Career Advice for the Undergrad/Early-Phase Writer

Howdy, y’all!

Because I came out of the deep trenches of academia and have many friends who have gone on to teach in universities and my graduate and undergraduate alma maters, I find that I’m often giving advice to university students who want to also be writers. They come with a host of similar questions—the same questions I probably asked, but didn’t really have someone to help me figure out the exact path as a genre writer. I had to find my own way.

Largely, that’s what I recommend: find your own way.

However, here are some thoughts to answer some of those common questions, to help journeying writers of any age start navigating that path.

MA or MFA or PhD? Should I wait to do apply to one, or go straight in after undergrad?

When I chose to go PhD instead of MFA, it was largely a matter of practicality and what I perceived the degrees to represent. For me, the PhD meant spending a lot of time doing research and writing theoretical articles for academic publications that only other academics would read. (That is changing; there are more opportunities to share research in engaging ways with the broader public, and that’s more my style. Dr. Ally Louks, anyone?) They also take more time to complete and funding is generally low. An MFA, by contrast, allowed me to focus specifically on writing, teaching creative writing, and professionalizing myself as a writer (I was a director for our writing conference, and others worked directly on the lit mag, the Indiana Review; still others mentored 1st year MFA students on teaching).

My MFA program at Indiana University was the best of both worlds. A teaching program and with a required lit component, so we were in class with PhD students and often wrote conference papers and did research of our own. It informs the reading and also helped us bolster academic publishing if that was our bent.

I have strong feelings about waiting before doing an MFA. Frankly, I have strong feelings about MFAs as well. One of them being, don't pay for one unless you’ve got cash to spare. There are benefits to getting into a paid program, like teaching credentials (if you have to teach for a stipend) or having time to write unfettered, but those kinds of programs are rare, and if you go into them hoping to get a teaching job in a university, you're in for a lot of pain. A book is the most important thing to getting a job in that case. Write a good enough book and the job application requirements might bend. You'll have an easier time getting a book that people are interested in if you take a bit of time off to live a little and meet "real" people, i.e. outside of the little school boxes that we're most of us kept in. You need some time to grow into your work, you know? To spend some time alone with it, away from teachers and classmates' critique. That's my opinion, anyway. I waited a couple years, personal training in the meantime. It gave me a sense of why I wanted the degree—I really wanted to teach, so I picked a teaching heavy school. I also wanted access to internships that were only for students. When I went in, I already had direction, focus.

While in my MFA, though, I didn't learn much in the classroom that I couldn't have learned outside, or didn't learn later, after I graduated, from outside sources—craft books, studying other writers, interviews, that kind of thing. The MFA did give me readers, though. Not everyone in my cohort was the best reader for me, but I met people in the department who were excellent (ironically, my two best readers were in the medieval side of the English department, not the MFA at all). But I also got the freedom to study extra coursework, like Arabic, which was instrumental to my work and much easier to do in a university than on my own. I also made great connections in my professors, who became close mentors and friends, and other students, who have connected me to other opportunities much later, as my books came out. So, networking is great, but again, you can build a network outside of the university, too, you just have to be a bit more intentional about it. Mentorships and friendships, too, can be built outside of a degree program.

The MFA itself didn't help me get an agent. I got plenty of agent rejections even with it. The thing that helped more than anything was being well-connected in my industry after working as an editor at Podcastle, spending time at the writer water cooler that Twitter used to be, and publishing short stories. A well-known editor liked my short stories and kept an eye on me, and eventually, she ended up buying my novel.

I do teach at a low-residency MFA now, as of June 2025, and I love teaching, but that doesn’t change my opinion on them, only that I strive to make the knowledge I give my students as valuable as possible to prepare them for what I know comes next. Much of that value, though, comes from the cohorts they make and the ability to work with many different authors. It is easy to see the draw—residency with a bunch of other artists can be fun. But don’t go into debt for it. There are other ways.

What about jobs?

Well, you’re going to need one unless you (or your family) are independently wealthy. I cannot give you answers here. You have to pick something that meets your needs. It would be nice if it dovetails with another interest. I was personal training, and later, editing college essays and teaching English as a foreign language. These aren’t the only things, though. Work in history, work in admin, do some manual labor, get outside, make a difference, get around people who are different from you, people who are different ages. Live a life worth living, and do what you can to make sure you eat and support those you need to support.

And finding jobs in academia…phew. I don’t know about other sectors, but all of my friends in the humanities in the States are struggling against the shrinking departments and reduced hiring. Tenure track jobs are highly contested and you need a book out to be in the running for most of them. Adjunct jobs aren’t sustainable. You have to be willing to up and leave to wherever will have you. In any case, all of that is down the road—first you have to do the degree and there is a lot you’ll learn about the world and yourself in that time.

I’ve gotten lucky and do get to teach or edit or do speaking gigs and, of course, make money from my writing. It’s a joy to me and it all expands on each other.

Best Practices - Things I learned or did to good effect

I don’t have any regrets about the grad path I chose, and I’m very very glad I waited. I do wish I discovered short story SFF magazines while I was in undergrad. I would have had a much better time in workshops if I knew there was a whole industry out there for me and I could look to them. Now, luckily, more authors are even doing SFF/spec fic collections.

