This list won\u2019t be a screed against the MFA. Other than this one sentence, I won\u2019t write \u201cMFA industrial complex.\u201d Almost a century old, a master\u2019s degree in creative writing now seems inescapable\u2014to be a writer, you need one. While I don\u2019t find that logic persuasive, most modern writers emerge from or eventually become entangled with the fine arts degree. But what happens when writers create without these institutional pressures? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the world of prose, I think of Fran Ross\u2019s Oreo<\/a><\/em>, so original, hilarious, and ecstatic\u2014a formally ingenious book. And what about Annie Dillard\u2019s wild inventions in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek<\/a><\/em> or Holy the Firm<\/a><\/em>? She ended up with a university teaching post, but I can\u2019t imagine either of these works emerging as a master\u2019s thesis. Outside the United States, J. A. Baker\u2019s The Peregrine<\/a> <\/em>comes to mind, too, evoking a totalizing fascination with falcons in diaristic prose that is unbearably beautiful. Each of these books is sui generis, authored by singular minds transfiguring literary and cultural history without heeding predominant tastes or trends.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the world of poetry, I\u2019ve especially struggled to locate writers without MFAs, with a few exceptions like Louise Gl\u00fcck and Danez Smith, different generations but both luminaries to me. It\u2019s taken years\u2014some posting on social media and scouring author bios\u2014but I\u2019ve found a few MFA-less contemporary poets whose expansive imaginations have produced exciting, inventive books. While each writer is distinct, their taste, sensibility, and allegiances are manifold. No one advises them where to go, so they go everywhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n