Moving to Texas
University of Houston's Creative Writing MFA is a program I've had my eye on for a long time. A decade ago when I was a grad student, US News and World Report ranked creative writing programs for the first and last time and the Houston MFA was ranked #2, behind only the legendary Iowa program and ahead of the school I was at, Columbia's School of the Arts. Houston's program is a three year writing MFA that offers full scholarships for most of those who attend, ample teaching opportunities, a PhD component, a well respected national literary journal, a closely associated and well-endowed literary nonprofit, and internationally renowned faculty in both poetry and prose. Admission is extremely competitive, only taking on a dozen or so students every year out of hundreds of applicants, and those lucky few are among the brightest hopes for the future of literature.
So a tenure-line job opened up last fall at the University of Houston graduate writing program and I applied, and then I interviewed, and then interviewed some more, and then I got the job. And now I'm packing up my family and moving to Houston, Texas to start a new life. I will begin teaching there this Fall.
I already miss several things about Bard: my students, my colleagues among the faculty, how beautiful the campus is in the spring, summer and fall (notice there is a season missing). Emotionally, it has not been as easy of a departure as I had assumed. But Houston offers the type of teaching future I have always dreamed of. And the city itself offers a very affordable, cultured, soulful environment that I think my children will thrive in. So off we go.
My wife and I are currently looking for the right place to live, vacillating between urban and suburban destinations, so if anybody has advice on the subject, it would be appreciated. Houston, Texas is a long way from Philly, the city that will always be my true home and heart, but soon as I saw that they had cheesesteaks down there, I knew we were going to be alright. Now, if we can just get a Rita's to open up as well, we might even try staying there in the summer time also.
Go Cougars!
16 Comments:
Congrats on your new position. While a humid summer in Houston is no fun (I spent a year in Texas when I worked on the late Gov. Ann Richards' re-election campaign) it's an interesting city with a great arts scene.
Mat,
Congratulations. Sounds like a great job at a great program. These jobs are so hard to land, so well done. It'll be hot, but I've signed on to move a frying pan myself - Cal State in Fresno. I imagine we've faced a lot of the same decisions and career considerations recently.
Best of luck with the move,
David.
Congratulations old bean!
I know you'll continue to grow and be successful with the new moves.It's been my experiences that other cities may have reasonable facsimilies for cheesesteaks, but nobody's beatin' the authentic Philly grease-soaked paper bag neighborhood jawn! HA!
Peace
M
Congratulations! Funny, after a friend moved to Dallas, I keep running into people either from or heading to Texas. Hope you like heat!
And I keep running into people who are running from Texas, but hey...a tenure-track job in an MFA program is nothing to sneeze at. Congratulations!
Congratulations, and best of luck!
Anything better's than dumpster town Philly. Congratulations on your new position. Isn't the University of Houston where Toni Morrison taught in the 50's?
Nonetheless, better pay, better job security, warm sunshine. Good luck, and keep us posted!
Interesting. I recently applied to UofH's grad school for English. I was accepted, but they didn't wanna give a sistuh no money! I'm headed to Texas A&M, but wish you much luck!
I'm still gonna get my write on!
Thanks All!
D.A.D- Saw your good news on your blog a while back, that sounds like a sweet move. I know you and yours are going through the same process that we are.
Anon- Don't sleep on the 215. I had a ball in Philly last summer; we rented a townhouse loft downtown last summer. The access to culture, the restaurants, I would have been happier there than I would have been anywhere on the east coast.
But it wasn't to be.
Texas has money. Money brings people.
Glad to see that you've recovered from sickness. Congrats on the new gig. No winter? I envy you. :)
Congrats! Maybe I'll get to meet u (possibly at the BEA) before u head south. If not, best wishes to you & your family. I hear Texas is great, but it "ain't" da NYC;-)!
Wow, Mat!!! That is awesome!!! Congrats, congrats, a billion congrats to you and your family. The University of Houston and its students are getting one of our modern day literary treasures.
Mat, I used to live in Philadelphia---I'm from the Midwest. I lived there right after I graduated from college a few years back for 2 years and it was awful! I have NEVER lived in a city that so many people hated! Every person that I met that came from another city hated Philly. My roommate was one of my best friends and originally from Philly, and she had moved and came back and she hated it too.
Why didn't I like Philly?
Top Ten List:
10. The mayor. When John Street is voted by TIME MAGAZINE one of the THREE worst mayors in the nation that cannot be good for the city!
09. Crummy library services and weird retailer hours. The library in Germantown closed indefinitely for a period, and when it was open, you had to wait 3 hours to check your email for 30 minutes! It definitely was not worth it! The libraries in Philly had crazy hours.
Open on Mon, Tues, and Thurs from 8-4 and Wed and Fri from 2-7, etc. Same thing with retailers. A lot of retailers in the mom and pop shops opened in the middle in the day and then closed when they felt like it, and did not post a note!
08. Dirty and smelly. There was always trash on the street, even in Center City and a really strange odor, even in the suburbs. A city that claims to be the City of Brotherly Love should SMELL LIKE IT!
