Aspiring Author

15 Best Low Residency MFA Programs

Author: Natalie Harris-Spencer Updated: February 18, 2023

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The best low residency MFA programs offer you a more cost-effective way to complete a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. The difference between a low residency and a fully remote program is that you’ll be expected to stay on campus for short periods throughout the year, giving you greater flexibility than if you’d have either been living on campus, or full-time in front of a computer screen.

What can you expect from the best low residency MFA programs?

These programs will force you to juggle your writing time around your day job , family, and cats, while still plunging you into that writers’ life you so crave. In many ways, they’re harder than the traditional brick-and-mortar school program, in that they give you a truer flavor of what it’s like to pursue a writing career with a million other things going on in your life. They’re also far more immersive than an online-only program.

You’ll be hit with a combination of remote and in-person learning. A typical school year comprises two semesters, of which there is usually a 10-day intensive residency on campus per semester (so, two residencies per year, for two years). The time in between residencies is remote i.e. spent from your writing desk at home, where you will be paired with a mentor or smaller groups of writers. In fact, the 1:1 mentorship is a huge benefit of a low residency MFA program ; you’ll get closer attention than you would if you were in a traditional college class.

The best low residency MFA programs will offer a variety of genres , including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, popular fiction, scriptwriting, literary translation, graphic novels and comics, and writing for young people, while some allow for a dual-genre path.

While MFAs are not cheap, low residency programs are certainly on the more affordable side. Read on for 15 best low residency MFA programs, listed in alphabetical order.

1. Antioch University

Offered by AU Los Angeles, Antioch University’s low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program is dedicated to the education of literary and dramatic artists, community engagement, and the pursuit of social justice. It offers two, 10-day residencies in June and December.

2. Bard College

Bard College offers MFAs for artists in a variety of disciplines, not just writing. Each summer session runs for eight intensive weeks (there is no winter residency), and does not follow the traditional semester schedule. Most students receive some amount of financial aid, making it an attractive option for candidates.

3. Bennington College

Bennington College is widely regarded as one of the best low residency MFA programs in the United States. Residencies take place in picturesque Vermont, and their prestigious faculty includes many multi-published authors and literary prizewinners. You can elect to pursue a dual-genre path. Bennington’s residencies take place in January and June.

4. Cedar Crest College

This pan-European MFA offers a single 15-day residency at the beginning of July that rotates between Dublin, Ireland, Barcelona, Spain, and Vienna, Austria, with new locations coming soon. Unlike other programs, you’ll only attend three residencies in total, and you won’t go to the university campus in Allentown, Pennsylvania. But…you get to travel to Europe.

5. Goucher College

The only program dedicated solely to nonfiction writing, this low residency MFA attracts applicants and faculty interested in pursuing narrative, memoir, personal essay, and literary journalism. Literary agents and editors attend the two 10-day residencies in Baltimore, Maryland, and there are sponsored trips to New York to meet top publishing professionals.

6. Institute of American Indian Arts

Now in its tenth year, the emphasis with this particular Creative Writing MFA is on Native writers, voices, texts, and experience, although applications are open to all. Based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, it offer two 8-day residencies in January and July.

7. Lesley University

While the nine-day residencies take place in the “literary mecca” of Cambridge, Massachusetts, there’s also the opportunity for students to study abroad at a 12-day residency in rural Wales. Lesley has relationships with literary agencies and presses , so that you get a fast-track into publishing on submitting your thesis when you graduate.

8. Lindenwood University

Located in St. Charles, Missouri, Lindenwood University is unique in that there is no formal residency requirement: you can take classes fully on campus, online, or choose the low residency model. The program is more affordable than others due to its flexibility, and offers financial aid to teachers and candidates over the age of sixty.

9. New York University

Based on NYU’s campus in Paris, France, there are five, 10-day residencies held in January and July. This is one of the more expensive programs, with limited funding available. However, its faculty line-up is always incredible, and you’re paying for the prestige of Paris.

10. Pacific University

Based in Portland, Oregon, Pacific University’s MFA program places a strong emphasis on craft . It offers multiple full and partial merit-based scholarships to qualifying candidates. Residencies are in January and June.

11. Sewanee School of Letters

The model at Sewanee School of Letters in Tennessee is slightly different: you complete a single, six-week residency over the summer , which in turn is spread over the course of three to five summers, making it more affordable than other low residency programs.

12. University of New Orleans

Despite positioning itself as online MFA, the University of New Orleans is actually low residency, in that it offers a month-long residency every summer at various international locations, including Ireland and Italy.

13. University of Southern Maine (Stonecoast)

My alma mater . Stonecoast at USM offers two 10-day residencies in January and July, alongside a concurrent writers’ conference, in the picturesque town of Freeport, Maine. Its popular fiction program is especially popular with writers of horror, fantasy, and sci-fi, and its WISE program (writing for inclusivity and social equity) is at the heart of its ethos. In my humble opinion, it will always be one of the best low residency MFA programs.

14. Vermont College of Fine Arts

Another Vermont entry: proof that this beautiful state inspires creativity. Residencies are nine days and take place in December and July, with past residencies going further afield: Slovenia, Puerto Rico, Cozumel, Mexico, Rome, and Asheville, North Carolina. Literary translation and dual-genre paths are available.

15. Warren Wilson College

Established in 1976, Warren Wilson is the original low residency MFA program, introducing the format to North America and the rest of the world. Consequently, it’s on the pricier end, but there are multiple grants and financial aid available. It offers two, 10-day residencies in January and July near the wonderful town of Asheville, North Carolina, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

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Introducing the New Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing

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Hood College is excited to launch the low-residency MFA in creative writing beginning June 2024, a 48-credit program in fiction or poetry that includes four remote mentorship semesters and three 10-day summer residencies.

Inaugural Residency Launches June 2024

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Elizabeth Knapp, Ph.D., program director, discusses the new Creative Writing MFA below.

How did you get the idea for the low-residency MFA at Hood College?

The day of my interview in May 2008 (which was also the last day of classes), as I was walking across campus with my future colleagues, I said to one of them, “You know, this would be a lovely place for a low-residency MFA in creative writing,” and with that, the idea for the program was born. It’s been 15 years in the making now.

What’s unique about Hood College’s low-residency MFA in creative writing?

There are several key features of our program that we think make it stand out:

First, we are the only low-residency MFA in the state of Maryland that offers concentrations in both fiction and poetry; second, our program includes summer residencies on Hood College’s beautiful campus, which is within walking distance of Downtown Frederick (and one hour from Baltimore and Washington, D.C.), with its lively historic district featuring great restaurants, shops and a wonderful independent bookstore ; third, for the second of the three summer residencies, students have the option of attending the Prague Summer Program for Writers ; fourth, in addition to scholarships and other funding opportunities, we offer students the chance to help launch and serve on the staff of our new online literary magazine, Pergola ; fifth, our program focuses on literary publishing, and by the end of the program, students will be submitting their work to literary journals and magazines and may even be starting to publish it; finally, our program features dynamic permanent and guest faculty, including award-winning poets and fiction writers.

Students in the program will play an essential role in its development, and we look forward to welcoming writers from a variety of backgrounds and professions.

Why did you choose to partner with the Prague Summer Program?

The nation’s oldest study-abroad program for creative writers in the English language, the Prague Summer Program has been on our radar since the inception of our program. Now operating as an LLC, the Prague Summer Program had been affiliated for many years with the University of New Orleans and then Western Michigan University. As a Ph.D. student at the latter, I attended the PSP in summer 2005 and served as a teaching assistant for the poet Anne Marie Macari , so I have first-hand knowledge of the program’s outstanding faculty , including two MacArthur Fellows and a National Book Award Winner in fiction. In addition to the option of a three-week second summer residency through the PSP, we’ll also be offering teaching assistantships in the program.

What is the program’s philosophy?

Central to our program’s philosophy is the idea of balance—between writing and the demands of everyday life, between periods of solitude and social interaction—as well as the presence of a diverse and cohesive literary community. The latter in particular is essential to our identity as a program, as we believe that while we may write in solitude, we work together as a community to bring our art into the world.

The idea of balance is also central to the way we’ve structured our program. Our 10-day summer residencies are designed to immerse students in activities and subjects central to the writing life and to foster a sense of community and fellowship with other writers. At the end of the residency period, students return to their individual writing lives reenergized and recommitted to the practice of writing. They then commence a period of concentrated reading and writing in the semester between residencies under the close guidance of a faculty mentor.

Along with the residency experience, literary mentorship is a hallmark of our program. The mentorship semester is designed to help students develop close working relationships with experienced teachers and published authors who can direct them in all matters of literary craft, criticism and publishing. As immersive experiences, the mentorship semesters also provide students with a solid foundation in literary history, theory and practice, and students are expected to read broadly and deeply both within their genre and across genres.

Learn more about the new low-residency MFA in creative writing.

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Best MFA Creative Writing Programs

Creative writing is a career chased by those who have a passion and talent for writing. Whether your medium is fictional stories, poetry, screenwriting, or non-fictional stories, creative writing allows you to express yourself through your work. If you think this is what you want to do with your life, you should pursue a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.

Entertainment is one of the most commonly overlooked necessities in life. Everyone you speak to throughout your day will be looking forward to some form of entertainment. Most often, people go home at night to watch movies, TV shows, or read books. As a creative writer, you could help provide a steady stream of entertainment, making your job surprisingly vital to society. For anyone wanting a creative job, creative writing is a fantastic option.

Find your bootcamp match

Before we get to the best MFA in Creative Writing programs, let’s explore the difference between an MFA and Master’s Degree in Creative Writing.

MFA vs Master’s in Creative Writing

Chances are you have already completed an undergraduate degree in creative writing or a similar field. Assuming this is the case, you’re likely trying to decide your next step. With the two most common paths at this point being so similar, choosing MFA or a master’s degree can be a difficult decision. So what sets them apart and which one should you choose?

An MFA is often considered to be the highest-level academic degree you can earn for certain fine arts specializations, including creative writing. In a master’s of fine arts program , there is more of a focus on writing and preparing you to become a writer. It does require more credit hours than a master’s degree program, but if you want to be a writer, this path gives you the best education and preparation.

A Master’s Degree in Creative Writing, on the other hand, most often allows for a concentration in creative writing instead of a specialization. With a master’s degree, you would receive an education more focused on analyzing and studying literature rather than writing and composing. While a master’s degree is the quicker option, due to fewer required credit hours, it may not be the best if you plan to become a writer.

In either degree program, there are options for concentrations within creative writing. The most common are fiction, literary nonfiction, poetry, genre fiction, and at some schools, screenwriting. These are pretty self-explanatory; fiction focuses on writing fictional works, nonfiction focuses on nonfictional writing, poetry focuses on writing poems, genre fiction allows you to focus on one genre of fiction like romance or horror, and screenwriting focuses on writing scripts for movies, plays, and TV shows.

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Attending a school with a great MFA in Creative Writing program is essential to receiving the best education. While many schools offer these programs, you will want to be fully prepared for your career as a writer upon graduating, and not every school can promise you will be. Applying to one of the following 11 schools, which are ranked as some of the absolute best for MFA in Creative Writing programs, is a great way to secure your future writing career.

