The Money Episode

Description: Four creative writing MFA candidates talk loans, fees, part time jobs, budgeting, and what your stipend actually covers.

This episode was recorded pre-COVID.

At 12:15, Bessie talks about a US policy change. Here is information about the Public Charge Rule and how it applies to certain people: USCIS Announces Public Charge Rule Implementation Following Supreme Court Stay of Nationwide Injunctions

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @MFAnglePodcast

A full transcript of this episode is available at mfanglepodcast.com.

Host and Contributors:

Mirna Palacio Ornelas (@olot_o)

Honora Ankong (@yungwestafricanpoet)

Bessie Flores Zalvídar (@BessieFlores)

Shaina Jones (@ShainaPhenix)

Sarah Boudreau is MFAngle's producer.

Special thanks to Tierney Bailey for her transcription help.

MFAngle is shared under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license.

Transcript

[Jingle]

MIRNA: Hello, hello, and welcome to MFAngle. We’re poetry and fiction candidates at an MFA program, and today we’ll be talking about—

SHAINA: —that sweet, sweet cash.

MIRNA: Hey, my name is Mirna, things are tight on these stipends, but I’ve still managed to get a tattoo on my arm that reads “God has forsnaken me.”

SHAINA: With a snake on it. I’m Shaina “Does She Even Go Here” Jones, and I’m from Harlem.

HONORA: “She doesn’t even go here!”

[LAUGHTER]

I’m Honora, and I need a little baby that’s gon’ swipe them Visas!

[LAUGHTER]

BESSIE: Alright, I’m Bessie and I’m resigning from this podcast. I’ll send you my address for the checks.

HONORA: The checks? I ain’t know we was getting paid. If we was getting paid, I’d have come on time.

[LAUGHTER]

MIRNA: So, funding’s a weird little thing, and everyone does it a little differently. We’ve got some fully-funded places, some not funded, some partially funded. I know in certain programs you can negotiate what your stipend is, but that doesn’t happen everywhere. And we’re funded evenly here. And Shaina, you and I were both in other programs before this, but yours was a very different program. Mine was fully-funded, and yours was?

SHAINA: It was partially funded. So, basically, the program that I was in before was a larger program, and what they did was, like, they would give you a certain amount of aid, and the rest you would need to take out in loans. And what they did that was kind of cool but not cool enough for people to actually sustain was that they would do a scholarship match. So, I got into another program, and they were like, “If you bring your letter of acceptance and your funding, then we’ll match whatever they’re giving you.”

MIRNA: Okay.

SHAINA: But that program was also expensive, so the match didn’t put me where I needed to be.

MIRNA: My previous program was technically still fully-funded. I found out after my first year that not everybody was funded equally. I found out that some people had got tuition waivers, some people had gotten fees waived, which not all of us did. And the funny thing is, I only found out about it by accident, we never found out about it because it was done in a preliminary way where, when you applied to the program, you were automatically taken into account, and if you didn’t get that scholarship, either the tuition or the fees waived, you didn’t know that that was on the available to begin with so you couldn’t really, like, compete for it, or even try for it. It was something that I think it was the department—it was up to them.

SHAINA: So did they market it as a fully-funded program?

MIRNA: Mmhm.

SHAINA: But it was just like, you pick and choose who gets what kind of funding?

MIRNA: You pick and choose who gets, like, tuition waived. Because we didn’t--we had to pay tuition, which is like $2,000, I think? Which is still a good chunk, but some people were just automatically given that, and because we didn’t communicate, we didn’t know who got it, or we didn’t know that some people didn’t have to pay what other people had to, and then once we found out, it became this even more competitive, even more, like, imbalanced power between a cohort. And it got, it got, not necessarily aggressive, but it got—

SHAINA: That’s messy.

BESSIE: Yeah.

MIRNA: It’s messy!

BESSIE: Yeah, there’s programs that’s like that, where you compete and every year you get a different kind of funding.

MIRNA: I also found out that there’s like discretionary funds, quote unquote?

SHAINA: This is a mess.

MIRNA: Someone I knew was thinking about leaving the program, but then apparently they were given a bigger stipend to be convinced to stay.

BESSIE: We should try that.

HONORA: That’s ghetto, I’m sorry.

MIRNA: I think that here they’re really good about keeping us equal.

BESSIE: That we know.

MIRNA: That we know.

HONORA: My stipend is… $10,000 a month.

MIRNA: Ma’am!

