the little writer that could.

Hey, all. I posted back in March about my visit to Columbia and whether I would choose to go there, since I was waiting on one more (non-MFA) decision. I decided to go to Columbia....and then a week or two later, had a complete breakdown over financial anxiety and told them I wasn't going to go. I already have graduate degrees and I've been paying on them for 2+ years, and got overwhelmed at the thought of the staggering cost of tuition+books+living in NYC. I've paid my own graduate education up to this point, through grants/loans/workstudy and working part-time, and will be paying for my MFA myself - this isn't a case of mommy and daddy footing the bill, so I wasn't taking cost issues lightly. If anything, my family was super concerned about the debt I would incur. Everything I read online pointed me in a direction far, far away from NY.

We've all heard and read the horror stories about Columbia and the other NYC MFA programs, about being "cash cows" and rude admins and no funding, and so on - it could go on for days and multiple Facebook threads, as we're all aware. Maybe some people have even experienced this themselves. My experience, however, has been far from that. Ever since the beginning, with sending in my confirmation deposit, the School of the Arts and the larger institution have been nothing but helpful and accomodating through email and phone conversations. Being a naturally anxious person, I'm sure I drove them crazy, asking a ton of questions "just to make sure," and they always responded promptly, politely and with a note that it was no trouble.

Very long story short, I decided to go because of a funding offer that opened up that eased my financial worries considerably. Am I still taking out some loans, especially to live? Yes - but drastically less than originally thought. Is this the norm? Maybe not. Maybe this experience is the exception and not the rule, but I never would have known if I didn't take that plunge and try to go for it. It is really easy to get caught up in the funding maze and talk of different programs and debt, and make "practical" decisions in lieu of going balls-to-the-wall and taking a flying leap towards your dream. Of course, practical is necessary sometimes - I'm not advocating going 100k in debt for the sake of not being practical - but if a program is perfect for you, and doesn't necessarily offer full funding, you never know what may happen until you try. Apply. Talk with administrators. Meet with students. Get to know the financial aid, housing and student services people. If you get in, you don't have to go. Be honest with the school about your financial concerns, look at other aid sources and ask the financial aid people about other sources of money. As Tim Gunn would say, make it work.

Because what it comes down to, really, is finding the program that is the best fit for you. But if you really want a program that seems out of reach for financial reasons, it might be worth going for it and seeing what happens.

Malibu Barbie vs. Hawaiian Fun Skipper

The last few years have been spent with two goals mind: 1) Finish my book, 2) Get into a MFA program. I’ve run through every emotion that I’m sure all of you have. I’ve been at the bottom of the ravine, looking up and thinking: what the eff? I’ve hemmed and I’ve hawed. I’ve retreated, backpedaled, swam through the rivers of self-doubt, charged feebly through the walls of rejection and in the end when the dust settled, I found myself a tiny bit closer to the light at the end of the tunnel. All this to say that I’ve been accepted to several programs and now face the task of making the right choice.

Lately I’ve been rather content to sweat over the change I see in the distance. The MFA application process is so self-involved and so obnoxious in its ability to wrap even the most calm psyche up into fever that I don’t believe many of us are able to comprehend that life goes on after the results are in. I’ve weighed the possibilities of faculty, area and time. I’ve even panicked over funding, which I had never even considered crying over until various blogs commanded I do so. Now I'm waking up from my hibernation in a daze, like wha? Last year I held onto one waitlist that strung me along by nose all the way through July. This year, I’m writing this from the Southwest terminal of LaGuardia airport at 5am, currently on my way to Chicago to visit the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. I’m somewhere between alive and asleep. Not just because it’s 5:08am in the friggin’ morning, but because I've come to realize that if and when I take one of my offers, I will be starting the next phase of my life which for the past two years has been nothing but some semblance of a dream.

The point being, life never turns out the way you planned it. I wish I could give you a bullet point list to illustrate my reasoning, but my mind is a body of water that strains bridges and dams. If you’re as spiritual as I like to believe I am then hopefully you’ve realized that God has one hell of a sick and twisted sense of humor. My remedial understanding of blessings is that the lord will always deliver, but never on your time, and it’s never the exact package you asked for. You want Malibu Barbie? The Lord brings you Hawaiian Fun Skipper. Well gee thanks, God. Hawaiian Fun Skipper is cool and all, but I wanted the pink convertible and you gave me a pink scooter. There’s some deeper meaning in this, right? Some lesson I will come to realize ten years from now that’ll make me go: Ooooooh...well now I've gotta get on my knees and pray.