University of Nebraska-Omaha

In Omaha, Nebraska, you can enroll in the University of Nebraska’s MFA in Creative Writing program. Students of this program will complete 60 credit hours of coursework in various genres while focusing on one genre based on the student’s specialization. The program is made up of four 16-week long writing seminars and five 10-day long residency workshops. Both the seminars and the workshops are designed to help prepare you as a writer.

To enroll in this program, applicants will need to provide their official transcripts, a resume, two letters of recommendation, a statement of purpose, and a writing sample that consists of 15 to 40 pages in their genre. As with all MFA programs, you will also need to have completed a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing or a similar subject.

Queens University of Charlotte

The Queens University of Charlotte in Charlotte, North Carolina, offers a low-residency MFA in Creative Writing. This program ensures there are never more than four students per teacher, which helps students get the quality education they need. Students of this program will have opportunities to write for the school’s literary journal or start an internship to help get their work published.

Requirements to apply to this program include submitting a resume, official transcripts, two letters of recommendation, and a 25-page writing portfolio. There is no requirement as to the genre the writing portfolio must be in, though you should focus on the genre you wish to pursue in your career.

Lindenwood University

At Lindenwood University in Saint Charles, Missouri, students can enroll in an MFA in Creative Writing. This program consists of 48 required credit hours that can be completed entirely online or on-campus. For both paths, no residency is required. Students of this program can take courses designed for both creative writers and those interested in journalism and editing. Most of the courses are taught by experienced authors and journalists, giving students a unique perspective.

Many opportunities are available to you at Lindenwood University, including being an editorial assistant for the school’s literary journal. To enroll in this program, you will need to submit a sample of your reactive writing as well as your official transcripts.

National University-San Diego

For those who wish to complete an online master’s degree , National University in San Diego, California, offers a completely online MFA in Creative Writing with no residency required. This program offers online workshops and seminars to provide students with an interactive online learning experience.

Students of this program will be required to complete elective courses. Many of these courses are unique and can help customize your degree, like film and directing courses or literary studies courses.

University of Texas-El Paso

In El Paso, Texas, students can enroll in a unique bilingual MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Texas. In fact, this is the only bilingual MFA program available in the world, providing students with a classroom experience in which English and Spanish coexist. While this program is on-campus, the university also offers an online MFA in Creative Writing program that can be completed from anywhere in the world.

The programs at this university require students to complete 48 credit hours made up of 42 credit hours of workshops and six for thesis work. To enroll, students must provide official undergraduate transcripts, three letters of recommendation, a statement of purpose and either eight to 10 pages of poetry or 20 pages of fictional writing.

Eastern Kentucky University

At the Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky, students can enroll in a low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program that is primarily online. The program requires students to attend at least 12 credit hours of residencies which are available in the winter in Lexington, Kentucky and in the summer in Lisbon, Portugal. Students can choose which residencies to attend, providing freedom of scheduling and the ability to travel.

To apply to the program at Eastern Kentucky University, students will need to provide GRE scores, undergraduate transcripts, a well-written resume , multiple letters of recommendation, and a writing portfolio. Students must also have completed an undergraduate degree with a GPA of 3.0 or higher.

Oregon State University

Oregon State University offers an on-campus MFA in Creative Writing program at its Corvallis, Oregon, location as well as an online MFA in Creative Writing through its campus in Bend, Oregon. This university is known for having many successful graduates from the MFA program and currently has the highest cumulative GPA of any college in the state of Oregon.

These programs consist of many different focuses, from spiritual writing to physical geography writing, and take around two years to complete. After completion, students will be considered for external GTA positions by the school, helping students find employment right away. To enroll, you will need to submit a resume highlighting achievements and awards, a writing portfolio, transcripts, and a statement of objectives.

Bay Path University

Bay Path University in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, offers a fully online MFA in Nonfiction Writing with no required residencies. There is also an option for students to study abroad in Ireland through this program. This is a great option for anyone who is unable to attend residencies and other on-campus activities but still wishes to earn a degree. The program here consists of 39 required credit hours and is designed for students at all levels of their writing careers.

To be accepted into this program, you will need to have maintained a GPA of 3.0 or higher and submit official transcripts with a 250-word essay, 10 pages of writing samples, and two letters of recommendation.

University of Arkansas-Monticello

In Monticello, Arkansas, you can enroll in the University of Arkansas’ non-residency MFA in Creative Writing program. This program consists of 48 required credit hours in one of three genres: poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction. Students of this program will be able to learn at their own pace, with allowances of anywhere between three and 12 credit hours per semester.

To apply to the University of Arkansas at Monticello’s MFA in Creative Writing, you will need to apply with official transcripts showing a GPA of 3.0 or higher, a manuscript, a personal essay, a critical writing analysis, and three letters of recommendation.

University of New Orleans

The University of New Orleans in New Orleans, Louisiana, offers both online and on-campus versions of their MFA in Creative Writing program. Both programs take students around three years to complete and allow for focuses in poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction. Students of these programs will also have the opportunity to study abroad in Ireland or Italy over the summers.

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To enroll in one of these programs, students need to apply with GRE scores, official transcripts, and other documentation such as a resume and writing portfolio. Students do need to maintain at least a B in all classes to stay in the program once accepted.

Emerson College

In Boston, Massachusetts, you can attend Emerson College and enroll in its MFA in Popular Fiction Writing. This program is taught by award-winning faculty members and offers a concentration in all sorts of genres. Some of the more popular choices include mystery, horror, and young adult writing. The program requires students to complete 36 credit hours, 16 of which are workshops and four of which must be spent on a thesis.

Emerson College focuses on teaching students that writing is both a professional career and a form of art. They strive to help students learn about the history of their chosen genre, and help them to develop their own unique voice as a writer.

Creative writing is a great way to express yourself and your own interests in a way that benefits your career. Whether you wish to be a fiction writer, poet, or journalist, creative writing is a great skill to have. Being able to write unique works ensures an interested audience, which helps you become more successful.

While it is possible to land creative jobs without a degree , earning an MFA in Creative Writing is one of the best ways to turn your passion into a career. With plenty of job opportunities and a societal demand for constant entertainment, you are sure to make a decent living. 

Attending one of the best 11 schools listed above is the best way to make sure your education is tailored to your needs. With options for online and on-campus degrees, you can’t go wrong with any of the best MFA in Creative Writing programs mentioned above.

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The NYU Creative Writing Program

is among the most distinguished programs in the country and is a leading national center for the study of writing and literature.

Graduate Program

The graduate Creative Writing Program at NYU consists of a community of writers working together in a setting that is both challenging and supportive.

Low Residency MFA Workshop in Paris

The low-residency MFA Writers Workshop offers students the opportunity to develop their craft in one of the world's most inspiring literary capitals.

Undergraduate Program

The undergraduate program offers workshops, readings, internships, writing prizes, and events designed to cultivate and inspire.

Spring 2022 Reading Series

The lively public Reading Series hosts a wide array of writers, translators, and editors, and connects our program to the local community.

Creative Writing Program

Low-residency mfa writers workshop in paris, undergraduate, washington square review, literary journal, a sample residency calendar, write in paris, scholarships and grant opportunities, program of study, dates and deadlines, creative writing, recent highlights from the mfa community.

• Alum Bruna Dantas Lobato   won the 2023 National Book Award in translation

• Faculty member Sharon Olds received the Joan Margarit International Poetry Prize from King Felipe VI in July 2023

• Alumni  Tess Gunty  and  John Keene   each won a 2022 National Book Award in fiction and poetry , respectively

• Books by faculty members  Sharon  Olds  and  Meghan O'Rourke;  and alums  Tess Gunty, John Keene ,  and  Jenny Xie  were named finalists for the 2022 National Book Awards; books by alum  Rio Cortez and faculty member Leigh Newman were also longlisted

• Alum  Ada Limón   has been named the nation's 24th Poet Laureate  by the Library of Congress

• Alum  Amanda Larson 's debut poetry collection  GUT  was selected by Mark Bibbins as the winner of the Poetry Society of America Norma Farber Book Award

• Alum  Sasha Burshteyn  was named a 2022 winner of the 92Y Discovery Prize. Alums Jenna Lanzaro and JinJin Xu were also named semi-finalists for the prize.

• Alum Clare Sestanovich was selected as a  2022 5 under 35 Honoree  by the National Book Foundation

• Alum  Maaza Mengiste  was awarded a  2022 Guggenheim Fellowship

• Visiting graduate faculty member  Brandon Taylor 's collection  Filthy Animals  was named a 2021/22  finalist for The Story Prize  and was shortlisted for the  2022 Dylan Thomas Prize

• Alum  Raven Leilani  won the 2021 Clark Fiction Prize, Dylan Thomas prize, the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Fiction and the Center for Fiction 2020 First Novel Prize for her debut novel  Luster,  and was named a finalist for the 2021 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, the Gotham Book Prize, the 2021 PEN/Hemmingway Award for Debut Novel, the 2021 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award

• Alum Desiree C. Bailey 's debut poetry collection  What Noise Against the Cane  was longlisted for the 2022 Dylan Thomas Prize and was also named a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award in Poetry and the 2022 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and was published as the winner of the 2020 Yale Series of Younger Poets

• Senior faculty member  Sharon Olds  was named the 2022 recipient of the Poetry Society of America's Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry

You can read more MFA Community news here and find a list of forthcoming and recently published books by alumni here .   NYU CWP alumni include  Aria Aber, Amir Ahmadi Arian, Julie Buntin, Nick Flynn, Nell Freudenberger, Aracelis Girmay, Isabella Hammad, Ishion Hutchinson, Mitchell S. Jackson, Tyehimba Jess, John Keene, Raven Leilani, Robin Coste Lewis, Ada Limón, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, Maaza Mengiste, John Murillo, Gregory Pardlo, Morgan Parker, Nicole Sealey, Solmaz Sharif, Peng Shepherd, Ocean Vuong, Jenny Xie,  and  Javier Zamora. 

Announcements

Ocean Vuong by Tom Hines

Ocean Vuong joins the NYU Creative Writing Program Faculty

Mary Gabriel by Mike Habermann

Mary Gabriel, Author of “Ninth Street Women”, Receives the NYU/Axinn Foundation Prize

Claudia Rankine

Claudia Rankine joins the NYU Creative Writing Program Faculty

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Where to find us.

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Faculty Spotlight

Jonathan Safran Foer

Foer was listed in Rolling Stone's "People of the Year," Esquire's "Best and Brightest," and The New Yorker's "20 Under 40" list.

Darin Strauss by Linda Rosier

Darin Strauss is the author of several acclaimed novels, including the most recent The Queen of Tuesday: A Lucille Ball Story.

Ocean Vuong by Adrian Pope for The Guardian

Ocean Vuong is the author of the bestselling novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and the poetry collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds.

Jeffrey Eugenides

Jeffrey Eugenides is the author of acclaimed novels The Virgin Suicides, Middlesex, and The Marriage Plot. His latest collection is Fresh Complaint. 

Sharon Olds

Sharon Olds is a previous director of the Creative Writing Program. Her 2012 collection Stags Leap was awarded the T.S. Eliot Prize and a Pulitzer.

