by Helena Bell
The application season for Clarion West and other Clarion (UCSD) has begun. I’ve already seen posts on twitter from past alums encouraging people to apply and telling the world what wonderful, glorious experiences they had.
I’m not going to do that. I’m going to tell you not to apply. To not go. And here are my reasons:
Choose Your Own Nebula Speech Adventure (A Shameless Theft Homage of Tina Connolly’s Hard Choices).
MFA Programs and the efficacy or use thereof tend to come up in discussion periodically. For those of you interested, here is a run down of the types of programs and what to expect. I personally have an MFA in Poetry from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and am currently looking into applying for a second MFA, this time in Fiction. I might be addicted to school. Or it might be that MFA programs really are just that awesome.
You become a writer by writing. You learn by damaging your ego, and giving more of yourself than you take. By a thousand revelations, by millions of words you improve.
Wu Ying has defeated the tyrant of Cai but at a terrible cost. With his body broken and cultivation shattered, he must rebuild from nothing. To survive, he must retrace his path and uncover his true destiny in the epic finale of A Thousand Li.
A veteran award-winning author of 20 thrilling young adult and middle grade metaphysical adventures–including The Translucent Boy series–Tom Hoffman received a B.S. in psychology from Georgetown University and has lived in Alaska since 1972.