BESSIE: Everyone pull out your bank account… [LAUGHTER] Speaking about money and tuition waivers, obviously I cannot speak for all international students because I was already in the country when I applied to MFA programs, but the thing that was most important to me, especially being in a fully-funded program, was if you want to study in the United States, you have to prove that you have the funds to pay what they want you to pay. So, for instance, when I applied to this program, I needed to prove that I had the money, which was easy because I got a tuition waiver, and I was going to receive a stipend, and supposedly nothing was going to come from me or my family. When I applied to undergrad four years ago, what I had to pay a year, I had to come to the American embassy with a bank statement showing that I had $10,000 in my bank account, right now, not that I would work through them, not that I had some of it, but that I had it so that a visa could be approved and I could come to the States. So if you’re applying as an international student, you need to be sure that whatever they’re going to ask you for, you need to have at your disposal. And it’s better if they’re not asking you for anything.

MIRNA: Yeah, because that’s where it gets dicey with the fully-funded—in our case, we’re getting about $20,000? I want to say? For the two semesters we’re in school, that’s not counting the summer. We’re getting our tuition waived, but we’re getting grad school fees. So, our student fees here are $3,000.

BESSIE: And our program gives us the option to have it deducted from our salary rather than us paying it out of pocket.

MIRNA: But can we talk about these student fees real quick? Because even if you’re fully funded, these fees will come out—it’s either tuition or these fees. I have yet to see a program that covers both of them where you don’t have to pay.

SHAINA: Because that would be fully funded.

MIRNA: That would be actually fully funded, right? But these student fees that we have here are like, for the gyms, for the pools, for shit we actually use like libraries—which is great.

HONORA: Never been to the gym.

[crosstalk]

MIRNA: I don’t even know where it is! Do you know we have pools? So here, we’re getting funded the $20,000 per year, not counting the summer, and then from that we’re getting $3,000 pulled out for fees. So, even fully funded—and I think, I’m pretty sure our program is one of the better paying ones—

BESSIE: It definitely is.

MIRNA: Right? But: how well are we being paid after all?

BESSIE: I mean, this taps into the bigger conversation of graduate students being underpaid everywhere. So, speaking of those fees, those fees go down if you’re an in-state student, right? They change, they vary depending on what kind of student you are. What I gather from the emails is that if you’re an American student who is not a Virginia student, you can apply to become one in one year.

MIRNA: If we get a driver’s licence or prove proof of residency in state, we can get our in-state license or in-state ID, and that means we’re residents, which means we get that in-state tuition.

BESSIE: So, the fees go down, how much do they go down?

MIRNA: They come down, I think it’s about $500.

BESSIE: $500 isn’t even that much, but if you’re not an American citizen, those fees will never go down, you will never pay in-state tuition, you will always pay out of state because you’re out of state. So, that’s another thing in which, as an international student, you’ll be paying more always.

MIRNA: So, with all these fees, we need to talk about student loans.

SHAINA: Dun dun dun.

BESSIE: Don’t know them; take over!

MIRNA: I’ll be honest, I can do this. I’m currently taking out student loans, which, by the way, as you try to apply for an MFA program, sometimes your mentors will be like, “Go to a fully funded one so you won’t have to pay.” They missed out on the, hey, you still have to make ends meet. So, I’m taking out loans. I have been my entire grad life just to make ends meet. Rent. Insurance. Whatever it is. And I’ve kind of come to be okay with the fact that I’m going to die in debt.

SHAINA: Wow.

MIRNA: Because there isn’t much else I can do.

HONORA: When you put it like that!

MIRNA: Well, I mean, think about it! Because what can we do, we’re doing our coursework, we’re teaching, we have very few time to ourselves in which we are supposed to be writing our own poetry for our careers, in which we are—

BESSIE: And fiction.

MIRNA: And fiction. And in which we are trying to grade our students’ work or prepare for lesson plans or whatever it may be, so we don’t have a lot of spare time, and in that spare time, what possible job can we get? It’s like… retail, which is $8 an hour.

SHAINA: And hard.

MIRNA: And hard!

HONORA: It drains your soul.

MIRNA: And draining! It’s not feasible. It just isn’t. And that’s why I’m taking out loans.

