MFA Writers – Details, episodes & analysis

Siloh Radovsky sits down with Jared to talk about her path from anarchistic activism to experimental writing, the blurry line between fiction and nonfiction, and the joys and pains of teaching in an R1 institution.

Siloh Radovsky is a prose writer invested in the overlap between narrative and criticism. A recent graduate of the cross-genre MFA program at UC San Diego, she is currently at work on a collection of linked essays. Her essays, articles, and stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Entropy, [PANK], Teen Vogue, Inkwell, Identity Theory, and elsewhere. Siloh is also an educator, a collaborator in a narrative medicine intervention with Adolescent and Young Adult cancer patients, and was a founding editor of Kaleidoscoped magazine. She was an artist-in-residence at the Hinge Arts program in spring 2017, and was the recipient of an Evergreen Foundation Activity Grant and a Summer Graduate Teaching Fellowship at UC San Diego. Find her on Instagram @essence_of_toast and her website silohradovsky.net.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

BE PART OF THE SHOW

• Donate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.
• Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.
• Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.
• Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.

STAY CONNECTED

• Twitter: @MFAwriterspod
• Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast
• Facebook: MFA Writers
• Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

What happens when a tech startup employee starts taking online writing classes? They end up in an MFA program, of course. In this episode, Ray Wise sits down with Jared to talk about finding writing in their 20s and the lessons they bring from the tech world to their creative work. Plus, they discuss Rutgers-Camden’s multi-genre emphasis, weekend writing retreats with the MFA community, and the pros and cons of a small program.

Ray Wise is a multi-genre writer living in Philadelphia, where they are completing their final semester in the MFA program at Rutgers-Camden. Ray's work has been published in Passages North, Rose Books Reader, Barrelhouse, Hobart, etc., nominated for Best of the Net, and supported by Sundress Academy for the Arts. They are currently at work on a novel manuscript and a poetry collection. Find them on Twitter/X @ray__wise and catch them reading in Philadelphia for the Rose Books Reader launch on April 26th at Clown Bar.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

BE PART OF THE SHOW

• Donate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.
• Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.
• Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.
• Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.

STAY CONNECTED

• Twitter: @MFAwriterspod
• Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast
• Facebook: MFA Writers
• Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

In this episode, PhD Candidate Mackenzie McGee talks about her process when writing speculative fiction, including how she decides on topics and themes, how her process changes when writing flash versus her novel, and how writers are able to explore politically dangerous topics by leaning into speculative elements. She then tells Jared about her decision to pursue the PhD after finishing her four-year MFA program and how KU is particularly supportive of speculative writers.

Mackenzie McGee is a speculative fiction writer from the Midwest. A winner of the 2021 PEN/Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, her work can be read in Porter House Review, Nat. Brut, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Cease, Cows. Mackenzie earned her MFA from the University of Arkansas and is currently a second-year PhD student in English-Creative Writing at the University of Kansas. You can find her at mackenziemcgee.com.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

BE PART OF THE SHOW

• Donate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee
• Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts
• Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.
• Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application

STAY CONNECTED

• Twitter: @MFAwriterspod
• Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast
• Facebook: MFA Writers
• Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

Humor. Experimentation. Sound play. Ellie Black of the University of Mississippi talks to Jared about how her poetry has gotten increasingly weird, the influence of the Gurlesque movement, and the benefits of a high faculty-to-student ratio.

Ellie Black is a poetry MFA candidate entering her third year at the University of Mississippi and the incoming senior poetry editor of the Yalobusha Review. Her poetry can be found in Black Warrior Review, DIAGRAM, Booth, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. Find her at her website, elliekblack.com, on Twitter at @elliekblack, and Instagram at @ellie.kb.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod
Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast
Facebook: MFA Writers
Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

What does a bilingual MFA program look like in practice? Antonio Villaseñor-Baca of the University of Texas El Paso joins Jared to talk about studying cross-genre work in English and Spanish, launching a music magazine between degrees, and how reading a diverse canon helped him take pride in his Xicanx identity.

Antonio Villaseñor-Baca is a Xicanx bilingual journalist, photographer, poet and writer from El Paso, Texas. He spends his time listening to music and working towards his MFA in creative writing at the University of Texas at El Paso, where he taught Rhetoric and Writing Studies courses. Antonio also serves as an online editor for Minero Magazine and has written for YR Media, 18-to-29 Now, Borderzine, and El Paso Inc. He has published poetry in Rio Grande Review, Mojave Heart Review, and Norte/Sur. He focuses on short fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and visual/photographic narrative. Find him at his magazine Con Safos Magazine.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod
Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast
Facebook: MFA Writers
Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

Creative writing workshops have remained largely unchanged since their creation in 1936. But what if there’s a better, more empowering, more inclusive way? Jared talks to Felicia Rose Chavez about her new book, The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom. They unpack MFA student advocacy, discuss the benefits of collaboration over competition, and reconceptualize the workshop.

