On the first day of class, the four good writers all made eye contact pretty much instantly and sat with each other. Then the rest of us were left on our own.
That was five years ago. Perhaps any one of us could have become a good writer if things had been a little different. Instead we all kind of glommed onto the other people like us and never escaped.
How did they know? How did they instantly recognize one another as good writers? Something in the way they dress? Something in the way their gaze is at once both close-up and personal, and far away to a horizon miles beyond the walls of our classroom? Something in the way their posture is very good, but not so perfectly good that they look dumb? Or the way the room falls silent before one of them speaks?
Julian's novel about Asian American EDM festival culture in California was published last year. Emina self-publishes her abstract pagen folk tale poetry collections and does three or more print runs on each volume. Amanda sold her unfinished novel about first-gen immigrant tech workers and it's coming out in a couple years. Guy is a professor already and always has a story in The New Yorker or something.
I got along ok with the four good writers. Once or twice a year I'd run into one of them in the library or somewhere and we'd talk for a couple minutes. Plus we had a bunch of indirect interactions during class discussions and stuff.
Four was the perfect number for them to be inseparable. Everyday they'd go to lunch at Amir's or Hamdel, where the largest tables had only four chairs. Meanwhile, the other seven of us were too big of a group to become close knit. We'd crowd around a table for six, an awkwardly sized group of acquaintances that only ever has one conversation at a time, with whoever's at the far end of the table pretending they can hear. Overall, in a group of four each person talks 25% of the time. In a group of seven you talk 14% of the time. Just harder to really know people, or really express yourself and open up.
I would pray for Julian to fall sick, or even for the snow to shut down the train so Amanda wouldn't be able to make it all the way from Astoria. Then the three of them remaining would pause on their way out, look around casually, and organically make eye contact with me: "Hey, you getting lunch today?"
At first I thought I had the best chance to be friends with Julian. He was from California too. But Julian is from the real California, he's actually from the cool parts people think about when you say "I'm from California." He's from LA. So he really did grow up with palm trees, beaches, and seeing like Sarah Michelle Gellar at the farmers market. I grew up in Ukiah. When I tell people I'm from Ukiah they sometimes think I said Ohio. And, I mean, Ohio is probably a fine place too.
I kind of like Ukiah. The redwoods are really beautiful. And there's some cool hippies who grow weed and stuff. That's about it. Not much going on for a kid growing up there. At least I read a lot of books growing up. And my parents got a fast internet connection when I was in high school so then I had plenty to do.
I remember the first time I tried talking to Julian about books. He loves Ben Lerner, and he loves Almost Transparent Blue. I was excited, since I love Ryu Murakami too. Murakami also wrote Audition, which was turned into one of my favorite horror movies. When she has the amputee guy who she keeps in a tied-up sack and feeds him her vomit out of a bowl, so perfect. Who thinks that stuff up? Awesome. I read the whole book in one night. Murakami is a genius. I love him. Scenes like that make me feel so inspired. I want to study, practice, and work hard until I can write something that makes people feel such vivid emotion.
After Audition I read all of Murakami's books, but I thought Almost Transparent Blue was a bit hard to follow. I mean, Murakami wrote it more than twenty years before Audition. Of course he wasn't that good at first and became a much better writer over time.
Julian wasn't really interested in my take on Murakami's bibliography. As soon as he realized a lot of Murakami's other books are horror I saw him lose interest. Julian says he likes Almost Transparent Blue because it's an allegory for the contemporary mass media nuclear age or something. His favorite scene was, like, when the drunk babbling conversation of strangers echoing off the concrete walls of an alley sounds like the chanting of a kamikaze soldier, and then the sound is drowned out by a TV set. I don't remember that part. Anyway, what's crazy to me is how could Julian's, like, second-favorite book of all time be Almost Transparent Blue but he never wanted to read anything else by the same author? Never felt so excited and thrilled that he couldn't wait to read more like that?
Everyone's different. Julian's got his own thing going on and that's good. He really is funny and cool and somehow chill and unpretentious despite always referencing the New Yorker reviews of books he hasn't read. I was surprised by how much I ended up liking him.
