Transcript

Jared McCormack

Welcome to MFA Writers, the podcast where we talk to creative writing MFA students about their program, their process, and a piece they're working on. I'm your host, Jared McCormack. Today I’m with Wilson M. Sims. Wilson is a behavioral-health worker and policy strategist in the final year of his MFA program at Florida Atlantic University. His work is in Longreads, the Florida Review, Witness Magazine, and Virginia Quarterly Review. He is the winner of the 2022 Lascaux Prize in Creative Nonfiction, and his essay Unknown Costs, received a "special mention" in the 2025 Pushcart Anthology. Thanks for being here. I'm really excited to chat.

Wilson M. Sims

Yeah man me too.

Jared McCormack

So that piece you read from “Nothing to Nine and Back” which you mentioned is published in Virginia Quarterly Review—listeners can find it at vqronline dot org—I highly suggest people go find it and give the whole thing a read. It really is a really great, beautiful piece. I really love the way those little moments that you alluded to, those little moments in your life kind of become building blocks that slowly come together to form that bigger story with much bigger implications, which we get like a little preview of there in that excerpt. When I was reading it, it made me wonder about your writing process and how you decide which of these little moments to explore and put into this essay.

Wilson M. Sims

You know, the “what is your writing process” question, that's, um, folks who like to write. I think we really enjoy talking about it. I know I appreciate hearing how other people are approaching things. But I also think there's a risk of cementing or trapping myself into a certain process or procedure that might be limiting. So for example, I had ideas about what my writing process was before I got into the MFA. And then part of what the MFA has done is require me to engage with myriad forms of writing where I have found maybe, quote, my writing process isn't actually my writing process. It is a process at a particular time for a particular piece of writing.

Jared McCormack

Yeah. I do think that there is that risk of, I don't know, when you're learning creative writing, when you're getting into these MFAs and you're like learning all these new craft ideas, you're hearing from all these different writers about their processes, you can fall into that trap where you're like, okay, I just need to like figure out what my process is. And once I figure that out, then I'll just be able to follow those steps every time. And at the end of that process, there will be a publishable story. And that's not the way creative writing works. And I think that's partially why creative writing is so interesting and keeps us coming back is because no story is the same, right? The process for writing each story is different. And so for me, what I would say is part of my process is reminding myself that whatever that think your process is, it might not work for this story. So part of my process is kind of forcing myself to let go at the start when I'm drafting and just like allow myself to approach the story anew every time and allow the process to find me every time, which is easier said than done.

Wilson M. Sims

No, but I love that. I love that as a process answer. That my process always involves reminding myself that I may not have yet discovered the process for this piece. And I think part of what gets tricky or at least what I observed is there can be some, when you show up at an MFA program, there are a lot of folks who are really well-read in different areas. They have all sorts of experiences. Maybe some have had publishing success already. And as we approach this thing and we've put so much into it financially, maybe where we're living, opportunity costs, the jobs that we're not working because we're in school, not to mention just saying out loud by entering a program that is an announcement that I would like to take this thing sort of seriously. And so you take all of that investment and you add a little bit of insecurity. And I think something that I have seen is maybe students can try to grasp for some security or confidence in making declarative statements about their writing life. So for example, my process is, or I am a nonfiction writer, or I only write poetry. I'm a poet. And we try these labels on so that it's like, okay, am I real? Do I belong here? But as we repeat those in our minds, I think it can lead to the trap. It can lead to a process that doesn't include asking myself how the process might be this time.

Jared McCormack

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I guess it's natural, just as human beings, we want some sense of control. We want things to fall into a pattern. You know, if we start at A and we follow the steps in the process, it will lead to B.

Wilson M. Sims

It's so interesting that it's all absolutely true of craft. And it also seems to be true of so many of the stages of writing life, and by that I mean in the same way that I would like a blueprint. And there are some craft books that I do think offer some potentially helpful blueprints. Like, Matt Bell's Refuse to be Done comes to mind. I want a blueprint, though, for how to get into the MFA program that I want to get into. And then I want a blueprint for how to get my essays or stories published in the magazines or journals where I want them published. And then I want the blueprint for the agent and the answers and perhaps the questions much like craft is that it is so variable. Yeah. Right. And so how do we help each other? And I think that's what this, you know, will you tell me?

