Lessons Learned from a DIY Book Tour

As I write the first draft of this post, I’m on a plane heading home from North Carolina, where I did readings from my debut book, One Size Fits None: A Farm Girl’s Search for the Promise of Regenerative Agriculture. Now that I’m somewhere in the middle of my self-imposed tour, I’m glad Mary Sheffield-Gentry asked me to pause and reflect on what is a brand new experience for me.

Here are some things this amateur-hoping-to-become-a-pro has learned:

Make a plan and start early. Unless you are a proven best-selling author, your press will not send you on a tour (bummer). That means you’re in charge, which can be daunting or liberating. I’m choosing to see it as liberating because I can set my own schedule and embrace my tendency to want to control/plan everything book-related anyway.

Think about how much traveling you can afford, how often you can handle appearing in public, and how much time you will be able to devote not only to the readings, but also to the much heavier workload of securing, planning, promoting, and preparing for those readings. I did not anticipate how much time I would need to spend just on sending and answering emails involved with my book tour, for example.

Contact bookstores three to six months before you want to read there. Universities require more lead time; if you want to read sometime in the fall 2019/spring 2020 school year, for example, start reaching out in early 2019, preferably before. Applications for literary festivals and book festivals are due anywhere from a year to six months before the actual festival.

Another thing: a book tour doesn’t have to be a line-up of back-to-back readings that takes you away from home for weeks at a time. I scheduled two to four events per month for the first four months after my book appeared, and I am working to arrange a few more for the rest of the year. A book tour also doesn’t have to be travel-oriented. You can do a blog tour (asking prominent book bloggers to review the book) or a radio tour, and arrange for author interviews on important book-related sites, like I did here.

Partner with someone local. Bookstores want to know your reading will bring a crowd, and inviting someone from the community to participate will help make that happen. For my Asheville event, I asked Dr. Mary Saunders Bulan, professor of environmental studies at Warren Wilson College (an institution just outside the city), to join me “in conversation.” She interviewed me about the book in front of a live audience, and I also did a quick reading. Look to local writers, professionals, and other people whose work coincides with yours somehow. Ask bookstores about their book clubs, too; you might be able to get a club to read your book and host you for a discussion, as I’m doing at The Book Cellar in Lake Worth in April.

Another option for partnerships is community organizations. When I wanted to put something together in Tampa, for example, I reached out to The Sustany Foundation, a local group working to advance sustainable agriculture initiatives. They agreed to make my reading an official Sustany Foundation event, invited their members, and did much-needed promotion. In Greensboro, I put dual strategies to the test by being in conversation with local environmental writer Lee Zacharias and asking Green Drinks Greensboro, a group of environmentally minded people, to have the event serve as one of their monthly gatherings—and I ended up with an engaged group of 15-20 people, which I’ve learned is a decent turnout for a relatively unknown new writer.

Whether or not you partner with a person or organization, always reach out to local groups, institutions, universities, and the like to inform them about your event. Do some research to find out who is likely to be interested in your book.

Think outside the bookstore box. Yes, bookstores are great places to read—but they aren’t the only venues. People love the option of enjoying a drink or some food while you talk, so consider places that offer one or both. I held my book launch party at a brewery with a history of supporting the arts, and it was amazing! Think, too, about places that tie in with your writing somehow—a store, a public place, anywhere that makes sense. In Tampa, I read at an independently-owned wine shop specializing in organic and natural wines, which connected with my book’s argument for regenerative agriculture. Don’t forget about libraries, too.

University readings are a bit more difficult to land, but definitely try because they help you establish and maintain important connections with writers who also teach. Approach your alma mater first, but also write to other universities with a reading series or programs that complement your work. In the coming weeks, I plan to identify and then reach out to university English departments that focus on research writing, environmental writing, and literary journalism and see if they would be interested in bringing me to their campus. Wish me luck!

Be prepared for rejection. For every “yes” I get, I have received at least ten “no’s.” Most people you query about a reading either won’t answer or will decline. That is normal, so do not get discouraged. Another thing: be prepared for readings that go horribly. By that I mean no one shows up. This, too, is normal, even for writers who are well known.

