* (One of my favorite grammar books is Patricia T. O’Connor’s Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English. It’s the one I recommend to my students, as I think its approach is terrifically user-friendly.) Anyway, moving on.
It’s nearly December, which means: (1) MFA applications will soon be due, $; (2) holiday shopping, $$; and (3) for adjuncts like me, spring-term courses are likely to be scarce, which = FEAR OF GOD, which = How am I going to make $$$?
On the subject of item #1: Are you applying to MFA programs? Where are you applying? Why? (And how can we at Big Other help?)
On the subject of item #2: Do you put off all shopping until the last minute? (Mom, Dad, I don’t really do this!) Do you have difficult friends and family to buy for? (Mom, Dad, I don’t mean you, of course!) Do you have any great gift suggestions?
On the subject of item #3: What are we to do (besides collectively cry out, Oh, woe are we!)?
Here’s the MFA advice I give my students, Molly. Go where the money is. Get paid, absolutely do NOT pay for your MFA (there are enough fellowships out there). Choose geography over faculty. Good writers don’t necessarily make good pedagogues and they tend to leave and who know who you’ll be studying with. And your greatest teachers and friends are hard to predict. Living in a good town can make a big difference. That’s my two cents.