Hey, all. As stated in the title, I got my master's. I owe a lot to this site's community to keep me going and safe from being gaslit.
If it would help people, I would love to share my knowledge and experience about graduate school, writing spaces, or anything that might interest you. Here are some details that might invite questions (that won't doxx me):
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My focus was Prose/Fiction
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To complete the master's I had to turn in a novel as my thesis.
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I volunteered in the anti-racist program in my Creative Writing Department and handled some cases of in-class discrimination issues.
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Some of my peers are boomers and/or libs and I workshopped with them.
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I took courses on teaching Creative Writing, if you want some general advice.
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I was only made aware of the CIA's history of influencing writing programs during my final semester.
If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them or go into more detail.
It's looking like the field is getting tainted by gig economy jobs. Freelancing was already a thing, but it's pretty bad now.
You can enter journalism from what friends have described. You just need an angle and an idea of how you can stand out.
I've applied for literature journals, so I'm crossing my fingers.
I'm looking into teaching where I got my undergrad and it's looking pretty doable. I enjoy doing workshops and talking about my writing interests. Getting paid for it would be a bonus.
And of course, perfect world, I luck out and get to live entirely off of my writing.
Oh, works that inspired me:
NK Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy - The author is a bit of a lib, but she did a lot to break into the modern speculative fiction genre as a woman of color.
Octavia Butler - so many good sci-fi pieces. Kindred is one of my favorite books of all time.
Ursula K. Le Guin - beautiful writing (also where the lathe of heaven jokes come from.)