Felicia Rose Chavez is an award-winning educator with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Iowa. She is author of The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom and co-editor of The BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNEXT with Willie Perdomo and Jose Olivarez. Felicia’s teaching career began in Chicago, where she served as Program Director to Young Chicago Authors and founded GirlSpeak, a feminist webzine for high school students. She went on to teach writing at the University of New Mexico, where she was distinguished as the Most Innovative Instructor of the Year, the University of Iowa, where she was distinguished as the Outstanding Instructor of the Year, and Colorado College, where she received the Theodore Roosevelt Collins Outstanding Faculty Award. Her creative scholarship earned her a Ronald E. McNair Fellowship, a University of Iowa Graduate Dean’s Fellowship, a Riley Scholar Fellowship, and a Hadley Creatives Fellowship. Originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, she currently serves as the Creativity and Innovation Scholar-in-Residence at Colorado College. For more information about The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop, and to access a multi-genre compilation of contemporary writers of color and progressive online publishing platforms, please visit www.antiracistworkshop.com. Follow Felicia on Instagram at @feliciarosechavez and on Twitter @writerantiracist.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod
Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast
Facebook: MFA Writers
Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

With political and social unrest rocking his home country of Venezuela, Alejandro Puyana turned to writing as a way to process. He applied to MFA programs four times before landing an acceptance at the Michener Center for Writers. Now, you can read his work in The Best American Short Stories anthology for 2020. Alejandro and Jared talk rejection, revision, and reimagining the world through fiction.

Alejandro Puyana is a second-year fellow at the Michener Center for Writers whose primary focus is fiction and secondary genre is screenwriting. His non-fiction pieces have been published in The Toast, Tin House Online, NPR, The Huffington Post; his fiction in Huizache, The Examined Life, and Idaho Review. His short story, "Hands of Dirty Children" was awarded the Halifax Ranch Prize by American Short Fiction, chosen as the winning story by ZZ Packer. That same story was then chosen by Curtis Sittenfeld to be included in the 2020 Best American Short Stories. Find him on Twitter @Puyana.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod
Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast
Facebook: MFA Writers
Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

In Singapore, a young nation focused on economic prosperity, the path to the writer’s life can seem uncertain. Against this backdrop, Jemimah Wei of Columbia University tells Jared about her country’s emerging literary canon, how flash fiction taught her restraint, and how open conversations about funding make MFAs more accessible.

Jemimah Wei is a writer and host based in Singapore and New York. Her fiction has received nominations for the 2021 Pushcart Prize, support from Singapore's National Arts Council, and the 2020 Francine Ringold Award for New Writers. She was recently named a 2020 Felipe P. De Alba Fellow at Columbia University, where she is pursuing an MFA in Fiction. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Nimrod, Smokelong Quarterly, Pidgeonholes, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, and JMWW, amongst others. Presently a columnist for No Contact Magazine, she is at work on a novel and several television projects. This follows an eight-year career in the media, where she's worked both onscreen and behind the scenes as a host, scriptwriter, and producer. Learn more at jemmawei.com and say hi at @jemmawei on socials.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod
Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast
Facebook: MFA Writers
Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

A joint MA+MFA program allows students to deepen their understanding of literary criticism and theory while crafting creative works. Jeremiah Barker of Northwestern University tells Jared how they balance the workload, how they find self-compassion in the face of pandemic-induced writer’s block, and how writing about trauma is and is not like therapy.

Jeremiah Barker is an essayist currently based in Chicago. They are a third-year student in the MFA and MA Litowitz Graduate Program at Northwestern University. Their work has appeared in Ploughshares and StoryQuarterly.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod
Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast
Facebook: MFA Writers
Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

A low-residency MFA program helped Koyé Oyedeji of Warren Wilson College develop the discipline to work full-time while writing his composite novel. He and Jared discuss the ins and outs of the low-res experience, as well as how being a British person of Nigerian descent living in the US inspires Koyé to write about Black relationships through the lens of identity and class.

Koyé Oyedeji’s writing has appeared in Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Believer, Wasafiri (UK), The Good Journal (UK) and elsewhere. He has contributed to a number of anthologies, received scholarships to attend the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and has also previously attended the VONA and Callaloo writing workshops. He is currently a Holden Scholar in the Warren Wilson MFA program, where he just entered his final semester. He lives in Washington, DC and is currently at work on a composite novel.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod
Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast
Facebook: MFA Writers
Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com