Matthew Vollmer on the M.F.A as aiming beyond the tenure-track, why most applications get rejected, a successful Statement of Purpose, and more!
Faculty Spotlight with M.F.A. Program Director at Virginia Tech
Our first ever Faculty spotlight is with the amazing Matthew Vollmer, Virginia Tech M.F.A. Program Director and Creative Writing Professor for Fiction. He is also an accomplished writer himself.
Photograph by Jesse Brass
Matthew Vollmer is the author of two short-story collections—Future Missionaries of America and Gateway to Paradise—as well as three collections of essays—inscriptions for headstones, Permanent Exhibit, and This World Is Not Your Home: Essays, Stories, & Reports. He was the editor of A Book of Uncommon Prayer, which collects invocations from over 60 acclaimed and emerging authors, and served as co-editor of Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, “Found” Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts. His work has appeared in venues such as Paris Review, Glimmer Train, Ploughshares, Tin House, Oxford American, The Sun, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and Best American Essays. A winner of an NEA and a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he directs the MFA program at Virginia Tech, where he is a Professor of English. His latest book, All of Us Together in the End, was published by Hub City Press in 2023, and received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Foreword Reviews.
Shannan:
How do you feel about the general health of the MFA today? Some people seem to contend that it is dying but that often feels a bit doomsday-ish. Still, I do wonder about the prognosis of a creative degree in a world that is consistently pushing technological automation over the much slower, much more nuanced process of actually creating — specifically, writing — a new work of art.
Matthew:
I understand—or think I understand—that this question has its origins in anxieties about how getting an MFA will translate into future survival for aspiring writers. But it’s important to remember, here at the outset of this discussion, that “the MFA” is not a monolith. Every MFA program is different. And every student matriculating through an MFA program will have a different experience of that program. Though every student at Virginia Tech will graduate with the same degree, they will leave with different stories about what they’ve accomplished, how they’ve benefitted or not from teaching, writing, and thinking about writing.
Furthermore, the MFA is somewhat unique in that it literally guarantees nothing to the student other than time and support to write. It doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to be successful. It doesn’t guarantee publication or employment. If networking and lifelong friendships and positive experiences and revelations about literature and the so-called “literary life” end up being fruits that you pluck along the way, that usually has more to do with a combination of timing, luck, and effort on the part of the student. The only thing I can guarantee
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