Is Substack Better Than an MFA? Sarah Fay Explains

🎙️ New episode: Sarah Fay on Substack, memoir & manifesting her dream agent

Jun 05, 2025

Hey Bleeders!

This week on the pod, I had the pleasure of chatting with Pathological author and everyone’s favorite Substack guru,

. I get to enjoy each interview once while it's happening and then again and again in the editing process—and let me tell you, this episode is something special.

Sarah’s journey to publication was slow… and then all at once. “Well, I lived it for 25 years before I could write about it,” Sarah told me of her debut memoir, Pathological. “So it is about the 25 years I spent in the mental health system. So it was a long road.”

The writing part, though? Surprisingly swift. Sarah manifested her dream scenario—the exact one she had daydreamed about while riding the New York City subway in her 20s.

“I used to dream that an agent would call me and say, ‘I'm halfway through your book, I love it, don’t talk to anyone else.’”

Reader, that dream came true, almost verbatim!

Fast forward to Sarah and her agent selling the book in a whirlwind six weeks—during a pandemic, no less. We got into the whole writing, publishing, and promotion process for Pathological, and there are so many juicy nuggets.

We also explored Sarah’s current obsession:

Substack

—which she credits with transforming her creative life, career, and even her personal outlook.

“Substack has completely transformed me as a human, and it's transformed so many of my clients. It's made me far less jealous of other writers. It's made me way more supportive. It's just made me a better human.”

Sarah now runs

Substack Writers at Work with Sarah Fay

and From Craft to Career, helping writers use Substack as both a creative training ground and professional launchpad.

“Substack has given us this amazing place where I can do the same teaching I've been doing and then also bring in other amazing teachers… And then we use Substack as the lab basically… So the idea being not only is it better than an MFA because you're getting practical experience, but maybe you would be paid for it. How great would that be?”

Sarah shares some awesome Substack tips that you’ll definitely want to tune in for.

So how does she do it all? She plans every minute of her day—using a Cal Newport-style block schedule. Despite her jam-packed days, Sarah prioritizes what she loves most: good writing and teaching others how to do it well.

When asked what piece of writing she’s most jealous of, she mentions a universally beloved (and envied) essay: Jo Ann Beard’s “The Fourth State of Matter.”

But Sarah doesn’t shy away from jealousy—she uses it as fuel.

“I think jealousy and envy [are] like the lowest, the most base emotions for writers. And I feel it. Let me tell you… But… I thought, okay, what is this saying for you to do? You gotta be paying more attention to your own stuff.”

Hell yes. Envy is your instruction.

We also got into craft. Sarah is a meticulous reviser, and we bonded over our shared love of The Artful Edit by Susan Bell, which offers a brilliant breakdown of The Great Gatsby’s revisions.

“I always separated revision, which is for content, with editing, which is for style. She just calls it the macro edit and the micro edit. But I love it and it's so fundamental to writers and so few people do it.”

In this wide-ranging conversation, we discussed serialization, the ambiguity of recovery, how to handle getting burned by a publicist, how to give your book a long shelf life, and so much more. Whether you’re working on a memoir, trying to land your dream agent, or looking to turn your newsletter into a thriving writing career, this episode is packed with gems.

🎧 Listen to Sarah’s episode now!

Happy bleeding!
Courtney

I’m teaching some upcoming workshops you might be interested in:

So… ROLL CALL! 🗣️

So where do you stand on Substack vs. MFA: Which do you think is a better training ground for writers?

The Bleeders

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