That said, do your best not to set yourself up to fail. Do readings in places where you have connections and people you know, and promote the heck out of events in places where you lack these advantages. If you have a few spare bucks, consider doing some advertising on social media. Share everything you schedule with your publicist so he/she can alert local media.

In closing and in the spirit of continued promotion, I humbly invite you, dear reader, to come out to one of my events in the coming months—and let me know about yours!

Stephanie Anderson is a writer living in Boca Raton, Florida. She holds an MFA from Florida Atlantic University, where she currently serves as an Instructor of English. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, Flyway, The Pinch, Hotel Amerika, Midwestern Gothic, Grist Journal, The Chronicle Review, Sweet, and others. Stephanie is proud to have grown up in South Dakota, and her work often centers on the prairie and rural life. Her debut book titled One Size Fits None, a work of literary journalism focused on regenerative agriculture, appeared with University of Nebraska Press in January 2019.

Let's Do This

Hello, and welcome to the Spring 2019 semester! So, yeah, my picture is from October, but come on. Who can resist that little Pikachu and his big brother? Anyway.

I'm including the picture so you can see why I've been absent from this blog. Those two kept me busy for a full semester of parental leave (I'd thought to get a draft of my novel done - it turns out they had other plans). And as much as I miss their little cherubic faces every day, it really is nice to have the full use of both of my hands.

But enough about me.

There is a lot going on this semester, some of which has already transpired. We had the Alumnae reading with the lovely Brittany Ackerman, Stephanie Anderson, and, you know, me. Not sure lovely applies there. Maybe the adjective needs rethinking. We could go with indomitable. Indefatigable? Hm. Probably we are all three some of these things to some degree. But! Our reading was so fun, and we thank all in attendance. You can find Brittany's book here, Stephanie's book here, and my book is here, or I have a box of books in my office (CU 306F) if you're so inclined.

Last week literary agent  Renée Zuckerbrot spoke, and this week Danez Smith will be giving a reading (2/14 at 7pm in the Majestic Palm Room of the Student Union - do not miss it! Maybe this link to the FB event will work).

There are additional exciting events to look forward to as well. On 2/28 Mary Blossom Lee Poet, Sy Hoahwah, will be giving a reading at 7pm in the Majestic Palm Room of the Student Union, and on 3/21 the next Off the Page reading will be given by John Keene (7pm, Majestic Palm Room of the Student Union).

Remember to meet with me to discuss your program of study. Probably we should update your Plan of Study. Maybe you have questions on thesis guidelines or deadlines. Maybe you've just, you know, missed my office. I know I have... Come on in! I take appointments MW 10:30 - 1:30 and TR 11:00 - 12:30. I'm also happy to speak with you over the phone if those hours don't work.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the semester. We are going to have some great blog posts in the near future. I, for one, cannot wait to read about the Lawrence Sanders Writer-in-Residence Workshop. And listen. I'll probably be bugging some of you for a blog post. Please add your voice to this! YOU are what make this blog interesting. I'm just here, you know, curating.




MR Sheffield is the Creative Writing Advisor for the MFA program at FAU. You can reach her at mfa@fau.edu to set up an appointment. Her debut book of poetry, Marvels, was released by Sundress Publications this winter.

Welcome back!

Hello, all, and welcome to the Fall 2017 semester!

To those of you currently in the MFA program, I hope you will attend the Swamp Ape Review meeting today (8/23, Wednesday) at 6pm in the Amp Lab. Check your email for more information.

Our Off the Page Series is off to a fantastic start this fall with a reading by Carole Maso on Thursday, 10/12, at 7pm in the Majestic Palm room. Ira Sukrungruang is up next with a reading on Thursday, 10/19 at 7pm in the Palmetto Palm room.

Our Lawrence A. Sanders Writer-in-Residence for this year is the talented Paul Lisicky. His workshop for MFA students will run in March of 2018, so be on the lookout for an email on how to apply to attend.

Which brings me to my strongest advice to you this Fall 2017 semester. Whether you are a new student (you might check out this blog) or getting ready to graduate (this one is for you) or somewhere in between (yeah, haha, there's a blog for you too), be sure to show up. That is, attend as many events as you can this year. Commit to participating in events inside and outside of the program. Form a writing group with friends. Come meet with me and discuss your progress in the program. Apply for grants, scholarships, and travel money. Go to AWP (it's in Tampa!). Check out this blog on how to log onto the AWP website (and email, visit, or call me if you have trouble). Apply for travel money here. The sooner you apply, the more likely you'll be able to receive funding (they give funding to students participating in conferences and to students who are simply attending).

