MFA or NYC? - Post-Mortem MFA To Have Scribes Knock Knock Knocking at Gate of Heaven

Date: October 14, 2017

Authors: myself, others 

Venue: Cell Theatre

Free Drinks:

Q & A: no 

Book signed - no

UE Check Number – benefits over 

Gate of Heaven Mortuary Services Inc. and the Writers’ Institute at CUNY are proud to offer the first graduate-level writing degree combined with long-term, high residency internment.

The Gate of Heaven-Writers Institute MFA (post-mortem) program constitutes an intimate creative apprenticeship that extends beyond traditional classroom and burial options.

Even writers who have enrolled in traditional MFA programs in New York have found that academic demands and late-night drinking sessions after readings have been hard to balance.

Now, for the first time, writers at all stages of their careers upon croaking will be able to take advantage of New York’s multifaceted literary community and networking opportunities.

Our campus is a paradise under and above the earth. The views of the Metro North train station and the surrounding Westchester suburbs are breathtaking. To be dead in this environment in what amounts to a lovely, private work station is simply a unique and memorable privilege.

Our jewel-like setting is close enough for your biographers to visit, but far enough, 15 miles, from the bustle of the city so consultations with your Muse will be undisturbed.

With our unique holistic approach, the Gate of Heaven – Writers’ Institute MFA (post-mortem) will offer an on-going, intensive reconsideration of your career up to the point of your death with yearly certificates of completion and priceless insights that belie commonly held notions that death need be the end of your writing career.

Like an anthology that uses a few big-name writers to attract readers, our logistics team will see that your final resting place will be curated so you can benefit from foot traffic that comes and goes from better-known writers’ graves.

Gate of Heaven’s 178-acre campus with its rich cultural history and literary attractions provides a four-season opportunity for students to learn the art and craft of being dead while faculty members, other staff and administrators endeavor to keep their work alive.

We guarantee that by enrollment in our MFA program, writers will be able to fulfill every artist’s obligation to their work to ensure its continued relevancy. Prior to our program, it wasn’t uncommon for deceased writers to find their work out of style and forgotten by readers and critics.

In fact, we expect to announce a deal with the New York Review of Books classics reissue program, which will reward students who complete our program with re-publication in the series.

While enrolled, students will participate in a calm community engaged in all aspects of decay, putrification and nasty gas production guided by workshops, craft talks, manuscript consultations, lectures and anniversary graveside memorial ceremonies if on-site staff are available or if we can get anybody else to come.

Degree requirements in the program stipulate that students complete five, year-long residencies and submit a Masters Thesis related to their personal impact on the grave-site environment that is the equivalent of 75 pages of fiction or 25 pages of poetry. Grass quality and nearby shrub growth will be among the metrics used in evaluating the Masters Thesis. It also requires the approval of the student’s faculty advisor, the program director and the head groundskeeper. 

Gate of Heaven – CUNY Writers’ Institute MFA Post-Mortem Year Abroad

Qualified students may apply for a competitive slot in our Post-Mortem Reburial Abroad option. In collaboration with the Cimetiere Montparnasse in Paris, we are pleased to offer a select group of our students, not only a two-semester interment in this famous cemetery, but also a funeral service that is based on Susan Sontag’s noted ceremony there.

Yes, the whole package including someone playing the Debussy Flute Sonata “Sphinx” and mourners who are members of the Académie Francaise or passers-by is exclusively available to Gate of Heaven – Writers’ Institute MFA (post-mortem) participants.

Please note that the other famous Parisian burial ground, Pere Lachaise, with its tacky Jim Morrison grave attracts only low-brow tourists who wouldn’t know the Times Literary Supplement if they tripped over a pile of them. Despite its recently announced reburial abroad deal with the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, we are confident that writers will eschew this down-market option. By the way, good luck getting visitors to your grave if its home site is in Nowheresville City, Iowa.

Prospective student comment: “I’ve been to all the writing “spas.” McDowell in New Hampshire, Yaddo in upstate New York and a couple of the Italian ones and none of them will hold a mortuary candle to what Gate of Heaven is offering.”

Prospective student comment: “Even if we could, I can’t imagine any writer not completing their degree, dropping out or transferring to another school, once they’ve experienced the Gate of Heaven program.”