CCA MFA WRITING
San Francisco
Adam Nemett
Adam Nemett is the author of We Can Save Us All, one of ALA Booklist's "Top Ten Debut Novels of 2018." His work has been published, reviewed and featured in Rolling Stone, The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon, Lit Hub, Fatherly, Variety, LA Weekly, The New Yorker, and C-Ville Weekly. An excerpt of his novel was anthologized in The Apocalypse Reader.
Adam graduated from Princeton University and received his MFA in Fiction/Screenwriting from California College of the Arts. For 13 years, Adam served as creative director and author for History Factory, where he wrote award-winning nonfiction books for Lockheed Martin, Brooks Brothers, City of Hope, and Huntington Bank, and directed campaigns for 21st Century Fox, Adobe Systems, HarperCollins, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, New Balance, Pfizer and Vitamix. He is now Director of Brand & Content Strategy for WillowTree, a digital consultancy.
He is the writer/director of the feature film, The Instrument (2005), which LA Weekly described as, "damn near unclassifiable." At Princeton Nemett co-founded MIMA Music Inc., a student organization that grew into an educational 501(c)3 nonprofit that has operated in 40 countries worldwide. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife and two kids, and is the author of the popular permaculture blog, Thunderbird Disco Homestead.
Why Did You Choose CCA?
I actually started over and came to CCA after spending a lackluster semester at an MFA fiction program in NYC that rhymes with Schmew School–plenty of talented professors and students, but only two classes per semester, 25 people in my workshop, and they wouldn’t let me take poetry or screenwriting classes without applying to additional programs and paying extra tuition bucks. CCA, by contrast, offered true immersion and exploration. Four classes—across multiple genres and disciplines—including the in-depth mentored studies. Amazing professors. A legendary American city. Art school vibes. A chance to tighten up my craft while staying loose enough to get inspired by everything around me. That’s what I wanted and that’s what I found at CCA.
Advice for Current Students?
You’re paying for time. Pretend this two-year stretch is the deepest you’ll ever be able to focus on your writing, and build the discipline and “critical mass” it takes to be a working writer.
This doesn’t mean you need to finish your novel in two years: It took me 13 years to get my novel published, but during those first two years at CCA I got like 65% of the first draft on paper, which was enough momentum to keep me going after the MFA.
This also doesn’t mean you should only take classes in your focus area. Leslie Carol Roberts’ class on climate change became a key inspiration for my “cli-fi” novel, and a screenwriting class with Holly Payne informed my future day job at a specialty marketing firm (had to pay the bills throughout those 13 years), where I applied filmic story structure to corporate histories.
This also doesn’t mean you shouldn't have fun. SF is a tremendous party and your colleagues are probably super interesting. I’m still close with many professors and students from my CCA years, and those relationships are as important as any page I wrote during my MFA. Don't forget to have a good time.
What's Next for You?
After more than a decade with one firm, I joined the Great Resignation and landed a new position at a mature tech company here in Charlottesville, Virginia. I now serve as Director of Brand & Content Strategy, and spend my days writing short- and long-form stories, making podcasts, and writing/directing video series. I use my MFA every day and I dig it.
And after spending more than a decade writing fiction about climate change and self-reliance, I started learning how to do this stuff IRL. A nonfiction piece of mine was recently published in Rolling Stone (“Journal of a Progressive Prepper”) and I’m developing written and video content for a nonfiction book project about my family’s homesteading experiment of shifting to a more self-reliant lifestyle.