I love meeting with you one on one, so please set up a meeting if you haven't yet. Good luck!




MR Sheffield's work has been published in The Florida Review, Black Warrior Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, and other publications. Probably her poetry manuscript is forthcoming from Flaming Giblet Press, but who really knows how these things shake out, amite? Contact her at mfa@fau.edu and/or 561-297-2974.

Bienvenido!

Hello, all, and welcome back to the ever-stellar FAU MFA Creative Writing Blog! For this post, I'll be your host (and I promise not to continue rhyming).

Who is this, you ask? Well! I'm the English Graduate Advisor, and I'm here to help you navigate the salty waters of your degree progress. Please don't be shy - email, call, or drop by and ask me any questions you have. I might not know the answer, but I will find out what it is! My detective skills have grown immensely during my tenure as your devoted advisor.

So! What are you in for this coming year? Well, our Sanders Writer-in-Residence this year is, drum roll, please: Justin Torres. He'll be here 3/27-3/31 for the MFA workshop, and will be giving a reading Thursday, 3/30. You'll need to apply for a spot in the workshop - information on this will be sent out later this semester. You can check out an interview with him both here and here, find an editorial he wrote on the Orlando Pulse shootings here, and reviews of his beautiful book, We the Animals, here and here. We are so excited to have him!

We are also hosting several wonderful readings: Ira Sukruangrang on October 13, Victoria Fedden on October 20 (more on this in the next action-packed paragraph), and Jensen Beach and Elizabeth Powell on November 16. All these readings will be held in Live Oak D at 7:00pm. 

Victoria Fedden, an alumna of our Creative Writing MFA Program (!), will be here for the National Day on Writing. You can check out some reviews of her latest book, This is Not My Beautiful Life, here, and here, and you can find an excerpt from the book here. Her author page is here, and it includes a lot of good stuff: hilarious blog posts, writing advice, information on her books, and a reading guide for This is Not My Beautiful Life. We're thrilled to have her!

Our Literary Magazine, Swamp Ape, will be launching January 2017. Get involved with the magazine reading submissions, working on marketing, or however you’d like to participate. Be a literary midwife and help birth this baby!

I want to encourage you to apply to stuff, go to events, and basically do all the things. You might feel busy, but trust me, this is the time in your life to really focus on the reading and writing community that you are a part of! It won’t be forever (I can vouch for that, ha). So while you might feel like you need to do everything else (and binge watch old episodes of Supernatural or whatever), do the writing stuff instead. Apply for Swann funding. Travel. Go to the readings (it bears repeating: go to the readings! These are amazing opportunities for you to learn from and meet writers outside our program). You will get so much out of these experiences. The time goes by so quickly. No lie, apple pie.

Ahem. Okay! Weird endearments notwithstanding, are you nervous about your degree progress, the Plan of Study, the thesis, the thesis defense, graduating, choosing classes, teaching, or anything else? Good! That means you're human. Now come and meet with me.

MR Sheffield, aka Mary Sheffield-Gentry, is an alumna of FAU's MFA Creative Writing Program and your graduate advisor. Her work has been published in Hayden's Ferry Review, Fiction Southeast, The Florida Review, and other publications.

Welcome to Fall 2015!

Welcome, everyone, to the Fall 2015 semester here at the MFA program at FAU. I'm your friendly English Graduate Advisor, and I want to give you some information before we get into the more interesting blogs this semester.

Speaking of more interesting blogs, if you have something interesting to say, I beseech you to get in touch with me. We're especially interested in blogs on the craft of writing, the publishing class, your writing process, and reviews of reading events.

And what great reading events we have this year! We will have readings from Chantel Acevedo, Russell Banks, Tom Sleigh, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Jay Critchley, David Keplinger, and our very own Susan Mitchell.