Jared McCormack

Well, I mean, the way that I approach craft, and this is not the way I've always approached it, but it is the way that I think about it now, having done all of these interviews with all these people who have different processes, who have stories they've written that have worked when they wrote it this way and didn't work when they wrote it this way. The way I think about it now is when I say, this is my process. What I'm really saying is this is a thing that worked for me once. Give it a shot. It may or may not work for you, but if it does, awesome. Maybe it'll work for one story for you, and maybe it won't work for others, but I'm always looking for a way to get that one story out, right? To make that one story work. So I think we do need to approach craft, or I would recommend that we approach craft discussions in a way that is not declarative, that's not saying, this is the way that I have found works. And if you do this, it'll work for you. It's really just like, here are a bunch of ideas that have worked for me at different points. And this worked for somebody else at different points. And this works for other people at different points. Give it a try. See what works for you at any given moment. But just like workshop, where you're getting lots of advice on your story, probably 90% of that stuff should be thrown out, right? There's probably only like 10% of it at most is gonna work for you and you have to learn to be comfortable with that too, to give things a try and also not try things because you just know, oh, that's not gonna work for me. I know myself enough at this point to know, oh, that thing's not gonna work for me. Glad it worked for you, but that's not gonna work for me.

Wilson M. Sims

I totally agree. And I think that if I could visit past self, man, if I could visit past self, that there'd be a lot of changing going on. But if I could visit past self just prior to the MFA, I think that. Because what you're talking about is almost like universe expansion. So instead of prescriptions for how to write or how to get into school or how to get an agent, what maybe what we're trying to do is become aware of the many possibilities or tools available to us to be exposed to methods or thoughts that we weren't before and then to treat them all as maybe this works sometimes. And the tricky bit, like you say, with workshop is that, well, first of all, I find the process of being a reader has been more constructive for my writing, and my experience with workshops. But then there have also been things that I heard in workshop, which were absolutely unhelpful for the piece that was being workshopped, but that did sort of plant a seed or play a part in a then later essay that the feedback giver has never read or even imagined.

Jared McCormack

Yeah, it's not an all or nothing thing. Yeah, that's really interesting that like the suggestions we get on one given piece, you know, you never know how they might influence you later, even if they don't help that piece. And that's, I mean, that's kind of what the MFA is all about, right? It's just like. For me, I just remember feeling inundated with new information. It's like I'm getting all these suggestions from my professors, all of these comments from my peers. I'm reading lots of stories in workshop. I'm reading stories for literary magazines, it's just a lot, kind of an onslaught of information that can feel overwhelming at times, but you never know how those things are seeping into your subconscious and coming out in various ways later once you kind of filter out the noise a little bit.

