Friday Find: www.erikadreifus.com

by Erika Dreifus on
3

I can’t help myself. I simply have to recommend this here website as this week’s “Friday Find.” Please take some time to explore.

I know that I still have work to finish here. My author Q&A, for one thing. Blogrolls, for another. And I haven’t completed every “Resources” subpage, either. Plus, I may keep digging through my personal archives and set aside some items to add to the published work that’s here.

But I am really happy with how this site has turned out. I hope that you will be, too.

Major appreciation goes to Jeremiah Tolbert of Clockpunk Studios, web designer extraordinaire and a wonderful person to work with.

Friday Find: AWP’s 2009-2010 Survey Results, MFA in Creative Writing Programs in the United States

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

From the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP):

This past year, AWP asked Program Directors dozens of questions pertaining to their creative writing programs. Thanks to the Program Directors, AWP was able to assemble information on issues ranging from financial aid to class size, tuition, and budget and salary figures. With the downturn in the national economy, many programs and departments are competing for resources likely to become more constrained. Our hope is that the information gathered here will help faculty, students, and administrators make the best possible case for continued investment in their programs.

This information can help programs advocate for more administrative support, course reductions, and additional teaching assistantships or scholarships for students. In addition, the expenditure information in our survey can help programs advocate for adjunct and faculty salary adjustments as well as additional resources towards an affiliated reading series or literary magazine.

For many students and faculty, it is helpful to know how their school’s size and acceptance rates compare to the average program. Statistics on admission, class size, and program size will help you understand where your program stands among its peers. AWP thanks all the schools that participated in our most recent survey. Individual survey responses are confidential, but we hope that the aggregate totals listed here are helpful to your program and your creative writing community.

You can download the full report at the website. NB: Information was solicited this year from 145 full-residency MFA programs. The report may be even more interesting when we’re able to compare some of the data with corresponding results from low-residency programs.

Have a great weekend, all. See you back here on Monday!

Thursday’s Pre-Publication Post: Read an Excerpt from Quiet Americans!

by Erika Dreifus on
9

So, as I continue preparing the new website for its debut, I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to present there an excerpt from my forthcoming story collection, Quiet Americans. To that end, this week, I’ve been experimenting with some free services provided by BookBuzzr.com.

www.bookbuzzr.com

It was easy enough to paste code into a blog post to share the above “widget” with you, and as the book begins to appear on more distribution channels, I can embed relevant purchase info. (Right now, pre-orders are available only via BN.com.)

What’s most exciting, though, is that this techno-gizmo gives you a glimpse into the actual book. Including the entire opening story.

At least, it provides the entire opening story for now. I’m beginning to wonder if perhaps the excerpt should be more limited. Like maybe…to the story’s opening page?

What do you think? Would (much) less be more? Or in this case, would it be far too little?