But as you know, an MFA program isn't all readings and philosophical discussions. You also need to take classes and, you know, make progress toward your degree. Let me get some of that out of the way. The program is 48 credit hours: 21 credit hours of workshop classes (seven classes), 18 credit hours of literature/theory classes (six classes), ENG 6009: "Principles and Problems of Literary Study" (this is your only specifically required course), and six thesis hours. Take a look at the advising checklist if you're more of a visual sort of person. Heck, while you're clicking around, why not check out our Web site wherein I go into all this advising stuff in more detail? It'll be great fun.

If you're graduating this semester (or next, because, hey, it's good to be prepared), take a look at the thesis guidelines. Remember! After 18 credit hours you must have a Plan of Study on file. See me for help with this - it's what I'm here for.

Well, okay. And speaking of me being here, I won't actually be here the whole semester. As you may or may not know, I'm expecting a kid (a human one!) this Halloween. Don't believe me? Here's a picture.

He's just the cutest, right? What kind of unborn baby is this cute already? Gah.

But, okay, so I'm going to be here until mid-October and then I'm leaving you in the very capable hands of Kelly De Stefano. She'll introduce herself on the blog soon. I will be back to advising next Summer 2016.

So! Welcome or welcome back, as the case may be. I encourage you to attend everything! To host readings (and invite me)! To write and write and then write some more! I hope this is a wonderful semester for all of you.



MR Sheffield, aka Mary Sheffield, aka Mary Ruth Sheffield-Gentry, aka Mars (that's an authentic nickname, guys) is your English Graduate Advisor. She can be reached at Mfa@fau.edu. Email her and make an appointment - you will make her day, I swear. I mean, I know for sure. Well, because I'm she.

The Year I Stopped Writing

When does a writer cease being a writer?

For the last year and a half, I've lived in Portland, Oregon, working as a social media and communications specialist for a small business. I've written more professional copy in the last year than I did in my final year of graduate school in 2013. I also journaled more and read more books in 2014 than any other year of my life (including that one angsty year in sixth grade when I filled an entire Five Star notebook).

Yet, this is the first "complete" piece of creative writing I've written all year. The first piece of writing I've refined, edited, polished, and submitted somewhere to live and be read outside the covers of my journal. The first piece of original writing since my graduate thesis.

Sure, there was that old lyric essay I cleaned up, re-labeled as fiction, and submitted to a handful of journals. I wrote that first draft in 2011. Does editing, re-purposing count as writing? I'm not sure.   

As far as any new, original pieces by Renee Long? Nada. My first year and a half outside the MFA has been dry. But somehow, I don't feel too guilt-ridden about this drought.

I won’t label my experience with the ugly term some writers use (the dreaded “W.B.”). I suppose I’m experiencing heart sickness. Losing my ability (or drive, or desire, or motivation) to write feels like a best friend has left for a distant place with no phone or internet service.

I miss this friend: the days spent at the beach, the nights out dancing, the afternoons cooking and drinking wine together, the long, important talks where you share only the most vulnerable parts of yourself.

Yet I feel this long time apart serves some purpose. It is some crucial, painful experience I have to go through to grow. To thrive without resting on the crutch of my best friend.

One benefit I’ve found from this “long away,” this drought, is I have been fully present in my experiences here in Oregon. I felt the warmth of sweet driftwood on my skin while I watched the sun set behind coastal cliffs. I dove naked beneath an icy, blue lake in the forest of Mount Hood. On my birthday, I saw glittering spouts of gray whales migrating south to Baja for the winter.

For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel an itch to immediately capture these experiences in writing. Until now, of course. To me, the urge to exploit a moment for the sake of art never felt great…and this year, it was a relief for the writer-itch to fade for a while.  

I am still a writer, and I miss my long-distance friend. Sometimes, when I am reading or taking notes, it's like I receive a postcard—a glimpse into her life in the "away," and I am reminded how much I love and crave creative writing—how it fills me.

But those glimpses never replace the act of writing: the peace, the release, the high. The delight of mining a line of poetry or prose from the innermost parts of myself. This is how I see my writing: a best friend spending an extended period of time abroad. Away for the time being.

My friend will return one day. For now, my other close (but not quite as fulfilling) companions—reading and free journaling—keep me company, keep my mind sane. And when my desire to create more returns, when I am ready to write something worthy of jumping out of my journal for other eyes to see, I'll be glad. And we'll slip into old habits of friendship, develop new rituals. Grow. Learn.

