MFA Writers

It’s not quite Halloween, but on this episode, Emma Allman talks to Jared about the utility of defamiliarization, surrealism, uncanniness, and body horror in ecofiction (spooky!). Plus, she discusses how working in marketing pre-MFA helped her understand professionalism and realism in academia, life in Tuscaloosa as it aligns with and diverges from outsiders’ expectations, and unique opportunities of the University of Alabama’s MFA program, including teaching in youth writing camps or within the state’s prison system.

Emma Allmann studied creative writing at UW-Madison and is entering her third year in the MFA program at the University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa. Prior to returning to grad school she worked in market research for several years in Chicago. She has had pieces published with Ellipsis and Ink In Thirds, shortlisted with Smokelong and has had a play produced for the Marcia Légère Student Play Festival at UW-Madison. She has pieces forthcoming with LandLocked and Ink In Thirds. Find her at www.emmaallmann.com and on Instagram @emryal91.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

BE PART OF THE SHOW

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— Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.

— Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.

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Twitter: @MFAwriterspod

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As the pod team settles into the fall semester, we’re excited to celebrate the recent accomplishment of one of our past guests. Simon Graham was awarded an AWP Intro Journals Prize for their story “Blair,” forthcoming in Puerto del Sol. Enjoy our conversation with Simon from Season 3.

How do you write about the climate crisis without becoming didactic? On this episode, Simon Graham describes their approach to activist writing, guided by their experience growing up on the beaches of Australia and working in environmental policy. Plus, they talk about queering the crime fiction genre, the financial realities for international students living in Seattle, and remembering who you’re writing to, for, and with.

Simon Graham is an Australian writer, educator, and climate change worker living in Seattle. They are an MFA Candidate in Prose Writing at the University of Washington, where they won the Eugene Van Buren Prize in Fiction and teach a class on activist writing. Simon is also a 2023 Climate Corps Fellow with the Environmental Defense Fund, and prior to moving to the US they worked on climate policy in Australia and lectured on climate change at Monash University. They are currently working on a queer crime novel set in the shadowy world of Australian climate politics.

This episode was requested by Sarah Blood and Rorie Newman. Thank you both for listening!

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

BE PART OF THE SHOW

— Donate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.

— Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

— Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.

— Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.

STAY CONNECTED

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod

Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast

Facebook: MFA Writers

Email: [email protected]

Following Venezuela’s disputed presidential election, debut author Alejandro Puyana returns to the show to discuss his novel, which explores the revolutionary lives of both ordinary and extraordinary Venezuelans over the span of fifty years. He also shares insights with Jared about the rewrites he made to his MFA thesis before publication, the experience of collaborating with an editor, and the journey of securing book blurbs.

Alejandro Puyana is the author of the upcoming novel Freedom Is a Feast, available from Little, Brown on August 20th. Alejandro moved to the United States from Venezuela at the age of twenty-six. In 2022, he completed his MFA at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas. His work has appeared in Tin House, American Short Fiction, The American Scholar, New England Review, and Idaho Review, among others, and his story “The Hands of Dirty Children” was selected by Curtis Sittenfeld for Best American Short Stories 2020. He lives with his wife and daughter in Austin, Texas. Learn more at alejandropuyana.com.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

BE PART OF THE SHOW

— Donate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.

— Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

— Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.

— Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.

STAY CONNECTED

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod

Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast

Facebook: MFA Writers

Email: [email protected]

Ever heard of an MFA program with 12 different genre concentrations? On this episode, Vivian (Xiao Wen) Li tells Jared about how UBC’s multi-genre emphasis allowed her to work across fiction, nonfiction, poetry, screenwriting, filmmaking, comics, and more. Plus, she discusses self-funding her degree, receiving a grant to do research in China for her novel, and UBC’s online option for distance learning.

Vivian is a queer and neurodivergent Chinese-Canadian writer, director, musician, and interdisciplinary artist who recently graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of British Columbia. She is the winner in the short story category of the Creative Writing Collective Sustaining Shared Futures Writing Award, and her fiction and poetry have been published in The Massachusetts Review, The New Quarterly, QWERTY, and elsewhere. Her chapbook Someday I Promise, I'll Love You from 845 Press was nominated for The bpNichol Chapbook Award. Her debut experimental novel titled To You, in the Waves of the Future will be going on submission soon.  She can be reached @vivianlicreates on

This episode was requested by Michelle D’costa. Thank you for listening, Michelle!

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

BE PART OF THE SHOW

— Donate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.

— Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

— Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.

— Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.