Julian's novel is really good. I haven't read the final draft yet, but he was working on it during the MFA and I think I read most of it. The characters are super vivid. And the dialogue is really great when they're just hanging out. I laughed out loud a few times. Julian said the characters aren't based on real people, but I wish they were. Those characters are so vivid that I kind of miss them and it would be cool to meet people like them. The end of his novel is really strong too. He wraps it up really nicely with kind of a profound feeling about second-gen immigration, music, art, and the brief joys of non-productivity in some kind of, like, fatalistic and anti-capitalist way.
It seemed like Julian got his book published very easily. A few publishers were interested before we even graduated, I think just from a couple introductions one of our professors made. I'm not sure if Julian has been working on anything else since then. I guess he made a decent amount of money from the book sale, and he was on a couple panels which he probably got paid for. He lives in a new building near the Morgan L train stop. It has a balcony. I'm not sure what his parents do.
The thing is I actually worry about Julian a bit. He really drinks a lot. Like, he doesn't have a full-time job to provide any structure, and on Instagram I see him hanging with friends getting wasted kind of every day. I hope that is working out for him.
I know exactly what I could do to be closer with Julian. I could read less sci-fi and horror. I could read The New Yorker more. Probably if I read the New Yorker fiction right away each week, and quickly read a book or other stories by that writer, Julian would be pretty impressed and interested to talk about it. And I could drink more, and go out with Julian so he's never the last one who wants to keep going. But that's expensive. And honestly just not as fun as reading at home, or playing Elder Scrolls and talking to old friends online.
Ultimately I like Julian but I don't want to be him.
We haven't talked in a couple years. Though Julian likes some of my pics on Instagram still. So that's cool.
Emina was the oldest of us. She's thirty-six now I think. And she had the most raw talent of anyone in our program. Instructors included. Every single thing she wrote was just so creative, imaginative and concise. Usually I think even great writers need to work hard to write something good. Even my favorites slip up and write garbage once in a while.
I don't mean Emina didn't work hard. She is devoted to her work. Her writing just seemed to flow out of her, a perfect extension of her nature. Emina is so obviously a writer. Compared to Julian's writing which is great, but you could hang out with that guy for an hour and think he might work at like a tech company or does like marketing analytics. Who knows.
Emina grew up in Sarajevo. Very cool accent. She doesn't talk that much, but when she does speak it's not shy at all she just says whatever it is and everyone pays a lot of attention. She moved to New York for the program without ever having been here before. Pretty much everyone else had been in NYC a year or longer before the program started.
I don't think I ever really did have one-on-one conversations with Emina. Emina was either always with the three of them, or I don't know, maybe reading in the library or something. I wonder if she mostly hung out in the art history library next to the big stained glass window, reading novels and poetry she brought from home. That would make sense to me.
During class discussions Emina always seemed to respect the books I read. Twice she even asked how I thought some poem or literary fiction we read compared to the broader landscape of contemporary fantasy writing. Emina wanted to know what types of tropes were new and innovative or pretty common in stuff I'd seen before. That made me feel good, even if she was the only person who took my response seriously.
Emina definitely loves poems more than anything else. And she reads some of the well-reviewed literary fantasy that I'm not too into. Her favorite authors are like Anne Carson and Marija-Jurić Zagorka. I tried to read Zagorka's stuff after Emina mentioned it in class, but it's not translated into English. I did watch a couple Kieslowski movies Emina recommended in class once too. I didn't totally understand those but I still liked them a lot. They were slow but not boring. In general Emina likes any writing in the tradition of mythology, folk tales or fairy tales, and especially anything kind of pagan. Once in class she made a big deal about the differences between "pagan" and "druidic." It was awesome. I didn't quite follow it, I should figure that out again.
None of this was a real connection between us. Everyone loved Emina, for how intense and deep and talented she was. Even if we both liked fantasy and mythology stuff, at the end of the day I know that I'm not special. That's the biggest difference between us, the biggest thing we don't have in common. Reading some of the same books doesn't matter. If we read totally different books, or if I didn't read at all and we had nothing else in common, it would be enough for us to have a chance at being friends if both of us were just special people.