Wilson M. Sims

Absolutely. Absolutely. I don't know. So I'm not sure how representative this is. I know I'm not the only one. But my reason, so I came to writing late. I was 31 when I entered the MFA program. I'm 35 now. I took a creative writing class in college and really enjoyed it. It was an accident. I tried to leave. There was one of those miraculous professors and a great novelist, Judy Troy, who kind of tricked me into spending some time and I enjoyed it. But then, other than a little bit of blocking when I was traveling. I didn't write for years and years. And then I got through my own, yeah I'm a behavioral health worker and I got into that because I had my own crisis, years of it really. But I got exposed to some systemic issues. Unfortunately, it's a pretty typical American story, but there are systemic structures that don't allow for or support the success of some folks while allowing for the success and supporting other folks and witnessing all of this and personal experiences led me to feel like an obligation, like I need to figure out a way to expose, explain, share this tragedy, this thing that's going on with a lot of people. And so writing seemed like a possible way to do that. And so then I started writing. I knew that I wasn't able to do it well enough. And I don't like using words well enough for anyone else, but I'll use them for myself. One way I knew that I wasn't ready is that I sent an essay out to like 90 or 100 places and they all sent form rejections back. That was one way to find out that maybe I wasn't ready. So I was like, I Googled, how do I, okay, how do I get better at writing? And of course the MFA programs show up. But anyway, the way I entered the program was I had a book that I wanted to write, a particular sort of book. And I thought that the MFA was going to be about me writing that book. And what I compare this to is when I was in high school, I played lot of different sports, but like take basketball, for example, before basketball camp, I thought we would go to basketball camp and we would play a shit ton of basketball games then what you do at basketball camp is you like identify the hand that you dribble most poorly with and then you and then you spend hours doing this really this thing that is very difficult and you're not inherently good at uh and other drills right yeah you're introduced to concepts like concepts of basketball You're trying to develop skills. And there is actually very little playing basketball in like a five on five sort of setting. And it is or for me, at least that was less fun. You know, it was less fun than just playing. And the MFA I found is a bit more like developing skills, a bit more like being exposed to a whole bunch of different methods or strategies, being introduced to a ton of reading that you probably haven't been exposed to yet, things that may not be applicable to a project that you're working on in that moment. And now this, I know it's such a long answer to what you were talking about, but to tie it back together is that when you try to synthesize a ton of new skills and information, at least in my experience, it's a bit clunky. There was a moment in my second year when I had been drinking from that sort of fire hose that you mentioned, yeah for about a year and a half. And it's true, I had learned so much, but it was very technical. I wasn't very comfortable organically transitioning between projects. And it almost looked like I was a person trying to write, if that makes sense. This is a writer who's trying to write, and we can see it on the page. Unfortunately, these words on the page, they're almost incoherent. They're like, we don't know what's being said here. And that moment was really discouraging. You know, it can be challenging, I think.

Jared McCormack

So then what happened?

Wilson M. Sims

So then what happened haha

Jared McCormack

I mean, so yeah, so then you're in this moment where you've got all these things swimming around in your head that you know are useful that you know you need to apply in some way or you want to apply in some way but when you try to apply them it comes out clunky it comes out Like you can tell the writer is writing a story. It doesn't feel organic. How do you get past that hurdle? How do you get over it? Is that something you're still working through? Or is that something you feel like you've come out the other side of that?

Wilson M. Sims

So as with everything else, this is a just for me answer. But there's two things. One is that at some point during those 90 rejections that I received in that first essay, I had come into contact through a community workshop, a place called The Porch in Nashville, Tennessee. And they have online community workshops as well. It's something I suggest anyone interested in writing to check out. They're a fantastic organization. But I came to know someone who at that time I thought of as probably one of the most significant writers in the world. And in hindsight, that was someone who's probably about where I am now in my career, a couple of publications and starting to get a little bit of a handle on things, but still very much emerging. And I was explaining to her the devastation of these rejections, having to listen to an entire album by the national after every time. That was taking up a lot of time. My dog was becoming worried about me. And she said, I said, I just don't think I can do it. And she said, Well, then you're not a writer. And I don't think that I would say that to anyone ever. But I know that if someone tells me I'm not something, there is a part of me that will then dedicate every fucking thing I have to becoming that thing, right? So there's that, there's that. And this is about motivations. And I have a ton of motivations that are conflicting. I just pull them off the shelf as needed. Another thing is like Ann Lamott in Bird by Bird talks about folks who write to keep the dogs at bay. Okay, so I got into writing because the dogs were not at bay. I was depressed. I was addicted. My life was just falling apart. I was not interested in living very much longer. The dogs were not at bay at all. Writing, though I didn't come to it to heal, I did discover while doing it, it helps. It helps with something, some sort of release of pressure. And then a third thing is that these wrongs that I have witnessed, they have to be discussed. They have to be right. And so when everything, when I'm in year two and I can't write coherent sentences because I can't synthesize all the information I'm learning, well, there's no choice. It is to keep going. It is to, well, okay, we set the alarm, we sit down at the computer. We do not move from that computer until there are either a certain number of words there or until a certain amount of time has passed, whatever I needed that moment.

Jared McCormack

So when you were in that moment, did you find working on one particular story? Like if you had one particular story that wasn't working, were you just hammering that story, writing it, rewriting it, or were you like this isn't working, I'm gonna try something new. This isn't working, I'm gonna try something new. like I don't know, do you just keep moving forward or do you allow yourself to try different things and that's the way out of it for you?