For me, my Malibu Barbie was Columbia University. Yes, yes, boo and hiss, wah-wah funding and all that jazz, but I felt that program was perfect for me. I have a life here in New York that I never wanted to give up. I would have sacrificed a few lambs and slapped my momma silly to figure out the finances, but it was worth staying here and continuing the life I'm comfortable with. Alas, I found Hawaiian Fun Skipper under my Christmas tree. Believe me, there was no sadness. Just a quick pause then the happy-bunny-hoppity-hop dance commenced. Now the novelty of it all is wearing off and I’m examining Skipper, I’m noticing the differences between her and Barbie and I’m realizing the warm and fuzzy vision I had in my head is not my reality. Is my vision better than my reality? I don't think so, but I think visions allow us to have our cake and eat it too. My reality is asking me to lose some weight. It requires a lot more courage than the comfy dream I had set out for myself.

I’m currently in the midst of visiting schools: Colorado Boulder, The School of the Art Institute in Chicago and the University of New Orleans. I thought all my choices were in, until last week when I received a phone call from Goldsmiths College, University of London. So once again, my situation has changed and every time I think about it, my brain explodes. Do I study at a MFA program or study at a MA program? I’ve been doing my research and have found pros and cons to both. There are plenty of authors doing quite well with a MA (Hello, Kazuo Ishiguro!) But I already had it in my mind that I’d spend two years in a MFA program, teaching undergraduates and finishing up my novel. What can I possibly accomplish in a yearlong MA program? Meet a hot British guy and make him my husband.

MA degrees are generally less practice based, although my interview with Professor Stephen Knight claims otherwise. I’ll be subjected to more theory and the study of literature, which I’m always fascinated by. I won’t be able to gather any adequate teaching experience in a year. However, if I chose a MA, I could be out of school in half the time and from there reapply to MFA programs right afterwards.

But do I want to be in various schools for that long? Well, if I’m funded why not? If I go to Colorado Boulder, I’ll be in school for 3 years. If I go to London and attend another program afterwards, I could wrack up twice as many degrees in the same amount of time. Plus I’ll be able to live abroad for at least one of those three years. Then again if I already know that I’ll still covet a MFA even after receiving my MA, am I wasting my time? Maybe I should just accept one of my MFA offers and get it over with already. I mean, Jesus, I’m not getting any younger. My facebook is filled with friends getting married and popping out babies. Even my mother, who is practically the face of women who work on their careers before settling down with a husband to start a family, has reverted into a 1950s nosey neighbor: When you gonna get married and give your poor momma some grandkids?

The point is: great, I’ve got direction so…what do I do now? And the only reply I have for myself is: I love my Hawaiian Fun Skipper, so, so freaking much!

I will blog about adventures in the Windy City soon! :D

Trying to Figure It All Out

"Bring on the wonder, bring on the song; I pushed you down deep in my soul for too long...." That song by Susan Enan, as innocuous as it may seem, was one of the little things that pushed me to apply to MFA programs last fall. After graduate education in the health sciences, I finally realized that after working in the journalism field for over a year, I was happiest when writing. I'd been trying to deny it for so long, and go with something more "practical", whatever that means. My research was primarily in oncology, and too many times I'd seen how short life is. No one is ever promised tomorrow, and I decided I did not want to live with regrets, so I applied to MFA nonfiction creative writing programs and one PhD in journalism. Even just making that decision changed my life - for the first time in a long time, I felt excited about my life. I felt alive. And just when I was starting to give up all hope and question my abilities and whether I would ever find my way, I got a phone call that I was accepted to Columbia University's nonfiction program. I'd applied to Columbia not because I thought I would get in, but because it was "Columbia" and I figured, why the hell not? I didn't even fill out all the financial aid forms because I was that sure I didn't have a shot. But you can bet I filled those forms out after the phone call!

It is scary, the financial aspects. But I have taken out loans for graduate school before, and know that it is a sacrifice and risk that will pay off. I believe in it. And I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there are a lot more financial aid opportunities available than I originally thought, as well as an Artists' Resource Center that can provide financial resources. So I am gearing up to take that leap of faith.

As of right now, I have not decided what I will be doing in the fall. I currently live in Chapel Hill, NC, and love my life there. The Carolina Way has seeped into my veins and UNC and the surrounding areas have been my home for the past 4 years. I am actually still waiting on their PhD decision, as well as another school's MFA decision. So until I receive all my notifications, my final choice is up in the air. Columbia's final decision date is actually later than April 15th, so I have some breathing room, thankfully.

I went to the city the other day, since I am up North visiting family, and had an excellent visit. The students were on spring break, but I was able to talk to the financial aid guy and some administrators in the Writing department, as well as see the classrooms and get a thesis anthology of last year's students, a student handbook and a course listing packet. As a psychology nerd, it is hard not to get super excited about the fact that the neuropsychiatrist Oliver Sacks is a nonfiction professor in the program. Individual fit is important in a program; for me, if the fit isn't right, I don't care who is teaching the classes, what the program is ranked, what city I'm in or if tuition is dirt cheap or funded. And for whatever reason, I felt like I "fit" there. It was a gut instinct.

