11 Signs Your MFA Advisor Might Be Ghosting You

Or What We Talk About When We Talk About Haunting

1. Your emails go unanswered.

It’s all my fault, you think. Your submission was late by 23 hours, all of which you spent wide awake and typing out a thinly veiled fiction based on your life. Things got a little hairy toward the end, walls melting, peculiar stuff. It was those four cans of Red Bull, you thought briefly, before you passed out with your face on your laptop, drool seeping into the keys.

2. His office seems empty.

During his office hours, you knock on his door. You were sure he’d be there. He’s always so punctual. Maybe your pleading tweets have him spooked. You press your ear to the door. His office is a small cubicle, really. If he was in there breathing, you’d be able to hear. What whispers forth is only an email alert bling and cars splashing along the rain-slick street. Did he climb out the window to avoid you?

3. He fails to show up at meetings.

You schedule a meeting by the calendar hanging on his office door. At the designated hour, you await him in the coffee shop, his usual haunt. You ask around: tall man, sort of awkward, sandals and jeans, the obligatory blazer. He might have ordered a coffee, black of course, and sat down with his moleskine notebook and an air of contemplation. The barista points across the room, and you turn excitedly, but it isn’t him, though you do see a striking resemblance to him and three others in the room.

4. He disappears from departmental mixers.

A Famous Poet has graciously visited the school, and the Drs. X graciously throw open the doors of their spacious Victorian to all your rabble friends. You might have had a few two many white wines while trying to work up the nerve to speak with said Famous Poet, but then you see him out of the corner of your eye. Your Advisor! He’s alive after all! You run toward the group where he’s standing, bowling said frail Famous Poet off of her feet. But when you reach them, only bewildered faces greet you. Your Advisor is nowhere to be seen.

5. You have an uneasy feeling that you’re being watched.

After your inglorious performance at the house of the Drs. X, you slink back to the English Department corridor. Your Advisor is clearly avoiding you for a reason. You decide maybe it’s finally time to work. Selecting a desk in the upstairs computer lab, you begin to type, awash in the eerie glow of the screen. You hunch over. You’re protective of your words. It almost feels like someone else can see them. “Advisor?” you say aloud, but when you turn around, only the shadows of the empty corridor are there to greet you.

6. Unexplained noises issue from the walls.

The longer you write, the more it seems like someone else is there. The distinct tap of chalk on a blackboard scratches from the next room. You want to check, but you’re afraid to leave the computer without saving. You email a copy to yourself. Paranoid, you print it out, too.

7. You find a grotesque missive scrawled on the bathroom wall.

You decide to take one last stop before your walk home. Zipped and flushed, you go to wash your hands. The lights flicker on and off. You look up into the mirror, and you see it, written backwards in red ink so it reflects above your head: Kill your darlings. You are so glad you already peed. You take this as your cue to go.

8. Your manuscript vanishes.

Safe in your apartment, you read over that day’s words, then you stack them with the rest of your manuscript on your nightstand. After you make sure all the doors and windows are locked, you tuck yourself into bed. A rustling sound wakes you in the dead of night. You sit up, chilled, and pluck the cord on your lamp. Your manuscript is gone! In horror, you stare agog at the blank place on your nightstand where it used to be. Before your eyes, it begins to rematerialize. The pages flutter down, full of check marks, underlining, and cryptic messages you know must be full of meaning but that you cannon understand.

9. A strange ectoplasmic goo oozes from under his office door.

No one else seems to see it. You edge around the goo and run screaming for the department chair’s office. You plead with her to investigate. You’re desperate: it’s almost time for your defense, and your manuscript is a mess of fragments.

“My advisor is ghosting me!” you shout.

She shakes her head primly. “We are here to study unknowable mysteries. Your Advisor has his ways.”

10. Cries and whispers haunt you through the night.

“Show don’t tell,” your advisor howls.

“I’m not sure I can visualize this.”

“Her reaction doesn’t seem believable.”

“More!”

“Elaborate!”

“You haven’t read Infinite Jest?!”

“You should try this as a think piece….”

His voice fades into the distance. Even after it’s gone, you can’t sleep.

11. He gives one last ominous warning.

After months of this, you’re haggard, but your novel is done. Your committee convenes. He’s there! Your Advisor! He smiles as if the last semester has all been in your head, and his placid face reassures you. Stepping up to the podium, you give your story life. By the end, there are tears. There is laughter. Your peers are moved, and they cheer. A standing ovation.

Your Advisor ushers you to the side and offers his congratulations. He claps you on the back, but then his face darkens.

“Get ready for the real horrors,” he says.

“What could be so bad after all of this?” you say, smiling.

“Have you started looking for jobs?”