Wilson M. Sims

Okay, yep, now that's a great question. And as indicated by my previous answer, I'm a bit psychotic and so what I would have done left to my own devices would be that I would continue to hammer whatever particular piece I was working on. I would continue to attempt to pile drive my way through the most direct course to a completed manuscript that I can then sell, et cetera, et cetera, right? And thank goodness the MFA didn't allow me to do that. So this, the piece that I read from, Nothing to Nine and Back, it was born during exactly this time when I can't figure out how to put sentences together. I had to take, and I say had to, yes, because like a petulant child, I resisted a lyric essay course. I thought, don't want to take a lyric essay course. I'm not writing a lyric book. I'm not going to be able to use this in the book. And so therefore it is a waste of time because I know both the future and what will be wanted by people and what I need to have done. Anyway, so I end up in this course. And through this course and another one, I'm exposed to Ann Carson's Autobiography of Red. And we read Eula Biss's The Balloonists, these sort of books with voices that I hadn't heard before and in a form that I hadn't seen before. And because of the MFA, I had to turn in something that was lyrical, right? And so I… I remember I was actually visiting family, I think over Thanksgiving, I think it was a fall semester, and I started with just putting some memories down. And what happened is I got caught in, I think, a voice that served the aim of the piece. And then the rest of the essay was language-driven. And it wouldn't have happened, none of it, if I had been self-directed, if I hadn't been part of a program that, you know, requires a bit of stretching, some discomfort. And I don't think it would have happened if I hadn't learned every single one of those confusing things I learned in the first year.

Jared McCormack

Well, let's talk about it a little bit. The MFA program at Florida Atlantic University, it's a three year fully funded program with tracks and fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry. Your first foray into publishing wasn't a cakewalk. It sounds like your application process for the MFA also was not a cakewalk. Tell us about that process, what it was like putting together those applications. And if you ever had any doubts during that process about whether you were doing the right thing.

Wilson M. Sims

Yeah. So I don't know if I would be, and I hope that I would be brave enough to talk about this, even if I hadn't accomplished some of my goals, but I'm not sure that I would be. um um I am so grateful to emerging writers who share transparently about their stories, including rejection. Here's an important takeaway from my application process. It's that I was rejected by almost everyone. I dedicated probably six months and folks who are beginning to investigate the application process, you understand that it is exacting and that each program will require slightly different documentation. takes a while to come to understand the jargon in the space. Every space has jargon and to come to learn what each program is actually offering and what things it that you should be looking for. And so it was very challenging. And then I had, and I'm sure so many others have, these significant questions about whether or not I'm delusional for thinking that I could say I do get in somewhere. Well, then what? Because these folks, they're talking about wanting me to teach. Well, I've spent the last six years in digital marketing. I've never taught anything before. i This is a true story. and don't Oh no, yeah, this is a true story. Once I had decided that I think I'm going to FAU, I understood that I would be teaching a couple of courses, English composition, possibly creative writing. I did an online test that was, I think it was just to identify the parts of speech, like noun. Do you know what a noun is? And edit at the end of this test, I failed. I failed like I couldn't diagram sentences. I don't know what the rules are. So there's this doubt, right? There's this doubt, this fear. And you add to that, complexity, which is all part of the application process, and then rejection. And I think it really does. It takes very special people to believe enough in themselves. Some quiet part of themselves must believe enough to push through all of that. Yeah, that's my true story.

Jared McCormack

You get through that grueling process. You do get into Florida Atlantic University. You go to FAU. What's it like going to campus for the first time with that doubt and also simultaneously that will to succeed no matter what?

Wilson M. Sims

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean. First of all, I think, you know, with me, there was a little bit of an age thing. A lot of my peers were fresh out of undergrad. so I felt a little bit like Billy Madison, who they wouldn't even know the reference. So I felt a little bit like that. And then these little tots, you know, they are so freaking smart. They read everything I've read and they've read quite a bit more and they have a handle on like contemporary, social language that was new to me coming from rural Tennessee where I worked at a nonprofit for uninsured men who had addiction issues and so that population and the language that we used there was quite a bit different than the language used in the MFA program. So it's super disorienting, right? But the gift of being a little bit of an old guy is like, well, okay, I don't care. I have a job to do right. It's important to me and I believe it's important to other people and because of my own recovery journey I'm very comfortable asking stupid questions, very comfortable not knowing maybe most importantly. I was asking for help from the beginning. I was in the office hours. I was going to teachers or faculty's readings and I was asking them for help. I was showing them what I had done and asking how I could be better.

