If you are fresh out of an MFA program, you are most likely spending time searching for jobs, exploring career options, and discovering the different ways to earn money as a writer. In this installment of Life After the MFA, we dig into:

• career paths that a writing degree supports
• finding meaning in your career
• best practices for job applications

In Part Six of LATMFA, we explore supplemental funding for specific writing projects, such as grants, contests, and fellowships. But for right now, let’s stick to the conventional—and perhaps unconventional—nine-to-fives.

Starting Your Search

AWP offers a robust set of services for locating your next position in the Careers section of the AWP website. Check out our Job List as well as our Video Resources on Careers & Publishing, which tackle a variety of job hunt-related questions and concerns.

For a fantastic article that covers the breadth and depth of careers for writers, try "Making It Work: Writers Finding Careers" from AWP’s Writer's Notebook. In this article, Dave Essinger offers advice on how to find the perfect job for your skillset and what to do if your career begins to feel like a drain on your writing and ends with a great list of resources for your job search.

In episode 120 of the AWP Podcast series, “From MFA to JOB: Making a Living, Making a Difference,” writers Jen Benka, Kenny Kruse, Monica Prince, and Kenyatta Rogers discuss “alternative employment possibilities for writers while making a real difference for communities.” This panel ignites the imagination around the journey to those meaningful careers that allow MFA graduates to work within a community of writers and artists, cultivate and curate artistic experiences and opportunities, and make a living.

Perhaps there exists a significant gap between when you earned your BA and your MFA. Exiting the workforce to pursue a writing degree and then returning can pose some challenges for writers over thirty-five. In her essay “What’s an Older Job Seeker to Do?"—also published on AWP’s Writer's Notebook—Alyssa Colton offers some useful advice for those writers reentering the job market.

Publishing Jobs

A popular path for writers is to enter the world of publishing. Below are a few takes on jobs devoted to making and selling books.

In “Be a Literary Agent” from The Writer’s Notebook, John Coyne has collected thoughts from a variety of folks in the business on MFA grads becoming literary agents. He writes, “A career as a literary agent gives an MFA graduate or English major the opportunity to stay close to what he or she loves most in the world: books. But agents are more than just observers or negotiators. They are on the front line finding the writers that publishers will want to publish.”

Another podcast from our series, "The Other Track: MFAs in the Book Business," focuses on how writers become publishing professionals—editors, publicists, arts administrators, reviewers—and looks at the ways their degrees have shaped their careers and how they do their jobs. The conversation includes writers Caroline Casey, Jynne Martin, Leslie Shipman, Jeff Shotts, and Craig Teicher.

You might even try out acquisitions editing. In “Acquisitions Editing: Centurions at the Gate,” Susan Falcon delves into what exactly an acquisitions editor is, how it’s a career worth growing into, and how it provides another path in the book business aside from copyeditor or editorial assistant.

Seeking Less Conventional Opportunities

Of course, there are plenty of options for writers outside the world of publishing. Check out the following for some less traditional career options:

• A clear picture of travel writing from Suzanne Roberts: “I Want to Get Paid to Travel the World!”
• Christine Ro makes the case for second jobs in “Why Freelance Writers Love Working Part-Time for Nonprofits.”
• As Rachel Kessler notes, “F. Scott Fitzgerald did it, Salman Rushdie did it, Don DeLillo did it”: “Beef Jerky, Bras, and Car Parts: Writing for Advertising” offers us a window into the realities of the advertising world. Hint: it’s not at all like Mad Men, and Kessler argues that it helped her hone her writing practice through strict deadlines, word limits, and significant consideration of audience.
• And finally, an excellent presentation on careers for writers in the world of science and technology: Woody Lewis on "Making Your Living as a Technical Writer,” as part of the AWP Career Services Web Series on YouTube.

That’s plenty to get you started! Wishing you the very best of luck on your job search and the exciting opportunities ahead. Be sure to check out our next installment when you are ready to start seeking an agent.

Warm Wishes,

Your Membership Team