Claudia Rankine by Andrew Zuckerman/The Slowdown

Claudia Rankine is a recipient of the 2016 MacArthur Fellowship, and the author of six collections including Citizen and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely.

Hari Kunzru

Hari Kunzru is the author of six novels, including the most recent Red Pill, and White Tears, a finalist for the PEN Jean Stein Award.

Terrance Hayes

Terrance Hayes’s most recent publications include American Sonnets for My Past And Future Assassin and To Float In The Space Between.

Katie Kitamura

Katie Kitamura’s most recent novel Intimacies was longlisted for the National Book Award and named a Best Book of 2021 by numerous publications.

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Creative writing.

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  • Low Residency
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Nurture your writing to its fullest potential.

Lesley University's celebrated low-residency MFA program nurtures and challenges your creative potential. Attend nine-day residencies in the literary mecca of Cambridge. Pursue interdisciplinary study as a spur for fresh ideas. Cultivate mentor relationships with prize-winning writers. Graduate with the work and connections to publish, win literary prizes and fellowships, and find teaching positions or work related to your writing.

Program Summary

Exclusive partnerships create opportunities for you to put your pieces in front of prominent publishers, agencies, and organizations. You’ll meet literary figures who, as masters of their craft, will give you the tough love you need to achieve your aspirations. Benefitting from our small-group learning, you’ll form bonds with fellow writers from diverse backgrounds, and join in craft seminars, workshops, readings, and publishing events.

You'll have opportunities to interact with students and faculty from across the entire program, while still engaging in a deep exploration of your chosen genre: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Graphic Novels and Comics, Writing for Stage and Screen, or Writing for Young People.

Program Structure

Low-Residency Program

  • 18% craft and reflection coursework; 18% interdisciplinary study; 50% creative writing and revision; 14% graduating seminar and thesis
  • Independent work under the mentorship of faculty member
  • Two nine-day residencies per year in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and an additional exit residency.
  • Summer 2024 Residency date TBD
  • Come to the residencies in January and June (5 residencies). Complete 12 credits between each residency. Earn 1 credit in your final residency. Complete the program in 2 years.

Man sitting while listening and writing.

Through our Fiction genre, you'll develop and hone your fiction-writing skills while being coached in the practice of constructing, analyzing, drafting, and revising short stories, novellas, or novels. As a graduating student in the Fiction genre, submit a sample from your thesis to acclaimed literary agency Aevitas Creative Management . Gain advice on the publishing strategy of your work and forge meaningful professional relationships.

Accomplished Faculty You'll be mentored by well-know writers with multiple publications to their credit.

Tony Eprile Laurie Foos Rachel Kadish Hester Kaplan Michael Lowenthal Kyoko Mori

Distinguished Visiting Writers As you progress through the program, you'll have the opportunity to work with experienced fiction writers to hone your craft. Recent visitors include:

  • Steve Almond
  • Julia Glass
  • Lolita Hernandez
  • Tom Perrotta
  • Justin Torres

Creative writing students reading and discussing classwork

Graphic Novels & Comics

Through Lesley’s Graphic Novels & Comics genre, explore how to integrate text, image and design to create narrative and meaning. All practitioners of word and image work are welcome to apply, from traditional cartoonists to writers, photographers, and artists creating webcomics, zines, illustrated fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and hybrid forms. Mentorship will be tailored to students’ individual needs and projects.

Accomplished Faculty You'll be mentored by well-known creators with multiple projects and publications to their credit. Pamela Petro John Rozum Craft and Technique Learn the essential tools and skills involved with producing sequential narratives and other word and image pairings. Topics will include

  • Graphic literacy: how words and images interact within panels and across pages
  • Narrative pacing and structure
  • Character development and dialogue
  • Craft and tools, from drawing board to digital
  • Print production and publication

Learn more about the Graphic Novels & Comics curriculum . 

creative writing students in a classroom

Nonfiction & Memoir

Through our nonfiction & memoir genre, gain a foundational approach to craft in genres such as memoir, personal essay, literary journalism, food and travel writing, and research-based narratives. Receive professional guidance through our exclusive partnership with  Aevitas Creative Management.  Submit a sample of your thesis for an immediate read and publishing advice from the acclaimed literary agency.

Accomplished Faculty As you progress through the program, you'll be mentored by faculty with extensive experience publishing works of nonfiction & memoir.

Cindy House Rachel Manley Kyoko Mori Pamela Petro Janet Pocorobba

Distinguished Visiting Writers You'll work alongside successful nonfiction writers as they visit Cambridge during the residencies. Recent visitors include:

  • Gail Caldwell
  • Megan Marshall
  • David Rakoff
  • Jerald Walker
  • Olive Senior

Student Writing on Paper

Through our poetry genre, learn directly from internationally-recognized poets and faculty as you explore the poetic forms and approaches that will serve to establish your aesthetic voice. Graduate deeply-read and immersed in a close-knit community that will provide ongoing support as you venture into the professional world.

Accomplished Faculty You'll be mentored by award-winning poets throughout your graduate program.

Erin Belieu Steven Cramer Joan Houlihan Kevin Prufer

Acclaimed Visiting Poets Make connections with visiting poets, who have included:

  • Patrick Donnelly
  • Martin Espada
  • David Ferry
  • Nikky Finney
  • Louise Gluck
  • Major Jackson
  • Robert Pinsky
  • David Rivard
  • Oliver De La Paz
  • Carl Phillips

Students Sitting in Circle Having Discussion

Writing for Stage and Screen

Through our Writing for Stage and Screen genre, work on scripts with professional actors and directors while enrolled in one of the few university-based programs affiliated with the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. Given our location in a major metropolitan area, Lesley is one of the few low-residency MFA programs that offers graduate students staged readings of their scripts with professional actors and directors.

During your first year, write full-length scripts for stage and screen. In your second year, choose to concentrate in either stage or screen, or write another full-length play and another screenplay. During your fourth semester, participate in a Play Lab where your completed full-length play is read to students, faculty, and the public. You'll graduate with four full-length scripts and three ten-minute plays.

Accomplished Faculty Throughout the program, you'll learn from faculty whose work has been staged by prominent theater companies and presented at film festivals around the world.

Jami Brandli Barry Brodsky Ellen Lewis Cassie Seinuk Sinan Ünel

Distinguished Visiting Writers You'll connect with visiting playwrights and screenwriters, providing an opportunity to network with industry insiders. Some recent visiting playwrights and screenwriters have included:

  • Constance Congdon
  • Kia Corthron
  • Jonathan Cott
  • Molly Smith Metzler
  • Theresa Rebeck
  • Karen Zacarias

Two Students Speaking with Bright Background

Writing for Young People

Through our Writing for Young People genre, create works of fiction and nonfiction while studying under award-winning faculty in the picture book, middle grade, and young adult genres. Our program maintains an exclusive agreement with  Candlewick Press , providing the opportunity for your final manuscripts to be considered for publication by this award-winning publisher. Candlewick's catalog includes picture books, middle-grade, and young adult fiction from hundreds of celebrated authors.

Accomplished Faculty You'll work closely with faculty who have substantial experience writing for children and young adults, including:

Tracey Baptiste Sara Farizan Michelle Knudsen Chris Lynch Cynthia Platt Jason Reynolds Sara Zarr

Distinguished Visiting Writers As you progress through the program, you'll connect with visiting writers who have published a variety of books for young people. Recent visitors have included:

  • M.T. Anderson
  • Elizabeth Bluemle
  • Robie H. Harris
  • Marilyn Nelson
  • Maurice Sendak
  • Rebecca Stead
  • Renée Watson
  • Jacqueline Woodson
  • Kyle Lukoff
  • Renee Watson

Banner featuring black and white pictures of Katie Cotugno and Scott Loring Sanders with a color logo of the Why We Write podcast in the middle

Why We Write

Jason reynolds named national ambassador for young people’s literature.

Aqueela Culbreath-Britt writing outside in a sunny park.

Aqueela Culbreath-Britt ’18

Athletics community members holding up a Lynx Nation sign

Remote Learning at Lesley University

Axie Oh headshot in black and white

Axie Oh's 'Rogue Heart'

Headshot of MFA in Creative Writing alum Katie Cotugno

Katie Cotugno ’15

Rachel Kadish headshot in black and white.

Women, History, and The Weight of Ink with Rachel Kadish

detail writing student

MFA in Creative Writing on Facebook #LesleyMFA

Jason Reynolds portrait

Writing books for kids who don't read books

Portrait of Celeste Mohammad sitting, wearing a white shirt.

Celeste Mohammed's 'Pleasantview' of Trinidad

Creative writing student and mentor meeting reading and discussing classwork

Residencies in Cambridge, MA

Our residencies immerse you in a vibrant literary arts scene. Your faculty mentor will work with you throughout your residency to create a tailored plan for the upcoming semester. Seminars, lectures, and readings foster discussions about concept and craft. Genre-specific workshops allow you to share work and receive the praise/tough love that fuels you to keep writing, revising, and moving forward.

creative writing students discussing

Interdisciplinary Study

Through our program’s interdisciplinary component, you can design an independent study on a topic vital to your writing, gain professional experience in publishing or education, take courses in subjects related to your concentration, and experiment in other genres.

Dylan thomas summer school in wales

Study Abroad in Wales

Study abroad at the Dylan Thomas International Summer School in Creative Writing, a 12-day residency in rural West Wales. Engage in on-site workshops in castles, gardens, Iron Age villages, slate and coal mines, and more. Plus, participate in readings and visits with internationally renowned Welsh writers.

Christine Bess Jones on the beach

Christine Bess Jones ’16

The 10 best us cities for creative workers.

Aerial view of the paved walkways that cross Lesley's lawn.

Visit us. We'd love to show you around.

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Shakespeare documentarian at National Press Club

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Top Ranking MFA Programs

Tracey Baptiste at podium

Tracey Baptiste

portrait of Leland Cheuk

Leland Cheuk ’08

Sara Levine black and white headshot

Making hard science easy

sara farizan

Sara Farizan ’10

cassie seinuk

Read more about alumni accomplishments.

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Janet Pocorobba

Professor and Director, MFA in Creative Writing

I am interested in building power and voice with language, and in writing personal stories that push the boundaries of self. I’m obsessed with narrative persona, as well as the narrative modes required to shape a story. I loved braided essays and hybrid memoirs, where the story is larger than the self. Another obsession is creative writing pedagogy, which I work on with writers who want to teach. 

I work with my nonfiction writers via email, on the phone, over Zoom, however they need to work. “Who is this person writing the piece?” I want to know, “and how can I help them fulfill their intention and vision for the work?” I listen carefully—I’m a deeply intuitive writer—because writers often say out loud what they have neglected to say on the page. Speech is important to voice, and to catching the parts of ourselves that we reveal spontaneously and without censure. These are often the most important parts of the story. 