Jared McCormack

Did you find that your classmates, your professors were receptive to those questions? Did you find you were getting the time that you hoped to get and the answers you were hoping to get?

Wilson M. Sims

Yeah. A little bit of a soapbox and may sound like I'm going to be a recruiter for a brief moment. And we'll get into a really even-handed analysis of FAU's program in particular, in case anyone's interested. But the faculty have been unbelievably generous. Their talent and accomplishment is well-documented. There are a number of them who are fantastic in their own fields, but one that I've connected with in particular, and I think this happens with students who are interested in it, is Papatia Bujak. She's actually a fiction writer, primarily, but her essays are fantastic. She's got a push card and an O. Henry, really accomplished. She is a writer. But she takes almost the profession and the cause of teaching incredibly seriously. And this is true of other faculty as well. They'll meet us wherever we are. So what that looks like is me receiving an email from faculty over the weekend where they haven't been able to help but think about something that I have written and ask them about, right? They are in their own personal life outside of office hours. And they're not even paid, in my opinion, adequately for the work that they do. But outside of all of that, they're thinking of me and my goals and my writing, characters on the page, craft thoughts for possible improvements. And it's a smaller program. And so that sort of thing is possible. And I have observed peers who like me are just, we are at the gates of these poor folks. We are, you know, know, yeah as like food and water outside of their office. And there are others who I think unfortunately, you know, they find themselves frustrated or wanting different results. But they aren't attempting to access this unbelievable resource, these really generous professionals. And it's a shame.

Jared McCormack

Well, another thing that stood out to me when I was poking around on FAU's website is that they also do this thing called the Lawrence Sanders Writer in Residence. So you have like your full-time faculty that are at FAU all the time, but then it sounds like maybe once a year, they have an outside writer who comes in for a week and hangs out on campus and you all get to spend some time with them. I'm curious to hear what that experience is like. And if it's been as cool as it sounds like it is.

Wilson M. Sims

Yeah, man, it's actually just as cool as it sounds. I'm so grateful to the Sanders Foundation for giving us that opportunity. The most recent, I mentioned Matt Bell. ah Matt Bell was here and that guy is just such a craft tactician. Very similar to the faculty at our own school that I just mentioned. He and I are still in communication. He's rooting for me and I'm rooting for him. But we've had folks like Paisley Rekdal and Tony Jensen, Jo Ann Beard, Eula Biss before my time. Mitchell S. Jackson is coming and I'm super excited about that. It is what it sounds like. It's as opposed to a reading where it's like you get to get your eyeballs on this person and it's like, okay, and they sign my book and that was so nice. With this Sanders opportunity, we get a week in a workshop with them. Essentially, they give us the goods, right? What are these folks doing? What have they done? And now none of it's prescriptive. It's just what's worked for them. But these are people who have had, who are prolific and have had a lot of success. And we get uninterrupted time with them to get into the nitty gritty of writing. I mean, things like things I didn't know existed, like, you know, like alliteration and whatnot syntax didn't know. Man, you should have been there. Yeah. If you could have been there in my first workshop. These sweethearts. I love my peers, but yeah, I didn't know about any of this stuff. I was telling someone about how growing up I used to tap my fingers, I would tap out syllables of words and try and end up on my thumbs.I don't know what this says about my mind, I'm sure clinicians have some ideas about what this means about my mind. Anyway, I didn't know any of these things. and In the Sanders workshop, you get to get into all of it from varying perspectives. It's like traveling, but you don't go anywhere they come to us. It's great.

Jared McCormack

Yeah. That's one person who comes each year for a week?

Wilson M. Sims

One person comes each year for a week. We do have readers, of course, like also. And something that they did that was really helpful, this might happen everywhere, but Janet Silver, a literary agent from Aevitus, like she's Cheryl Strayed's agent, came to campus and we were able to show her sort of where we were in our work. And gave us really helpful and authentic, like earnest feedback about what we were ready for, what the next steps may be. We have an author coming to campus this semester who's gonna talk about doing nonfiction writing proposals. And so you get exposed to a lot.

