At MobyLives, Elizabeth Clementson cuts MFAs down to size:
“Many of the 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.”