I’m not sure what brought on this drought. I imagine it was the drastic life changes that occurred over the past two years: graduating from my MFA program, finding myself outside of a classroom for the first time in 20 years, moving 3,000 miles across the country. Whatever it was, I’m grateful for the respite. I’m grateful to know I am still a writer. I am grateful for the unexpected ways life re-arranges our hearts, and we still somehow survive.

Renee Long is a writer, editor, (sometimes) teacher, and novice yogi living in Portland, Oregon. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing Fiction from FAU. Her work has been published in Rock & Sling and Tiger’s Eye: A Journal of Poetry. She is the blog editor for Ruminate Magazine and has a mild obsession with orca whales.

Rejected!

For me, the most striking moment during the "Writing and Publishing Your First Book" panel was when Julie Marie Wade talked about her Tupperware boxes of rejections. She said the acceptance letters filled a modest box she could keep on her desk, while the rejections were stacked from floor to ceiling in one of her closets.

I love that image.

Not because I love to think of Julie Marie Wade being rejected (I'm sure I don't have to tell you what a phenomenal writer she is), but because it makes real for me one of the most worrisome/mundane aspects of being a writer. Funny, isn't it? How much terror and despair are both intense and boring, a sharp sting and an unfocused, dazed stare. Rejections. Yes, I have a lot of them. Many, many more than acceptances.

Jaswinder Bolina said something that also stuck with me. He said you have to figure out what success means for you. That when you write to someone else's ideas of success, you betray yourself. And that can never actually be success.

And Jamie Poissant's comments about his manuscript and the rounds it had to make before finally being accepted encouraged me.

Basically, it was a wonderful evening and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did. It left me thinking about my own work. My own feelings about this stuff.

Look, the thing is, I have these two manuscripts, right? One is a collection of mostly experimental short stories, and one is a hybrid text of poetry and art, and I've been working on them for five and two years respectively. In the meantime, I've also managed to rack up over six pages of Submittable rejections (each page has like 40 submissions). Okay, so eleven of those are acceptances, and something like 10 are listed as "in progress," but still. The vast majority (as vast as is the night sky) are denials.

Rejections.

And! Julie Marie Wade said she gets something like 200 rejections a year. Which, okay, so I'm only talking Submittable, which means I have other rejections/acceptances, but not that many. I need to up my game. Anyway.

These rejections are my virtual closet full of boxes containing the evidence that my work wasn't right for whichever publication I sent it to; that they, in fact, did not want it, and I will tell you this - it's hard not to make the jump to they, in fact, did not want me.

The thing is though - that voice that whispers to you that you're not good enough? That says each rejection is just more proof that you will never be a "real" (whatever that is) writer? That voice is bullshit. It is! It takes years to hone your craft. Our crafts. And we'll see each other struggle, succeed, and fail and fail and fail. It's our job as writers (and especially as a part of a writing community) to find joy for other's successes and sorrow for their failures. This will help us deal with our own rejections and successes. Because success is sweet, but it is a short-lived sweetness, lemme tell you. It's like Juicy Fruit Gum™.

So, listen. Your peers - their success and failures - they cannot diminish you. Or me. Or us. They can only make us better. Each piece, like each writer, its own interconnected ecosystem. I mean, and this is totally Donne, but. Well. Wait. It's worth a reminder. Here is John Donne:

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 

own were; any man's death diminishes me, 

because I am involved in mankind. 

And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Your friends' successes are your own. As are their failures. And that can make a closet full of rejection letters feel more like a wardrobe into a whole other world.

MR Sheffield is an alumna of FAU's Creative Writing MFA program as well as the graduate advisor for English. Her work has been published or is forthcoming from Pank, The Florida Review, Fiction Southeast, and other publications. Email her (msheffi3@fau.edu) with all your advising questions.

Words Words Words Words!

A friend studying the indigenous people of the Chiapas region in Mexico reports that in the  Tzotzil language there, the word for word is the same as the word for struggle. Hmm.

     What writer doesn’t struggle each day to unearth the good word, the right word, the sculpted or edgy;  tufted or twangling; the flawless gem to take its place in the mosaic we see in our minds?