Jared McCormack

Well, you bring up the agent coming to campus. It reminds me of one thing I was curious to ask you about, because you have gotten an agent at this point. You have put together a nonfiction book proposal that you're going to be sending out soon. I bet that listeners are going to be interested to hear what that process was like, reaching out to agents, how you ended up with your agent, and what it's like putting together a book proposal that you're going to send out into the world.

Wilson M. Sims

You see me? I'm like, just talking about it my face starts to turn red and I get anxious because once the proposal goes out we at least have some you know you can make the proposal you have some there are things that I can do to affect the result there but then once it's once it's on submission it it will be totally out of my hands and know I don't know I think I'll find Jesus again maybe during that time or any actually any any got any deity I will take Okay, so here's something from when Janet Silver visited, she looked at some of the work I had done. And I knew that I wanted to write a nonfiction book, kind of like a little hybrid, kind of memoir, kind of reportage. I was under the impression, and this this was not just a guess, this is an impression based on earnest attempts to find out online what the proposal process looks like for someone trying to write the book I was writing. And based on what I saw, I thought that I was supposed to, much like fiction, write the whole manuscript and then pursue agents. Janet Silver, while she was visiting, said, you she's like, what are you doing? You should be sending these out to agents. And said, well, it's not finished yet. I don't have a full manuscript. She said, no, this sort of thing goes out on proposal. And so that's a pretty big deal, right? Instead of showing up at the full manuscript, the editors would likely want to change significantly. We're doing a proposal instead and might potentially be able to write this book with a little bit of financial support. I wouldn't have known that if it weren't for actually being able to communicate with an agent. And I wish I could offer specific best practices for everyone and their particular type of book, but my suggestion or recommendation is just that if you know of anyone who has an agent, as emerging writers, we have to ask for a lot of favors and it and feel like garbage, but it will hopefully one day present the opportunity to pay it back. And so it's time to ask those folks who have agents, if their agents could just let you know, like, hey, do I do a proposal now? Do I not do one now? And then the actual execution of the proposal, I think that varies from agent to agent. Jennifer Carlson, who is my agent, gave me options about how involved on the page or not on the page she could be. She prefers to get into things and I do really well with feedback. There was really one or two rounds of her looking at what I now see as a little bit of a mess. Her maybe finding ways to tell me it's a little bit of a mess. And, uh, and then, um, you know, I just applied that psychotic part of myself. I, um, there was about a month late in summer when I didn't do anything, um, other than my professional job and put together the proposal.

Jared McCormack

So when the agent came to campus and told you, Oh no, you're supposed to just put together a proposal and send that to agents, then you sent that out to agents and that's how you met your current agent.

Wilson M. Sims

Okay, yeah, so the first thing I did is I sent it to Janet Silver, the agent who visited. And she said, no, not for me. A girl's like, hey, you're really cute. you're like, oh, yeah, can I have your phone number? She's like, well, no, no. like No, look at me. Look at you. Look at me. Look at you. you know So, but I did know that it was time and she took it seriously and she had some good feedback for why it wasn't for her. And these things, you know, I so badly wish that it were, I told you earlier that good enough isn't, it's not a helpful term to use an application to writing and yet I use it in an application to my own writing. I wish that it were as simple as, quote, good enough to obtain the right agent or good enough to get published, but really what it's about is just giving yourself the most chances to get lucky. Because if you submit to, say you think, okay, there are these just four agents who I want really badly. There is a very solid chance that all four of those agents currently have a project in their pipeline that fills the market void that your project does too. And so their rejection would have nothing to do with the quality of your pros and everything to do with what is available market wise. So my approach was, well, it involves Excel sheets, a whole lot of organization, but most agents say they'll get back to you within four to six weeks. So then I set up tiers. First tier I think had 12 total agents and got really lucky and Jen was in this first tier. But I was prepared for a six month, perhaps a year-long process in which every four to six weeks I'd be sending out the query letter to another 10 to 12 potential agents.

Jared McCormack

Sounds like a fun process.

Wilson M. Sims

Yeah, it's awful.

