Our own dear Marcus Speh on p. 11 of P&W (Letters) on, of course, social media. I was reading while eating dinner in the garden and thinking, this is Marcus' view, and voila! twas him!
Great issue, btw, heralding the Best MFA programs. A companion piece to MFA alternatives (workshops, conferences, etc) but alas, the MA is not mentioned. Peace...
All right, Marcus! Way to go, I'll have to pick up this issue. Thanks, Linda.
Went and dug mine from the unread magazine pile. Marcus strikes again. Excellent articles on MFA programs and their alternatives, too. I was pleased to see my alma mater at least make the honorable mention category.
Marcus, How can you be everywhere at once?
aw darn just when I quit subscribing--I'll have to pick one up at the bookstore!
For those without access...
verbatim from page 11 of P & W in the Letters section.
BUZZ AND BEYOND
Thank you for "Social Media for Authors: Forever in Search of Buzz" by Lauren Cerand (May/June 2011). I have recently deactivated my Facebook page because I found it too restrictive: facebook still resembles a club. Instead I started a more open environment using Tumblr because, as a writer, you don't necessarily just want to reach out to "friends". In this respect, I think the new Google+, with its "circles" social-networking concept and its link to the omnipresent search engine, will soon outflank Facebook.
Excertped from a comment posted on pw.org/magazine by MARCUS_SPEH.
Thanks for sharing this.
Interesting, if angry article on Slate concerning P&W's MFA listing and Columbia University:
http://www.slate.com/id/2303878/pagenum/all/#p2
Though personally not an advocate of the MFA as an 'apprenticeship' for writers, if you're going to become an academic for the purpose of self-patronage as a writer, it may be absolutely essential. The thing that bothers me is that MFA status becomes an exclusionary process in the 'literary' market and tends to confuse the already confused publishing world ...
But this article is a wonderful example, I think, of the curious mindset surrounding academic structures adrift in a competitive world of commercial advantage.