STAY CONNECTED

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod

Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast

Facebook: MFA Writers

Email: [email protected]

Welcome to Season 5! On this episode, Rose Jenny talks to Jared about her work queering religious texts, rewriting nostalgia, and crafting formal poems. Plus, she discusses growing up and living as a trans person in the American South, finding her first readers in her cohort, and deciding whether to take the University of Miami’s optional third year.

Rose Jenny is a trans writer/performer based in Florida. Her debut chapbook, My Apocrypha (2024), is available through Bottlecap Press. Rose's other selected works have been published in Santa Fe Writers Project Quarterly, South Florida Poetry Journal, Pensive Journal, new words {press}, The Athena Review, and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. She holds a BA in English with a concentration in Creative Writing from University of South Florida. Additionally, she is the recipient of the 2021 Estelle J. Zbar Poetry Award. Rose is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at University of Miami. Learn more at rosejenny.com.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

BE PART OF THE SHOW

— Donate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.

— Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

— Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.

— Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.

STAY CONNECTED

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod

Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast

Facebook: MFA Writers

Email: [email protected]

The podcast team is on vacation! In the meantime, we invite you to listen to one of our favorite episodes from Season 3. Wishing you all a great summer, friends.

As the editor-in-chief of Peach Mag, Rachelle Toarmino is consistently focused on the work of others. She chats with Jared about her own writing career, including finding and using playfulness in her poetry, coping with MFA faculty turnover through collective cohort support, and how learning a second language opened her mind to poetic craft.

Rachelle Toarmino is a poet, editor, and educator from Niagara Falls, New York. She is the author of the poetry collection That Ex (Big Lucks Books, 2020) and the chapbooks Comeback (Foundlings Press, 2021), Feel Royal (b l u s h, 2019), and Personal & Generic (PressBoardPress, 2016). Her poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Bennington Review, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, Pretty Cool Poetry Thing, Metatron Press, Shabby Doll House, Salt Hill Journal, and elsewhere. She is also the founding editor-in-chief of Peach Mag and an editorial advisor to Foundlings Press. She lives between Buffalo and Western Massachusetts, where she is an MFA candidate in poetry at UMass Amherst. Find her on Twitter @rchlltrmn and at her website rachelletoarmino.com.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

BE PART OF THE SHOW

— Donate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.

— Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

— Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.

— Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.

STAY CONNECTED

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod

Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast

Facebook: MFA Writers

Email: [email protected]

It’s the Season 4 finale! On this episode, Eric Larsh tells Jared about writing into obsessions, whether he’s focusing exclusively on sonnets or, for the last two years, diving into a long poem about the Mojave Desert. Eric also discusses how his music compositions and editorship at Portland Review inform his poetry, deciding between a graduate degree in rhetoric or creative writing, and Portland State’s built-in opportunities to connect with faculty and visiting writers.

Eric Larsh is a writer, bookseller, and musician living in Portland, Oregon. He is currently serving as Editor in Chief at Portland Review and pursuing his MFA in Poetry at Portland State University. His writing can be found at Los Angeles Review, Thin Air, The Daily Drunk, and elsewhere online. His music can be found at universalhealthcare.bandcamp.com. Learn more at ericlarsh.com.

This episode was requested by Emily Jacobson. Thank you for listening, Emily!

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

BE PART OF THE SHOW

— Donate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.

— Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

— Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.

— Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.

STAY CONNECTED

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod

Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast

Facebook: MFA Writers

Email: [email protected]

Former stand-up comedian Max Delsohn sits down with Jared to talk about how humor and detailed line-level revision show up in his work for the stage and the page. Plus, he discusses a pleasure-forward writing process, switching MFA programs after the first year, and his experiences with big-name faculty like George Saunders and Mary Karr.

Max Delsohn is a third-year MFA candidate in fiction at Syracuse University. His writing appears in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, VICE, Joyland, The Rumpus, Passages North, Nat. Brut, and the essay anthology Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games, edited by J. Robert Lennon and Carmen Maria Machado, among other places. He has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Saltonstall Foundation for The Arts, Mineral School, and Hugo House, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times. His debut short story collection, CRAWL, is forthcoming in fall 2025 from Graywolf Press. Find Max on social media @maxdelsohn, and sign up for alerts to pre-order his collection via his website, www.maxdelsohn.com.

This episode was requested by Amy Peltz, Sarah Blood, and Frank Turner. Thank you all for listening!

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

BE PART OF THE SHOW

— Donate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.

— Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

— Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.

— Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.

STAY CONNECTED

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod

Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast

Facebook: MFA Writers

Email: [email protected]