Since I Live Alone, I Leave My Stories with the Doorman

I met Rob Wilder when I took his class at the Taos Summer Writers' Conference, and he was the first person to say to me, Hey, have you considered going to grad school? That was more than a year ago, and he’s been a friend and supporter ever since.

Rob is a great writer of both fiction and nonfiction, and a gifted storyteller. He’s a columnist for Santa Fe Weekly and has published two collections of essays, Daddy Needs a Drink and Tales from the Teachers’ Lounge. Rob’s writing always makes me laugh. Out loud. I remember reading his first book over dinner and I laughed so hard I spit a piece of broccoli across my plate. I am not making that up.

I asked Rob to share his thoughts about creative writing programs because he has both an MA from New Mexico State University (full-residency) and an MFA from Warren Wilson (low-residency). His thoughts are helpful both if you’re considering grad school or, like me, you’re already in a program.

Rob had so much to say that I’m breaking it into three parts: full-res today, low-res on Wednesday, and general thoughts and recommendations on Friday.

Things to Consider: Full-Residency

There are a number of opportunities that only full-res can offer. At NMSU Rob helped run the speakers series, where he got to meet writers he admires (like Charles Baxter), as well as learn the ins and outs of arts administration, which helped him get a job with a literary agency later on. He participated in the Writers in Schools program, teaching in a different public school every week for two years, and also taught composition classes on campus, which was not only great experience, it paid a stipend.

He got editing experience working on NMSU’s literary journal Puerto del Sol. “Sometimes during crunch time you’d read 50 manuscripts a week,” he said, and explained that each student editor had to give a brief written response to the writer with what was and wasn’t working in his or her story. “That’s an incredible education,” Rob said. “It makes you say, okay, if this were my draft, how would I fix it?”

Full-res is full immersion in the writing life. “You’re around people with similar interests all the time, where with low-res you’re only around them 20 days a year,” Rob said. “At New Mexico State, I’d be up all night struggling with a story, and I’d leave it for my roommate in the morning and say, can you give me some ideas? Where do you think this might go?” The commiseration factor with a full-res program is high.

Rob recommends asking hard questions before you commit to any program, and one factor that apparently varies with full-res is how much time faculty spends on your thesis. “A lot of times that’s what gets blown off – thesis hours,” he said. “Before you put your money down, talk to students in the program as well as recent graduates. Ask, did so and so (fiction faculty) read your thesis start to finish, did they line-edit it? How often did they meet with you? If they say one or two times, that’s bad. If they say every week or every other week, that’s great.”

Stay tuned for Rob’s take on low-res programs on Wednesday. (If you want more of Rob’s wisdom, read my interview with him on the left.)

P.S. If you live in New Mexico and would like to apply for writing grants (or any kind of grants, really), don’t miss my friend Summer Wood’s workshops on Saturday, September 27, in Taos, and again in Bernalillo (between Santa Fe and Albuquerque) on Saturday, October 18. Summer won the Gift of Freedom award from A Room of Her Own Foundation in 2007 (a major prize - $50k to support the artist while she writes for two years), as well as other grants and awards, so Summer knows what she’s talking about. She says:

“I'm offering this pro bono but am requesting that participants make a tax-deductible donation of $65 (more if you can afford it; less if you can't) to A Room of Her Own Foundation. All proceeds from these workshops will be used to fund a scholarship for a New Mexico writer to the 2009 AROHO Writers Retreat at Ghost Ranch. (Women writers: please apply!) The format of the workshop will be highly interactive, so I'm limiting the number of participants to 15. Email me at summerwood [at] taosmesa [dot] com for more information.”

(If you’re a woman writer you should also consider attending the AROHO conference next year – I went in 2005 and it was a turning point in my writing career, plus it’s set in Abiquiu, where Georgia O’Keeffe lived and worked, a truly gorgeous, inspiring spot. Highly recommended.)