MFA Writers

Singer-songwriter turned novelist Matthew Dougherty of West Virginia University joins Jared to talk about writing songs versus writing prose, fictionalizing family lore, and winning three literary contests. Matthew Dougherty grew up in Ohio, taught elementary school in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas and is now completing his third and final year in the MFA fiction program at West Virginia University...

What’s it like to be a YA writer in an MFA program? Jared talks to Marcos Damián León of the University of California, Riverside about crafting young adult fiction, taking courses outside the department, navigating higher ed as a first-generation student, and helping young readers consider big themes like gender roles and educational equity. Marcos Damián León is a teacher and writer from the Sali...

Clancy Tripp of Ohio State University talks to Jared McCormack about what happens when people believe your satire, how OSU encouraged her to experiment in multiple genres, whether humor is thriving or flailing in 2020, and if art can heal wounds. Tripp is a creative nonfiction, humor/satire, and fiction writer from the Midwest. Most recently, her work has been published in The Rumpus , shortlisted...

Jared McCormack talks with Ali Geren of the University of Arkansas about writing accessible poetry, growing up in small-town America, coming out in a poem, working a second job during the MFA, and drawing inspiration from Quentin Tarantino. Ali Geren is a poet in her second year of the University of Arkansas’ MFA program in Fayetteville. Her work has appeared in Caustic Frolic and in Moon City Rev...

On this episode, Jared sits down with Preety Sidhu of Louisiana State University to discuss how to finance an MFA (Hidden fees? Healthcare? Cost of living?), how to outline a novel, and how to write stories that publishers want to read. Preety Sidhu is an intern at Electric Literature . She holds an MFA in fiction from Louisiana State University, where she worked as an editorial assistant at The S...

Sasha Debevec-McKenney of New York University joins us to talk about completing her thesis during a pandemic, diversity in MFA programs, networking with prolific authors, the institution of the U.S. presidency, and, of course, Garth Brooks. Debevec-McKenney also shares an unpublished poem she just wrote titled “Stand Up Routine." Sasha Debevec-McKenney graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing fro...

Mary Henn of the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Missouri State University joins us to talk about gender, trauma, writing as healing, and whether writing can and should be political. Henn reads an excerpt of her award-winning creative nonfiction piece "Assemblies," which will be published in the upcoming issue of Hayden's Ferry Review . Mary Henn is an emerging poet and nonfiction writer. S...

Host Jared McCormack describes the upcoming MFA Writers podcast launching in June 2020.