Jared McCormack

Well, I mean, for you, getting a response from somebody in that first tier, obviously, must have been heartening, especially we've just been talking about those 90 rejections on your first essay. The many programs that rejected you, you've, in the meantime, put in all this hard work and then you send out for these agents and you get one of your first choices. I mean, that had to feel pretty good.

Wilson M. Sims

It felt super good. And it wouldn't have happened, you know, it would not have happened if there hadn't first been this little miracle where I won a small, but it's a good press, the Lascaux Review, I won a creative nonfiction contest. And I unfortunately believe having that first publication is part of what contributed to getting a second in the Florida Review, but then really like the agent is a product of long reads and witness your work is starting to get out and generating conversations on its own. But still, even given those successes, yes, it was hard. No, I'm not going to play it cool, Jared. When Jen was like, hey, you're it. Well, there's a couple of things there. The first thing is that you get to email all the other agents and to let them know that you have an offer in place. And this magic thing happens where all of the other agents who hadn't responded to me yet, well, they found my email address, right? And they wanted, and a couple set up meetings because it's just this one creates a ah ah sense of scarcity. And then you get an opportunity to have conversations with other agents when you're actually secure, which is an experience that I've only, that's the only time I felt that way in the writing journey. But it's not just when Jen said that she would be my agent, but it's when we got to spend an hour speaking and I understood her to be the perfect person and the person who's invested in this project. I mean, I went to the beach and I just stood looking at the ocean. I mean, we're talking, you know, seven years of, I was a rock bottom man. you don't get into mental health work. I mean, I was in a halfway house. I was on food stamps. I was estranged from family and friends. There was no future. There was no future. And then futures that I could not have conceived of, but nonetheless did dream of, were coming true. And it is something that I wish so deeply for everyone who's pursuing this thing. And look, and here's a promise, promise. The next step for me is to receive some more rejection. The next step is this thing goes out on submission and editors either because it's, quote, not good enough or because they're just working on a thing or for whatever reason, they're like, nah. And, you know, then we rely on our community, I guess, and trust that we have no option but to continue forward.

Jared McCormack

Yeah, and you've been through that rejection, so you know what it feels like and you understand. I mean, I think a big lesson to take away from what you're saying for listeners. I feel like this has been repeated a few times now in different ways. If you are rejected from anything in the writing world, it does not mean that you cannot do this. It does not mean that you are not good enough. Often it has very little to do with your writing. Sometimes it does and you got to keep working, but oftentimes it's these other myriad factors that just happen to be working against you or not lining up for you in that current moment.

Wilson M. Sims

I think that's 100% true. I think that it's really important to say also that the MFA is not requisite for achieving these goals. I think the MFA is, it's most helpful if understood accurately. And that's why I refer to that basketball example, the skills sort of, you know, it's like honing skills instead of playing basketball. And I think it's really important and helpful to be aware of the financial realities that are involved in entering into an MFA program, because fortunately, there are more and more ancillary or non-traditional methods for gaining a lot of the education and community that I've found in the MFA.

Jared McCormack

Well, let's talk about that financial stuff a bit because that's really important to listeners. FAU is a fully funded program. It sounds like all students teach in exchange for that funding. What's the teaching like at FAU? What kind of classes do you teach? How many? What's the funding like? All that information, I think, will be super useful to people.

