That's Tony D'Souza blazing away in his first novel, Whiteman. While telling the story of his hero's bungled love affair, D'Souza criss-crosses African storytelling with American slapstick--the kind of dazzling move you can't learn in an MFA creative writing program.
Today D'Souza explains to us how he became a published writer in my deceptively simple feature: Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a serialized set of weekly interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing.
Jason Boog:You earned your MFA at Nortre Dame. Do you recommend that fledgling writers attend MFA programs? Why or why not?
Tony D'Souza:
I did an MFA because I wanted to be around people who loved books and writing, and because I wanted to have time to write. I went to the programs I did because they both gave me full-ride scholarships. A young artist should understand that debt will kill your freedom to pursue your art.
So a serious artist should seek out those programs that won’t land him in debt. Are there a bunch of people reading this and saying, ‘Screw you, D’Souza, you arrogant debt-free prick?’ Maybe.
I worked in McDonalds’ for years as a kid, I worked in restaurants in college, I ate shit. I didn’t like it. I’m grateful to those programs for giving out the money they do to young writers.
In the seventies, if you had a Iowa MFA, you could go to another school and start your own MFA, in the eighties you could get a job in the expanding MFAs, even in the early nineties your MFA could get you a full-time job at the university level.
But now? With an MFA you are lucky, really lucky, to get a full-time job teaching English 1 at a community college. Some of these programs really fleece people. Three years, $60,000. But still there are lines of people trying to get in.
I learned a lot at both of my programs. My teachers turned me on to great books faster than I would have found them on my own, some of the other students loved books with a passion even hotter than mine.
Especially the first year, my graduate work was a great and sparkling time of letters. Writing reviews for the Hollins Critic and The Notre Dame Review got me ready to write for Salon.
Reading submissions let me know just how many people out there are trying to publish. All those visiting authors, the access to other arts on campus, that was all great. A good MFA should be like a miniature West Bank.
That said, by my third year, it was time to go and do something else, so I joined the Peace Corps.
I had these two ideas going in to my programs: That I was not in competition with the other students, but with the writers I most admired, and that writing can’t be taught by anyone but one’s self. Both attitudes served me well. Too many students stopped pushing themselves when the teacher expressed approval of their work, too many of the very talented stopped pushing themselves when they’d simply out-paced the other students in the room.
In either case, those young writers stopped working. My graduate work feels like kindergarten to me now. I graduated in 2000, and in the ensuing six years I have read so many books and done so much writing that I understand my graduate years as really only the base for my adult learning. There is so much to learn. There is so much left to learn.
Last advice on MFAs: 1) Don’t pay much. 2) Go to a small program. 3) Don’t idol-worship the teachers. 4) Battle the titans, befriend your peers. 5) When you are done don’t let the slam poets tell you you aren’t a ‘real’ writer because you got an MFA. You were a writer before you got the MFA. 6) Don’t ever think the MFA means anything.
Note: If the serialized order of these posts is driving you nuts, feel free to read the whole interview collected here on a single page.
» The Publishing Spot Library: Novelist Tony D'Souza from ThePublishingSpot
Last week novelist Tony D'Souza stopped by to discuss his new book, The Konkans. This former Peace Corps volunteer and freelance writer has made two visits to The Publishing Spot, and delivered epic essay answers every time. Every week I... [Read More]
Tracked on: February 12, 2008 9:08 AM | Permalink to Trackback