the kitchen table MFA : an introduction . january 25 . 2010
Our Kitchen Table MFA, AKA the Homeschool MFA, the DIY MFA and the Peripatetic MFA is an experiment in non-institutional learning. We have drawn together with the desire to become the best writers we can become. Unable, unwilling to sacrifice our commitments to our children, our homes, the lives we are living, we read, we write at tables next to children doing homework, at night after they've gone to bed, in the late morning while the bread rises, in the few minutes before the bell rings and they get out of school, aware of the preciousness of time, unwilling to squander a moment of it. We are determined to learn from each other and from every book we read, to hold each other accountable and bring out the best in each other, to strive together and inspire each other. We want to grow more confident with the voices we have and with that confidence have the freedom to explore what those voices can do. We understand that the experience we have, the proven need to write and to find ourselves in writing, the children we raise are not liabilities to us as writers but strengths. We welcome others but ask that they take this as seriously as we do. -- Mara
We have both been searching, for months or perhaps years or perhaps lifetimes, Woolf-like, for a more scholarly life. For both of us, the ideal of the MFA is a candle lit in the window, a constance of passion, an achievement we cannot help but desire. But. There is this gorgeous, rich life of ours: the children who are, after all, a far more worthy achievement (life! humanity! better than just three letters); the husbands, who unlike our biological family we chose; the city in which we live, love. There is money, which we do not have in quantities great enough to squander on a pursuit of yet another degree. Instead, we resolve to pursue the knowledge, the discipline, the company of talented writers, the support of like minds, the sight through others' eyes, the consumption of truly honorable words alongside our oatmeal, words taken in the midst of life-filled lives. So we set upon this journey, at our kitchen tables; we are hungry, we are full. -- Sarah
