My first question is whether this will be done with the MFA work of visual artists? Will every installation be photographed and scanned? Will paintings be photographed, scanned and added to a searchable database that anyone, anywhere can access? I have a feeling this is only being done to writers.

Of course, I think of my own thesis — mercifully destroyed, I hope — sitting somewhere in tropical Florida. I would not want that thing online for all to see.

The prose writers have a point. Allowing their work online may make it harder for them to sell their work. Iowa would allow two years before the thesis became available online, yet come on! We all know it often takes MUCH longer to have a novel accepted by a publisher. As for a book of poems? It could take a decade.

In the meantime, how many writers want to have their work-in-progress floating around for all to see? Just because the information is in a library — and we are forced to have our nascent work placed in the library — does not mean all need to see it. I highly doubt my work at Florida will do much but placate the oddly curious as opposed to contribute to any higher level of scholarship.

Here’s an excerpt from the Chronicle article:

Graduate students in the University of Iowa’s writing programs are up in arms. A new university procedure, they fear, will make their novels, plays, and other creative works–done as dissertations–freely available on the Web. That could undermine the commercial value and possibly embarrass the authors, they charge.

Some students, alumni, and professors in Iowa’s nonfiction-writing program, playwrights’ workshop, translation program, and the renowned writers’ workshop typically try to market their theses–­­in original or modified forms–to editors, agents, and publishers. If the manuscripts are already on the Web, no one will want to publish the works, the students say.

“It’s not the university’s place to throw out our writing to whoever wants to see it,” said Nicholas A. Kowalczyk, a third-year student in Iowa’s nonfiction-writing program, who is helping to organize student opposition to the new procedure. Graduate students in the University of Iowa’s writing programs are up in arms. A new university procedure, they fear, will make their novels, plays, and other creative works–done as dissertations–freely available on the Web. That could undermine the commercial value and possibly embarrass the authors, they charge.

What do you think? Are you outraged about this? Don’t care? Weigh in with your opinion below

I elected to attend a school in the DC area that did not provide funding to everyone. My friend went to that school a year of ahead of me, so I knew there was some animosity between the haves and the “nots.” Even though I did not receive funding to that school, I went ahead and attended for a few days.

What I noticed was that the classes seem disorganized and the classes were huge for grad school. My poetry workshop had 21 people in it.

I left after a few days and never felt bad about it. I won’t say the name of the school — it’ll be hard for you to guess — because they have new faculty and the program is completely different now.

I applied again the following year. In that year, I worked at a theatre and met a rather colorful and dramatic person. He told me about the University of Florida. If I’d not waited and applied a second time to MFA programs, I would not have learned about the one at Florida.

The University of Florida ended up being the perfect place for me. First, the geography is right up my alley. I like to be warm. I like how Florida smells. I like the tropics and green trees year round. I lived only a few hours from my grandmother and got to know her better. I like little interesting creatures such as lizards. Second, the classes were small. My entire year of poets contained only 4-5 people. The entire poetry workshop was only 10-12 people, which seemed much better than 21 to me. One other benefit is that Gainesville is an inexpensive place to live. That’s important when you have to live on very little money.

I moved into a tidy apartment complex with a swimming pool and spent my mornings writing. It was heaven. I taught, had funding and part of my tuition was paid. If I’d known I was allowed to have a part-time job at the time, I would have left with no debt. My second year, I worked part-time as a copywriter and ended up taking no loans. I was able to live on a small amount of money and end up “free” of the loans I took during my first year within a few years.

I met some of my favorite people at UF: Bill Beverly, John Poch, Dale Young, Geri Doran, Sidney Wade and William Logan. With a few of these people, I started 32 Poems.

For a lot of reasons, Florida offers a good program. I can’t say it’s good for you, yet I can say it’s worth researching if you want an MFA in creative writing.

He also points out that design has become one of the main differentiating factors among all of the products we see in Target, Walmart, Circuit City, etc. Any toaster you purchase is probably going to work extremely well. What will set it apart is the design, and good design is becoming vital.

Pink writes:

“For every percent of sales invested in product design, a company’s sales and profits rise by an average of 3 to 4 percent, according to research at the London Business School….other research has shown that the stocks of companies that place a heavy emphasis on design outperform the stocks of their less design-centric counterparts by a wide margin.”

Now that is certainly an interesting tidbit for anyone who invests in the stock market. I’ll be taking note of that when I next research stocks to buy.

However, it’s also interesting from an artistic viewpoint. What does this mean for artists?