SHAINA: I mean, same. In my other program, I took out loans just to meet the tuition, so I also had to work. So, like, trying to work… took out the max graduate loans and then I was teaching part time, teaching theater to middle school girls, and it was hard because I was like, I don’t know when to write because I’m working, because I’m planning, because I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off. And I also think I had that not like, well, well I guess it’s a little naive, that idea that like, all I need to do is get out of that program to a fully-funded program. And then I get to a fully-funded program and I’m like, oh, but I got a car note, and I got rent. Oh, life still happens. So you end up messing with those loans. But I think that at least here, and I think what I would tell people to be thinking about as they look into programs is, at least you can put the loans to use in a way that will help you try and sustain in a fully funded program. Whereas if you’re using your loans towards your tuition and you still have way more worries outside of that, about getting money and having money.

HONORA: I tried to not take out loans. So my first semester, I was like I'm going to do this thing. No loans and boy, oh boy, when I tell you I was like literally scraping by and it put me in such a deep depression because I was constantly worried about money, like constantly worried. Worried about money. And I'm beating myself up for like, like the littlest thing. If I got coffee, I would like, want to die because I got coffee today. Everything seemed like a luxury. So when I was coming into my second semester, I was like, you know, something has to change and I, I work, I work all my breaks. I worked over the summer. I worked over winter break. I'm working retail, so barely make any kind of money. So, it doesn't really... it doesn't do anything for me. So I'm like, I need a like... I needed something more and more support and I, you know, trying to do this on my own without my family because they don't, they really don't have to give me. So yeah. So I really... Taking out loans became a way for me to, you know, take a little burden off of me, like, you know, I feel I could breathe a little bit. It’s still… money, the loans that you get are still not that much money, so it’s not like all your problems are gonna be solved.

MIRNA: Oh, god, no.

SHAINA: Oh, no, no.

HONORA: Because two days later, you’re gonna be like, “um, I’m back to where i was,” it most definitely helps a lot to take out some help. Like, don't be scared. There's a lot of stigma around loans. Don't be scared to get the help you need because you have to get through this program.

MIRNA: You have to at least get through the day-to-day, which is where it crunches you. You know. You beat yourself up for coffee. or you buy groceries and you don't get a chance to cook necessarily during the week,

SHAINA AND HONORA: Oh yeah.

MIRNA: And you come in on the weekend. And you see that like all your produce has gone to shit. That's, like, money you’ve lost, right?

SHAINA: Yeah, i’m gonna cry.

HONORA: The carrots, the baby carrots. [LAUGHTER] Throwing out the whole bag and buying a new bag.

SHAINA: It’s the cucumbers for me

HONORA: I stopped buying cucumbers. I mean…

BESSIE: Yeah. I mean, let me—let me acknowledge that taking out loans won't solve your problems. And also that when, when you're not an American citizen, you cannot take out loans. It is that simple, especially student loans. You can take out a special international student loan that works very different from the Federals that Americans can get. And this is where I need to do a big PSA, which is that this past January, there was a law that was passed by the present administration, by the Trump administration, which says that if you as an international student, if you as a non-American resident, receive any kind of state help of federal help, you immediately disqualify to ever become a permanent American resident. What does that mean? Take out any sort of like, food stamps. You can not stay in this country forever. Get hurt, go to the hospital and pay your bill through state help. You cannot stay in this country forever. So, and like, this, I only know about this because this university emailed me about it. I did not know. I wouldn't know any other way. So this is information that you need to have as someone if you are planning to stay in this country longer than for the duration of your student visa. Don't take out loans or take out loans and know what the consequences of that will be.

SHIANA: That’s fucked up.

MIRNA: That’s a much more serious consequence than we could possibly have.

HONORA: Yeah

BESSIE: So, on that happy note. [LAUGHTER]

MIRNA: That got dark.

[LAUGHTER]

SHAINA: Do ya’ll know that... is 40 thousand dollars?

MIRNA: What? Okay. Hold on. Hold on.

SHAINA: A year.

MIRNA: Say this again, into the mic and as smoothly as possible, for me.

SHAINA: Do ya’ll know that [redacted] cost $40 thousand a year for grad school.

MIRNA: This is horrifying.

SHAINA: Yeah.

BESSIE: And that's partially like they're already giving you some funding in that?

SHAINA: That's the partially. Like this where it was partially. They gave me like 14 thousand and I had to make up the rest in loans. So, for one year, I took out max.

BESSIE: for one year?

SHAINA: Yeah. For one year. Each semester is like 20-something.

MIRNA: Did you get—did the loans even give you enough to cover the whole thing?

SHAINA: No, it literally, like I had just made it. I don't know how. Oh, I actually took out a grad plus loan on top of it. That’s how I made it.

MIRNA: Oh shit.

SHAINA: Yeah. Yeah.

HONORA: Jesus.

