Tayari's Blog: MLA-- Where Are The Jobs

I went to the conference two years ago when I was on the job market. I had about six interviews: University of Illinois, DePaul, Lake Forest, Wesleyan, UC Davis, and one more that I can't remember. There were lots of writers at the conference, hopeful in what we thought was a tight job market.

And two years ago, the market WAS hard. I saw a lot of good writers with impressive CVs-- two books, solid teaching records-- be passed over again and again. The universities had so many applicants that they could reject a candidate for any reason.

But this year: there are hardly ANY writers here at all. Why? Because there are hardly any jobs. In a pub, I overheard a gentleman from a minor university say that they have 175 applicants for an entry level position teaching poetry. Among the applicants were seasoned writers with several books and awards. He said that really it was hard to rank the top 50 candidates because their records were all so strong. Later on, I met a poet in the rotunda who said that two years ago, she applied for 24 jobs. Last year there were about 19 jobs in poetry for which she applied. This year, only twelve. Not to be overly dramatic, but numerically, there is a better chance of getting drafted into the NBA than landing a tenure-track job teaching creative writing at an American college or university.