This still doesn't even feel real, like this is my life - not just the MFA acceptance, but the fact that I have even been brave enough to finally take my writing seriously, and to trust this process, this journey that life is leading me on. Last summer, when I was talking about deciding to pursue writing, I mentioned that it seemed so "self-indulgent," to pursue writing, an art. And I was met with this reply: If you don't indulge yourself, who will?

Truer words were never spoken.

SIGNS AND DECISIONS

My name is Mike Mlek* and I believe in miracles. Since I applied to MFA programs almost four months ago, I have been searching for signs that would tell me where I might get accepted or when I might hear back from particular programs.

If Colorado beat my current school, Kansas State University (where I am finishing my M.A. in English and Creative Writing), in basketball, that meant I'd be rejected there. (True.)

If I accidentally stumbled upon a book by a professor at Cornell while browsing at the library, that meant I'd get in there. (Nope.)

If a city that could be my future home popped up in the news, my head would explode in nikhedonia.

I've always been like this, I think. But my search for signs, coincidences, omens, spotlights coming out of nowhere and saying, "Look. Here," has become more intense as I've gotten older (and, maybe ironically, smarter). In my first semester of college, now seven years ago, I wrote a paper for philosophy class defending fatalism by examining the significance of coincidences. When my friends and I competed in the 2009 National Poetry Slam, we kept track of all the negative things that happened to us on the trip, insisting that each bad occurrence was an omen predicting our future success--and we went on to win the tournament. Now, I just have the general sense that my life has worked out so well thus far, whoever is in control of it (me, God, the Architect of the Matrix) must have it all planned out.

For the novelist Milan Kundera, motif and coincidence are governed by the laws of beauty, and they are to be found in real life the same as they are found in novels. “It is wrong, then,” he writes, “to chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious coincidences, […] but it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he thereby deprives his life of a dimension of beauty.”

On February 23rd, I got into the MFA program at the University of Pittsburgh, and I was offered a Teaching Assistantship about three weeks later. Now I'm looking for signs that I should go there.

I. I've learned that August Wilson left his native Pittsburgh for St. Paul, Minnesota. Now I've been given the opportunity to leave my native St. Paul for Pittsburgh.

II. The other night, a performance poet named Buddy Wakefield, who was one of my first favorite poets when I was coming up, performed at my school and I opened for him. He said something about a church bartender, which reminded me of a church in Pittsburgh that has been transformed into a brewery and restaurant.

III. Yesterday, there were some college kids playing beer pong in their front yard and listening to music. As I walked by on my way to the bar where I run a poetry reading series, the song "Black and Yellow" came on.

I don't plan on actually basing my decision on coincidences and omens. Actually, I've yet to even receive another offer. I'm waitlisted at Minnesota (6th on the waitlist) and Indiana (no further info), and flat-out rejected at Iowa, Cornell, Colorado, and Missouri's PhD. I am assuming rejection from McNeese State University, and still waiting to hear back from Purdue.

Aesthetically, geographically, and in terms of motif-prophecy, Pitt is the perfect fit for me. I deeply admire the poetry and poets they produce; they have a new focus on genre crossing and hybrid forms, which I love; the city sounds amazing (and similar to my hometown, Minneapolis-St. Paul); they're one of the few MFA cities I applied to that are home to a poetry slam.

Pitt's big drawback, for me, is that I'd be teaching composition for the first two years (and possibly all three). I want badly to teach creative writing, and I want to be competitive for a tenure track position immediately after my MFA, which means, I think, I need creative writing teaching experience. And, while Indiana is a less attractive program to me in terms of aesthetics and geography, six of the nine courses I would teach there would be creative writing. (Ooh. One of my poetry slam teammates and best friends, Khary Jackson, uses the stage name "6 is 9." A coincidence in favor of Indiana.) Either program would leave me with a good narrative: my fiction professor (not my real genre, by the way) got her MFA at Pittsburgh, and my major professor/mentor got her MFA and PhD at Indiana. If I move off the waitlist at the latter program, I'm in for a difficult decision.

For now, though, I spend my free time Googling Pittsburgh, reading about the city and looking at its skyline, its bridges and rivers, its history rendered in black and white. They call it the Paris of Appalachia, equal parts mountain and midwest and east coast. If it were a text, it would be a hybrid form. I, not knowing why my great grandparents came here from Poland, Pittsburgh, having watched its steel mills close--we both know the breakdown of narrative and tradition; we both still believe in resurrections.

I don't yet know where I'll end up. I might blog some more, here, about the decision-making process, and I'll definitely be back when it comes time to move. Nice to meet you, MFA Chronicles.


*My name isn't really Mike Mlek, but I don't want this to be what pops up when my name is Googled. Here's me and my real name.