Hi Jessica,

WOW, I can relate SO MUCH to what you wrote here.

I was briefly engaged to someone who was the Director of a rather esteeemed MFA Program in Creative Writing and everything you wrote about this is completely and totally spot on: the egos, the epic costs, the complete and utter disregard for many students (he used to even make fun of some of them behind their backs to me, as well as the faculty that he worked with also)...in addition, I remember that there was a married professor in the program who had an affair with one of the students and she then became pregnant UGH, it was a mess.

I also remember the very misogynistic attitudes of many of the male professors, umm, *ahem* I mean, "writers" in the program who, when the female writer Cheryl Strayed visited did nothing but relentlessly put down her writing and I remember thinking to myself how ANY of them would have gladly exchanged places with her to have a NY Times best seller, which none of them did, btw.

To his credit, I do remember my ex sharing with me that he often felt like "a used car salesman" because every week he would phone prospective students who inquired about the program and try to "convince" them to enroll, etc...this is just my own personal experience of course, but A LOT of these elite academic types are full blown epic narcissists.

Thank you as always, for writing this :)