Yesterday I read an entertaining story by Curtis Sittenfeld in the New Yorker’s summer fiction issue about students in a writing program in the mid-West. Having never studied writing, I’m intrigued by stories of MFA programs. At prestigious ones like the Iowa Writers Workshop (which may have been the disguised setting of this story) gifted people are taught by some of the best practitioners in their genres, not unlike, say, at MIT. In a highly competitive atmosphere, they learn and grow and graduate extremely well-trained. But I can’t help but feel that something is missing due to their years spent in school with people very much like themselves instead of out in the world, with all its variety. Of course I would, wouldn’t I? But much more than science, writing is dependent on human experience.
