This Program Is Stunning for Writing and Publishing…
I have to admit, when I took off for the university in Gunnison, CO to help Kevin Anderson with his new publishing program there, I was skeptical. I had been around numbers of university writing programs over the years and always left wondering why anyone wastes their time and money. So I went in with shields up and determined to keep my mouth shut about any normal university stupidity and politics because Kevin wanted this to work.
Well, boy was I wrong. This program at Gunnison, both the Genre Writing MFA program and Kevin’s MBA Publishing program was amazing. Taught by real writers.
And not one bit at all that even pretended to be silly college politics or problems. Nothing.
And all nine of Kevin’s students were sharp and driven. In fact, after hanging around with them for a few days and talking with them and getting to know them, I invited them all to any of the Las Vegas workshops we do. (Those workshops are invite only, remember. The nine there could handle any of the Vegas workshops just fine.)
How the programs work is that the writers and want-to-be publishers were there for two weeks, then the rest of the year is online, then the students come back the following summer for two weeks and get their degrees. (The MFA program is three years of that schedule, the publishing one year.)
I talked with a couple of the students in the genre writing who were studying and working on writing space operas. Go figure.
The campus was new and stunningly beautiful. And the staff running the graduate program were friendly and wanting to make this program unique. And again, all the instructors had massive real-world experience.
Kevin will be working the nine students (a full class) in the publishing program all year and they are in for a treat getting to work closely with Kevin J. Anderson for a year.
So I just wanted to say here that I am blown away impressed by this program. And when I have more information about how to sign up for next summer’s program, I will post it here.
Looks amazing, Dean. For any who want to look over the programs, they’re at https://www.western.edu/academics/school-graduate-studies/graduate-program-creative-writing/genre-fiction.
That sounds great. I’d be interested in the publishing workshop. A lot depends on the financials (with my younger daughter in college) so I might have to delay gratification a bit, but yeah. What a jump-start!
These programs look stunning and I already have friends in Colorado. Such a tempting setup. Just have to find a way to fit it into the schedule…
Tami, except for the two weeks in the summer, it is all online. Working with Kevin Anderson for an entire year on publishing and getting a Masters degree out of it at the same time. Yup, doesn’t get any better for a modern indie writer. And who knows, I might be there next summer as well. I’ll be posting a link on how to sign up in a few days. Stay tuned.