       We trawl for the perfect verb. Scour horizons for the dead-on noun. Beat our feet on the mud hoping the adjective we’ve been stalking will bubble up from the goo. Bubble, burble, bauble, bosh, scrim, scram, scrum, flapdoodle, flummoxed, umber, ululate. Acres of choices, the misfits, or almost fits so many, the perfect fits, so few.   

            “Word: (n.) …A single distinct conceptual unit of language, comprising inflected and variant forms.”

            “Struggle :( n.) …a determined effort under difficulties…a very difficult task.”

            Difficult indeed.

            Is our hero sizzled, soused, blotto or shickered?

             Did he drink from a flask, a flagon, or a stein?

            Is he an oaf, or a galoot?

            In a 2013 New Yorker piece, the nonfiction stylist John McPhee (In Suspect Terrain; Coming into the Country) describes his system for finding “le mot juste,” that elusive word:    “You draw a box not only around any word that does not seem quite right but also around words that fulfill their assignment but seem to present opportunity. While the word inside the box may be perfectly O.K., there is likely to be an even better word for this situation, a word right smack on the button, and why don’t you try to find such a word?”  This is the crux of the struggle: The “better word.”  Scamper, scurry; scuttle, or scud?  McPhee warns against leaning on “the scattershot wad from a thesaurus.” Go to the dictionary, instead, he advises (my own favorite, the Online Etymology Dictionary).

       Indeed, words can be similar, synonymous, meaning “having the same or nearly the same meaning as another word.” The differences, however, can be epic. Each word, no matter how small or remote, comes with its own root system, reaching down to Latin or Old Norse, Middle English or Creole or Old German and more, tangles of associations breathing life into how our word will resonate on the page. “Oaf,” for example (this from the Online Etymology Dictionary), dates from the 17^th Century, “originally ‘a changeling; a foolish child left by the fairies’…from a Scandinavian source such as Norwegian alfrr ‘silly person,” in old Norse “elft.” Hence, ‘a misbegotten, deformed idiot.’”

            “Galoot” (also from Online Etymology)  means “‘awkward or boorish man,’ 1812, nautical, ‘raw recruit, green hand,’ apparently originally a sailor’s contemptuous word for soldiers or marines… Dictionary of American Slang proposes galut, Sierra Leone Creole form of galeoto, ‘galley slave.’”

        Is the right-word struggle harder for eco-writers than it is for others? Probably not.  Unless you consider the eco-writer’s need to wrestle with science and the habits of the natural world.  In other words, we have to overthrow the science, replacing it with the poetic. Again, from eco-poet McPhee, in Annals of the Former World:  

            “When the climbers in 1953 planted their flags on the highest mountain, they set them in   snow over the             skeletons of creatures that had lived in the warm clear ocean that India,      moving north, blanked out. Possibly as much as twenty thousand feet below the             seafloor, the skeletal remains had turned into rock. His one fact is a treatise in itself on                     the movements of the surface of the earth.”

        Not a jot of science. Just words, boxes drawn around them, dictionaries consulted, and the end, a journalistic flambé.

          William Carlos Williams, in his opus “Paterson,” has the last word on words:

            “It is dangerous to leave written that which is badly written. A chance word, upon paper,             may destroy the world. Watch carefully and erase, while the power is still yours, I say to          myself, for all that is put down, once it escapes, may rot its way into a thousand minds,         the corn becomes a black smut, and all libraries, of necessity, be burned to the ground as        a consequence.”

       Corn becomes a “black smut?”  What is he talking  about …? -- but wait. The second definition of  smut is  “a fungal disease of grains in which parts of the ear change to black powder.”  

            Bejabbers!

Mary Ann Hogan received her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from FAU in 2013. She currently teaches writing at Palm Beach State College, Boca Raton campus. She is also nonfiction editor at Little Curlew Press. This blog post was originally published at Little Curlew Press.

How My MFA Helped Prepare Me to be a Writer

                Back when I was an MFA student at FAU, people outside of my school circles would often express concern and confusion about what I was actually doing in grad school.

                “You’re going to school to be a writer?” They’d ask, “So, why do you need a degree for that? Can’t you just, like, write?”

                I’d explain to them that yeah, I could just write, but that writing was an art, a serious discipline, and that I planned on having an actual career doing it and that my time in grad school was preparing me for that. So many people questioned my choice, however, that I’d sometimes have second thoughts too. I never doubted the fact that grad school was teaching me to be a better writer, but I did sometimes wonder if it truly was preparing me to enter the scary and intimidating world of professional authors. You know, the part of being a writer that’s more than just writing really cool stories.

