JAMES YAMASAKI
During the 10 years I worked at Hugo House, the second largest writers’ center in the country, I met hundreds of writers, from nobodies who have always been somebodies in their own minds to best-selling authors your aunt’s book club has read.
I started at Hugo House as a 22-year-old intern who couldn’t get into an MFA program and worked my way up to program director, holding other positions along the way. Whatever an MFA would have taught me about writing, I like to think I got just from Hugo House, and I didn’t have to take out any student loans…