Apprenticing My Craft: How Book Reviewing Became the Single Best Thing I’ve Done to Improve My Writing
In May 2008, I earned an MFA in Creative Writing, making me one of three to four thousand to earn that academic credential. Diploma in hand, it is easy to trick oneself into thinking the writing apprenticeship is over when the degree is conferred. Though it expanded my reading, writing, and commitment to a life of letters, my apprenticeship was far from over.
My guess is many graduates of programs are simply that — graduates of programs. Just like I was. This is not to suggest that the MFA is worthless or I didn’t learn anything. In fact, I think the MFA might suffer because too many writers think that after 2–3 years, their apprenticeship in writing ceases and somehow, magically, they are writers. That’s why I write about the MFA as an academic credential. Additionally, it can be useful to consider the MFA one potential milestone of many in a long apprenticeship.
Apprenticeship makes particular sense to me; as a former dancer, I knew this model. One trains for years before even approaching the official apprentice level , bridge the gap from student to professional. However, because we learn writing as a skill in school, when we flip to writing as an art, it can be easy to assume we’ve done enough apprenticeship in our craft by completing and MFA or the like. The difference between work-a-day communication and the craft of literary writing is significant. In fact, the MFA’s workshop model has its roots in the medieval artesian workshops, where one would hone craft as an apprentice under a master artisan.
It’s worth noting that many terrific writers do not come from MFA programs. I would suggest, however, that these writers had some sort of apprenticeship period, perhaps less structured in the academic sense, but perhaps very effective in the artistic.
For me, the single best activity I did, both during and immediately after my MFA, was reviewing books. In fact, in the years following my MFA, I reviewed over thirty books, and I continue to do so. I didn’t publish a book of my own until 2014, six years after I completed my MFA. During that time, I grew significantly as a writer, which I attribute to the regular discipline of reading and reviewing.
So, you may ask, how did this practice of reading and reviewing have such a significant i on my writing?
1. Reading as a reviewer gave me an opportunity to engage with the newest writing coming out, especially on small and university presses. As a newly minted MFA, I earned a very small income as an adjunct lecturer and other “gig economy” positions. While I was fortunate to have a spouse with a regular, significant income, I watched my pennies. So, getting free books as a book reviewer allowed me to continue reading at a good clip without feeling broke. Beyond this economical context, the books I got were often pre-publication copies or electronic arcs. So, my reading lists grew from brand new work coming from places that often took chances on new voices, experimental styles, and other fresh approaches. I did review some books from big, established houses — mainly New York publishing — but the lion share were indie publishers and university presses. This became an apprenticeship in what was new and exciting in literary publishing. For a developing writer, being engaged with publishing and writing became an invaluable asset in knowing what was out there and how and where to send my own work.
2. Reviewing forced me to articulate what I saw happening in the writing itself. While some reviewers may fancy themselves tastemakers, deciding what was subjectively “good” or “bad” in the works they read, my approach was to discern what the project of a book was and to articulate that to would-be readers in the best way I could. This forced me to think deeply and critically about writing, and to harness all I knew about the “hows” of writing. It was more an analysis than a subjective opinion about quality. Besides reading lots of authors, many I might not have read without the reviewing, I also read more about craft as I reviewed, to better strengthen my ability to articulate those matters of style, form, and execution. In fact, it became my job to articulate the craft of writing in such a way that a stranger could read my review and decide for herself if the book’s project aligned with her reading tastes. It motivated me to understand writing at a more essential level. I did this across genres, reading poetry, nonfiction, and fiction, and as a result, I write across genres, although my preferred genre to write changed from fiction to nonfiction and poetry. The more I developed my ability to talk about other people’s writing, the more I could apply those lessons learned to my own.
3. Reviewing work and seeing it published grew my confidence in the craft aspects of writing. Perhaps it is a writer’s lot to feel the acute sting of imposter syndrome. Although I can appear outwardly confident, my true confidence in my abilities wanes as much as anyone in a highly competitive and highly subjective field. Putting my thoughts together on a book, however, taught me that I could be in conversation with other writers in a significant and meaningful way. In fact, I have formed many colleague-level relationships (even some friendships) with writers whose work I reviewed. One of the best moments as a reviewer is when an author contacts me, happy that I “got it.” These interactions, as well as the publication of the reviews themselves, reinforced my sense of understanding about the inner workings of a piece of writing.
While book reviewing can be looked at as an act of literary citizenship — and it is doing a worthwhile service to the writing community — it can also have significant and tangible benefits to apprentice writers. Reviewing can be undertaken for publication, as it was for me, but also writing Amazon or Goodreads reviews, or simply writing for ourselves about the books we read, can pay dividends in the development of our own writing. While achieving credentials like a degree can be the start of a literary life, it seldom signals entrée into it. Engaging with book reviewing was the single best thing I did to develop as a writer, and I hope that it might also do the same for you.
