Sean Johnston wrote:
> Yeah, I'd like an MFA in order to teach. You know, make a fair
> living doing something I like a lot--teaching. I like it as much as
> writing SF when I get to talk about SF, writing SF, stuff like that.
> Brooks Landon, one of this year's Philip K. Dick Award judges,
>
> advises me that it'd be better to get into Clarion. That'll carry a
> lot
> more weight w/the community (SF) that I seem to love than an MFA.
Sean, I wish you luck. Creative writing jobs are few and far between
out there (pick up the latest MLA Job Information Listing to see what I
mean). Once you find that listing, they usually want at least two books
published (and I've noticed that tends to be only for the assistant
professors). My suggestion: find something else in the field to fall
back on. I'm falling back on composition and instructional technology.
A lot of people think it's dull, it's dry, it's boring (I don't, but
that's another story), but if you look at that same JIL, you'll see a
vast amount of comp people wanted. If you don't like composition, take
up modern American or British literature. You can work science fiction
into the classes, and eventually write a dissertation on something
within the field (yes, a dissertation - an MFA can no longer guarantee a
spot in today's humanities job market which means you'll have to sweat
it out and get that doctorate).
Again, I wish you luck. There's very strong forces, both classist ( in
terms of SF) and financial, that have reared their heads up in the
academy...
- Geoffrey
-- "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." - Ford Prefect
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:07:33 PDT