MFA Writers

• Jude MacAllen Tatman — University of Nebraska Omaha

  After writing poetry for nearly 50 years, Jude MacAllen Tatman enrolled in an MFA program. In this episode, he sits down with Jared to discuss what it’s like to revisit poems he drafted in the 1980s along with crafting new work. Plus, he discusses writing about his life’s most consequential crossroads, treating writing like work, and finding faculty who make themselves available to students even in a low-residency program.Jude MacAllen Tatman is a poet from Missouri who is in his final semester at the University of Nebraska-Omaha’s low-residency program. MacAllen has been writing poetry off and on for fifty years while also serving as a deckhand on towboats, playing semi-pro baseball in West Texas, delivering pizzas, waiting tables, owning a bar, working as an historian in Missouri State Parks’ Historic Preservation Program, and even once participating in an episode of Jeopardy. His poem, “Salvation,” was published in the literary journal Envy’s Sting, and his chapbook, Echoes: Selected Poems & Stories 1984-2023, is now available.MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.BE PART OF THE SHOWDonate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.STAY CONNECTEDTwitter: @MFAwriterspodInstagram: @MFAwriterspodcastFacebook: MFA WritersEmail: [email protected]

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• Tyler R. Moore — University of Illinois

  Poets are known for considering form in their writing, but form is also critical in prose. In fact, for Tyler R. Moore, form tells us the most about the story. “It’s the structure, scaffolding, bones, and architecture.” In this episode, Tyler tells Jared about approaching each story with a different structure, including his recent piece told exclusively through voicemails. Plus, Tyler discusses how being a queer writer from a pseudo-rural Midwestern town shapes his work, finding community across genres and faculty in his MFA program, and what he has learned from his editorial experience at Ninth Letter, like the do’s and don’ts (mostly don’ts) of a cover letter.Tyler R. Moore is a fiction writer from Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin and is currently in his second year in the MFA program at the University of Illinois. He is the winner of the Hobart L. and Mary K. Peer Fiction Prize. He also holds the titles of current Associate Managing Editor and Associate Creative Non-fiction Editor for Ninth Letter. His work is published or forthcoming in Michigan Quarterly Review and elsewhere. Find him on Instagram @tyler_rmoore and at his website, tylerrmoore.com.MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.BE PART OF THE SHOWDonate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.STAY CONNECTEDTwitter: @MFAwriterspodInstagram: @MFAwriterspodcastFacebook: MFA WritersEmail: [email protected]

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• Siloh Radovsky — UC San Diego Rerelease

  Siloh Radovsky sits down with Jared to talk about her path from anarchistic activism to experimental writing, the blurry line between fiction and nonfiction, and the joys and pains of teaching in an R1 institution.Siloh Radovsky is a prose writer invested in the overlap between narrative and criticism. A recent graduate of the cross-genre MFA program at UC San Diego, she is currently at work on a collection of linked essays. Her essays, articles, and stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Entropy, [PANK], Teen Vogue, Inkwell, Identity Theory, and elsewhere. Siloh is also an educator, a collaborator in a narrative medicine intervention with Adolescent and Young Adult cancer patients, and was a founding editor of Kaleidoscoped magazine. She was an artist-in-residence at the Hinge Arts program in spring 2017, and was the recipient of an Evergreen Foundation Activity Grant and a Summer Graduate Teaching Fellowship at UC San Diego. Find her on Instagram @essence_of_toast and her website silohradovsky.net.MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.BE PART OF THE SHOWDonate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.STAY CONNECTEDTwitter: @MFAwriterspodInstagram: @MFAwriterspodcastFacebook: MFA WritersEmail: [email protected]

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• Ray Wise — Rutgers University–Camden

  What happens when a tech startup employee starts taking online writing classes? They end up in an MFA program, of course. In this episode, Ray Wise sits down with Jared to talk about finding writing in their 20s and the lessons they bring from the tech world to their creative work. Plus, they discuss Rutgers-Camden’s multi-genre emphasis, weekend writing retreats with the MFA community, and the pros and cons of a small program.Ray Wise is a multi-genre writer living in Philadelphia, where they are completing their final semester in the MFA program at Rutgers-Camden. Ray's work has been published in Passages North, Rose Books Reader, Barrelhouse, Hobart, etc., nominated for Best of the Net, and supported by Sundress Academy for the Arts. They are currently at work on a novel manuscript and a poetry collection. Find them on Twitter/X @ray__wise and catch them reading in Philadelphia for the Rose Books Reader launch on April 26th at Clown Bar.MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.BE PART OF THE SHOWDonate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.STAY CONNECTEDTwitter: @MFAwriterspodInstagram: @MFAwriterspodcastFacebook: MFA WritersEmail: [email protected]

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• Oli Peters — University of Notre Dame

  Integrating elegy, ekphrasis, and dance notation, Oli Peters’s thesis project is a multilingual, multi-genre exploration in translation and lyric poetry. In this episode, she shares how her program encourages creative experimentation, even when she submits work that feels “absolutely unpublishable, verging on unreadable.” Plus, she discusses her courses in Medieval manuscripts and theater, university-funded opportunities in Paris and Ireland, and how being rejected from MFA programs right after undergrad led her to spend five years writing daily for no one but herself.Oli is a second-year MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Notre Dame. Her writing is forthcoming in Annulet, DIAGRAM, DREGINALD, and mercury firs. Her past work appears in Pleiades, New World Writing, Rain Taxi, Heavy Feather Review, and abobo zine. Her dance-performance piece "Body Glyph State" will be performed at the 2025 Iowa Choreography Festival. She is a MFA candidate at the University of Notre Dame. Find her at her website, oliupeters.wixsite.com/olipeters, and on Instagram @olimpeters.MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.BE PART OF THE SHOWDonate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.Submit an episode request. If there’s a program you’d like to learn more about, contact us and we’ll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.STAY CONNECTEDTwitter: @MFAwriterspodInstagram: @MFAwriterspodcastFacebook: MFA WritersEmail: [email protected]

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