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Teddy (T.M.) Brown's avatar

I can only speak to the writing portion of things, but I think it’s telling that a lot of people who earn MFAs—even from vaunted programs like Iowa—end up abandoning professional writing altogether at some point. There are two things at work there. First, most people are simply bad at writing and no amount of graduate education can make up for a lack of talent. But for the people that are talented and have spent money to dedicate a couple years of their life to a program—I think there’s a misunderstanding of how hard this all is. Immediate success is the exception. I have a lot of people come to me asking for help but with the implicit expectation (or entitlement) that it’s inevitable they’ll be successful right away. They don’t expect the struggle or the false starts, and when they encounter them their first, permanent reaction is to give up.

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Yoko Sakao Ohama's avatar

Lovvved reading this, so much to think on! And so many paths to good, which feels freeing. Congrats on get MARRIEEEDDDDDDDD

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