                Five years out of the MFA program, I can now say that I finally have a definitive answer, and it’s positive. Yes, my MFA really did prepare me for a career as a professional writer, and it did so in a lot of unexpected ways.

                Most importantly, the MFA program instilled in me a sense that writing is a discipline. You have to sit your butt down and write and write a lot and you can’t continually start projects and leave them unfinished, which was a big problem I’d had before college. When you have an assignment due Tuesday night in class you can’t sit around and wait for the muse to magically inspire you. You have to bang it out and come up with an ending or at least an ending place, regardless of your feelings about it. Same goes for writing as a career. Professional writers have assignments due too and editors aren’t interested in your level of divine inspiration. They want you to produce quality writing on time. The MFA program taught me not to be a flake, and now when I have a job to do, I know I can get it done no matter what because I’m relying on skill, experience, structure and honestly, you could even call it willpower.

                Professional writers work with other people constantly: editors, agents, publishers, marketing departments and freelance clients. Most traditionally published writing is the result of a collaborative effort between many other people besides simply the writer, and writers need to be able to listen to someone else’s ideas (and yes, critiques) of their work. Guess what prepared me for this aspect of my writing career? Workshops! Group Projects!  I used to get really nervous before workshop because I never knew what my classmates and professors were going to say about my stories and poems, but after three years of workshopping I grew a thicker hide and learned that criticism of my writing wasn’t a criticism of me. This has helped me enormously in my real-world writing career. I don’t fall apart when an editor wants changes or if something I submitted gets rejected repeatedly. I’ve learned to listen to other people’s visions for my writing and to be open to new ideas.

                I recently began working with a literary agent, which was an exciting but also kind of scary new prospect.  Suddenly, much more was required of me. I was working on timelines, submission packages, proposals, synopses. I was taking notes, researching new topics. I was even asked to discuss (in detail) the work of other authors. I have new assignments almost every night, and at one point I casually remarked that it was like being in grad school all over again (which I totally meant as a good thing because my MFA years were the best time of my life, for real). Then I realized, wow, it was exactly like being in school again because I wasn’t being asked to do a single thing I hadn’t already done at FAU many times before. This was a pretty big revelation for me. My MFA really had prepared me for the life of a professional writer and because of that I’m confident and secure and ready to kick butt in the publishing world with the best of them.

Victoria Fedden graduated from the MFA program in 2009. She is a stay at home mom living in Fort Lauderdale and is the author of the memoirs Amateur Night at the Bubblegum Kittikat and Sun Shower: Magic, Forgiveness and How I Learned to Bloom Where I Was Planted. Her work has appeared in the Huffington Post, the Sun Sentinel, Real Simple, Chicken Soup for the Soul and the recent anthology My Other Ex: Women's True Stories of Leaving and Losing Friends.

Time to Publish

After graduation, I finally did the thing tons of people told me to do: I made a schedule. I realized very quickly I had no time and that I had to make time to write happen. But time to write wasn’t enough. If I wanted to be a writer for real, I needed to make time to publish as well.

I’ve been familiar with the act of publishing work for a long time, and submitted work both before and during my time as an MFA student. I had a lot of success, too, but that success was directly proportional to the amount I actually wrote. Workshops demanded that I write a few pieces a year. That might sound like a lot, but I promise it wasn’t for me, the self-appointed Master of White Space.

After time to write happened, though, I had a pile of unpublished work and no idea what to do with it all. Things got revised and reordered and turned into actual books, but those books were still full of unpublished writing. I counted it all up at the end and there were about 100 polished, publishable pieces, which is the equivalent of one heart attack.

So I solved the problem the way I solve everything—I dove in headfirst with no regard for how it would affect the delicate balance of my already scheduled life by sending out tons of submissions at once to wherever I could think of while I watched the sun set and rise again the next day. It’s important to note here that I have a number of professional responsibilities in addition to writing (see bio below). Needless to say, commitment to those responsibilities suffered because of this approach. I even stopped writing altogether.  

