It is an honor to speak to you on behalf of my brothers and sisters in the inaugural graduating class of the Fairfield University Master of Fine Arts Program. While it’s tempting for me to take this opportunity to thank the many people here who have helped me personally over the past two years, as the representative of the entire Class of 2010 I simply want to extend our heartfelt thanks to Michael White and Elizabeth Hastings for their steady, wise, and good-humored stewardship of this program these past two years. We are proud to have been the first cohort of what is fast becoming, thanks to your hard work, one of the premier low-residency MFA programs in the country. Our thanks also goes out to everyone who has joined us here this evening—Fairfield University administration, MFA faculty, our fellow students, friends and loved ones.
I’m reminded on this august occasion of another, somewhat less grand graduation ceremony I attended last year at which a dozen prison inmates received their GED certificates. I don’t mean to insult anyone with the comparison—there’s a big difference between a bunch of convicted criminals and my fellow MFA grads—for one thing, a convicted criminal stands a better chance of getting a book published these days—but I keep thinking of something the featured speaker said at that ceremony. He was a local middle school principal, a kindly man who bravely challenged the tough, generously tattooed graduates with the same question his mother used to ask him whenever he’d accomplished something meaningful: “Okay, and what are you going to do now?” In anticipation of this evening, this question has haunted me ever since.
So what are we going to do now? No more program-imposed deadlines. No more supportive mentors awaiting our packets of stories, poems, essays. No more ten-day immersions at idyllic Enders Island. We’re on our own now in the hostile world of publishing and academia, where book contracts and teaching jobs are few and far between. We’ve all read the depressing articles about book stores closing, layoffs at publishing houses, universities cutting costs, and of course the end of serious literature as we know it.
With these depressing thoughts in mind, and searching for examples of literary triumph in the face of adversity, I have requested of our esteemed faculty samples of rejection letters they’ve received over the years. Here are some highlights:
Joan Connor received this one from a literary agent: “You are writing stories that look at life in a way that most people would prefer not to see.”
Here’s one from GRANTA: “Dear Nalini Jones, Your essay 'Food' is a delightful piece of writing, but I'm afraid it isn't for Granta. It's simply too essayistic for us. Best wishes…”
From The GEORGIA REVIEW: “Dear Nalini Jones, Thank you for allowing us to consider 'Names,' which we have decided to decline. We were more interested in the essay in the early going, when you appeared to be headed toward a focus on broader cultural matters, and less so when your family situation came to be the real center of attention. Our best to you in placing this work elsewhere.”
Rachel Basch, perhaps as some sort of purging ritual, was very generous with her rejection letters. An old one from an agent reads: "Dear Rachel, Thanks for your letter of the 1st and the two stories. I am pleased to see that you will be a creative writing student... I do not think you are ready for an agent, or (may I be so bold) for publication...."
Another agent, after showing “great interest” in the early chapters of Rachel’s first novel, had this to say upon reading the entire manuscript: "God knows, the last thing the world needs is another maternal jeopardy story."
Finally, having submitted her work to a short story contest, Rachel received this heavily Xeroxed form letter: “Thank you for letting us read your work. We read it closely & with interest; however, we were not able to use it for this year’s AMERICAN FICTION contest. Signed, Michael C. White, Editor.”
The delightfully jaded Sarah Manguso wrote me, “I've received the old-school rejection template more times than I can count, in which the piece has ‘made the rounds’ and ‘everyone loved it,’ but then the editor-in-chief is called by his first name and some production-related reason for rejection is cited. BURN!”
Several faculty members chose to tell uplifting stories about the hope they found in a hastily scrawled note of encouragement from an editor, or the vindication they felt when their work was finally accepted. Da Chen wrote to me in his unmistakable voice: “All you need is ONE person in this world to love your writing, and publish it, so that a million would get to read your books. Of six billions of earthlings, sooner or later, you will find that one...It's that simple. The Rule of ONE!”
Okay, so six billion to one are long odds, but still I like to think it can happen. So—and I address this to my fellow graduates—what are you going to do now?
What are you going to do when you wake up in the middle of the night asking yourself why you got this MFA degree when you could be two-thirds of the way through law school…
What are you going to do when your mother or your uncle or your own kids ask you when you’re going to wise up and do something useful…
What are you going to do when you get that 745th faded, heavily Xeroxed form letter rejecting the book you spent years writing and rewriting…
What are you going to do when that blank page stares back at you, taunting you with its vast white space until you go snow blind…
I’ll tell you what you’re going to do: you’re going to keep on writing. And you’re going to remember this:
In some civilized countries, parents actually want their kids to become poets; playwrights and novelists run for president (and sometimes win); and essayists affect public policy with their take on current events.
Remember this: there have always been storytellers, from the ones who drew pictures on the walls of caves to the blind man beside the campfire babbling on about the fall of Troy to the guy sitting across from you at Starbucks madly typing into his laptop.
Remember this: somebody has to tell the truth, whether it be in the form of a sonnet or a short story or a memoir or a screenplay--especially now, when words matter so much less than they used to, when whole countries are run by semi-literates, when elections are decided by lies and fear and ignorance. As author Rachel Kadish said, “This country…needs people who can connect words in a way that makes us feel we recognize the world around us, and don’t have to tilt our heads any longer to make the picture hang straight.”
Finally, remember this: though it feels like you are, you are not alone.
So, I ask you: what are you going to do now?
Keep on writing! That’s what.
What are you going to do now, Elizabeth Hilts?
Amanda Feuerberg? Tess Brown? Lindsey Ferarra? Steve Otfinoski? Christine Shaffer? Katie Schneider? Anne Hasenstab? Theresa Bruzese?
Cristina Morant? Tina DeMarco? Joe Carvalko? Jody Foote?
Pat O’Connor? Annabelle Moseley? Justin Scace? Lisa Calderone?
Mike DiCocco? Beth Hillson? David Fitzpatrick? Donna Woods Orazio?
Jane Sherman? Kelly Goodridge? Bonnie Cook? Chuck Johnson?
Keep on writing!
I’d like to close not with a quote from some literary giant—not James Joyce or Ernest Hemingway or Flannery O’Connor—but from an author whose work ethic and generosity toward his fellow writers is legendary. In his great book On Writing, Stephen King says, “Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy…. Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.”
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