But writing is not just self-expression. The poet Billy Collins said, “Form gives you an enclosed space to work within and keep it from descending into chaos or tantrum. “ We are here not to only say what we must but to find the most effective way to say it. Artfulness comes only when one applies a shape—even in nonfiction. The separation of the author and the narrator is critical. I don’t think that demystifying the writing process has to take the magic out of it. It can add to the awe.    For more information about Janet, visit her website:  www.janetpocorobba.com  

Tracey Baptiste

MFA in Creative Writing Faculty

The publishing industry is changing. There is a broader definition now of what storytelling looks like, and who storytellers are. But change is coming painfully slowly, and it needs to be changed from all fronts, including accepting that there are different, beautiful, engaging ways to tell a story than we have previously seen on our shelves, in our classrooms, and in our workshops.

The traditional workshop model worked for those whose stories were traditionally acceptable, stories that often perpetuated bias and cut out many voices. I work to educate myself about storytelling from different cultures. I actively seek new ways to create workshops that embrace different story styles and push the individual creator forward. I love the low-residency model of the Creative Writing program because I can individualize instruction for each mentee.

It is, I hope, a way to break new ground while also cracking open something for each writer. The goal is to find stories that only you can tell, and the format that best serves the story, and then focusing on the craft that illuminates both. It is tough, careful work, and my favorite thing about teaching.

Learn more about Tracey Baptise on her website .

Faculty Erin Belieu

Erin Belieu

Erin is a poet and writer whose work focuses on gender, love, and history.  In 2009, along with the poet Cate Marvin, Belieu founded the national literary organization VIDA.

Headshot of faculty Jami Brandli

Jami Brandli

To be an effective dramatist, I believe you must do three things:

  •  Know what your characters want
  •  Never make it too easy on your characters
  •  You, the dramatist, must love your characters, even the most despicable ones.

Writing a script, play or screenplay, is a journey, and as your teacher/mentor, I'll do my best to guide you in writing the script you want to write. At the same time, I'll be asking all the hard questions of the script. No doubt, my main focus will be on character, for the core of all drama is "character in action." "Character in action" applies to every script, from a high-concept action-adventure screenplay to an intimate two-person play.

An interview with Jami Brandli

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Barry Brodsky

I have been teaching playwriting since 1990 and screenwriting since 1998. My total love for theatre and movies (and TV too) as well as the history of these genres, drives my instruction. I'm always intrigued at the seemingly infinite number of ways people want to tell a visual story. Just when I thought I'd seen it all, some student will come to a class, or send me an assignment, that will test the boundaries of everything I thought I knew about writing for the Stage and Screen. And that's when the fun begins. As I read something I'm working on, I'll often stop and think "I'd never accept this from a student," shake my head, hit the "delete" button, and try it again.

It all pays off when I'm sitting in a theatre, or a classroom, and watching (or listening) to a student's work being read or performed. I remember the piece's various drafts. I marvel when something I told the student wouldn't work does work after all. I can feel the attention being paid to the spoken word. And I can't imagine doing anything else.

Steven Cramer

Steven Cramer

Professor, Creative Writing

I teach creative writing as the art that it is. Teachers of any art can’t implant true originality, or stoke the “fire in the belly” without the help of ready kindling, but they can nurture, through attentive challenge, the promise of apprentice artists. That dynamic involves the student’s willingness to recognize critique as a kind of caring, and the teacher’s alertness to the constraints and capacities of the apprentice.  The way a painter teaches studio art, or guitar instructors position their students’ fingers on the frets—that’s how good creative writing mentors teach.  And they don’t confuse rigor with ruthlessness, even as they know artists must be ruthless with themselves. Yes, they have to provide an honest appraisal of the merits of a student’s work-in-progress—promising or unpromising—but that can be done with what Seamus Heaney beautifully calls “care for the emotional tissues.”

I'm interested in how poetic traditions of all sort live inside our own work. I don’t believe that creative writing exists without creative, constant, and catholic reading. I know of no serious writer who didn’t first love reading.

When a poem is finished, it is a gift that no longer belongs to the poet.  

MFA in Creative Writing faculty Tony Eprile portrait.

Tony Eprile

My teaching philosophy is constantly evolving...in response to what I'm reading, encountering in daily life and in the classroom, or learning from my students. My basic goal is to provide my students with the tools to teach themselves. Some of these tools have to do with how we gain access to the creative, inspired, subconscious sides of ourselves; others have to do with our critical faculties. The writing workshops are particularly useful to help people learn to become their own best editors through editing the work of others.

Beyond that, I'm strongly interested in questions of how we live in, engage with, and observe the world. I teach a seminar on the art of observation or "seeing like a writer." Understanding our own habits of mind and how these affect what and how we see is vital to also understanding that others see differently, and that you can show a great deal about who people are by what it is that they notice or fail to notice.

My aim is to encourage my students to move their own work to its highest level, not to write like me or according to some prerequisite standard of what makes a good story. There are always a variety of styles and approaches to writing in my workshop, and I'm delighted when someone "goes too far." Beyond that, I have to agree with Henry James that "the only condition that I can think of attaching to the composition of (a work of fiction) is, that it be interesting.

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Laurie Foos

My philosophies regarding the teaching of writing are these: that the gateway to the unconscious must be opened, through habit and practice, in the production of creative material, or the writing cannot succeed. As a mentor, I ask students to describe the actual process that goes on in the writing of a story (or novel), and specifically how the story or novel idea came to be, how it germinated. Often stories succeed or fail when they are conceived in the rational part of the mind, or when the rational mind is too soon engaged.

I encourage students to risk themselves in their work, to be bold, for only in the act of risk can there be growth. The two years in an MFA program is in and of itself a permission slip, perhaps the one time they've been afforded to place writing in the center of their lives, and therefore students should use this time to try as many different styles as possible. In this way it is also important that they be exposed to many different types of writing, both contemporary and from the canon. In this way they are exposed to the many ways other writers approach the craft. What matters, I always tell students, is what has been gained in the process of taking risks.

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Joan Houlihan

In poetry, more than in any other type of writing, language drives meaning. By focusing on the small elements of craft: line, syntax and line break, image and metaphor, sound and diction, I believe the poet finds a way to discover and inform the large elements: inspiration, intention, concept, invention, and communication. I engage each poem—and student—on their own terms, taking them as far (and deep) as possible, while challenging the student to examine their assumptions about what a poem can do. Through my extensive experience as an editor, I am especially able to help envision and re-envision a poem as well as a thesis/manuscript. My students have published books and chapbooks as well as poems in journals.

Photo of Cindy wearing glasses in front of a blue sky

Cindy House

My teaching philosophy always comes back to the Tim O'Brien quote, "Stories can save us." To support someone as they dig down to the truth of their life, hunting for the spine of meaning, feels like a kind of religion, an honor and a sacred duty. I feel like my job is somewhere between being a witness and an interrogator. Asking the right questions to help the writer find their path and then knowing when to be silent as they talk their way into it feels like the most important part of the job to me.

One thing I like to encourage in the writers I work with is a sense of freedom to find their own form. How do you find the right frame for your story? What is the very specific structure that will shine a light onto the heart of what you have to say?

faculty rachel kadish

Rachel Kadish

Good writing makes us our most honest selves, and as a faculty mentor I'm fundamentally committed to coaching students as they work to set down the truth - whether it takes the form of fiction or nonfiction. When I work with a student, my most important job is to notice everything I can about that student's writing. Because the best way I know to understand writing is through detail - what Ryszard Kapuscinski called "the universe in the raindrop" - I focus on very close readings of student manuscripts. I try to read not only the story that's on the page, but also the story that might only be hinted at, because the writer hasn't yet dared write it. Sometimes this kind of reading leads us to focus together on what initially seemed only a faint tracery on the page - but might in fact be the barely audible heartbeat of the story that the writer truly needs to tell. My students know I'd rather they take risks and fail than write safe stories that leave no mark on either reader or writer. I congratulate my students on attempting each big leap, even if they fall hard - that sort of failure is productive, necessary, catalyzing.

I write fiction and nonfiction and have edited radio drama, but I learn a great deal from other genres and art forms, and I encourage my students to do the same - to attend playwriting workshops, read craft books written for sculptors. Art should always be surprising, and I want my students to surprise themselves; to raise the bar again and again; to be delighted by their own and others' contributions to the fledgling writing community that is a workshop. I believe in taking a student's writing more seriously than he or she may have dared take it... I tend to focus intensely on character development, as so much of a story's structure and plot grow out of character... I have a particular interest in the ways in which history and politics are metabolized through art. That said, I try to leaven seriousness with humor, with compassion, and with the sense that good writing is absolutely essential, though producing it can feel like pulling one's soul through a sieve. If we do this work well together, then the heartbeat of a story, perhaps only faintly audible in the first draft, strengthens. These are the best moments. A student revises and I critique, the student revises and revises again... and then abruptly the student is off and running without need of more advice, and we're looking at a draft together, and we can all of us hear that heart beating.

Listen to Rachel Kadish talk about her work on Lesley's podcast, Why We Write. Also available here: iTunes , Stitcher , Google Play or Spotify.

Hester Kaplan headshot

Hester Kaplan

My most valuable teaching tool is the work itself, whether it's a piece of student writing, or the published work of a seasoned author. I'm interested in how and why a piece of fiction engages the reader, and I ask my students to consider what elements make a story and lead them to feel a certain way. I ask them where the engagement is happening on the page, and what dynamic is taking place between the reader and the words. This search is often where the student, transferring this consideration to his own work, discovers what his story is really about. This exploration, if we take a risk and allow it to, will lead the writer to discover the truth in and about his own writing.

I stress revision as the time when a piece of work finds its form and meaning, and when all the elements of fiction we talk about in seminars and workshops and submissions come together to serve the story. Revision - that process of chipping away, fine-tuning, and rethinking - is also about looking at the language and considering the cadence and the music of the writing. It's during revision that we feel ourselves itching to leave the work and run away, but it's those drops of sweat, that racing heart, that lets us know we're about to get to the true and genuine stuff.

I love teaching in Lesley's program and find my students enormously inspiring. Learn more about Hester at her website, www.hesterkaplan.com , or at www.goathillwriters.com

Faculty member Michelle Knudsen portrait

Michelle Knudsen

Michelle Knudsen is the New York Times best-selling author of fifty books for young readers of all ages, including the award-winning picture book Library Lion, which was selected by Time magazine as one of the 100 Best Children's Books of All Time. Her other books include the picture book Marilyn's Monster (one of NPR's Best Books of 2015) and the novels The Dragon of Trelian (VOYA Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers) and Evil Librarian (YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults and winner of the Sid Fleischman Award for Humor). Michelle also works as a freelance editor and writing coach. She lives in Brooklyn, NY. 

Connect with Michelle through her website at  www.michelleknudsen.com . 

Photo of Ellen Lewis smiling, wearing a black hat, black shirt and red scarf

Ellen Lewis

E. M. Lewis is an award-winning playwright, teacher, and opera librettist. Her work has been produced around the world, and published by Samuel French. She received the Steinberg Award for both  How the Light Gets In  and  Song of Extinction  and the Primus Prize for  Heads  from the American Theater Critics Association, the Ted Schmitt Award from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle for outstanding writing of a world premiere play, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, a playwriting fellowship from the New Jersey State Arts Commission, the 2016 Oregon Literary Fellowship in Drama, and an Edgerton Award for her epic Antarctic play,  Magellanica,  that was produced at Artists Repertory Theater in 2018 and released as a five-part audio podcast in 2020.

