On Rejection: Ally Ang
NEA Fellow & Poet
Hi everyone!
I’m so excited to have Ally Ang join our On Rejection series for this week’s interview. They are a current National Endowment for the Arts Fellow as well as a poet finishing up their first poetry manuscript. I recently met them through Twitter and I’m so glad I did!
If you’re just discovering Collected Rejections, welcome! In this world, writing is still fun, rejection is not a bad word, and we’re all here to grow as writers. If you’re into that, subscribe to this newsletter here:
Hi Ally! Tell us about a time you experienced rejection.
When I finished college in 2017, I was certain that I would apply to Sociology Ph.D. programs and eventually become a professor. As someone who had built my sense of identity off of being “good at school” since I was a kid, I couldn’t really imagine a life for myself outside of academia. I applied to five or six Ph.D. programs and was rejected from all of them. It was devastating! I thought I had my life trajectory all figured out (which, in hindsight, is laughable considering I was 22), and then I had to start from scratch all over again.
Around that same time, I began to take my poetry more seriously. I’d been writing poems ever since I was an angsty teen, but I had only recently started to submit and publish my work and to get involved in my city’s poetry scene. Eventually, about a year after I got rejected from Ph.D. programs, I realized that poetry was my biggest passion and something I wanted to take more seriously. I decided to apply to MFA programs because I felt that I had grown as much as a writer as I could on my own and I wanted to find the time, space, mentorship, and community I needed to develop my craft. Plus, I was going through a rough breakup, and I felt that applying to grad school again would be a good distraction. Perhaps that’s just my masochistic streak.
I applied to another five or six MFA programs (my only two criteria for programs I applied to were 1) that they were fully-funded, and 2) that they had at least one faculty of color, and that already narrowed down my options a ton) and—surprise, surprise—I was rejected from all but one. The one that I was accepted into was certainly not my first choice, but I ended up going, and while my MFA experience was not what I expected (a story for a different interview), it certainly helped me grow as a writer and a person.
How did you get over it?
I cried a lot, wallowed in self-pity, complained to anyone who could bear to listen, convinced myself that my experience was unprecedented. I worked hard in therapy to disentangle my self-worth from my identity as a student. I turned towards the things that felt most life-giving and nourishing: community, love, and poetry. And eventually, years later, I realized that I would have been utterly miserable in a Ph.D. program and that the path that those rejections led me down was the best path for me.
If you could go back and tell yourself anything right before that experience, what would you say?
I don’t regret applying to grad programs, although I could have done without all those ridiculously expensive application fees. My Ph.D. rejections saved me from an unhappy life as an academic, and my MFA rejections led me to Seattle, the place I now call home. I think I would tell my past self that academia is not the vibe for me personally, and I don’t need a degree or any sort of institutional validation in order to be a poet.
You're currently an NEA Fellow! What was that application process like and how is it impacting your writing so far?
The application process was annoying, but definitely not the most difficult one I’ve ever completed. The NEA’s application website is notoriously convoluted, but the application itself just entails listing your eligible publications and uploading a work sample. As I was applying, I was having so much trouble navigating the website that I almost just gave up because I was certain that there was no chance in hell I’d be accepted. I’m glad I ended up finishing the application! I’d definitely recommend that any eligible writers apply for the NEA fellowship. There’s no application fee and it certainly can’t hurt.
In terms of how it’s impacted my writing, having extra financial security allows me to dedicate more time and energy to my writing, which is a huge privilege. The buzz around the NEA fellowship is also giving me opportunities and momentum in my writing career and that’s pretty cool!
What are you working on now?
I’m in the process of finishing my first full-length poetry manuscript! It’s about the many concurrent apocalypses that we are all dealing with and how queer joy and connection can serve as a source of healing. I’ve been working on these poems since I began my MFA program at the end of 2019, so I feel like they’ve been baking for a while and they’re almost ready to be taken out of the oven. I’ve spent the past year doing a lot of revision, and while I don’t know if this collection will ever truly be finished, I’m hoping that it’s getting there because I’m feeling ready to move on to new projects. I’m starting to send my manuscript out to publishers, which will certainly usher in a whole new era of soul-crushing rejections. This year, I’ve also been trying to dip my toe into fiction and nonfiction, which is very intimidating but also a lot of fun!