BAD that someone isn’t creative.

I am in the camp that thinks creative writing can be taught, but I don’t think creative writing can be taught to people who don’t have an originating talent. Given that talent for words, anyone can be helped to improve. But that’s the crux of it. I don’t think the word to define is “creative,” but “teaching.” I’m in the school that asserts that no one really learns anything from anyone. Real learning comes through personal experience. You can tell me and tell me something, but until I experience it, apply it, etc., it isn’t really learned. So it is w. writing. We can yap about how to do it until the cows come home, but no one really learns until they act on what they hear. So its the acting on that is the learning process, not the teaching. I believe we can guide one another to better writing (teach it), but that you only really become a better writer by doing. So sure, teach it. That teaching can direct the writer to put ideas into practice and from that practice, he/she will become better.

I’m thrilled that BYU will have an MFA for writers. This was news to me.

Perhaps the problem in in how some define creativity. I for one define it as a desire to bring onto being something that hasn’t existed in quite that way before. Be that an interpretation of the Moonlight Sonata. a 6′X6′ painting or a Bonsai tree. Creativity is possibilities.

If there are those out there who think they can’t be creative in ANY way than try reading the book “the Artists Way” To say that someone can never be creative is to say they can never be like God, which is against everything the LDS church teaches (see N. A. Maxwell’s essay “Start making Chips”). You may not think you can be creative, but that’s nonsense. It just takes practice.

Now the MFA is a whole new level of artistic dedication and I agree that a MFA is a refiners fire for those who already are dedicated to writing though it is not the only way.

Additionally, I’ll admit that the creative censorship that I know of at BYU is in the Art Department. I know a number of people who left BYU to pursue their art elsewhere for censorship or creative differences reasons. I do hope the the MFA in writing is allowed to be an open creative place.

I seriously considered pursuing an MFA. I would have loved the intensive reading/writing/workshopping. I have no doubts about the rigor of these programs. And if I came into some serious money tomorrow (I hope you are reading this my future patron! I have been waiting for your call …), I would consider putting my law practice on hold to pursue an MFA and a Ph.d in creative writing. I don’t believe taking this course would be necessary (or even ideal) for me to become a better/more successful writer. But it would give me three things: (1) necessary credentials to tap into a system that provides steady employment to full time “people of letters,” (2) a respectable structure in which huge blocks of time spent reading and writing fiction is classified as “work,” and (3) publishing connections/political ties not available to writers working outside of the MFA creative-writing cartel.

On the other hand, my reservations include:

(1) Not only are academic creative writing programs incapable of teaching insight/creativity, but I believe they may have the opposite effect (e.g., privileging and enforcing arbitrary style conventions, homogenizing narrative art, etc., etc.). And what MFA programs do well is available outside of the system. And free! I can force myself to write every day. I can force myself to read a lot. I can read writing guides from John Gardiner to Aristotle to Robert McKee and beyond. I can get critiquing/editing experiences from friends and publication opportunities.

(2) Academia can suck. It is not the real world. Really. Thus, it is a relatively poor source for material. Academic politics can also be brutal. And the glut of English/Creative Writing Ph.ds means that compensation is generally poor, applicants for MFA jobs have little power over where they live, and etc.

(3) There is something troubling about academic creative writing programs when viewed on a big-picture, social utility basis. There is an argument to be made that the wealth and effort invested in academic creative writing does not pay for itself. Sure, excellent writers come out of these programs. Yet, over the history of Western Civilization, most excellent writers are not products of MFA programs. Should society pay for a bloated academic system that can only claim to produce literature that would likely get written anyway?

(4) Academic creative writing programs also seem troubling viewed on the individual level. I don’t like the Ponzi Scheme metaphor because the vast majority of MFA students, who will never become significant or successful writers, aren’t victims of fraud. Instead, they are gamblers–people playing the slots or the lottery. The odds are against them (and they should know it!), but they willingly pour time, money, and lost opportunities into the system. Who benefits? The faculty and the very best students.

While BYU is certainly known for its censorship and lack of support for liberal thought, I did not find this to be an issue in the Humanities. I graduated before the September Six purge, so I don’t know how much that has changed the environment (although from what I can tell most of the students today don’t even know what that was). When I was there, many of the lit and creative writing professors rotated through from outside the church. I never felt I was asked to tone anything down.

For all that, I ended up in corporate America. Go figure!