To fix this for real, I returned to that schedule and spent a lot of time figuring out how to squeeze in one last thing. As it turns out, making time to submit one piece of writing each day really works for me. Now I definitely publish more frequently, but something more unexpected happened. I was learning more about places to actually send work, and was able to make suggestions to other writers about what places might be a good fit for them to submit to depending on what they were writing.

Submitting work successfully isn’t haphazardly slapping new information on the same thing over and over; you really need to get to know each market you’re submitting to by reading the stuff inside it. Because all of that daily research was piling up in my notes, I created a website called Time to Publish to not only remind me that submitting work is an important part of my daily routine, but also to keep track of my research in a way that can benefit everyone that cares to look. I’ve met more writers and editors doing this than I can count, which has been amazingly motivating. Hopefully you’ll find a literary journal or independent press featured on the site that will inspire you to submit something as well.

--

Nicole Oquendo is the Nonfiction Editor of the annual anthology Best of the Net, as well as an Assistant Editor for Sundress Publications and Flaming Giblet Press, and the Managing Editor of The Florida Review. She has sent out 331 submissions in 2014, which has led to 145 rejections and 22 acceptances so far this year, including publications forthcoming or in CutBank, Sundog Lit, and Gulf Stream. Her chapbook some prophets is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press (2015), and her chapbook self is wolf is forthcoming from dancing girl press (2015). You’ll find her posting about a few literary markets each week at timetopublish.com.

Winter Break Writing Prompts

            It’s nearly winter break, and you are probably feeling overwhelmed, overworked, and as overdone as a turkey left too long in the oven (are Thanksgiving jokes [can that be called a “joke?”] allowed in December?). Winter break. Concentrate on it. It is nearly within reach.

            And this blog post, perhaps you’ve guessed already, you clever person, is about making the most of break. Because, yes, you do need sleep. And yes, it’s a good idea to catch up on Orange is the New Black (I just goggled popular TV shows for 2013 and picked the one I’ve seen, ha. What good TV are you watching? Leave the title in the comments). You’ll be baking, maybe, or traveling; celebrating with family and catching up on reading (what are you reading? Leave titles in the comments. I just finished Maddaddam. Oryx and Crake was better).

            But listen. Find the time to write. Choose a time every day, give yourself space, peace. Write. It doesn’t matter what you write, only that you do. Only that you use this time of relative freedom to pour yourself onto the page.

            If you know me, you know I don’t really believe in writer’s block. If you can’t find something to write, you can always revise, but writing prompts are also great. Here, have a few (leave more in the comments section – look, this is an interactive blog for the holidays, okay? Get involved in the conversation).

1.      Write an argument between two characters that begins at the dinner table.

2.      What wouldn’t you trade for anything in the world? Why.

3.      Describe sound (music, quiet, the ringing in your ears; an important concert, festival, or show; your baby’s voice, your mother’s voice, your lover’s voice).

4.      Write a lyric essay as a how to guide. How to garden. How to let go of someone. How to get through grad school. How to drive yourself crazy.

5.      What does the concept of time mean to you? Can you demonstrate the effect of time through two characters interacting? Through dialogue? Through a series of memories?

6.      Get all DFW and write a piece with a proliferation of footnotes. What goes in the story/essay/poem, and what goes in footnotes. Why?

7.      Start a piece at the end and work backwards. Begin, as they say, with a bang (literal or otherwise). Start as big as you can.

8.      What do you know more about than anyone else, like ever? Write a piece explaining this. Demonstrate how this knowledge has been transformative (or not).

9.      What would you change about yourself if you could? Would you be the same person with a different face, voice, or set of life circumstances?

10.  Go all “Hills like White Elephants.” How much can you reveal through dialogue and character action? How true can you stay to the third person objective point of view? What is lost in this exercise. What is gained.

So. Hopefully one of these will speak to you. And if they don’t, google writing prompts, buy a writing prompt book (like the cool little book The Writer’s Block). Hold a reading. Invite me to it! Inspire and encourage each other. Inspire and encourage yourself. You have something important to say. Write it.

Mary Sheffield (MR Sheffield, as she prefers) is FAU's English Graduate Advisor. Email her with questions about the program (msheffi3@fau.edu). Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Pank, Fiction Southeast, The Florida Review, and other publications. She is getting married in ten days.