In the process of submitting more short stories to more magazines, I have discovered a few additional search engines for writing markets: Ralan’s Webstravaganza and Quintamid.
So! Having been rejected from all eleven Creative Writing MFA programs to which I applied, I’m now looking at Masters programs in Library Science. I’ve always been passionate about libraries – I have been known to hug them, and the Williamsburg Regional Library is pretty much the love of my life – and I loved working at the Farmville-Prince Edward Community Library. Not only can I enthusiastically and knowledgeably push books and learning on people, I have to love a job where you’re not selling anything. You’re not taking people’s money, so you can recommend books without feeling like you’re being a pushy salesperson – and if they don’t want the book(s) you recommend, it’s no loss to you. Letting people take books home for free – what part of that isn’t awesome?
My long-term career hope is still to be a creative writing professor, which would of course mean taking the MFA later. (Unless, you know, I become a fabulously successful and well-known writer in the meantime.) I love the workshop environment, believe I’d be a good professor, and think it’s a pretty awesome job. Still, I’d be happy to work in a library for awhile. Even if “awhile” ends up being a long time, I think it’s a job I’d do well and enjoy.
Soon, I should be posting an update on the Exceedingly Nerdy Writing Project on which I’m working. (Or, “Next time – pie charts!”)
May 13, 2009 at 5:18 am
Ahhh, what a fabulous librarian you’ll be. You can actually remember titles and authors of books, which is an amazing superpower to me (I’m forever looking for books I liked by a phrase or cover or plot description).
May 13, 2009 at 3:15 pm
When I was working at the downtown library, we had someone looking for books by a fellow with the first name George. “You know, George.”
May 13, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Warning: unsolicited advice.
Although public libraries are facing funding cuts, school librarians are still in demand. If you need a stop-gap job, try substitute teaching to give yourself an “in” with the school systems and also to get a taste of the public school environment. You could also take Education 301 and 302 (or whatever the intro class is numbered now) – when I took it at W & M it was sort of a psychology of learning course.
May 13, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Haha, I’m pretty familiar with the public school environment, having been to one. It ranged from “casually cruel” to “horrifying.” The two boys on either side of me in our alphabetical-order line for graduation practice were carrying a total of I think four switchblade knives, and grew increasingly inimical to each other as the afternoon wore on.
I’m not sure yet where my specific interests lie. I’d like very, very much to work at a public library, but I do have some attraction to working in a more specialized one, like maybe a law library. It’s something I have to figure out. But thanks for the advice!