Other plays by Lewis include:  Apple Season  (which received a rolling world premiere from the National New Play Network in 2019) , Infinite Black Suitcase ,  The Gun Show  (which has had more than fifty productions across the country and went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland),  True Story, Dorothy's Dictionary, You Can See All the Stars  (a play for college students commissioned by the Kennedy Center), and  How the Light Gets In  (a semi-finalist for the O’Neill that premiered at Boston Court Pasadena in 2019).

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Fallen Giant , a new opera commissioned by American Lyric Theater that Lewis is working on with composer Evan Meier, had an orchestral workshop in New York City in February 2020.  Town Hall , her opera about health care in America, created with composer Theo Popov, was produced at University of Maryland and Willamette University. She wrote a ten-minute musical called  The Letter  with composer Stacey Philipps, and is working on a full-length musical called  In the Deep  with composer Roscoe McDonald.

Lewis is currently working on a big, new political play called  The Great Divide , commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as part of their American Revolutions program, and co-commissioned by Artists Repertory Theater, where she is Playwright in Residence through the Mellon Foundation National Playwright Residency Program. Lewis is a proud member of LineStorm Playwrights, Opera America, and the Dramatists Guild. She is represented by Samara Harris at the Michael Moore Agency. She lives on her family’s farm in Oregon. 

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Michael Lowenthal

To walk a fictional mile in someone else's fictional shoes, first you have to make that pair of shoes; it helps to know something about cobbling. After many years in the footwear trade, as it were, I'm happy to share with students anything I've learned about uppers and soles (or even, on a good day, maybe, souls).

Chris Lynch

Having worked with quite a few editors over the past twenty years, I feel my strongest work as a teacher is when I bring the best of those experiences to my students. The most energizing exchanges always came when I realized a great editor was in fact pouring her energy into channelling me, rather than battling me. I believe new writers come to us wanting to sound like their best selves, I believe they are right to feel this way, and I believe it is my duty to help them achieve this. (We may sometimes have to debate what that best self might actually be, but that too is part of the fun.)

In workshop there is one horse I feel is never too dead to beat: our objective is to get the writer back to the keyboard. All feedback does not need to be cheerleading but it does need to be designed to leave the writer with the ideas - and the will - to go back and make the work stronger.

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Rachel Manley

I do not have a teaching philosophy. Maybe empathy. But that's not philosophy. As a mentor I try to intuit what's in the minds and hearts of the writers I work with, hoping to help sharpen their philosophy, their thoughts, their words, and their meaning, so that they can achieve whatever special literary goal they have set for themselves. In the end, if I do have to define a philosophy of teaching, or the technique I use to buttress that philosophy, then simply, it is to use my experience as a writer in guiding and assisting my students along their journey to fulfill their imagination.

faculty-kyoko-mori

In the early drafts, I'm mostly interested in helping you see what is at the heart of the story. Who is this character, what does he or she want, and why do you, the writer, see him or her in that particular place doing that particular thing? I try to get you to understand the elements of the story that interest you the most - the characters, the place and the time setting, the images that started you thinking about the story in the first place, the one sentence that seemed right and important from the beginning - in order to sort out what is essential and what is not. My job is to help you figure out which things you started out with are worth keeping and developing, and (just as importantly) to encourage you to be utterly ruthless about throwing out the rest.

In the middle stages, I try to help you with the overall structure of the narrative: where to begin, what to explain right away, what to reveal more gradually along the way, how much to leave open-ended. This is a good time to consider and reconsider what is plausible and what is not, what is confusing to the reader and what is so clear that it doesn't need to be explained, where the story happens too fast and where it bogs down. With every subsequent draft, more attention can be paid to each paragraph, each sentence, each word. The final revision in which we get to scrutinize every word is a real pleasure and reward. I enjoy teaching because I like to see the story come into focus over time; it's both a pleasure and an honor to be part of that process. Learn more about Kyoko at her website: www.kyokomori.com

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Pamela Petro

Pamela teaches in the Nonfiction and Graphic Novel & Comics genres of Lesley's MFA in Creative Writing program. Pamela views the mentoring relationship in both as a dialogue rather than a traditional teaching experience.

"The most important thing I’ve discovered as a working writer, and that I can convey to students, is that inspiration comes from writing. Writing doesn’t come from inspiration. Slogging out one word after another, sketching one comics panel after the next—especially when you don’t know what you want to say or where you’re going—is an act of great bravery. It’s also the only way I know to sufficiently rev up my imagination to take creative leaps into the unknown. The usual advice is to write what you know. I say, write what you are familiar with, not what you know. The very act of writing helps us articulate the deep, important things we didn’t even know we knew. Only writing affords me access to that place of understanding inside me. And I see my job at Lesley University as helping students find their way to that place inside themselves."

In addition to mentoring students, Pamela directs the Dylan Thomas Summer School in Creative Writing at The University of Wales where Lesley MFA students have been attending for credit since the program began in 2014. If you’ve ever wanted to write about an 11 th -century Welsh castle while in that castle, or compose a poem in the style of Dylan Thomas in Dylan Thomas’ childhood bedroom, come with us to Wales.

Learn more about Pam on her website and connect with her on Instagram @petropamela

Color photograph from the neck up of Cynthia Platt smiling at the camera.

Cynthia Platt

Cynthia Platt is the author of books for young readers for all ages, ranging from board books to young adult fiction. Her picture books include Grow, A Little Bit of Love, and Panda-monium . She’s also the author of the young middle grade novel Parker Bell & the Science of Friendship , the YA novel Postcards from Summer , and numerous Curious George books. She also teaches undergraduate liberal arts courses at Montserrat College of Art. With more than twenty years under her belt as an editor of books for young readers at Candlewick Press and the former Houghton Mifflin Harcourt trade publisher, she brings her experiences as both a writer and editor to her work as a faculty mentor for Writing for Young People MFA program.

You can learn more about Cynthia at her website: cynthiaplattbooks.com

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Kevin Prufer

Keven Prufer teaches in the Poetry genre of the MFA in Creative Writing program.

"Like other art forms, poetry at its best is a kind of complex communication—a way one mind speaks to a multitude of minds, many of them not yet born. What attracts me to poetry particularly is not merely the way it compresses or asserts meaning, but the way a poem can hold multiple, often conflicting, meanings. The poems I admire are frequently born out of ambivalence—out of strong feelings or beliefs in conflicting directions. These poems ask difficult, vital human questions, but their object is not necessarily to answer these questions. They are, in fact, often unanswerable. Instead, they think about them with purpose and complexity, helping us reformulate them for ourselves."

Although Kevin loves to talk about the technical aspects of poetry writing—rhyme, meter, image, tone—Kevin generally approaches drafts of student poems with these 3 questions:

  • What questions is this poem engaged with?
  • How does it go about trying to think about these questions?
  • How might it do so more successfully?

Connect with Kevin through his website .

Jason Reynolds

Jason Reynolds

My philosophy is to have a good time getting to know the characters in the stories. Let's all ask the questions, the hard ones, the funny ones, the ridiculous ones, to make sure the characters are breathing. Then, once they are alive, we can be better informed of the development of the plot. Also, I believe in positive reinforcement. I refuse to edit without highlighting strengths. My job is to serve as sort of a literary "personal trainer."  When you show up to my "gym," I'll be certain to let you know how great you look, and far along you've come. I'm going to tell you how proud I am, and how I can finally see the abs coming in. And then, we're going to hit the weights and work our butts off, pushing you to the limit for the desired goal — a perfectly chiseled story.

photo of faculty member John Rozum, wearing glasses, standing in front of wall art

Aside from writing for television, magazines, and video games, John Rozum has been writing comics professionally for over thirty years. He has written for companies such as Marvel, DC, Topps, Milestone Media, Boom! Studios, Interpop Comics, and others. He has written characters such as Daredevil, Batman, Superman, and Scooby-Doo, and properties ranging from The X-Files to Dexter ’s Laboratory . He is best known as the creator of the critically acclaimed Xombi and Midnight, Mass . Currently, he is writing the digital comic, The Abyss, for Interpop Comics. He has been an independent study advisor in writing graphic novels for Lesley University since 2012.

photo of faculty member Cassie Seinuk in a jean jacket and glasses against a brown background

Cassie Seinuk

Cassie M. Seinuk is a playwright, AEA Stage Manager, visual artist and educator in Boston, MA. Her play, From the Deep , has won multiple awards, including The Pestalozzi New Play Prize and the Latinidad Playwrights Award at the Kennedy Center. It was also a recipient of the Boston University Jewish Culture Endowment, and it appeared on the 2015 Kilroys Honorable Mention List. The production of From the Deep received IRNE Award nominations and nearly sold out at 2016 FringeNYC Festival.

Eyes Shut. Door Open. or “ ESDO ” was a recipient of the Bob Jolly Charitable Fund Grant. ESDO  won the 2016 OnStage Critics Award for an Outstanding New Work. Short play,  Occupy Hallmark , won the 2015 National Ten Minute Play Award at the Kennedy Center. Her newest play, Dream House , was developed at New Repertory Theatre as part of Next Voices Fellows, and has earned her a Mass. Cultural Council Fellowship. 

Seinuk’s short plays have been produced nationwide. She is a member of Boston Public Works, The Dramatist Guild, and AEA, and is a 2017 Mass. Cultural Council Fellow Finalist. As a stage manager, Seinuk has worked with Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, Central Square Theatre (The Nora and URT), Bridge Rep of Boston, SpeakEasy, and The Berkshire Theatre Group.

"Playwrights are given the gift of creating entire worlds for our audiences to experience with all five senses. We are able to make magic happen before their eyes with our words.  I want you to know what your character wants and what they will do to get what they want.  As a faculty mentor, I want you to dream wild, write imaginatively, and ask big questions from your plays and screenplays." - Cassie Seinuk

faculty sinan unel

When asked what principle qualities make a good dramatist, playwright David Hare replied without hesitation: “Good playwrights have a distinctive view of the world. It’s their world view. It’s how they see the world.” This is the mantra that steers me as artist and as instructor. If my first job is to ensure that students discover, value and cultivate that individual perspective, my second - and perhaps more important - job is to give them the tools to bring forth a work of art.

Black and white photograph of Sara Zarr smiling facing the camera.

Sara Zarr is the author of nine novels for young readers, as well as  Courageous Creativity: Advice and Encouragement for the Creative Life  and  This Creative Life: A Handbook for Writers.  All of her fiction is contemporary realism, with a focus on the inter- and intrapersonal dramas within the family unit, broadly defined. Her nonfiction (both short and long form) ranges in focus from the psychological and practical obstacles to a productive writing life, to how childhood trauma and dysfunction play out in adulthood, to faith and religion in art and culture. 

Sara is a National Book Award finalist and two-time Utah Book Award winner. Her books have been variously named to annual best books lists of the American Library Association, Kirkus, School Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, and the International Reading Association. Her essays and creative nonfiction have been published in  Image ,  Relief, Gather , and several anthologies. She also hosts and produce the This Creative Life podcast.

