Brian Oliu is the dear friend of my dear friends Elizabeth and Colin, and teaches creative writing at the University of Alabama. He’s just come out with his first book–more about that below. Through the wonders of social media, we’ve had grand exchanges about 80’s music (he’s also a DJ) and karaoke standards. And about writing. Despite my Luddite misgivings about poetry involving technology, video games, and Craigslist, there’s clearly a great deal of generous heart behind his work. I love this line from one of his Craigslist lyric essays: “You always opted for gin: you only trust things that you can see through: windows, keyholes.” Please welcome Brian to the “(private) MFA” series!
1. Did you go through an MFA program? If so, how was it structured?
I received my MFA from the University of Alabama in 2009. One of the appeals of the program was the fact that it was a three-year program with the option of a fourth year (which I took advantage of), as well as the fact that it wasn’t genre-specific. I classify myself as a non-fiction writer and I was able to take non-fiction courses as well as fiction and poetry.
2. If you were to design your own private MFA for yourself—either before or after going through your MFA program—what would it look like, and why? What would be your goals? How would you challenge yourself, solicit feedback, create a writing community? (Or, none of those things?)
I think the purpose of the MFA is first and foremost to give people the opportunity to write, which brings forth the other purpose of the MFA: to determine if people actually want to write and pursue it further. The MFA gives people the opportunity to see all of the things that go along with writing/being a writer. Furthermore, it gives writers the chance to teach, edit, get involved with the publishing aspect, so on and so forth and figure out if these are things that people would like to go forward with. Some folks realize that they want to write and only write, and thus go into jobs unrelated to the writing world. I think the other thing that is important about the MFA is that it provides a sense of camaraderie (if one is lucky with their program, as I was!) as well as finding an audience for one’s work in addition to finding folks who are good readers of one’s work. So, if it were up to me, I’d have everyone get involved in all of those facets: working on a literary journal, designing a chapbook, teaching creative writing to undergraduates/high schoolers, etc. As for ‘improving writing’ I do feel as if having readers and receiving feedback is important, although I think the drive to write is more important: thus some semblance of deadlines would be effective, as would a focus on the idea of a larger project–if the members of the MFA community could understand the larger ideas and projects that each writer is attempting to create, I think the feedback would be even more helpful, as a lot of workshop
seems to be explaining the context of each piece: one of the most beneficial classes I took at Alabama was a novel workshop where we all got to know each other’s work over the course of a semester.
3. Do you teach creative writing, or do you teach in an MFA program now? How do you measure student progress, or grading?
I teach creative writing on the undergraduate level: I teach mostly upper-level courses- mostly ‘prose tour’ classes where we examine a bunch of different types of fiction and non-fiction and attempt to emulate the style of the writing or the concepts that are brought forward. On occasion I teach highly specialized courses as well–I have taught a class on the lyric essay as well as a class on video games/games in general as literature.
Furthermore, I’m a member of the Slash Pine Projects, which is a collective here in Tuscaloosa that puts out chapbooks, puts on poetry festivals, and tries to bring art to the community. I have approximately 20 interns, all undergraduates at the University of Alabama specializing in everything from English Literature to Creative Writing to Book Arts. One of the things that I hold most important when teaching creative writing is to view everyone as an artist and as a writer, no matter what level of writing they are currently at: some are Creative Writing minors who take their work very seriously, others are taking Creative Writing as an elective and know that they just enjoy writing poetry and would like to take a class on it and learn how to make themselves better writers. As a result, instead of grading or writing notes, I e-mail every one of my students after receiving their work and enter a dialog with them: tell them what I saw, and what I perceived that they were trying to do with the story. If they want line edits, I’ll be more than happy to do that, but overall I want to talk about the feel of the pieces and what the goals of the students are.
4. If you do teach creative writing, what is the most important thing that you try to teach your students, and why that? And how do you try to accomplish that goal?
To me, the most important thing to teach is simply to write. I try to debunk myths about writing: I’m very open about my relationship with writing as well as my process and I let them know that there’s no such thing as a muse–that I am struggling with finding time to write as well as with what to write about as much as they are. I like to talk a great deal about beginnings and ways to get over their conceived idea of ‘writer’s block’ (which I don’t believe in either!) as well as learning to think about themselves as writers, collaborators, and readers. Writing is exciting and beautiful and magical–the creation of something out of nothing and I just try to pass on that joy, first and foremost. To borrow from the excellent Dear Sugar on The Rumpus, I want them to “write like motherfuckers”.
5. What have you read lately that’s just blown you away?
Lidia Yuknavitch‘s The Chronology of Water is absolutely stunning. A beautiful memoir. I also re-read Christian Bobin’s A Little Party Dress recently and it was even lovelier the second time through. Sarah Goldstein’s Fables is gorgeous.
6. What are you working on now? Do you have anything coming out? Can you say a little bit more about it here?
I assembled an eBook of Tuscaloosa writers called ‘Tuscaloosa Runs This’ to help generate donations for tornado recovery efforts. Furthermore, my book of Tuscaloosa Craigslist Missed Connections, ‘So You Know It’s Me’, was released in June on Tiny Hardcore Press. Other than that, been putting some finishing touches on a manuscript based off of 8-bit Nintendo games, and I’ve started a book collaboration with a book that my grandfather wrote in Catalan on long-distance running.
Thanks for playing, Brian! I like seeing how the MFA for you is about exposing students to “the things that go along with being a writer.’ And how you seem to teach writing and approach writing itself as opportunity and drive–more about inclusivity and community, less about hypercritical judging and evaluation along the way. I’m grateful for you taking the time to write here. Maybe we’ll get to meet, with Colin and Elizabeth, at AWP; it’s coming to Seattle in 2014.