Are MFA Programs Multi-Level Marketing Schemes? Leigh Stein Thinks So!
The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum
Meghan Daum
4.7 • 855 Ratings
🗓️ 29 November 2021
⏱️ 81 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Leigh Stein first came on the show in the summer of 2020 to talk about her novel, Self-Care, which spoofs corporate feminism and the cult of the girl boss. Now she's back to share her observations about the publishing industry and what she's learned as a book coach, independent editor and consultant for other writers. She thinks that authors (and aspiring authors) need to be realistic about building social media platforms and crafting a personal brand. She also has a pet theory that MFA writing programs are tantamount to multi-level marketing schemes in that they don't prepare students to actually publish books as much as teach them to teach writing to yet more writing students. In 2016 Leigh cofounded the feminist literary nonprofit Out of the Binders and organized BinderCon, a conference that brought in more than 2,000 attendees. She wrote about that experience in an article out this week in LitHub and spoke with Meghan about how she went broke while leading an organization designed to empower writers. Meghan also shared her own thoughts about the changing literary landscape and why she's not as excited about publishing her work as she used to be. A video version of this conversion is up on the podcast's YouTube Channel, The Unspeakable channel. Guest Bio: Leigh Stein is a writer interested in what the internet is doing to our identities, relationships, and politics. She is the author of five books, including the critically acclaimed satirical novel Self Care (Penguin, 2020) and the poetry collection What to Miss When (Soft Skull Press, 2021). She has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Allure, ELLE, and The Cut.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A lot of writers come to me and they say, like, I'm really uncomfortable on social media. |
| 0:07.4 | Do I have to be on it? And they want me to say, no, you don't have to be on it. But they do. |
| 0:13.3 | You do have to be on it because you're competing in the attention economy. We're all competing. |
| 0:18.2 | We're all competing for attention. And if you don't stand out, you're not going to get attention. |
| 0:24.2 | And this is especially true for nonfiction writers. |
| 0:26.7 | Novelists, fiction writers, if they write an incredible book and they have 240 followers, |
| 0:30.8 | like it'll be okay. |
| 0:31.6 | They could still sell that book. |
| 0:33.3 | But for nonfiction writers, we're competing with our ideas. |
| 0:37.3 | And so how do you get your ideas out there? |
| 0:38.9 | It's very fascinating to me that people, they have a fantasy of when their book comes out |
| 0:44.3 | and how their book will exist in the world and people will read it and Terry Gross will |
| 0:48.1 | want to interview them for an hour and it'll get reviewed in the New York Times. |
| 0:52.4 | But they don't want to share their ideas on the internet before the book comes out. And I just Times, but they don't want to share their ideas on the |
| 0:54.7 | internet before the book comes out. And I just feel like if you don't want to share your ideas, |
| 0:59.0 | what are you doing writing a book? Welcome to the unspeakable podcast. I'm your host, Megan |
| 1:07.4 | Dowm. My guest whose voice you just heard is author Lee Stein. Lee is a returning guest |
| 1:13.5 | to the show. She was the second guest ever on the show, and now she is the second returnee. |
| 1:20.1 | The other two-time guest was Katie Herzog. Lee came on in the summer of 2020 to talk about |
| 1:26.1 | her novel, self-care, which boosts corporate feminism and the cult of 2020 to talk about her novel self-care, which spoofs corporate feminism |
| 1:29.5 | and the cult of the girl boss. She's here today to talk about her observations about the |
| 1:34.8 | publishing industry and what she's learned as a book coach, independent editor, and consultant |
... |
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