  • Low-Residency
  • Tuition $925/credit x 49 $45,325
  • Fees Residency Fees $2,000 Comprehensive Fee $1,225

All graduate students are reviewed for merit scholarships through the admissions process and are awarded at the time of acceptance. Other forms of financial aid are also available. Review all graduate tuition and fees , and what they cover. Tuition and fees are subject to change each year, effective in the Summer term.

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Low-Residency MFA Mountainview Master of Fine Arts Fiction or Nonfiction

Go write your book:.

  • Affordable tuition rates
  • Each term begins with a weeklong residency
  • Award-winning, nationally recognized faculty
  • Only about 16 students per cohort
  • Alumni have gone on to win major prizes
  • Curriculum designed to help each student complete a publishable book

Low-Residency MFA Program Overview

Write the book you're meant to write, as you earn your Mountainview Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in fiction or nonfiction .

Our two-year, low-residency program allows students to live anywhere and work a full-time job. We never allow the number of students to exceed 65 total – about 16 per cohort – so our students develop close and sustaining relationships with faculty during our intensive weeklong residencies in the summer and winter .

During the rest of the year, our students work with faculty one on one, receiving thorough, regular editorial letters supplemented with video calls.

Our two principal goals:

  • Create a close and vibrant writing community
  • Graduate every student with an excellent manuscript in hand

Students choose to focus on fiction or nonfiction. Some choose specializations like young adult fiction and environmental writing.

Our full-time faculty members have won numerous awards, published books with major publishing houses and received international acclaim in every literary category from young adult to lyric essay to crime. Their work appears in such forums as The New Yorker, Harper's, The New York Times Magazine and Best American Short Stories.

Our alumni include a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Whiting Award winner, and numerous other authors whose work is published by major publishing houses. 

Our faculty members, often referred to as "mentors," work to help each student find a literary voice, master their craft and produce a book-length manuscript of high literary quality.

With a Mountainview MFA, you'll get:

  • An award-winning, nationally recognized faculty
  • Flexibility of schedule
  • A curriculum designed to help each student finish an excellent, publishable book (see some of our many successful alumni below)
  • A vibrant and supportive creative writing community
  • Visiting agents and editors from the best agencies and publishing houses at each residency
  • Faculty members who specialize in young adult literature and environmental writing
  • Highly competitive tuition costs

Looking for a fully-online program? Check out our online MFA and our online MA in Creative Writing .

Start Your Journey Toward a Low-Residency MFA

Director of Mountainview MFA, Associate Professor

Benjamin Nugent, the director of Mountainview, and an associate professor of English at SNHU, is the author of “Fraternity: Stories” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020), which was named one of the ten best books of 2020 by New York Magazine, and an Editor's Choice by The New York Times Book Review. His nonfiction has been published in Harper's and The New York Times Magazine, and his fiction received the 2019 Terry Southern Prize from The Paris Review.

Marcus Burke

Marcus Burke grew up in Milton, Massachusetts. He graduated from Susquehanna University where he played four years of varsity basketball. Burke went on to receive his MFA at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop where he was awarded a Maytag Fellowship, an Iowa Arts Fellowship, and upon graduation, a competitive grant in honor of James Alan McPherson from the University of Iowa MacArthur Foundation Fund.

Burke’s debut novel, “Team Seven”, was published in 2014 by Doubleday Books. “Team Seven” received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews, was longlisted for the 2015 PEN Open Book Award and was one of the “10 Titles to Pick Up Now,” in O, The Oprah Magazine.

Rachel B. Glaser

Rachel B. Glaser is the author of the story collection “Pee On Water,” the novel “Paulina & Fran” and the poetry books “Moods” and “Hairdo.”

In 2017, she was on Granta’s List of Best Young American Novelists. Her fiction has been anthologized in “30 under 30” and “New American Stories.”

She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Amy Irvine is the author of numerous essays and four nonfiction books addressing environmental, Indigenous and feminist concerns. She is a contributing editor for Orion Magazine, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Outside, Orion, Pacific Standard, Best American Science & Nature Writing, and Best American Food Writing. Her first memoir, “Trespass”, received the Orion Book Award, and the Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award. Her memoir, “Almost Animal”, will be published by Spiegel & Grau in Spring 2023. Irvine, a Mountainview MFA alumnus, lives, writes and teaches off-grid on a remote mesa in southwest Colorado.

Jo Knowles is an award-winning young adult and middle-grade novelist. Her young adult books include "Living with Jackie Chan," "Pearl", "Jumping Off Swings", "Lessons from a Dead Girl" and "Read Between the Lines." Her middle grade/tween novels include "See You at Harry's," "Still a Work in Progress," "Where the Heart is," and "Meant to Be" (coming 2022). Some of her awards include a New York Times Editor's Choice and Notable Book, an American Library Association Notable Book, an IndieBound Summer Top 10, Bank Street College's "Best Book" list, Amazon's Best Middle Grades, an International Reading Association Favorite, New England Children's Booksellers Advisory Top Title, two SCBWI Crystal Kite Awards, Kirkus's Best Teen Books, the PEN New England Children's Book Discovery Award and YALSA's Best Fiction for Young Adults. Her books have appeared on numerous state book award lists for schools and libraries.

Andrew Martin

Andrew Martin is the author of the novel “Early Work”, a New York Times Notable Book of 2018 and a finalist for the Cabell First Novelist Award. He is also the author of the story collection “Cool For America”, which was longlisted for the 2020 Story Prize. His fiction has been published in The Paris Review, The Atlantic, The Yale Review, ZYZZYVA and The Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly, and his essays and criticism have appeared in The New York Review of Books, Harper's, The New York Times Book Review, T: The New York Times Style Magazine and VICE. He has received fellowships from MacDowell and the UCross Foundation. He earned his MFA from the University of Montana and has a BA in English from Columbia University. He lives in New York.

Tracy O'Neill

Tracy O'Neill is the author of “The Hopeful”, one of Electric Literature's Best Novels of 2015, and “Quotients”, a New York Times New & Noteworthy book, TOR Editor's Choice and Literary Hub Favorite Book of 2020. In 2015, she was named a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree, long-listed for the Flaherty-Dunnan Prize and was a Narrative Under 30 finalist. In 2012, she was awarded the Center for Fiction's Emerging Writers Fellowship. Her short fiction was distinguished in the Best American Short Stories 2016, and earned a Pushcart Prize nomination in 2017. Her writing has appeared in Granta, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, the New Yorker, LitHub, BOMB, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The Believer, The Literarian, the Austin Chronicle, New World Writing, Narrative, Scoundrel Time, Guernica, Bookforum, Electric Literature, Grantland, Vice, The Guardian, VQR, the San Francisco Chronicle and Catapult. She holds an MFA from the City College of New York; and an MA, an MPhil and a PhD from Columbia University. While editor-in-chief of the literary journal Epiphany, she established the Breakout 8 Writers Prize with the Authors Guild.

Nadia Owusu '17

Nadia Owusu is a Ghanaian and Armenian-American writer and urbanist. Her first book, “AFTERSHOCKS”, topped many most-anticipated and best book of the year lists, including The New York Times, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, TIME, Vulture and the BBC. It was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.

Nadia is the recipient of a 2019 Whiting Award. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The New York Times, The Lily, Orion, Granta, The Paris Review Daily, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, Catapult, Bon Appétit, Travel + Leisure, and others. She lives in Brooklyn.

Lydia Peelle

Lydia Peelle is the Whiting Award-winning author of the novel “The Midnight Cool” and the story collection “Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing”, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice book which received an honorable mention for the PEN/Hemingway Award and was a finalist for The Orion Book Prize. Peelle is also a recipient of the National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35" honor and the Anahid Award for Armenian American writers. She will be Writer in Residence at Vanderbilt University in fall 2021.

Rebecca Schiff

Rebecca Schiff is the author of the story collection "The Bed Moved" (Knopf 2016), a finalist for an LA Times Book Award in First Fiction and a Sami Rohr Prize.

Her fiction has appeared in Electric Literature, n+1, The Guardian, Washington Square and BuzzFeed, and it was anthologized in The Best Small Fictions 2017.

She lives in Eugene, Oregon.

Katherine Towler

Katherine Towler is author of a trilogy of novels: “Snow Island,” Evening Ferry” and “Island Light”. Praised by the Boston Globe as “luminous and moving,” “Snow Island” was chosen as a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers title.

Towler is also the co-editor, with Ilya Kaminsky, of “A God in the House: Poets Talk About Faith,” a collection of interviews with prominent American poets. Her memoir, “The Penny Poet of Portsmouth” was published by Counterpoint Press in 2016.

Robin Wasserman

Robin Wasserman is the author of the novels “Girls on Fire” and “Mother Daughter Widow Wife”, a finalist for the 2021 Pen/Faulkner Award. A former children’s book editor, she is also the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than ten novels for young adults. Her nonfiction has appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, Tin House and The New York Times. Wasserman lives in Los Angeles, where she works as a TV writer, most recently as a co-producer on the forthcoming, “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”.

Adam Wilson

Adam Wilson is the author of three books, including, most recently, the novel “Sensation Machines”. He is a National Jewish Book Award finalist, and a recipient of the Terry Southern Prize. His work has appeared in Harper’s, the Paris Review, the New York Times Book Review, Tin House, Bookforum, VICE and the Best American Short Stories, among many other publications. In addition to Mountainview, he teaches regularly in Columbia University's MFA program. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.

Many of our Mountainview graduates have gone on to success in the publishing world.

Notable alumni include:

  • 2019 Whiting Award winner Nadia Owusu '17
  • 2020 Edgar Award finalist John Vercher '16
  • 2019 Pulitzer finalist Elizabeth Rush '11
  • Raymond Carver Short Story Contest Morgan Green '21
  • LA Times Book Prize for First Novel Kevin Keating '18
  • Alumni published by Simon & Schuster, FSG, Bloomsbury, and other major publishers

Learn more about Mountainview graduates and what they've accomplished:

Kevin Keating '18

Kevin Keating with the text Kevin Keating

Since starting the Mountainview Low-Residency MFA, Keating has been awarded the Creative Workforce Fellowship, one of the most substantive awards for writers in the United States, and the Cleveland Arts Prize, the oldest award of its kind in America and a testament to the standard of excellence and quality of artists in Northeast Ohio. Previous winners include Toni Morrison, Rita Dove and Harvey Pekar. He has also been a featured speaker at the Miami Book Fair International.

David Moloney ’17

David Moloney with the text David Moloney

He earned his MFA from SNHU’s Mountainview Low-Residency program, where he won Assignment Magazine’s student writing contest. He was also awarded the Lynn Safford Memorial Prize.

His debut novel, "Barker House," was published by Bloomsbury in 2020. His work can be found in The Yale Review, Guernica, Lithub, Electriclit, The Common, Salamander, CrimeReads and GEN. He currently teaches writing at SNHU.

Elizabeth Rush '11

Elizabeth Rush with the text Elizabeth Rush

Her work explores how humans adapt to changes enacted upon them by forces seemingly beyond their control, from ecological transformation to political revolution.

Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the New York Times, National Geographic, the Guardian, the Atlantic, Harpers, Guernica, Granta, Orion, Creative Nonfiction, The Washington Post, Le Monde Diplomatique and the New Republic, among others.

