This is it. One more day and I’ll have my MFA in hand and a noticeable amount of time now available to write things of my choosing. I don’t want that to sound like I’m complaining about the work I did in the MFA—many of my published short pieces came directly from assignments. But I do have drafts of four different novels that I haven’t had time to go back to, so this summer will include a fair amount of editing and revising.

But I’m just about done. Tonight I’ll read a portion of my thesis to what’ll probably be a medium-sized group of people, and then commencement is tomorrow. I even get one of those fancy hoods. Ooooh. 🙂

It’s crazy to think about what’s happened since I enrolled in the program. The plan was always to do one class a semester, but then covid hit and lockdown plus a two-year-old makes all plans go out the window. When I started, my son was one. He turned seven last month. When I started, I was working at a finance job I’d been at for over a decade. Now, three jobs later, I’m interviewing for teaching positions. When I started, Trump was president. Now… oh. Shit.

My first published piece resulted from one of my classes making me write creative non-fiction. Several fiction publications followed, and just a few days ago I heard that a poem—yes, a poem—of mine was accepted into a magazine. I didn’t write it as part of MFA coursework, but I did so while surrounded by MFA people.

I doubt I’ll divorce myself entirely from the program. Reading for Water-Stone will hopefully be a thing this winter, and the MFAC (children’s lit MFA) program has lecture passes that I’ve already made use of. Not to mention the people.

There aren’t many places where you can find people who can give good, quality feedback on your writing. I was lucky enough to find some in my wife and best friend, but they are just two people, and, as I learned after writing a horror story, they can’t be good readers for everything. But when you leave with your MFA, you also leave with a community.

I’m hoping life both will and won’t change. I hope it will so I can get those books finished. 🙂 I hope it won’t in that I might stop by Hamline’s Creative Writing house and chat with Meghan or I could attend events at which alums and students are reading. However it works out, the MFA was a wonderful experience and has transformed me from a person who sometimes writes into a writer.