MFA Writers Jared McCormack

The pod team is still on vacation! In the mountains! Without recording equipment! The Season 5 premiere will be in your feed soon. Until then, enjoy this conversation with Maurice Carlos Ruffin, author of three books and faculty member twice over.
Maurice Carlos Ruffin, author and faculty member at two MFA programs, joins Jared for this special episode about Maurice’s multi-year journey from corporate lawyer to professional writer (with plenty of rejection in between), the role of a creative writing professor in guiding students’ work, and the criticality of retaining joy in our writing, despite the challenges of publication, deadlines, and stories that just aren’t working. Finally, Maurice offers advice on what makes someone a successful MFA student, and where emerging writers should devote their energy.
Maurice Carlos Ruffin is the author of The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You, which was published by One World Random House in August 2021. It was a New York Times Editor’s Choice, a finalist for the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and longlisted for the Story Prize. His first book, We Cast a Shadow, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the PEN America Open Book Prize, among others. A New Orleans native, Maurice is a professor of Creative Writing in the MFA program at Louisiana State University and a faculty member in Randolph College’s low-residency M.F.A. program. Find him at his website, mauricecarlosruffin.com, and on Twitter @MauriceRuffin.
MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.
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The podcast team is on vacation! In the meantime, we invite you to listen to one of our favorite episodes from Season 3. Wishing you all a great summer, friends.

As the editor-in-chief of Peach Mag, Rachelle Toarmino is consistently focused on the work of others. She chats with Jared about her own writing career, including finding and using playfulness in her poetry, coping with MFA faculty turnover through collective cohort support, and how learning a second language opened her mind to poetic craft.

Rachelle Toarmino is a poet, editor, and educator from Niagara Falls, New York. She is the author of the poetry collection That Ex (Big Lucks Books, 2020) and the chapbooks Comeback (Foundlings Press, 2021), Feel Royal (b l u s h, 2019), and Personal & Generic (PressBoardPress, 2016). Her poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Bennington Review, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, Pretty Cool Poetry Thing, Metatron Press, Shabby Doll House, Salt Hill Journal, and elsewhere. She is also the founding editor-in-chief of Peach Mag and an editorial advisor to Foundlings Press. She lives between Buffalo and Western Massachusetts, where she is an MFA candidate in poetry at UMass Amherst. Find her on Twitter @rchlltrmn and at her website rachelletoarmino.com.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

BE PART OF THE SHOW

— Donate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.

— Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

— Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.

— Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.

STAY CONNECTED

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod

Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast

Facebook: MFA Writers

Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

It’s the Season 4 finale! On this episode, Eric Larsh tells Jared about writing into obsessions, whether he’s focusing exclusively on sonnets or, for the last two years, diving into a long poem about the Mojave Desert. Eric also discusses how his music compositions and editorship at Portland Review inform his poetry, deciding between a graduate degree in rhetoric or creative writing, and Portland State’s built-in opportunities to connect with faculty and visiting writers.

Eric Larsh is a writer, bookseller, and musician living in Portland, Oregon. He is currently serving as Editor in Chief at Portland Review and pursuing his MFA in Poetry at Portland State University. His writing can be found at Los Angeles Review, Thin Air, The Daily Drunk, and elsewhere online. His music can be found at universalhealthcare.bandcamp.com. Learn more at ericlarsh.com.

This episode was requested by Emily Jacobson. Thank you for listening, Emily!

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

BE PART OF THE SHOW

— Donate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.

— Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

— Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.

— Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.

STAY CONNECTED

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod

Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast

Facebook: MFA Writers

Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

Former stand-up comedian Max Delsohn sits down with Jared to talk about how humor and detailed line-level revision show up in his work for the stage and the page. Plus, he discusses a pleasure-forward writing process, switching MFA programs after the first year, and his experiences with big-name faculty like George Saunders and Mary Karr.

Max Delsohn is a third-year MFA candidate in fiction at Syracuse University. His writing appears in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, VICE, Joyland, The Rumpus, Passages North, Nat. Brut, and the essay anthology Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games, edited by J. Robert Lennon and Carmen Maria Machado, among other places. He has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Saltonstall Foundation for The Arts, Mineral School, and Hugo House, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times. His debut short story collection, CRAWL, is forthcoming in fall 2025 from Graywolf Press. Find Max on social media @maxdelsohn, and sign up for alerts to pre-order his collection via his website, www.maxdelsohn.com.

This episode was requested by Amy Peltz, Sarah Blood, and Frank Turner. Thank you all for listening!

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

BE PART OF THE SHOW

— Donate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.

— Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

— Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.

— Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.

STAY CONNECTED

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod

Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast

Facebook: MFA Writers

Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

What’s involved in an English PhD with a creative dissertation? Abhijit Sarmah tells Jared about how this path allows him to pursue his research on global indigenous literatures while continuing to craft poetry on identity and insurgency in Assam, India. Abhijit also discusses postmemory, or the memories we inherit from earlier generations, writing about your homeland when you live far from it, and the strong literary scene in Athens, Georgia.

Abhijit Sarmah is a poet and a researcher of Indigenous literatures with particular focus on Native American women writers and writings from the Northeast of India. Currently, he is a second-year PhD student in the creative writing program at the University of Georgia where he is also an Arts Lab Graduate Fellow. He was a finalist for the 2023 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship and his work has appeared in magazines like Poetry, The Margins, The Lincoln Review, and elsewhere. Find him on Instagram @abhijitsarmahwritespoetry and on Twitter @abhijitsarmah_.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

BE PART OF THE SHOW

— Donate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.

— Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

— Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.

— Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.

STAY CONNECTED

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod

Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast

Facebook: MFA Writers

Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

On this episode, Sam Herschel Wein tells Jared about their path to finding poetry outside of academia, co-founding and editing Underblong, and their approach to collaboration and humor in their writing. Plus, they discuss the nuances of MFA program decisions (Two or three years? English or Art departments?) and whether creative writing should live within institutions of higher education at all.

Sam Herschel Wein (he/they) is a lollygagging plum of a poet who specializes in perpetual frolicking. They have an MFA from the University of Tennessee (2021-2023) and were the recipient of a 2022 Pushcart Prize. They have published 3 chapbooks, most recently Butt Stuff Flower Bush from Porkbelly Press, and are the co-founder and editor of Underblong Journal. They have recent work in American Poetry Review, The Cincinnati Review, and Gulf Coast, among others. Find them on social media @samforbreakfast and at their website, samherschelwein.com.

MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.

BE PART OF THE SHOW

— Donate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.

— Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

— Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.

— Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.

STAY CONNECTED

Twitter: @MFAwriterspod

Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast

Facebook: MFA Writers

Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com