Background: MFA in Creative Writing is a degree taken by aspiring novelists. MFA stands for Master of Fine Arts (and not multi-factor auth ;-)). Poetry, fiction, novels, personal essays, and non-fiction are all sub-genres, but I think they are discussing creative writing in general.
The essay and the linked essays together seem to say the following:
Master of Fine Arts (Creative Writing seems to be the topic under discussion) [MFA] is a degree of the privileged.
A majority of those who graduate with an MFA, end up teaching MFA courses.
Those who teach, try to publish more via friendly publishers (university/independent). Pressure to publish for tenure. Quantity over quality.
Compares NYC writers vs writers who have MFA. NYC good. MFA graduate bad. (My thought: What about the rest of us who are not from NYC and have not taken an MFA?)
Actually only a small fraction of MFA grads end up teaching any kind of academic creative writing. The oversupply of creative writing grads is even more extreme than in other academic disciplines.
The essay and the linked essays together seem to say the following:
Master of Fine Arts (Creative Writing seems to be the topic under discussion) [MFA] is a degree of the privileged.
A majority of those who graduate with an MFA, end up teaching MFA courses.
Those who teach, try to publish more via friendly publishers (university/independent). Pressure to publish for tenure. Quantity over quality.
Compares NYC writers vs writers who have MFA. NYC good. MFA graduate bad. (My thought: What about the rest of us who are not from NYC and have not taken an MFA?)