General Advice

The following section—along with other edits to the MFA Handbook, including the sections for first-, second-, and third-year students—was written by Faith Palermo (MFA '25).

Hi! Welcome to the MFA community! 

Coming into the MFA, everyone might not be familiar with various things (from meeting people to more professional literary community information). Included below are a couple of different lists to help explain!

Social Opportunities through the Program

In class: This one’s a bit obvious, but say "hey" to your classmates! You’ll be seeing most of the students in your cohort quite often, especially if they’re in your genre. In the classroom, you’ll be giving (and receiving) feedback from them in Workshop and bouncing off their ideas. It’s a lot easier to give meaningful feedback if you’re somewhat acquainted with them, but if you’re new to the area, it’s also a great way to make friends.

The Horizon Hall Kitchen: If you’re ever on campus between classes, the Horizon Hall Kitchen is a convenient central location to hang out and do work. Located in the English Department on the 4th floor of Horizon Hall, a lot of MFA and MA students will gather around the circular tables by the windows. If you see someone sitting there who looks familiar, feel free to say hi! 

Kindling Reading Series: A couple of times a semester, the Kindling team will schedule an on-campus reading mainly comprised of MFA students. The first couple of minutes tend to be a pot-luck, with students (and sometimes faculty) talking and snacking. Then, there’ll be a couple of rounds of readers with breaks in between. While space can be limited, anyone can sign up! This is a really great chance to get a feel for the different types of writing in the program and hear a bit of what your peers are working on. Check your email for updates! (Also, Kindling is entirely student-organized, and occasionally accepts volunteers!)

MFA Journals: There are two literary journals/ magazines that are run by MFA program students: phoebe and So to Speak. Reading submissions is a great way to grow as a writer while meeting more people in the program (and is great to have on your resume). Again, check your email for updates! 

Other Student Organized Events: There are a couple of different houses comprised of students who are currently in the MFA program (including Friendship House, which has been in the program for decades). Every now and then, there will be a gathering at one of these locations, as advertised through email. This is another really great way to meet people in the program—and another reason to check your email!

General Literary Community Information

AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs): Every year, the AWP Conference is held in a rotating part of the country. This is a multi-day event intended to connect writers to a bigger community. The two main sections are the bookfair—where different writing programs, lit mags (we’ll get there, don’t worry), and publishers have tables to discuss the projects that they’re working on—and panels, where different writers discuss a different element of craft. Because there are so many writers in the same place, there are also informal readings that happen outside of the convention halls. It’s a really great chance to network (if that’s your thing) and meet other writers/ people in other MFA programs and/ or learn about different publishing opportunities. An important aspect to consider: outside of a MFA program, AWP is crazy expensive. While a student, the University will pay for your registration fee (regularly around $375), and if you work the Mason MFA booth, you’ll often be offered support (in the form of a modest award from the program) for your time. This is something you need to opt-in to. You’ll get an email sometime in the fall.

Lit Mags (Literary Magazines): Generally speaking, lit mags are magazines that publish literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. This is very exciting because it can include your work! If there’s something that you’re working on that you feel is finished, you can send it out to magazines that you think would be a good fit. Just remember, you will get rejected. Sometimes you get rejected a lot. This doesn’t necessarily mean that your work is bad—sometimes it means that the person reading your work isn’t "your reader." Or maybe they need a cup of coffee, or are rushing, or their laptop is about to die. When you submit something, you need to be ok if the answer is no. If you don’t think you’re ready for that, maybe hold off on submitting until you’re in a place where you are. 

In my opinion, the best way to become more comfortable with this is to read for one (or both) of the lit mags at Mason – phoebe and So to Speak. You’ll be assigned a couple of pieces a week and will be asked to jot a couple of sentences of your thoughts down. It can help to reframe things when you’re the person reading someone else’s work—sometimes you really don’t like a piece because you aren’t "their reader." Or sometimes you just need a cup of coffee or are rushing. You’ll also definitely read pieces that you love that your co-readers will not love, so they won’t get published (which is also something that’s probably happening to your pieces!). 

If you are in a place where you’d like to send things out, talking to your peers (and reading their pieces that get published … it’s a two-way street) is a great way to get familiar with different lit mags! A lot of publications will use Submittable as the submission manager (use your personal email address when making your account, not your @GMU.edu … trust me), but the more indie ones will mainly be email. Some will charge fees, some won’t. So to Speak usually holds a Submit-a-Thon roughly once a semester with some really great resources too!