The First Book
U.Va.’s graduate program in creative writing has always been on the map. It’s consistently ranked among the nation’s best, distinguished by its faculty—Pulitzers, Poet Laureates, National Book Award winners—its intimacy and selectivity—about seven fiction writers and five poets are chosen each year from a pool of more than 500 applicants—and the literary success of its graduates.
In its July 2007 issue, The Atlantic magazine noted that graduate writing programs have become something of a phenomenon in American higher education, having mushroomed from about 50 programs several decades ago to about 300 today. The magazine included U.Va. among the top 10 programs in the country.
WE PROFILE FIVE EMERGING WRITERS, all alumni of U.Va.’s creative writing program who are celebrating the recent publication of their first book, the feat of a long and disciplined journey that will be repeated, we hope, many times.
 Taylor Antrim (Grad ’04)
Age: 33
Residence: Brooklyn, NY
Favorite book: Impossible for me to nail down only one. I’ll give three: Too Far To Go by John Updike, Money by Martin Amis, Sam the Cat by Matthew Klam.
Who is your first reader? These days I give pages to my agent and a small group of friends from U.Va. who also wound up in New York after the program ended. I save my wife, Liz, my best reader, until the end, when I have a more complete draft.
Length of time it took to write your book: Almost two years.
Plot: It’s about Model UN, North Korean terrorism, an elite boarding school in Massachusetts, a politically renegade headmaster and two young men, the headmaster’s teenage son and a first-year history teacher, both coming of age under difficult circumstances.
How many times was your manuscript rejected before you found a publisher? I was lucky. My editor at Houghton Mifflin expressed interest within a few days and made an offer shortly after that.
Best aspect of U.Va.’s MFA program: The friends I made, who have since become a community of fellow writers; and the faculty, who are amazing writers and some of the most generous people I have met.
Best way to deal with rejection: Remember that all your literary heroes were rejected, soundly, at one time or another in their careers.
Advice for aspiring writers: Treat it like a job: write every weekday and take the weekends off. A streaky, on-and-off, write-when-the-muse-strikes work ethic will never get a book written.
 Laura Dave (Grad ’03)
Age: 30
Residence: New York City
Favorite book: Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen and The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
Who is your first reader? Two friends of mine, Dana and Ben. They are incredibly generous readers, but are also as tough as nails. When I get their approval, I know I’ve earned it.
Length of time it took to write your book: About 13 months.
Plot: It’s about a grown brother and sister who, over the course of his wedding weekend, make some surprising choices about their lives.
How many times was your manuscript rejected before you found a publisher? I got lucky, and the first editor we sent it to accepted it for publication.
Did a particular event or experience inspire your book? Several experiences inspired the questions I raise in London, but it really became its own thing once I started writing it.
Best aspect of U.Va.’s MFA program: The faculty and the students. It is also a great gift that the focus of the program is on becoming a better writer. I felt protected from the business aspect of writing, which has made a huge difference.
Best way to deal with rejection: On this, I am very much a work in progress.
Advice for aspiring writers: It is truly a test of endurance, especially with novel writing. So much of the battle is figuring out ways to keep showing up. Prove to yourself that you take your writing seriously. Go to an MFA program, apply to a writers’ conference, get up at 4 a.m. two mornings a week to write while your family sleeps. No excuses. The more seriously you take your work, the better chance you have of continuing.
 Sharmila Voorakkara (Grad ’03)
Age: 39
Residence: Athens, Ohio
Favorite book: Waterland by Graham Swift
Who is your first reader? Mark Halliday, a poet and colleague
Length of time it took to write your book: Five years.
Plot: My book is really about a whole series of characters facing different crises and/or weirdnesses in their lives.
How many times was your manuscript rejected before you found a publisher? Fifteen
Did a particular event or experience inspire your book? Not one in particular; I am inspired by random events, things that I see on the street, sometimes things from my past.
Best aspect of U.Va.’s MFA program: God, there are so many. I loved the poetry faculty, I loved meeting other poets, I loved the number of readings by poets that I had the opportunity to attend.
Best way to deal with rejection: Rip up the rejection letter, move on.
Advice for aspiring writers: Rejection is a part of the game. Write the truth as you see it, not the way you think a particular editor or audience would like to see it.
 Aoibheann Sweeney (Grad ’00)
Age: 38
Residence: Brooklyn, N.Y.
Favorite book: Mrs. Dalloway, if I have to pick one
Who is your first reader? Myself. I go through tons of terrible drafts before I show a soul.
Length of time it took to write your book: I finished a first draft 10 years ago. A few years went by while I went to the MFA program and wrote other things, another two went by while I found an agent and then found a job, and another three went by after I got the contract. But I worried about it the whole time as if I were doing nothing else.
Plot: A girl who grows up on an island in Maine goes to New York City and discovers her father’s past and her own future in New York City.
How many times was your manuscript rejected before you found a publisher? It was sold in an auction in the first round out to publishers, but a few agents rejected it before I found the right one.
Did a particular event or experience inspire your book? Shakespeare’s The Tempest inspired me to write about the character of Miranda.
Best aspect of U.Va.’s MFA program: Deborah Eisenberg’s literature class
Best way to deal with rejection: Send it out again (never worry about multiple submissions until they ask).
Advice for aspiring writers: Find a place for yourself with a door you can close, try to write every day and don’t expect royalties!
 Ravi Howard (Grad ’01)
Age: 32
Residence: Mobile, Ala.
Favorite book: Billy by Albert French
Who is your first reader? My wife, Laura, gives me notes.
Length of time it took to write your book: I worked on the manuscript for about four years, from 2002 through 2006. I wrote a short story on the same subject while at U.Va., and I used a lot of that same material in the novel.
Plot: It’s the story of two teenaged brothers in Mobile, Ala., in the aftermath of a lynching in 1981.
How many times was your manuscript rejected before you found a publisher? I was fortunate enough to have a contract in place before I completed the novel. I sent pages to my editor probably once a year over those four years. The experience of accepting feedback and criticism in workshop was helpful in making that process easier.
Did a particular event or experience inspire your book? The lynching really happened. A 19-year-old named Michael Donald was killed by Klansmen. They hanged his body from a tree just a few blocks from my house.
Best aspect of U.Va.’s MFA program: The size of the program was just right. We had enough writers to give a nice range of styles, but we didn’t have the big numbers that might make a program impersonal.
Best way to deal with rejection: Buy a paper shredder for the rejection letters. I think we all have to be nomadic in our approaches to publishing. If your work doesn’t find a home with a journal, publisher, agent or prize, then it’s time to move on to the next one.
Advice for aspiring writers: Fiction writers can look for additional lessons outside of their genre—plays, poetry, essays, film and photography—anything that has a narrative.
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