MIRNA: Holy fuck!

SHAINA: And they were like “why are you so… why is everything crashing down around you?”

MIRNA: “Why are you always depressed?”

SHAINA: I’m like, I just went, I just left undergrad with $20 thousand in loans. And I’m like I could pay that in two years, I'll be fine. Like, working, you know, working in [redacted] and I had 20 more. Just like that.

MIRNA: In a single year?

SHAINA: Yeah.

BESSIE: Okay. So how do you budget on a stipend?

SHAINA: Lol.

HONORA: You don’t.

BESSIE: You don’t?

HONORA: You can just swipe your card and pray. [LAUGHTER]

SHAINA: Every time. [LAUGHTER] Wow, that’s it.

MIRNA: I've been thinking about food a lot lately because it only just a little bit ago says I'm about like, your produce going bad. That's honestly one of my biggest worries when it comes to budgeting. Just because rent I'm like, okay, I can set aside the money. I can kinda like get that because that's also pretty regularly going. And it's a set amount. Same both insurance, any other kind of payments that I have to make. But groceries is where I feel like I make myself feel the worst. Right. Because I'm like, okay, I want to eat relatively normally. I want to make sure I'm taking care of myself, make sure I don't get fucking scurvy. [GIGGLES] I gotta eat some fruits, vegetables, all that good stuff. But then I buy my groceries. And then the entire week I'm fucking gone because I'm in class or I'm teaching, or I'm running around for projects, right? I don't get time to make the food. I come back, I'm like, okay, I have this food. I'm going to make it, I'm going to treat myself, this is gonna be great. Open the fucking door in the fridge. And, it's already bad. And that's just money wasted. [AGREEMENTS] And the food is where it gets me because I also don't want to eat all the time because that's where it gets you in a different way. I feel like maybe I'm also just like hungry all the time,

HONORA: We all are. [LAUGHTER]

MIRNA: But that's my biggest concern when it comes to a budget.

SHAINA: I mean, I feel like I don't, I don't know about this like this budget we’re all talking about. I really try, like, I have my little planner and I, like, do my handwritten budget, but I feel like it's... I don't know if it counts as a budget. I think I just like, go every 15 days and I like, write down everything I need to pay and I highlight if it got paid or not. And how I need to like…

MIRNA: That is budgeting!

SHAINA: That’s budgeting?

MIRNA: Yeah!

SHAINA: Oh okay!

BESSIE: You’re doing it!

SHAINA: So I budget in 15-day increments, then. Then I go for, like, what bills are due and then I look at what wiggle room I have and I kinda, like, work with that. To the topic of food. Like, I come from a four-kid household with a single black mother who worked full-time. And so we used to shop at, like, at a $800 shop and everything went in the freezer. And even though I live by myself, I shop like that. So, I'll do like for me it's like $250 and I buy as much as I can and I freeze as much as I can. So, like, I buy meat in bulk. I break it down into, like, small things, freeze it. So I have... I don't grocery shop often, like, when I do do like in-the-middle grocery shopping, it's like $20 here, $50 here, because the base of everything that I need is already stocked and ready to go. If the apocalypse hits, come to my home.

MIRNA: I’m coming over.

SHAINA: I have everything.

MIRNA: I am doing that though.

SHAINA: Yeah.

MIRNA: Frozen. Frozen shit.

SHAINA: Yes.

MIRNA: Like I'll take what I have, like meats, split them up in, like, Ziplock baggies or whatever, right, and then go ahead and do that. I'm, like, buying frozen veggies, now.

SHAINA: You can even freeze your vegetables. Wow, this is not a podcast about freezing your vegetables.

HONORA: I learned from Shaina, freeze your bread.

MIRNA: This is important!

HONORA AND SHAINA: Freeze your bread!

SHAINA: I freeze my bread and take two out and put it in the toaster every time I need it. It lasts for mad long that way.

MRINA: I'm having to do, like, frozen stuff, which is not necessarily bad. It has its own merits, but you have to work around it.

BESSIE: I'm mad quiet because I don't cook. I just wait for Shaina and Honora to—[LAUGHTER].

SHAINA: I think—so the wrap-up here, of budgeting on a stipend: I think you have to be realistic and know that you're not going to always have it figured out. I think that that is the biggest thing that I had to, really, just kind of sit with. I was like: Oh, I need to have all the bills paid in the right time. And like of course, right? You want to have that luxury. But also on $20 thousand for nine months, that may not happen. And so, like, making sure that like you have—I like, also rank bills or things I need to pay from like high importance, medium importance, low importance.

