Aram Mrjoian, MFA ’18: From Workshop Notes to a Debut Novel
Aram Mrjoian decided to try his hand at writing a novel while pursuing his MFA in Prose and Poetry at Northwestern University School of Professional Studies (SPS). The attempt wasn’t great, he admits. “It was messy, and I made so many mistakes,” he says now. But with the guidance of faculty members like novelists Juan Martinez and Naeem Murr, he discovered the value of experimentation and revision. Those early attempts led him to eventually earn his PhD and publish his first novel, Waterline, now available from HarperCollins.
Growing up in Ann Arbor, Mrjoian was lucky to live in an area with a strong public library system to visit, independent bookstores to explore, and parents who read to him at night and let him stay up late as long as he was reading. “I took that to heart as a kid and just fell in love with the act of reading and imagining, going through book after book,” he says. “Later in life, I realized I wanted to do that too.”
Turning a curiosity into a craft
Mrjoian earned his bachelor’s degree in English from Michigan State University and entered the workforce, writing for marketing firms, literary websites, and culture blogs. At a certain point, he was spending more time practicing writing fiction and creative nonfiction than he was copywriting for clients, but he realized he needed more formal guidance. “I had no craft background before starting the MFA program at Northwestern,” he says. “I was just doing everything by instinct, and my instincts were bad.”
Then he saw an advertisement for Northwestern’s part-time MFA in Prose and Poetry program; it was the right blend of reputable and practical for someone who still had to work. “I needed something that I could do nights and weekends, but that was still rigorous,” Mrjoian says. When he looked up the list of faculty members, he knew he’d found the right program. “It wasn’t just an MFA in the sense of, ‘Here’s somewhere where you can get a degree.’ It felt like I was going to a full-time prestigious program, even while I was doing everything else.”
The faculty, composed of working published authors like Rebecca Makkai and Christine Sneed, made him start seeing his future differently. Mrjoian’s first workshop was with award-winning writer Stuart Dybek, which left him a bit starstruck. “I remember going into that class and being intimidated, then being surprised right away at just how grounded he was—how much he treated us all as if we belonged in the room.”
A vibrant literary community
MFA faculty member Juan Martinez, whom Mrjoian still considers a mentor, helped him unlock how to approach writing and improve his work. “His approach to revision and experimentation—like letting students try things out and see what works without being overly critical—has been extremely influential,” Mrjoian says. Even courses outside his comfort zone, like Sheila Donohue’s poetry course, gave him extra skills and confidence to work through challenging projects, even though, as Mrjoian puts it, “I don’t have a poetic bone in my body. But it was a rewarding experience.”
Mrjoian also learned a great deal from his classmates, who took as much care with his work as the faculty did. “I was so surprised by the attention and comments from both faculty and students in the workshop notes. The meticulousness with which other people paid attention to my writing: That was so valuable. It was so refreshing and new to me.”
Northwestern’s location only added to his MFA experience. Chicago is a vibrant literary city, Mrjoian says, with so much to see and take in. “There’s such a good community there, and I found a lot of that through the MFA,” he says. He attended literary events around town, including appearances by notable authors who spoke at the school, such as Ta-Nehisi Coates, Junot Díaz, Roxane Gay, Alexander Chee, and Alissa Nutting. “It was great to hear them talk about their books, engage with students, and have some face time with these successful writers.”
A passion becomes a career
The MFA program made Mrjoian fall in love with learning again, and to keep going after he received his degree. Rebecca Makkai’s course on teaching creative writing made him realize, “‘Maybe I can teach this. I can put together a syllabus; I can do this at the college level.’” Mrjoian enrolled in a PhD program in pursued a PhD in creative writing at Florida State University to gain more experience and time to refine his craft full-time. “I felt prepared for that because of all the support I’ve gotten in MFA,” he says. Today, Mrjoian teaches creative writing to undergraduate students at University of Michigan and is on the MFA faculty at the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University.
The MFA program also gave Mrjoian additional experiences he applied later on in his career. Putting in time at Northwestern’s literary journal TriQuarterly was his first role as an editor, which helped improve his writing. Big projects like a novel seemed overwhelming, but he told himself, “‘I can read for this literary journal and see how other people are doing it and learn from there.’ I fell in love with that.” He went on to hold editorial roles at the journal for five years. Since then, he’s worked as the editor-in-chief at The Rumpus and currently serves as the managing editor at Michigan Quarterly Review.
Mrjoian says there was a sense of camaraderie among the MFA students that inspired him to envision himself as the writer he is today. “Everybody there was motivated and working on this outside of all the other stuff they were doing,” he says. “There was a sense of a real community that was built around that.”
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