7 Things I’ve Learned So Far, by Erika Dreifus
Outside of personal experience, the best way to learn is to get advice from people who’ve been there and done that. Discover the seven things learned so far by author Erika Dreifus.
This is a recurring column called “7 Things I’ve Learned So Far,”where writers (this installment written by Erika Dreifus, author of QUIET AMERICANS) at any stage of their career can talk about writing advice and instruction as well as how they possibly got their book agent -- by sharing seven things they’ve learned along their writing journey that they wish they knew at the beginning.
Order a copy of Erika Dreifus's Quiet Americans: Stories today.
1. You should stock up on Forever stamps. Yes, it's true that more and more literary journals are taking submissions via e-mail and through online submissions managers. But for those who still request manuscripts via "snail mail," SASEs are still required. And given how much time can elapse between your submitting a story (or essay or batch of poems) and a journal returning a response, it's entirely possible that postal rates will increase in the interim. Stay safe. Use Forever stamps!
2. By itself, a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree itself is unlikely to net you a full-time, tenure-track teaching job in creative writing in a college or university. In most cases, you'll still need at least one published (preferably, traditionally-published, and critically-admired) book.
3. Your MFA thesis will not be your first published book—at least, not without some major revisions.
4. Not every story of yours that gets published will necessarily end up in your first collection. And that's OK.
5. Agents do not universally welcome short-story collections—especially if you don't have at least a partially-completed novel to submit to them as well.
6. The above notwithstanding, agents can make major contributions even if they don't take you on as a client. My own first collection, Quiet Americans, owes a great deal of whatever strengths it may possess to the especially generous editorial suggestions of agents Eric Simonoff and Julie Barer.
7. You don't need official permission to quote a line from a Nobel lecture as an epigraph to your book. But you will be charged a per word rate exponentially beyond anything you've ever earned when you seek permission to quote from a Nobel laureate's published fiction.
Erika Dreifus is the author of Quiet Americans: Stories (Last Light Studio, Jan. 2011), largely by the experiences of her paternal grandparents, German Jews who immigrated to the United States in the late 1930s. Erika is donating portions of the proceeds from sales to The Blue Card, which supports US-based survivors of Nazi persecution. See Erika's website here and her Twitter here.
