The Slice: Kyra Goldstein
Did "Girls" get the Iowa MFA experience right?
This week, I wanted to check in with one of my best friends, Kyra Goldstein. Kyra is a second year student at Iowa’s storied graduate program, getting her MFA in Nonfiction Writing.
I love writing The Slice because it’s such a treat to learn what the bookish people in my life are reading (spoiler alert — Kyra and I have very different taste) and hearing more about their process.
Kyra and I met early in college, but our friendship really bloomed sophomore year when we would spend hours in the university bookstore gossiping, writing, and concocting schemes to enrapture the super hot senior guys who also somehow loved books? (LOL, that never panned out).
In all seriousness, I wanted to profile Kyra because she is one of the best writers I know. In English class, she could turn boring assignments into legitimate prose, and her undergraduate thesis about girlhood and identity read like a novel.
I also figured some Bookpeach readers would be interested in her career, as it’s always been literary-cinema-adjacent (with stints at HBO and then avant-garde movie house A24), culminating with her acceptance at Iowa.
You may be familiar with Iowa because of Hannah Horvath’s infamous venture in “Girls” or because the program is so respected. Graduates of Iowa often become well-known writers, editors, and academics. (Justin Torres, Angela Flournoy, Claire Lombardo, Marilynne Robinson, Flannery O’Connor come to mind… As do 7 other Pulitzer Prize winners and six U.S. Poet Laureates.)
Why did you decide to get an MFA?
I knew writing was something I loved doing and cared deeply about, and I also knew that I would never develop any sort of post-college writing practice while also working a full-time job. I mostly just wanted to give myself a real chance to write and grow as a writer, and it was clear to me that I needed some sort of external accountability to do that. I also just enjoy being in school!
There was a part of me that just really wanted a break from working life, and I always thought of that as shallow and not a good reason to go to grad school. I think on its own it's not enough of a reason, but I also remember talking to someone who had graduated from an MFA and who told me it was completely valid to also treat grad school as a reprieve from professional life. That was huge for me to hear.
Do you recommend MFA programs for people who want to become writers?
I would recommend an MFA for people who want to develop their practice as writers in a more structured way, and especially those who want accountability and a writing community. For those reasons, I think an MFA is great. I would not recommend an MFA if you want to find a clear path to getting an agent or becoming a "successful" writer, because that path is so unclear and nonlogical. Also, I would not pay for an MFA (and definitely would not go into debt for an MFA). There are great MFAs that will pay you! (Usually at the cost of teaching undergrad courses, but still...)
What does a typical day look like for an MFA student?
My days actually vary a lot throughout the week – I only teach and have class Tuesday through Thursday, which is great in theory (4 day weekend!), but in practice means a lot of unstructured time thinking that I should be writing and then watching TV instead (right now, Love Island).
This semester, I am in two seminars that require reading a book a week, and right now, we are reading the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard, who is great but not what I would call a fast read, lol. All of his books are about being suicidal and hating everyone. I am a famously slow reader, so keeping up with the reading load can be hard for me.
What is your very favorite bookstore?
So many! I love Three Lives in the West Village and all the McNally Jackson locations. There are a couple of bookstores I've only been to once while traveling, but became immediate favorites that I dream of often: Rough Draft Bar & Books in Kingston, NY and De Stiil Booksellers in Montreal.
What book do you want to recommend to Bookpeach readers?
I'll recommend three of my favorite books I've read this year!
* Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan. This is a really fun, super short novel about a bored, rich French teen who meddles in her father's love life during a summer in the French Riviera. It's so charming (it made me laugh out loud many times) and glamorous.
* 10:04 by Ben Lerner. I've been told this is the worst of Lerner's novels, but it's the only one I've read! It is very meta, very much "autofiction," about a writer whose tiny first novel was a surprise success and who now has a major book deal for his second book (this is Lerner's second book). It's very New York, very neurotic, and also features some flashback college scenes at what I'm pretty sure is Brown. It's flawed, but I found it to be incredibly strange and brilliant.
* Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels. Lol sorry Alli, I had to.1 I finally finished this series this summer, and I think these are books that will stay with me for the rest of my life. I think about them all the time. The fourth and final one is so, so good. I cried at the end, which I never do. Just read them!! (The first one is the worst one, keep going.)
What is your ideal reading set up?
On my couch in absolute quiet! I get very easily distracted, especially if I'm reading a denser book for class, and I have a hard time reading outside of my apartment. I have an absolutely massive couch in Iowa City, and I love to cozy up on it under a blanket with a cup of tea. I echo what Brandon said – it's a plus if it's raining!
What's a book you wanted to love but just couldn't?
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. Sorry to the Ocean-heads.2
I have to ask… How does the Iowa experience differ from what we see on “Girls”? Is it accurate?
I would say it's partially accurate. Grad students do have very nice homes that they pay very little money to live in (I have not seen any bats, thankfully). There are certainly obnoxious Hannah types, though it's definitely not the norm. Workshop can be contentious and people can act self-important, but mostly people are kind and do their own thing.
Huge thanks to Kyra for being so generous with her answers. I can’t wait to one day attend a booktalk for her hotly anticipated novel.
Do you have a book lover you think I should interview? Do you want to be featured? Send me an email, and I’ll be in touch!
XOX and happy reading 📚
Alli
Ugh, my friends give me so much hate for not enjoying these books, especially since My Brilliant Friend topped the New York Times' list of the best books of the century so far. Sorry, I just can’t get on board!
As a proud Ocean-head, this is unconscionable to me. Do Kyra and I have opposite taste in books!? Writing this has made me realize maybe.