John Vercher '16

John Vercher with the text John Vercher

John’s debut novel, Three-Fifths , launched September 10th, 2019, from Agora, the diversity-focused imprint of Polis Books and has received praise from Kirkus and starred reviews from the Library Journal and Booklist.

Three-Fifths was named one of the best books of 2019 by the Chicago Tribune. In the U.K., Three-Fifths was named a Book of the Year by The Sunday Times, The Financial Times, and The Guardian.

Three-Fifths has been nominated for:

  • The Crime Writers’ Association’s (UK) John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger (Shortlisted, 2021)
  • The Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award for Best First Novel
  • Best Debut Novel (2019) for The Strand Magazine’s Critics’ Awards
  • The Anthony Award for Best First Novel

Rights to Three-Fifths have been sold in France, Japan, Spain, Brazil, Germany, Mainland China, and the U.K.

In 2021, Three-Fifths was added to the curriculum of the course “Crime in American Film & Literature” at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. In addition, Wilton High School in Wilton, Connecticut added Three-Fifths to their curated collection of titles for their 2021 town-wide reading program.

His second novel, After the Lights Go Out, will be published by Soho Press June 7, 2022 and Pushkin Press July 2022.

Low-Residency MFA Courses & Curriculum

Our two-year program is built around one-on-one study between students and faculty, allowing you to write from home most of the year and be part of a supportive writing community during our twice-yearly weeklong residencies.

During these two years, students work toward completing their creative thesis, a book-length manuscript of publishable quality, turning in monthly submissions to their mentors, and receiving detailed feedback via correspondence and conferencing.

Each semester, students work with their individual faculty mentors in developing reading lists. Students read approximately two books a month, focusing their attention on craft analysis. Every part of the curriculum is designed to help students hone their writing craft and finish excellent theses.

Upon completion of the program, students will have earned a 60-credit graduate degree, which is considered ''a terminal degree'' in creative writing. The Mountainview MFA degree prepares students and qualifies them for applying for college teaching positions.

Required Texts for MFA Program

Complement your mfa with a certificate, frequently asked questions.

Southern New Hampshire University is a private, nonprofit institution accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE)  as well as several other accrediting bodies.

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Low-residency MFA in creative writing

Our low-residency MFA community inspires and sustains a lifetime of creative work.

Concentrations in the MFA in creative writing

Children and young adults.

Work with Pablo Cartaya, Traci Chee, Joe McGee, Isabel Quintero, Jessica Rinker and Kathryn Reiss.

Creative nonfiction

Work with Lidia Yuknavitch, Gayle Brandeis, Brian Turner, Suzanne Roberts, Gina Frangello and Leta McCollough Seletzky.

Work with Rebecca Makkai, Lidia Yuknavitch, Alan Heathcock, Brendan Basham, Gayle Brandeis and Peter Mountford.

Work with Brian Turner, Faylita Hicks, Brynn Saito, Lee Herrick, Rick Campbell and Gailmarie Pahmeier.

An audience gathered in the Prim Library for a reading

By writers, for writers

Come lean toward our fire and tell us your stories, poems, essays. We’re listening.

Our program was built entirely by writers, to guide authors organically through the exploration of their craft and thorough preparation for a sustainable life of creation and publication. No other program nurtures a writer from line and sentence to essay, story, poetry collection or novel like ours does.

Our editing semester is a uniquely practical experience in crafting work which is both thrilling and publishable. Our gifted faculty are here because they want to launch unique, individual voices within a global dialogue; to see risks taken, new moves in language braved, and students grow into professional and artistic peers.

How does a low-residency MFA program work?

We’ve made this program so that people who are unable to walk away from jobs and families and service can still become masters of their craft . . . NOW.

Over four distance-learning semesters, and five total 10-day residencies,  students will focus on their chosen genre (fiction, poetry, writing for children and young adults, or creative nonfiction) while exploring new territories of artistic expression.

Faculty meet with their students one-on-one during each residency to set plans, then work with them intensively throughout the semester providing written critiques. With a student-to-mentor ratio never greater than 5:1, students receive creative, focused, individualized feedback.

Each residency is a 10-day intensive period of workshops, seminars, readings and more, in which we explore the wide landscape of the writing life from practical tricks-of-the-trade to subtleties of conceptual nuance. Residencies are in early January and early August.  

Contact the director

June Sylvester Saraceno

June Sylvester Saraceno MFA-CW Program Director [email protected]

Apply to the low-residency MFA in creative writing  

Features of the low-residency MFA in creative writing

The editing semester.

Work a full semester one-on-one with an editor to make your manuscript polished – and publishable.

Approach your manuscript with greater objectivity, master the tools to shape its potential into a great reading experience on the page, and learn about the practical aspects of publishing from start to finish.

Writers in the Woods

Writers in the Woods presents intimate readings and workshops, open to all, with acclaimed authors in all genres.

The program has hosted scores of poets and writers from all over the country, including Carmen Maria Machado, Kaveh Akbar, Kim Addonizio, Rebecca Makkai, Nick Flynn, Tim O’Brien, Patricia Smith and many others.

Sierra Nevada Review

The Sierra Nevada Review is a biannual online literary magazine managed and edited by the MFA-CW students.

The magazine publishes poetry, short fiction, and literary nonfiction “that leans toward the unconventional, surprising, and risky. We appreciate experiments in form and content, and prefer works whose meanings deepen on repeated readings.”

Join us for our events

There are currently no events

We want artists who will write for the rest of their lives. If you are interested in adding your voice to this transformative conversation and intrigued by the possibility of working with teachers and peers who are passionate about the art they love, then please contact us — we look forward to meeting you.

Boston Book Festival

A Q&A with Solstice Low-Residency MFA’s Founding Director

best low residency mfa creative writing 2020

In this Q&A, we spoke with Meg Kearney, Founding Director, and Quintin Collins, Assistant Director, at Solstice Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program.

What exactly is a Master of Fine Arts degree, and why do I need one?

It’s the terminal degree necessary for those who wish to teach at the college level. Most of our students want to earn an MFA for three reasons: community, networking opportunities, and—this is the main one—to become the strongest writers they can be.

What concentrations do you offer?

Poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and writing for young people. We are also building a cohort to start our comics & graphic narratives concentration in summer/fall 2021.

What does “low-residency” mean, and what are the benefits of a low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program?

It means you don’t need to move to Boston to earn your degree. Our students want to learn not only the craft of writing but also how to make writing and reading a regular practice alongside life’s other obligations. During our two-year program, students attend five 10-day residencies, then work 1:1 with a mentor each semester. By graduation, they have a craft foundation, an understanding of how to publish their work, and a supportive community of fellow writers, many of whom become lifelong friends.

What makes the Solstice MFA Program different from other low-residency programs out there?

Our community. You’d be hard-pressed to find a friendlier, more supportive group. And from our founding in 2006, we’ve been dedicated to a diverse faculty of world-class writers who love to teach—in a setting intimate enough to have real conversations. We’ve found that intimacy exists even when our residencies are virtual because of COVID! Our Pedagogy Track also sets us apart. There’s more—writers should contact us to learn more .

Say more about how you encourage cross-genre work.

We certainly encourage students to take craft classes across genres during our residencies. Also, students may focus on a completely different genre in semester two than they did in semester one. Writers who have an MFA can check out our Post-Grad Programs to study in another genre.

You say you support diverse voices. How?

By featuring a diverse faculty. Solstice also offers Fellowships and our Writers Helping Writers Scholarships. Plus, our flexible schedule enables students to complete our program at a pace best suited to them.

What is a typical residency like/how is it structured?

Virtual or on-campus, the basic schedule is the same: students spend three hours a day in workshop. They fill the rest of the time with craft classes, elective sessions (including publishing-related events), and readings. By day seven, students receive mentor assignments and begin creating their semester plans.

Because of COVID-19, you held a virtual residency in July 2020. How did that go? Will you go virtual again this winter 2021?

We went virtual, and we waived our application fee because of the economic stress most are under. The virtual residency went smoothly; we were all surprised by how intimate Zoom can feel. We ensured that everyone felt comfortable with the technology. So yes, we’ll be virtual again this winter; it’s best for everyone’s health and safety.

How much contact do I have with my mentors?

Quite a lot. Often, they are your workshop leaders. When on campus, students and faculty typically share meals and attend readings and social events together. Students and mentors then exchange packets once a month. By the end of the semester, students have a treasure-trove of written feedback.

So students send five packets to their mentor during each semester—please say more about that?

Year one, packets are a combination of the students’ creative work plus short craft essays based on what they’re reading. During semester three, students write a critical thesis, also craft-based—or pedagogy based if the student is in our Pedagogy Track. In semester four, students complete their creative thesis—say, a full-length collection of poems or short stories or the first 130 to 150 polished pages of a novel or memoir.

That’s the second mention you’ve made of the Pedagogy Track. What is that, exactly?

The Pedagogy Track gives students training to teach at the college level—at no extra charge . As one of the few low-residency programs to offer this Track, Solstice gives its grads a leg up as they seek work in higher education.

How would you describe the typical Solstice MFA Program student?

They hail from 15 different states and beyond and range in age from 22 to 60-plus. Their backgrounds are as various as their geographic locations! But they all share a passion for the written word and seek a community that is friendly, open-minded, and supportive.

How do you support students financially?

Through Fellowships and our Writers Helping Writers Scholarships, which are need-based. And we keep our tuition and fees low—Solstice is quite competitive in that regard compared to most other low-residency MFA programs.

How do you support students academically?

Our community is purposely small; students get lots of individual attention. Workshops are kept to ten or fewer; our student-to-mentor ratio is 5:1. And we offer students myriad resources. Again, writers should contact us to learn more.

How do you support your alumni?

We love our alums, and they love us, too ! We write them monthly, feature an alumni event at every residency, crow about them in our e-newsletter and on social media, and offer a “grad buddy” program to help see new alums through those first post-graduation months. Our alumni also organize a reading at every annual AWP conference.

You mentioned a post-grad program and a certificates—say a bit more?

People take advantage of our Post-Grad Semester when they’re working to complete a manuscript . Our Post-Grad Certificate enables writers to study for one year on a genre other than the one they concentrated on as students. Both are open to anyone with an MFA.

How do your alumni fare in the publishing and academic job market?

While a number of them are landing teaching jobs, 30 percent have published at least one book since graduation. That amazing statistic covers many genres: books of poetry, memoirs, short story collections, and novels for adults and for young people.

Is there anything new in the works that you’d like to mention?

We’re excited about the Writing Social Justice Track launching in 2021. It’s going to be like nothing else, and we can’t think of a more crucial time to offer this sort of programming.

To find out more, visit Solstice MFA’s site .

Contact: Meg Kearney, Founding Director & Quintin Collins, Assistant Director

Email: [email protected]

best low residency mfa creative writing 2020

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The Best 15 Creative Writing MFA Programs in 2023

April 7, 2023

mfa creative writing programs

Whether you studied at a top creative writing university , or are a high school dropout who will one day become a bestselling author , you may be considering an MFA in Creative Writing. But is a writing MFA genuinely worth the time and potential costs? How do you know which program will best nurture your writing? This article walks you through the considerations for an MFA program, as well as the best Creative Writing MFA programs in the United States.

