Thief in the House of Memory and To MFA or Not
I recently finished Tim Wynne-Jones’s Thief in the House of Memory, and I’d like to read it again. Wynne-Jones has created a realistic literary novel that has the feel of a moody fantastical suspense story. His protagonist, Dec, lost his mother several years earlier when she abandoned him, his father, and his younger sister. His father married her best friend and built a new house for them all, but the father has left the older family home on the hill. He both maintains it like a family museum and neglects it. Dreamy Dec begins to see his mother again and isn’t sure whether he’s haunted by ghosts or memories, especially after he finds a dead man in the House of Memory on the hill.

I’ve written responses for my first set of Solstice MFA student packets and have been thinking a lot about why writers might choose to enter MFA programs. Why would they? Especially children’s writers, when so many successful children’s writers don’t have them? I don’t have one. And, yes, I have an agent and an editor. And, yes, I’ve released two novels and am working on a revision of a third.

I don’t think you need an MFA to be a good writer, or even to grow as a writer. And yet, I’m finding from my proximity to VC’s MFA program and from my own work in Solstice that these kinds of MFA programs, at their best, can give writers an opportunity to experience rich mentor/mentee relationships. Some people are lucky enough to discover agents or editors who will work with them in this way before they’ve written a story that’s strong enough to sell. Many others don’t.

More thoughts later…