My DIY MFA Reading List
After recently dropping out of an MFA Program for personal and financial reasons, I realized that if anyone else was going to take my writing seriously, I had to first take my writing seriously. That means that I have to discipline myself to read, write, and network regularly. Most, if not all, MFA Programs have a required reading list for the students to read over the course of the program. My program list was made up of 30 books, 20 of which were determined by the fiction faculty, and 10 of which I chose myself. The 20 required books on the reading list neither interested me nor suited my writing tastes. I’m all for branching out in craft and subject matter, but I struggled to find any personal value in the few books on the list that I did read. Which got me thinking: If all MFA reading lists are fairly generalized (except of course for the books the student chooses), how is that really helping the student and his or her specific writing style? You can learn just as much from thi...