MIRNA: Like this one can wait a little bit.

SHAINA: And so some things I like call and be like: Hey, extend this until I can get whatever together. My rent and my car are the things I usually pay first and everything else kinda comes after. Also. Know like I think I think is big. I'm like we're talking about food but shop like as if you're not gonna shop for a few months. So that even when you're in a bad spot or like things are kinda getting low, you know that you have a roof over your head and you got food. Because that is like the basics that you need in order to, like, be a living, breathing human in one of these programs? [AGREEMENT] You need to be sleeping and eating.

MIRNA: Yeah, that's definitely what I immediately take care of. [AGREEMENT] Rent, car, whatever insurance and extra bits that are absolutely necessary. And then from there on,

BESSIE: And I love that Shaina calls the fact that you have everything paid a luxury because it is a luxury, [AGREEMENT] We tend to think of having all of our bills paid like our obligation and like, of course, to some extent it is. And also there's a lot of privilege and that it is a luxury to have everything paid.

HONORA: And, like forgive yourself. I think I have a lot of guilt around money that just comes with being poor for so long.

SHAINA: Yeah, I was about to say that.

HONORA: So know that you can’t be perfect because when I got here and I'm like, oh, I’m making 20 thousand a year. My mom was like, you better be saving half of that because…

MIRNA: That’s not how it works, mom!

HONORA: Because we’ve been poor for so long. So any money looks like a lot of money. [AGREEMENT] Like that's not the reality. I'm barely making it too. Like sometimes, I try not to once in a while, you don't have to call home. I be like ya’ll, hook me up real quick, you know. So yeah, ask for help. Forgive yourself.

SHAINA: Shout out to my grandmother. She always sends me money!

[AWWW]

HONORA: Yeah, I forgive yourself. It will be okay. I always tell myself, “you didn’t die the last time you were broke, you’re not gonna die this time.” [AGREEMENT]. We move.

SHAINA: You’re about to make me shout in here

MIRNA: Going back to this. This is only for nine months of the year. We have the summers. What do you guys do during the summers?

SHAINA: I feel like I apply for retreats, fellowship, teaching opportunities, literally anything. get really creative. I feel like that is where my mind has been, where I'm just like, I'm going to Google every retreat out there, especially when they're like We give a stipend for this much and here are the things that are expected of you. There are also a lot of teaching positions where like high-school, older level high-school students go to college campuses and they need teachers. [AGREEMENT] these, like summer programs and they pay pretty well, you know, rapport. But like try to save, especially if you take out loans. Like what I did was save. I put some rent money away from my loans for over the summer.

MIRNA: me too!

SHAINA: So that especially if I'm moving around or if I'm somewhere else working or doing, like a fellowship at a school or somethin. I can at least know that like my rent is going to be paid [AGREEMENT] and I can work with whatever else I'm making outside of that. But yeah, apply to things, especially if you know that you're not going to get paid over the summer, which should probably start happening like in winter. You should know what you're looking at for the summer.

MIRNA: Like right now, I'm looking into applying for like, even just like retail and stuff because I have to do a lot of things at home this summer. So I’m just like retail and like people are hiring in the garden nursery and I’m like I will be there. I will be that Mexican kid. [LAUGHTER]

HONORA: I cannot.

MIRNA: I will be there. Like you want me to work like a fucking Ulta, fucking Sears. Wait, do we still have Sears in town? No. Regardless, I'm applying to everything like pull up that Indeed.com, look for everything within driving distance, reasonable driving distance and just apply. like I think I have four versions of my resume right now, that I've just been like, copy and pasting

SHAINA: I have a server one, I have a retail one.

MIRNA: Yep.

SHAINA: Have a teacher one.

MRINA: I have, like, my professional one..

SHAINA: Yep

MIRNA: The teacher one, and then the retail one. Yeah. [AGREEMENT] What about you guys?

BESSIE: Can’t relate. So you can’t work out outside the university. If you are not an American citizen, if you work outside of the university, you will get deported. I mean, that's probably what will happen. It's illegal. You can only work 20 hours per week for the university unless you have a contract. So I don't know, go home, work at your country.

MIRNA: Yeah. I've talked to a couple of other international students that have worked over the summer here in the US. And they have to get explicit permission from the school to then let that other party potentially hire.

