MA in Writing. Is it worth it?

I have just submitted my last assignment in my MA. That makes 12 tutorials averaging around 3700 words per tutorial-approximately 2500 words per chapter and 1200 words examining the reasons, literary, theoretical, and creative for the submission. There were also six peer conferences or workshops at 2500 words per conference and 500 words of context, six research modules of around 1000 words per to complete, a journal reviewing term progress, and a continuing bibliography. You can add up the word count.

Was it worth it? I had to borrow the money to do it. But in terms of the writing support, creative inspiration, and expansion of my own knowledge, work and goals, I would do it again with no hesitation. Of course, it has a lot to do with the fact that I chose to do my MA at Lancaster University in England.

My main tutor is the inimitable Conor O’Callaghan, and my peers are Irish and Ugandan poets, Nigerian, Greek, and British short story poets, writers, and novelists.

The outstanding teachers in the program are Michelene Wandor, Sara Maitland, Brian McCabe, Jane Draycott, and George Green. Graham Mort and Lee Horsley coordinate the program. All of these instructors are accomplished award winning writers in their own fields.

There is still the portfolio of 30,000 words and the 3,000 word thesis to tweak by September 1st. So you can see why I have been missing from this blog.

I will post more about the details of the program another time.

My few experiences on stage can be compared to the work I have done in the MA. It is all about the day to day work, or practice and rehearsal. This is where the connections are found, the nuances learned and relearned, the trials and joys are born. Of course, the difference between a collaborative stage production and writing is that 99.9 per cent of the time you are on your own. Finishing the degree is a little like opening night, exciting, but it comes with more of a whimper than a bang. It is too close to the end, and the question what next? looms.

For now I am deep in revisions of not only the thesis, but the entire novel, trying to make it worthy of submission to an editor and agent.

I did get some very nice pictures the other evening of mist over the mountain. It made it look as if the mountain were on fire.

That’s me these days. Misty. On fire.

Fellow MA ers

http://alexandraotoole.wordpress.com/

http://bnpoetryaward.blogspot.ca/

Back on track

With all of the recent cougar sightings, I am reluctant to drop myself into the leaves of the deep forest.

A kind of lethargy has also come over me regarding that other leaf–the one that contributes to the page.

I am just getting over the high of being immersed in the company of international MA students at Lancaster summer school in England. And what an experience that was. A group of writers from England, Greece, Ireland, Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria came together and studied, laughed, read, wrote, talked politics, gender, and economics, and, over the occasional British bitter and Bushmills, discussed the future of writing and reading.

These are a talented bunch, writing everything from Victorian dramas to poetry that tears at your soul. We were held together by internationally-acclaimed tutors whose writing awards do not outshine their compassion and dedication to moving younger apprentices to new heights. I hope to contain a tenth of their talent and humanity.

I wanted to sit in the sun after those intense days, ponder, and read. Now that the autumn sun is falling back, I am thinking about the challenges I face with my own work. There is only a year to finish this long narrative/thesis and I must get my head down and as the saying goes, my bum into the chair.

Thank-you to all of my fellow students and tutors. You have touched and inspired–my heart is full.