Wilson M. Sims

An honest accounting, it is fully funded. However, the way that works is In exchange for teaching two courses, and this is two courses a semester, GTAs receive a stipend, and this is determined by the university, not the writing program or the English college. We receive a stipend of about $12,000 for teaching these two courses. At this moment in time, I think it's relevant to mention, Florida Atlantic University is in the state of Florida, and the governor of Florida is Ron DeSantis. And at present, he and his administration are very much not only attempting to silence and undermine the humanity of any queer folk or people of color. And this is a very active campaign they're carrying out across the state, but state universities are a vessel available to the administration to do exactly that. So receiving this stipend of $12,000 for the arts, for teaching the arts, it's a less significant stipend by a lot. would be received for a GTA who's teaching STEM science or math, etc. And so it's unlikely to change too much The writing college is always trying but it's unlikely to change in addition to the 12th a year You might get fellowships that bumped that up to about fifteen or eighteen thousand dollars a year however A recent Google search revealed that the cost of living in Boca Raton, which is where FAU is, is about $76,000. I'm not very good at math because I haven't taken a lot of Ron DeSantis' STEM courses, but you get to 18,000, that's a whole lot less than 76. The MFA program is designed to receive your full attention. So teaching two courses, you don't have an instructor who you are assisting, you are the instructor of the course. You receive a syllabus that you can amend on your own, but you're entirely responsible for scaffolding of the curriculum and the grading of the classes and you have office hours. And in addition to that, you're taking courses as a student. You may think or hope that you'll be doing writing, own writing, but that will become very challenging because it is very likely that you will need to have a source of income. Now, if you're someone who is fortunate enough to not be concerned with the financial realities of the MFA, then I would say FAU is a fantastic opportunity for an incredible faculty to student ratio where folks will help you achieve the goals that you aim to achieve. If that's not true of you, then coming to this program would require a part-time job or like in my case, I have maintained a full-time job. And what that looked like while I was a full-time MFA student was that I had no days off during the semester. And you may think like I did, well, I'm a worker, it's okay, I'll be fine. I'm telling you if you don't have a day off for four months, shit gets dark. Shit gets dark. And the alternative to that is being destitute. I mean, like calculus the grocery store situation.

Jared McCormack

Right. And so for you, what that meant was You actually went down to part time in the program. This is a three year program, but you're in your fourth year in the program. You saw what you needed to do. You knew you needed to work full time. And so you dropped down to part time in order to make both of them work. Tell us about that decision and also I think talk a little bit about advocating for yourself in a program and knowing what you need and being willing to ask for it or adapt your journey to make sure you get through this thing.

Wilson M. Sims

Yeah, those are both really important. So I did step down part time and it was quite literally life saving. It does come at a financial cost though. So you begin to teach less courses, right get a ah ah smaller stipend. And if you take less courses, then that affects the fellowships you receive. And so it means paying a little bit for some of the courses that I'm taking. Because I have been fortunate enough to maintain my full-time employment, I was able to do the math and decide it's worth the time to make that payment. But I just want folks to be aware of that. The advantages were numerous, but namely, I think it's important to consider something. And that is, what am I hurrying towards by finishing the MFA? What do I think will suddenly be possible once I've obtained that piece of paper that is not possible now? And for me, because my goal isn't to teach, my goal, again, is this book, right? So for me, the accomplishment of the degree doesn't actually change my life. It doesn't make more possibilities available to me. So I can afford to move more slowly And I have found that I enjoy the entire process much more. I get to keep a foot in this literary world, like a weekly visit to campus, teach one course, that sort of thing. But I'm not, I don't feel like crying every day all day while I'm just trying to survive.

Jared McCormack

That sounds like a better way to live.

Wilson M. Sims

Yeah. Yeah. It's been a lot better. I think everyone around me has also noticed some improvements.

Jared McCormack

Including your dog, right?

Wilson M. Sims

Yeah. Namely her. like When I say every time I refer to we are everyone around me, there's not a big, it's just this dog, but she's in charge.

Jared McCormack

Well, man, this has been an awesome conversation. I could keep talking to you, but you sound like a busy man and I don't want to take out too much more of your time. So last question, I ask every guess. What is one way in which the MFA experience has been different for better or for worse from your expectations when applying?

Wilson M. Sims

I think we addressed some of this initially, but in my life, there have been about a million times where me not getting what I wanted was good. And what I wanted was three years in which I could dedicate my life to writing a book. And that is not what the MFA proved to be. It proved to be an education and craft. And now, and for the rest of my career, I get to use the foundation provided to me and the community by FAU in application of writing that book and maybe some others, we'll see.

Jared McCormack

Well, I can't wait to read whatever it is you put out next. Hopefully that nonfiction book that you're going to be sending out. I'm looking forward to seeing that on a shelf one day. And again, I think listeners should go to VQR online and read that whole essay that you read an excerpt from earlier. It really is a beautiful, beautiful essay. And it does give you a better sense of some of these things we've been talking about. So I highly suggest going to read that. Wilson, thank you so much, man. It's been so great meeting you.

Wilson M. Sims

Thank you, Jared. This was fantastic.

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