Behind the paths. × This prototype uses a deliberately selected set of real UMass Amherst MFA alumni and source-linked publications and career milestones. Journal appearances can be during or after the MFA, as labeled. It is an illustration of the browsing experience, not a complete alumni dataset.
What flows? Overview bands count distinct writers connected to each destination, matching the writer labels. Each writer is counted once per band, including the grouped “more” band, and can appear in several bands. Band width uses a fixed scale at each screen size, so adding writers visibly widens the band. When following one writer, bands instead count that writer’s recorded connections. One journal appearance, book, prize, teaching record, or sourced agent relationship is one record. The same writer can contribute multiple records and appear in several categories. Categories overlap at the person level.
What does the year mean? Graduation-date conflicts are explained on the affected profiles; unresolved dates may be omitted. Journal, book, and prize years are publication or event years. Teaching years mark the documented start, tenure milestone, or dated evidence specified in that record. They do not imply that a person still holds the position.
Agents includes author and agency listings plus dated first-person interviews and deal announcements, with check dates on the individual records. Historical relationships carry their documented year and a current-representation-unconfirmed label. An agent connection is not a claim that they secured a particular book deal, that representation began after the MFA, or that they are currently open to queries. Missing representation is not evidence that a writer has no agent. The official guidelines link is the place to check submission rules.
Journals records specific published work verified against journal article pages, issue contents, or dated author bibliographies. An appearance can contain more than one piece. Interviews about a writer and reviews of their books are excluded. Publication dates are used, and any documented student-era appearance is labeled. Missing journal records mean this sample is incomplete.
Prizes includes literary awards, fellowships, laureateships, and recognitions such as Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists. Finalists and Editors’ Choice selections are explicitly labeled.
What is missing? Many alumni, books, journal publications, awards, jobs, and unrecorded life paths. These selections cannot establish success rates, typical outcomes, or that the MFA caused an outcome. Books include chapbooks, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction; genre filters follow the writer’s UMass MFA concentration where known. Reissues are not counted as new books. Book publishers are normalized to the names shown in the source.
Click a writer for individual citations. Faculty who did not earn the UMass MFA are not included.