Some best practices, in general:

• My main advice is: write. Practice writing, and practice finishing things. Get feedback from people who write/read in your genre, so not just university workshops. Write more and finish more things and then submit things to literary magazines that publish the kinds of things you like. Search "fantasy short story magazine" and you'll find a bunch of good ones. Submission Grinder is a good place to start.
• My second advice: work towards getting a job you like, or at the very least, a job you can stand. Because you will need to eat and you will not sell a book right away. And when you do sell a book, it will not be for the kind of money that means you don't need a job.
• Keep your ear to the ground looking for opportunities—mentorship programs, open submissions, critique groups, volunteer opportunities as a slush reader. Pay attention to the ways people are creating community, and be a good member back!
• Do your own research. Weigh many sources. Make your own judgments. Think about why people are saying things and how they may benefit from you taking them at face value.
• The best way to learn is to read any other author you admire or want to emulate or be in conversation with. Read their work closely and pick it apart to see how it does what it does. It's hard to explain how I do everything, but you can subscribe to my newsletter where I occasionally drop more craft advice and bits of my process as it goes. And if you want to support my work, sharing it with other folks is always good. Here is a post on craft resources I made.
• In the end, though, your path will be your own, whether trad or self-pub, academic or not, and the landscape changes so rapidly that you'll eventually need to do new research to know what's what. I will always recommend finding agents to follow (Kate McKean is one helpful one) and following the authors you admire, so you can see how they move. Learn from them by observation. Then make your own decisions on what is good sense (not every author uses it!).

Some best practices, more technical and during the career phase:

• Biggest thing? You have so little control in this industry. However, you always control the work. Don't cut corners on it, even if you see other people getting splashy deals. Be patient and don't rush what you're doing to get it out the door. The work comes first. Make something you can be proud of. Stand up for yourself.
• Don't worry about being on every social media thing. No, you don't have to be on tiktok. No, you don't have to start a newsletter giving writing advice. No, you don't have to go viral by starting a controversy or sharing some "secret wow history". Pick a social media platform you like, and if that's nothing, then let it be nothing! The time you waste chasing social media trends is time you could be writing a better book. 
• But DO have a website. People will eventually look for your details to contact you for opportunities, or they'll want to know what else you've written.
• I work in SFF and we get paid for our stories, so my general advice is don't pay to publish your work, but I know that's different in the lit sphere. But it shouldn't be.
• Don't let publishers rush you, either. Your work is the product they need to sell, and it's your name on the package. Stand your ground, no matter what they use to rush you—or at least, know what you're giving up in exchange for what they're offering.
• It's A PUBLISHER’S job to market you, but also it is YOUR job to market you, and though generic "self-promo" on instagram will probably not move the needle like they can, they will not care about your success as much as you do—at least, not if you’re not a big splashy deal whose advance they need to recoup, lol. It’s your sole precious, your livelihood, but you’re just one of their many books. Learn marketing.

So how do I build a community?

Don’t be an asshole. Seriously. Don’t try to be the biggest writer in the room, don’t take all the feedback and give none back, don’t shit on other writers or discourage them and call it feedback, don’t suck up to who you think is the biggest writer in the room, don’t ignore whoever you think is the smallest writer in the room. Some general rules. But as for finding these actual groups…

• Social media. I found a lot of community on Twitter. And by following queer writers or Black writers or PoC writers or readers of X type of book or fans of Y type of tv show and being a good community member (see above). I made friends, and people remembered me when they started discords or slacks. I was invited, or could ask for an invite without stress. Not everyone in every group may be my best reader, or be open for beta-ing, but often someone is. Twitter may not be the hip place for you anymore, so go where you naturally go. Basically, though, follow people who have similar interests and write in similar spaces. Make friends. Be chill but also professional. Ask to swap manuscripts.
• Codex. Not sure if this is still a place people go? I think you have to have a pro sale to be in there (short story works). By the time I made my first pro sale, though, I had a bit of a community already, so I haven’t ever used this for reads.
• Online Writers Workshop. This is one of the early places I got great feedback on my work. (Shout out to Thorn, wherever you are!) It is paid, but I also got feedback from a pro writer that helped me sell my first pro short story, “Burning Season.” They also offer financial aid.
• Classes. When you take classes, especially workshops, you are in classes with like-minded individuals. How like-minded varies, but you at least know that people are interested in improving their craft. You may get a chance to check out each other’s work that way. Suss out their interests, and if you feel like you have something to offer each other, and like the cut of their jib, just ask if they’d like to swap manuscripts. If all else fails, take some workshop classes and you’ll definitely get feedback on your work. You will not, however, have a say in who is in the class and how good that feedback is.

In all cases, though, you have to put yourself out there. You may also run into some duds—people who do not follow the rule outlined above—but that is life. Shake it off and move on.

At this point, other than my editors, most of my early readers are friends. Some, but not all, are other pro authors. But one thing that’s true is that I know all of them are “fans” of my work—which is to say, I trust them to get what I want to do, and to tell me straight when I haven’t done it. That’s what you should look for and cultivate in a reader. (Another thing that’s true: I am also a “fan” of their work, or we have similar taste in other media. It helps. At the same time, it can also help to have readers who can see your blind spots.)

Okay. Is this enough? It feels like enough. It feels like a damn lot, in fact. And I know there will still be more questions and uncertainties that you have. At some point, though, you’ve got to go it on your own.

Even so, I’ll probably update this as needed. Feel to ask the questions you still have below, and maybe you can help each other answer them. Who knows! You might even find your next best reader in the comments section! I’ve seen it happen.

So, on you go, lads. Good luck.

Stay sharp,

C. L.