At the same time, I know I wouldn't have been a writer if I hadn't come to the Iowa workshop. It was the loose braid in the knot of my own binding, which later I was able to pick at when I was going through medical school. Iowa is sometimes overwhelming, but when you leave you look back on your days here with nostalgia. You have two years to wander around this little midwestern town with a hundred other impractical romantics, worrying about your next paragraph. It might be because as a faculty member I'm looking at it from a safer vantage point, but the workshop seems much kinder than it was when I was a student.
People seem very supportive of one another.
But rivalry is still a huge part of this program or of any such program. One of the tests you either pass or fail here is the test of whether you can separate yourself enough from the politics of envy to get your work done. And it doesn't get any easier when you leave here. With a few exceptions, monetary success and fame are not related to quality. There are a lot of good writers, and who becomes rich and famous seems arbitrary.