BESSIE: Well, and it isn't even like that simple because if you're doing that than those hours are going to come off your OTP, which is your-- you get, after you graduate from an American college you get one year to stay in the country and work for something that has to do somehow with your major. Like it can't be some random job. It has to have something to do with what you study. So if you're working during the summer for someone, those hours, they're not like free hours. they’re going to come off your year and how long you can be here after. So yeah, so it's impossible really like you still have to pay rent, like everyone else, but you can't work for that money. So what do you do? I don't know. I'm going home because at least I don't have to pay for food there, but I still have to pay my rent. And what are my options as far as finding a job that will have me for just three months? None, so save. Yeah, that's pretty much it.

HONORA: So yeah, I saved. I literally took out a loan. I saved almost all of it so I could pay my rent for over the summer. And I've worked at Walmart every summer since I was in college. I don't know if I can do it anymore. I think. Yeah, I think I'm done. Sorry to Walmart. [LAUGHTER]

MIRNA: But also not really sorry because they exploit their workers… [AGREEMENT]

HONORA: Yes, but I am going to work so I applied like, to work at a writing center. I'm going to apply to some other places and yeah, I'm going to be working all summer. I mean, that’s just always been the reality for me. Just to work somewhere makes some money. At least I know that I have money towards my rent. So no matter what happens, at least I have a roof. But yeah, the thing about summer is, a new semester is starting. At the beginning of a new semester, there’s so many expenses. So just also thinking about yeah, like, you know, I'm going to come back, I'm going to have to really get my life together before the semester starts and I need all of these things in. So yeah, there’s that too. I mean, it sounds really bleak.

BESSIE: Because it is.

MIRNA: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] this was a dark fucking episode.

BESSIE: So what can your school do for you. So here at our program, we get $1000 a year to travel. They suggest we use it in, go into AWP.

HONORA: If you see us at AWP, I'm the cute one!

MIRNA: Damn! We just got washed out! [LAUGHTER]

BESSIE: So what can your school do for you? We get 1000 bucks to do pretty much any traveling we want that relates to our, to our thesis or writing. But most of us choose to use it in attending AWP every year, and you get it regardless of what year in the program you’re in. So that's pretty great for us. They pay for a ticket and then we get reimbursed for everything up to $1000

MIRNA: it’ s pretty nice. I mean, it's the biggest conference that we could potentially attend.

BESSIE: And you get to see all your favorites if they're going

MIRNA: yeah, you get to go to the readings, to the panels, you need to explore the book fair. We also, and part of this money if we don't use it for travel, we can use for like, books that relate to our writing, to our research. As long as they're not books that we use for class. But like, yeah, we have that money. It helps cushion a little bit. So you're not necessarily digging into your own pocket to get the books that you need, theory, whatever it may be.

BESSIE: And also like there, there might be an opportunity to attend other conferences that the university will cover. Honora and I, we went to Oakland this past semester. And even though they didn't pay for everything, they paid for a lot, they paid for airplane tickets, they reimbursed us for some of the Uber trips. So it was, it was good.

SHAINA: I know at this institution they also do little pockets of money that will give you space to go to affinity workshops, which is a word that I want to unpack but not right now. And what that looks like is just that if you feel like you're a part of some group who is not actually getting access to that group in your program. Sometimes they'll give you money to go to places that will give you access. So like you could go to Cave Canem, you could go to Kundiman.

BESSIE: Canto Mundo

SHAINA: There we go. Canto Mundo. Any of those, they may sometimes have pockets. I feel like if you're in an MFA program and you haven't heard that explicitly, I would definitely ask and be like, “Hi, so there's this workshop based on like where I come from or who I am, and I think that it'll help me with XYZ,” to see if they have money to give to you.

MIRNA: Yeah. There's little pockets that you can dig into

SHAINA: Yeah,

MIRNA: Definitely.

HONORA: Cave Canem, please accept me. [LAUGHTER]

[JINGLE]

Shaina: Because we are creative writers, we're always thinking about getting you reading and writing and doing the work that we're talking about coming to these programs to do. So I have a prop to leave you with. And this prompt is asking you to create a form that includes an explosion, a sound from your childhood, and a hybrid piece of a received form. So it's poetry specific, but I think it can branch out to fiction or prose. It depends on how you take it.

SARAH: I'm Sarah Boudreau, MFAngle’s producer and editor. We would like to thank VT publishing for its support. Mirna Palacio Ornelas is our host. Honora Ankong, Bessie Flores Zalvidar, and Shaina Jones are our contributors. Joe four is our audio engineer and podcast dad. And Dash Elhauge created our theme music. Thanks listeners for being listeners.