These days I think Emina is living in Red Hook, and writes a lot of poetry. I bought a couple of her poetry books and really tried to like them. It's just not for me. Sadly they are kind of boring to me and I just don't really get it. Other than her poetry though, when Emina does write fiction it's really good, like really really good. But she doesn't seem to care about those stories at all. She wrote short stories a few times in class and was never interested in revising them or really finishing. Emina's fiction always captures something beautiful and sad and powerful about the world, and connects our daily life to something ancient and pure, in a patient non-judgemental way.
Amanda didn't like me that much. That's ok. Diversity is important.
I don't think Amanda noticed me particularly or had distaste for me specifically. I think she just didn't like anyone except maybe Julian, Emina and Guy.
If Emina was the most talented writer in our class, I think Amanda was the smartest. She knows so much about history, politics and the economy and stuff. I remember a pretty cool point she made about technology, that machine learning isn't the advanced part of technology since it's been around a while. The advanced part is the amount of data available for analysis, and this availability is enabled by hardware and software advancements of what sites we go on and big enough storage to save every tiny detail. I still think about that sometimes.
Amanda always called people out on any racist or sexist stuff in their writing. She would even say it to instructors or guest speakers. I thought that was pretty cool. I never would have said anything like that because maybe I wasn't sure. Or maybe I didn't even notice it and I'm glad Amanda brought it up.
It didn't help her make friends though. Amanda was so smart and never backed down from anything, I think she kind of intimidated people. I still see her in group pics on IG with Julian, Emina and Guy or other people. I can't tell who her close one-on-one friends are though.
Amanda reads a decent amount overall. Definitely more than Julian, and probably less than Guy. That's a pretty big range though, and I guess true for me too. I think she said her favorite author is Hwee Hwee Tan, who I haven't read yet. That was a few years ago. Maybe she has a new favorite writer.
Amanda's writing is definitely good. She mostly writes about first-generation tech workers from China, India and Eastern Europe. Their goals, families, hobbies, childhoods. Visa stuff. What their communities and friends are like, and contrasting to differences from second-gen cultures. She turned a few of the stories she wrote in our classes into the opening chapters of her novel. Last year it was purchased by a big publisher and they announced a release date a couple years from now. I definitely learned a lot from reading her stuff. Really good internal monologues.
I did wonder if it's weird that she's the one writing these stories. Amanda grew up in North Carolina and more than once has referenced her grandparents from Singapore. I guess not many H-1B visa software developers are writing their own novels. Not yet at least.
Even if Amanda didn't like me that much we'd still talk for a second if we saw each other around. Our longest conversation was probably when she read Three Body Problem and some Hao Jingfang short stories and Amanda was realizing sci-fi can be good. I like both those writers, but think they are super overrated. Like they are good, but when anything is the first sci-fi someone reads they get excited and think it's so creative and immersive and unique. And I'm like, yeah the entire genre does that.
I know that's not a conversation anyone cares about having though. I'm happy for Amanda to love whatever books she's reading. It doesn't matter if she thinks a 7/10 sci-fi author is a 9/10 sci-fi author. She hasn't read anything better yet. She hasn't had a chance to know. The important thing is for Amanda to just love something. It doesn't have to be the same exact books I love. She doesn't even have to like me. I just hope she has some friends she really does care about.
Guy probably liked me the most. I liked him too. I know we didn't have some special connection or anything, Guy is super friendly and likes everyone a lot. And he is excited about sci-fi and fantasy and stuff.
Guy made a really good first impression on me. Really friendly and really well read. But then he started making a not great like fifth impression on me. I started to think Guy was lying since he seemed to have read every single book I'd mention. It seemed impossible. Over time I realized Guy really does have detailed knowledge of every book we'd discuss, and really thoughtful nuanced interpretations. He wasn't lying at all. So his like tenth impression on me was amazing again.
Honestly I'm still confused how Guy has so much time. He has read everything, and was always by far the most prolific writer of any of us. He writes a lot of different stuff. Well, I guess he writes literary fiction, historical fiction, and poetry. So that's three styles, but still more than even Emina. And Guy writes stuff that's funny, or sad, or emotional. He has a wide range.
