On writers

Those of us who enter the Creative Writing Master of Fine Arts program do so without any reservations. We know the uphill battle we will trek, in the publishing and career world. We know we will have more rejections than we would like. Some of us will make it, and some won’t. Yet, we still try. Not for the fame or glory, and certainly not for the money. All of us in this program have the desire to be heard through our stories, I think, because an essential part of us has spent the majority of this life being mute. To birth characters and scenes, themes and interactions on the page is our way of being heard, but more than that, it’s our way of connecting with others who are equally mute.

Twenty-five years ago I would have just left it at that. But it’s 2025, and a lot has changed since the turn of the millennia: where we once turned the pages of worn paperbacks in coffee shops, we now swipe touch screens on tablets. AI is on the rise, giving students a new way to forge college papers and deciding what material to advertise for us on the computer screen. A piece of gossip that would have taken a week to spread now only takes a few seconds thanks to Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat. Worst of all, book banning is picking up steam, making those of us in the library business wonder if we will still have a job by the end of the decade. Keeping all of this in mind, it’s harder to determine how my MFA is supposed to make a difference in the new literary landscape of today and tomorrow. Or if the literary landscape, like the dinosaurs, is becoming a dying breed in this world of computer screens and chat GPT.

What is the literary landscape historically? A forum for those of us consumed by the desire to create, to share what we created, and to encourage each other in times of writer’s block and stress? Is it the business side of writing, where publishers determine who gets their backing and who doesn’t? Or is it our education system, that determines what we will be studying in schools. My heart wants to say it’s the first one– the desire to create, to share what we created, and to encourage each other in times of writer’s block and stress–but I know it can’t be solely that, because whether I like it or not, the three support each other in the ultimate goal of fostering three key actions: to think. To question. To transcend.

Sadly, right now the literary landscape seems to be moving more toward fostering the opposite. We’re in a strange age in American history: enlightened scientifically yet starved morally. Idealistically free-thinking, but terrified of questioning concepts and assumptions that have defined what makes America “great.” And most of all, dangerously apathetic to what is wrong. In the literary landscape, this presents as hesitation and inaction, disinterest in curiosity; in reading and writing alike.

Which naturally makes me wonder: is there any point in a Master of Fine Arts degree in this day and age? The dream to be a published author seems so juvenile when compared to “grownup problems” like the current state of politics, or the systematic reverence of vulgarity and ignorance in our society. For most, if not all in this program, an explanation for enrolling usually starts with the phrase, “I know I wanted to write.” Take away the planning and estimations and reasons for playing it safe, and what you’re left with is a desire to create. To take what you have in your heart and spin it into gold. But what can that gold buy us right now? Truth? What happens when the people don’t want to hear the truth and would rather believe in a comfortable lie?

I’d like to think that enough people recognize the absurdity of the present, but even if that were so I can’t say it’s a comfort. Being in the know isn’t enough anymore. The point of informing is so action can be taken. If there’s no action, we might as well have never been informed. And that’s what I fear for us future writers: that we as readers have become like students in a classroom with a broken AC– so burnt out that when someone gives the wrong answer, we don’t bother to correct them. Worse, I fear we will stop writing altogether, not seeing the point.

There is a point, though. Stories are the reflection of our wants, our sorrows, our dreams and battles, played out by the heroes and villains we birthed just as significantly as our children. A person’s experiences are as unique as a fingerprint. Not one is the same as another, and yet at the same time there’s familiarity there. We see ourselves in other’s stories. It’s how we connect on a deeper level. It’s why our world needs stories and why we will always need them. Especially when there are those trying to censor them. Book banning and censorship isn’t new. You'd be hard pressed to find a literary classic that hadn’t been dragged through the coals, vilified, and taken off the shelves during its heyday. What’s rather startling however is the fact that it’s happening in this day and age. We ought to know better, by now, that the practice doesn’t work, especially when it comes to Contemporary Fiction. At its heart, it is introspective connection. Fiction where the deep questions within ourselves are brought to the surface and shone back to us. It’s no coincidence that the current trends in the Contemporary Genre are that of the YA, LGBTQ Contemporary Romance, and Contemporary-Speculative sub-genre’s, with an emphasis on “personal narratives rather than sweeping, plot-heavy epics.” (Thriller Magazine). These subgenres ask their protagonists, and in turn us, the reader, to confront a battle within, in the familiar setting of now. None of these genres are new, save maybe for the LGBTQ genre (though we have seen LGBTQ in the past, albeit, hidden away like that familiar playboy magazine shoved between the mattresses.) After all, what are these four genres but peeks behind the romantic curtain, straight and gay? Warnings of a world where unchecked scientific advancements lead to our downfall? Voices from the underage demographic most poised to effect change? And commentary on the present, in mind and heart?

We’ve seen what book banning eventually leads to when the ends justify the means: book pyres. Alternative facts. Propaganda. For most, its success is a signal to concede. I argue the opposite: it’s an invitation to challenge. To reinvent and reconvey. To re-inspire and show, not tell. To enter through the back door. And how do we do this? How do we show our truth, our point of view in a way they will see? In a medium they aren’t expecting. In the stories we craft, and by fighting for those stories to be heard. By doing what those who want to ban these books don’t want: for us to read and talk about them. Because doing so acknowledges their existence, acknowledges complex answers and circumstances that can’t be explained away with a simple yes or no. Characters and themes, arcs and climaxes, these craft elements are more than the tools in a writer’s toolkit. And stories are more than entertaining breaks from reality: they’re truth, in essence, reborn.

An MFA program isn’t a formulaic system of memorizing facts and regurgitating them in simplified form. It’s a practice in doing what we’ve been conditioned to deny ourselves for the majority of our lives: to look inward and express; to create and share our truths. No, an MFA in creative writing won’t allow you to diagnose cancer in a patient. Nor will it qualify you to identify prehistoric bones or properly dissect a crime scene. But it just might be the answer to a world being poisoned by cognitive dissonance and fear. To be a writer is to be a vessel for truth, and right now, truth is the only antidote.

Work Cited

“Top Trends in Fiction: Diverse Stories, Genre-Blending & Modern Narratives.” Thriller

Magazine, 19 Dec. 2024, thrillermagazine.org/2024/12/19/trends-in-

fiction/#:~:text=Readers%20are%20increasingly%20drawn%20to,window%20into%20th

e%20human%20condition.