115 POETS & WRITERSlaunched a sister business, Writing
Workshops Detroit, and even orga-
nized a five-day summer workshop in
Paris.
Kimzey says he routinely puts in
fifty to sixty hours a week and has had
to learn how to run a small business
on the fly. “Administratively, it is a lot
of work, and you’ve got to stay on top
of it,” he says. “But I love it. I love
being a part of a literary community.
For me, I might be working a lot, but
it feels like I’m working on a passion
project.”
Kimzey’s workload is heavy, but
during the school year long hours are
common for all writers who teach, even
at top-flight MFA programs in which
professors typically teach only two
courses per semester.
“People think, ‘Oh, you teach two
courses a semester so you just work
twice a week for a couple hours,’” says
Jordan, the MFA program director at
the University of Michigan. “But the
more tenure you have, in terms of
promotions and rank, the more work
there is. You’re constantly serving on
committees, you’re constantly writ-
ing letters for people, you’re writing
letters for promotion for other pro-
fessors at other universities, you’re
serving on external reviews, you’re
advising students. And if you’re a
person of color, as a faculty member,
you’re on every committee because
you’re probably the only one.”
Jordan says he has given up on
writing poetry during the school
year and, like many in academia, now
w rites most ly in t he summer mont hs.
Others, like novelist Lan Samantha
Chang, who is the director of the Iowa
Writers’ Workshop, have learned to
be disciplined about the time they
spend administering and teaching.
Chang tries to carve out writing time
every day, starting sometimes as early
as 4:30 in the morning. “I keep track
of it relentlessly so I don’t let myself
get overwhelmed, don’t let my life
wash over me like a giant wave thatleave s me u nder neat h it ,” C ha ng say s.
Ironically, in some cases, writers
have more time for their own work
early in their academic careers.
Novelist TaraShea Nesbit, now start-
ing her fifth year on faculty at the
MFA program at Miami University
in Oxford, Ohio, teaches two courses
a semester, serves on three commit-
tees, and advises students and reads a
number of MFA theses every year. Still,
Ne sbit say s she is able to get i n a n hou r
or two of writing most weekday morn-
ings before her kids wake up, along
with longer sessions on weekends.
But she was also able to take off a
full semester during her third year at
Miami as part of a pre-tenure leave
program designed to give professors
time to write the books they will need
to bolster their case for tenure. The
program did just that for Nesbit, who
used the time off to revise her second
novel, Beheld, due out from Bloomsbury
in March 2020, just months before she
will go up for tenure.the practical writer HOW TO GET PAID