07. Rodents, rodents, rodents. Seems like no matter how much money we paid for an apartment, we couldn't escape the creepy crawlers. We had mice(and that's even with a cat!), and that's in Mount Airy, and that's AFTER we paid for an exterminator to come out and basically stopped eating in the apartment.
06. Transportation. The cost of transportation in Philadelphia for the year 2005 was the highest in the nation! And from what I've heard it's going back up. When I was there, a monthly transpass was $130 and that only included Zone 1. Say you are traveling by train from Center City to Chestnut Hill train station on Germantown Ave., after Zone 1 we were required to pay an additional $3.00 per zone per way. So, we paid an extra $6.00 after paying $130 for a transpass that's only good for one zone on the train and two zones on the bus.
You leave early to arrive late. Cars in Philly are so expensive and yet, without one, you can forget about it. The trains ran pretty good but the buses were terrible. You leave early to arrive late. The buses are dirty, the patrons are rude to the bus drivers, and the subway is borderline scary. No one will give you directions, and (this almost happened to me) if someone overhears you saying that you don't know where you are going, they will definitely try to mug you.
05. Philadelphians are NOT honest. I heard this from too many people who lived there and who didn't. They will lie in your face and talk about you behind your back. I met too many people in Philly who said that they were going to keep their word and didn't.
04. Crime. While I was living there, almost every day on the news, someone got shot, raped, or killed. Nothing different from any other major American city except a little girl was brutally raped downtown at the LIBRARY in broad daylight by a crazed, mentally-challenged homeless person. Did I mention that Philadelphia has one of the HIGHEST homeless rates in the country?
03. Jobs. A good job in Philadelphia paid $10.00 an hour. Even with a college degree, which I had, I couldn't find a decent job. I met people with master's degrees who were working at coffee shops. Philadelphia is surrounded by Delaware and New
Jersey and is 2 hours from NYC. Sadly, any job listing you have to compete with those
surrounding communities making it IMPOSSIBLE to get in anywhere unless you know the
right person. That's true everywhere but at least here in the Midwest, people will
be honest with you. In Philly, they told you they'd make a recommendation for you
to come in for a second interview,and then not call you. Why lie? I'd rather have
heard the truth, but I didn't get that.
02. Cost of living. With a good job paying $10 an hour, it was not
unusual for me to meet people who were in their 40's living at home
with their parents. A decent-size apartment in the city say
Germantown or Mount Airy ran like $700-800 and you still had mice.
You could live in the Northeast but Roosevelt Boulevard has too
much traffic and the Northeast is away from everything else. Living
in the suburbs would have been nice but since the jobs didn't
pay well that made it virtually impossible.
01. The myth of Brotherly Love. Even the Philadelphian Inquirer
posted an article saying that Philly was a tough town to
make friends in. Philadelphians were rude, elitist, schemers,
basically a group of the most unfriendliest people I have ever
met. Sadly, I met so many people from other cities that hated
Philly that I know that I'm justified in my opinion.
Anyone that thinks Philly is a great city needs a serious
reality check!
Mat,
Congrats on the new job! Glad to see that you'll be moving here to Tejas! The new job sounds excellent. You'll thrive there.
I don't know much about Houston and environs, so I can't help you with the area. General advice, though: Texas soil (and/or some of the houses built on it) is notoriously unstable in many places, so pin down sellers on the condition of the foundation, flood zones, all that mess.
And make sure a joint fixing cheesesteaks is nearby.
DDC
Mat, I've just come across your blog, and intend to check in with you frequently. I am an aspiring writer, but certainly not nearly advanced as you...I'm presently emplyed in a completely different field, and am only now (at 41) starting my first novel...but hey, there is no one path, so we'll see how it goes. I live in Dallas, and have family in Houston, and I suspect you will find much to like there. It will be a great experience as Houston has a rich (as in active and vibrant) black community, and the city overall is booming.
As for H-Town, my brotha, some words of caution though. Traffic is unreal. yes, I know Philly traffic, but trust me on this. Texas has mucho expressways, and mucho cars, and its growing each day. My advise is if you will be spending a lot of time at UofH, try to go for a central city location, especially if you like an urban vibe (e.g. Montrose, the Heights, the Galleria area) anywhere inside or near "the Loop"...which is 610.
If you want a suburban vibe, then you have choices galor, and you really can't go wrong, but again be mindful of traffic issues.
For UofH, then I might suggest the Missouri City/Fort Bend County area toward the Southwest of Houston. My brother live in the Northwest, near 290 and Hwy 6...it will depend a lot on where you wife works as well, so if you need more info, just post back and maybe we can connect for more advise. Mike
I'm really late reading your whole blog (I started at the beginning and read up until the more current posts), so that's the reason for this extremely late comment.
I lived in Houston all my life and now I'm moving away. One of the things I'll miss most is Inprint, the literary non-profit you mentioned. It's such a great organization and I'm sad I was only able to participate in its programs for a year (I didn't learn about it until after college).
Anyway, I just wanted to say I love your blog and I hope you enjoy living in Houston. Definitely check out Pappadeaux's, The Breakfast Klub, and The Reggae Hut for good food.
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