Now he's a professor himself, and has short stories published in a different magazine like every month. No book yet, but I'm sure it will be amazing.
Guy's favorite writers are David Foster Wallace, James Baldwin and Colson Whitehead. We both like NK Jemesin a ton too but I don't think she's that big of an influence on his writing.
One of the best moments in our friendship was when I told Guy I thought the new William Gibson wasn't that good, and Guy really trusted my opinion and decided not to read it. That's the closest I felt to him. Another time when I recommended Natsuo Kirino and Martha Wells was pretty good too. Guy read Out and Murderbot and loved them. I just got lucky with that one though. If I hadn't been the person to recommend those to Guy I'm sure he would have found them on his own pretty soon anyway.
Guy is one of the three people in the world who read my novel. It's set in the year 3121 on a hyper-urbanized Earth, and is all about the new organ-transplant economy. It annoys me when people always set their futuristic novel like fifty years in the future, then in real life it eventually is fifty years later and nothing's really changed. So I made sure to set mine a thousand years from now. I finished writing the first draft last year and emailed it to a few people. My two best friends from high school read it of course. And Guy did too. He had some really helpful feedback on structure and pacing, but it was kind of overwhelming. Maybe that piece is just doomed and can't be saved. Matt and Alex said they liked it, and they didn't have any feedback on stuff to change or improve. They also never really mentioned it again, so I guess they didn't like it that much.
Anyway that felt really nice, for Guy to care enough to read all seventy thousand words and give such insightful feedback. I just kinda know he would do the same for anyone. I don't doubt Guy likes me and appreciates me. I also know I'm not in Guy's like top hundred friends. When we are all on the colony transport and there's only one hundred oxygen cyclers left, I'm not gonna make it.
I hope Guy has best friends though. Of course he has friends, everyone loves him. But does he have real friends? If Guy doesn't waste hours on IG and Twitch, never plays Elder Scrolls for fifty hours in one two-day weekend, and uses his time so efficiently, then that might explain how he reads so much. But how does he read so much and write so much? And teach, and do panel talks and stuff? Maybe he doesn't spend a couple hours every day talking and messaging with friends, with people who care about him deeply, who know him and support him and love him no matter what.
At the end of the program we all went around and said what we learned and what our writing advice to our younger self would be. Basically everyone said some variation of "make it true." Make it true and it's funny. Make it true and it's beautiful. Make it true and it's real, or important, or matters, or makes you think. Sounds boring. What about make it fun? What about make the story fill up your whole mind, pushing out every random thought and distraction? Make something people actually want to read, something people want to read every moment of free time they have, something they'll stay up until 6am reading, and with characters they'll keep thinking about for days or weeks or years?
When I started the MFA program I thought maybe I'd become a successful writer. Have some books that really made a difference in people's lives. After that, maybe get a book optioned by Netflix and eventually get like a house upstate where I can really write all the time. And has a fast internet connection too. I don't know. I thought all of that would require an MFA.
Now I work at an artist management agency. I do logistics and operations for audience attention capacity. For example, when similar talent from our portfolio are doing events in the same city I make sure that their concerts aren't on the same night, and ideally not the same weekend or same month. I plan book tours once in a while. We have two popular authors on our roster, and a lot of ghostwritten autobiographies too.
I don't know what I want my life to be like now. I guess keep working here. My boss is pretty nice. None of my co-workers read books at all. At least they don't think the books I read are for kids I guess. At this rate I can pay off my student loans in about fifteen years which is pretty fast. After that, eventually maybe I'll retire one day. And in the meantime I'll read a lot. Play Elder Scrolls with Matt and Alex. Maybe finish my novel or start a new one. None of that requires an MFA.
So what did I learn in those two years? I saw what it would take to be a different person. Read the right books, like the right books, write more, write better, write beautiful pagan poetry instead of convoluted organ-transplant sci-fi, have more friends, drink more, give up my Elder Scrolls account.
Be born in a different body with a different brain and different joy and different love and different sorrow. Some of it I can't do and some of it I don't want to. I learned that I know what I like.