I've long regarded MFA creative writing programs to be both improbable and potentially destructive vehicles for aspiring writers. At Moby Lives, MFA dropout Elizabeth Clementson draws on her own experience in both publishing and in an MFA program to reflect on the unhealthy symbiosis between the two:

In addition to being disheartened by my fellow writers' "show me the money" attitude, over time it became increasingly clear to me that the core of the MFA experience, the workshop, was distorting the creative process.

In the workshop, the students critique each other's writing and as the comments are bandied about, a "consensus" develops about what does and doesn't "work" in a story. The writer then meshes the "popular" opinions of the group into his or her work, slowly removing the unpopular parts, until the work is readable and accessible to all. More often than not, this process destroys the writer's initial vision, leaving behind a work that is void of passion and anything that is different, new, or creative.

Many of world's greatest novels would have never made it through the workshop process. Picture James Joyce being told that Ulysses is "too ambitious." Or Harper Lee being told that that Boo Radley character needs further development. Or Gertrude Stein being told, "Gertrude, The Making of Americans, is inaccessible. You need to cut the fat out and rework these sentences."

However, workshop fiction is encouraged by the big publishing world and the academic institutions that support it.

Since the University of Iowa started the first MFA program in 1936, more than 250 programs certified by the Association of Writers & Writing Programs have sprung up. With tuition costing as much as $70,000 for a two-year program, the schools have every reason to foster the attitude that students can pay off their big-time debt with their forthcoming book deal. In turn, the big publishing world relies on MFA programs to produce "accredited" writers. Desperate for literary plot lines that will sell, editors are on an eternal quest to find the next big young thing. This is big business and like any corporate job, editors are pushed for time and pressured to find books that sell. Just like authors, they too are judged on their book's sales figures.

As a result of this relationship, students in MFA programs are hen-pecked and criticized until they deliver the "sellable" plot line that publishers want. And, instead of rejecting the forces that corrupt them, many young writers turn on each other, reinforcing the rules learned in workshop, rejecting anything--or anyone--that challenges the status quo and threatens their carefully crafted world. Thus, anything created outside of the workshop environment is treated with contempt, and outsider voices are ignored.

Despite what they try and tell you in MFA programs, there isn't an established career path for writers. It isn't something you can learn in a classroom.

So here's my advice--if [you] have any aspirations for a place in literary history, don't attend an MFA program. It won't inspire you to great literature and you won't be able to pay back that enormous tuition bill unless you write the carefully crafted plot line that everyone wants, but nobody wants to read.

Perhaps that is enough these days for many writers. But, in the end, literature created by committee usually does not find the audience that it is calculated to find, and is quickly forgotten.

Not all new fiction is like this of course--but it's instructive to note how often you can intuit a novel's--or a novelist's--"credentials" within the first page or two.

I've had that experience plenty of times. I start reading, hit that generic workshoppish part, turn to the author's bio and -- yup, workshop instructor.

What I found surprising about Clementson's piece was the fantasies of wealth among the students. People aren't really dense enough to think an MFA is the route to a quick pile of money, are they?

The only legitimate reason to attend an MFA program is to get some access to a truly great writer. Then hopefully, if you are talented enough, they will recognize the worth of your own work. Who wouldn't want to take a class with Robert Stone at Yale or Edmund White or Toni Morrison or Joyce Carol Oates at Princeton? However, unless the program has teachers of that calibur, there is absolutely zero point to getting an MFA.

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Our undergraduates definitely think this is going to be the case. When, on the basis of my own experiences, I say that the money comes from non-fiction, they look at me blankly and start talking about their poetry. Poetry!!!

"There's a cookie-cutter quality to a great deal of new fiction these days"

damn tootin. I've read faaaaar too many novels that looked promising but quickly became formulaic. Yeah, great. You can find me in the "Classics" section when you write a novel that's different from fifty others out there.

As for writers making a great deal of money - that's NEVER been the case, hasn't it? The only writer that springs to mind (because he's my favorite) is that Anthony Trollope worked for the Royal Post Office. Maybe what we need to do instead of the sort of critical-evaluation circle-jerk that goes on, is to teach people who want to write how to balance a career and writing?

I don't really think you can TEACH the art of writing. The technical stuff, yeah, I can see some of that, but I think a lot of the skill of a writer comes from their own experience, their own reading, their own writing-and-rewriting without a "focus group" (because, to this Philistine's mind, that's what the MFA critique sessions sound an awful lot like) to tell them what is most saleable.

It is a relief to read this post. I recently withdrew from a graduate writing program because of how inhibited I'd felt in workshops. My instructor was a visiting writer (well-known, established, Putlizer-prize finalist) who clearly favored certain styles and plots over others. I found myself writing for the class's approval. It was frustrating and I was constantly plagued by writer's block. My instructor ended up giving me a C based on first drafts, and when I contested the grade, she responded that it was her intention to "discourage" me.

I have to say I have been the "victim" of more than my fair share of novels that likely come out of "workshoppers" (can that be a word?). However, God forbid you actually cross one of the fans of these cookie cutter works. I wrote a brief review of a debut novel on my other blog, and some anonymous commenter gave me grief over my negative review (the book was hideously slow in pace, dense in prose, and the author, a college instructor came out of one of those workshops). I have to agree with one of the commenters: the credentials can be revealing. The grievance from the person that wrote me (if you can dignify it with the label) was basically saying I missed the mark "on such groundbreaking" fiction. (Anyone out there want to know the book, contact me, I'll tell ya). So, I suppose there is an audience for the cookie cutter stuff, but I have to feel sorry for them. Overall, from what I have seen and read, I am definitely not bothering with an MFA. There are other ways to learn the writer's craft, one of them being to actually write. . .and take a risk or two.