First of all, what is an MFA?

A Master of Fine Arts (MFA) is a graduate degree that usually takes from two to three years to complete. Applications require a sample portfolio for entry, usually of 10-20 pages of your best writing.

What actually goes on in a creative writing MFA beyond inspiring award-winning books and internet memes ? You enroll in workshops where you get feedback on your creative writing from your peers and a faculty member. You enroll in seminars where you get a foundation of theory and techniques. Then you finish the degree with a thesis project.

Reasons to Get an MFA in Creative Writing

You don’t need an MFA to be a writer. Just look at Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison or bestselling novelist Emily St. John Mandel.

Nonetheless, there are plenty of reasons you might still want to get a creative writing MFA. The first is, unfortunately, prestige. An MFA from a top program can help you stand out in a notoriously competitive industry to be published.

The second reason: time. Many MFA programs give you protected writing time, deadlines, and maybe even a (dainty) salary.

Third, an MFA in Creative Writing is a terminal degree. This means that this degree allows you to teach writing at the university level, especially after you publish a book.

But above all, the biggest reason to pursue an MFA is the community it brings you. You get to meet other writers, and share feedback, advice, and moral support, in relationships that can last for decades.

Types of Creative Writing MFA Programs

Here are the different types of programs to consider, depending on your needs:

Fully-Funded Full-Time Programs

These programs offer full-tuition scholarships and sweeten the deal by actually paying you to attend them.

  • Pros: You’re paid to write (and teach).
  • Cons: Uprooting your entire life to move somewhere possibly very cold.

Full-Time MFA Programs

These programs include attending in-person classes and paying tuition (though many offer need-based and merit scholarships).

  • Pros: Lots of top-notch programs non-funded programs have more assets to attract world-class faculty and guests.
  • Cons: It’s an investment that might not pay itself back.

Low-Residency MFA Programs

Low-residency programs usually meet biannually for short sessions. They also offer one-on-one support throughout the year. These MFAs are more independent, preparing you for what the writing life is actually like.

  • Pros: No major life changes required. Cons: Less time dedicated to writing and less time to build relationships.

Online MFA Programs

Held 100% online. These programs have high acceptance rates and no residency requirement. That means zero travel or moving expenses.

  • Pros: No major life changes required.
  • Cons: These MFAs have less name-recognition

The Top 15 Creative Writing MFA Programs Ranked by Category

The following programs are selected for their balance of high funding, impressive return on investment, stellar faculty, major journal publications , and impressive alums.

Fully Funded MFA Programs

1) johns hopkins university, mfa in fiction/poetry (baltimore, md).

This is a two-year program, with $33,000 teaching fellowships per year. This MFA offers the most generous funding package. Not to mention, it offers that sweet, sweet health insurance, mind-boggling faculty, and a guaranteed lecture position after graduation (nice). No nonfiction MFA (boo).

  • Incoming class size: 8 students
  • Admissions rate: 11.1%
  • Alumni: Chimamanda Adiche, Jeffrey Blitz, Wes Craven, Louise Erdrich, Porochista Khakpour, Phillis Levin, ZZ Packer, Tom Sleigh, Elizabeth Spires, Rosanna Warren

2) University of Texas, James Michener Center (Austin, TX)

A fully-funded 3-year program with a generous stipend of $29,500. The program offers fiction, poetry, playwriting and screenwriting. The Michener Center is also unique because you study a primary genre and a secondary genre, and also get $3,000 for the summer.

  • Incoming class size : 12 students
  • Acceptance rate: a bone-chilling less-than-1% in fiction; 2-3% in other genres
  •   Alumni: Fiona McFarlane, Brian McGreevy, Karan Mahajan, Alix Ohlin, Kevin Powers, Lara Prescott, Roger Reeves, Maria Reva, Domenica Ruta, Sam Sax, Joseph Skibell, Dominic Smith

3) University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA)

The Iowa Writers’ Workshop is a 2-year program on a residency model for fiction and poetry. This means there are low requirements, and lots of time to write groundbreaking novels or play pool at the local bar. Most students are funded, with fellowships worth up to $21,000. The Translation MFA, co-founded by Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak, is also two years, but with more intensive coursework. The Nonfiction Writing Program is a prestigious three-year MFA program and is also intensive.

  • Incoming class size: 25 each for poetry and fiction; 10-12 for nonfiction and translation.
  • Acceptance rate: 3.7%
  • Fantastic Alumni: Raymond Carver, Flannery O’Connor, Sandra Cisneros, Joy Harjo, Garth Greenwell, Kiley Reid, Brandon Taylor, Eula Biss, Yiyun Li, Jennifer Croft

4) University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI)

Anne Carson famously lives in Ann Arbor, as do the MFA students U-Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program. This is a big university town, which is less damaging to your social life. Plus, there’s lots to do when you have a $23,000 stipend, summer funding, and health care.

This is a 2-3-year program, with an impressive reputation. They also have a demonstrated commitment to “ push back against the darkness of intolerance and injustice ” and have outreach programs in the community.

  • Incoming class size: 18
  • Acceptance rate: 4% (which maybe seems high after less-than-1%)
  • Alumni: Brit Bennett, Vievee Francis, Airea D. Matthews, Celeste Ng, Chigozie Obioma, Jia Tolentino, Jesmyn Ward

5) Brown University (Providence, RI)

Brown offers an edgy, well-funded program in a place that doesn’t dip into arctic temperatures. Students are all fully-funded for 2-3 years with $29,926 in 2021-22. Students also get summer funding and—you guessed it—that sweet, sweet health insurance.

In the Brown Literary Arts MFA, students take only one workshop and one elective per semester. It’s also the only program in the country to feature a Digital/Cross Disciplinary Track.

  • Incoming class size: 12-13
  • Acceptance rate: “highly selective”
  • Alumni: Edwidge Danticat, Jaimy Gordon, Gayl Jones, Ben Lerner, Joanna Scott, Kevin Young, Ottessa Moshfegh

Best MFA Creative Writing Programs (Continued) 

6) university of arizona (tucson, az).

This 3-year program has many attractive qualities. It’s in “ the lushest desert in the world ”, and was recently ranked #4 in creative writing programs, and #2 in Nonfiction. You can take classes in multiple genres, and in fact, are encouraged to do so. Plus, Arizona dry heat is good for arthritis.

This notoriously supportive program pays $20,000 a year, and offers the potential to volunteer at multiple literary organizations. You can also do supported research at the US-Mexico Border.

  • Incoming class size: 9
  • Acceptance rate: 4.85% (a refreshingly specific number after Brown’s evasiveness)
  • Alumni: Francisco Cantú, Jos Charles, Tony Hoagland, Nancy Mairs, Richard Russo, Richard Siken, Aisha Sabatini Sloan, David Foster Wallace

7) Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ):

Arizona State is also a three-year funded program in arthritis-friendly dry heat. It offers small class sizes, individual mentorships, and one of the most impressive faculty rosters in the game. Everyone gets a $19,000 stipend, with other opportunities for financial support.

  • Incoming class size: 8-10
  • Acceptance rate: 3% (sigh)
  • Alumni: Tayari Jones, Venita Blackburn, Dorothy Chan, Adrienne Celt, Dana Diehl, Matthew Gavin Frank, Caitlin Horrocks, Allegra Hyde, Hugh Martin, Bonnie Nadzam

FULL-RESIDENCY MFAS (UNFUNDED)

8) new york university (new york, ny).

This two-year program is in New York City, meaning it comes with close access to literary opportunities and hot dogs. NYU is private, and has one of the most accomplished faculty lists anywhere. Students have large cohorts (more potential friends!) and have a penchant for winning top literary prizes.

  • Incoming class size: 40-60
  • Acceptance rate: 6%
  • Alumni: Nick Flynn, Nell Freudenberger, Aracelis Girmay, Mitchell S. Jackson, Tyehimba Jess, John Keene, Raven Leilani, Robin Coste Lewis, Ada Limón, Ocean Vuong

9) Columbia University (New York, NY)

Another 2-3 year private MFA program with drool-worthy permanent and visiting faculty. Columbia offers courses in fiction, poetry, translation, and nonfiction. Beyond the Ivy League education, Columbia offers close access to agents, and its students have a high record of bestsellers.

  • Incoming class size: 110
  • Acceptance rate: 21%
  • Alumni: Alexandra Kleeman, Rachel Kushner, Claudia Rankine, Rick Moody, Sigrid Nunez, Tracy K. Smith, Emma Cline, Adam Wilson, Marie Howe, Mary Jo Bang

10) Sarah Lawrence (Bronxville, NY)

Sarah Lawrence offers speculative fiction beyond the average fiction, poetry, and nonfiction course offerings. With intimate class sizes, this program is unique because it offers biweekly one-on-one conferences with its stunning faculty. It also has a notoriously supportive atmosphere.

  • Incoming class size: 30-40
  • Acceptance rate: N/A
  • Alumni: Cynthia Cruz, Melissa Febos, T Kira Madden, Alex Dimitrov, Moncho Alvarado

LOW RESIDENCY

11 bennington college (bennington, vt).

This two-year program boasts truly stellar faculty, and meets twice a year for ten days in January and June. It’s like a biannual vacation in beautiful Vermont, plus mentorship by a famous writer, and then you get a degree. The tuition is $23,468 per year, with scholarships available.

  • Acceptance rate: 53%
  • Incoming class: 40
  • Alumni: Larissa Pham, Andrew Reiner, Lisa Johnson Mitchell, and others

12)  Institute for American Indian Arts (Santa Fe, NM)

This two-year program emphasizes Native American and First Nations writing. With truly amazing faculty and visiting writers, they offer a wide range of genres offered, in screenwriting, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.

Students attend two eight-day residencies each year, in January and July, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. At $12,000 a year, it boasts being “ one of the most affordable MFA programs in the country .”

  • Incoming class size : 22
  • Acceptance rate: 100%
  • Alumni: Tommy Orange, Dara Yen Elerath, Kathryn Wilder

13) Vermont College of Fine Arts

One of few MFAs where you can study the art of the picture book, middle grade and young adult literature, graphic literature, nonfiction, fiction, and poetry for young people. Students meet twice a year for nine days, in January and July, in Vermont. You can also do many travel residencies in exciting (and warm) places like Cozumel.

VCFA boasts amazing faculty and visiting writers, with individualized study options and plenty of one-on-one time. Tuition is $48,604.

  • Incoming class size: 18-25
  • Acceptance rate: 63%
  • Alumnx: Lauren Markham, Mary-Kim Arnold, Cassie Beasley, Kate Beasley, Julie Berry, Bridget Birdsall, Gwenda Bond, Pablo Cartaya

ONLINE MFAS

14) university of texas at el paso (el paso, tx).

The world’s first bilingual and online MFA program in the world. UTEP is considered the best online MFA program, and features award-winning faculty from across the globe. Intensive workshops allow submitting in Spanish and English, and genres include poetry and fiction. This three-year program costs $14,766 a year, with rolling admissions.

  • Alumni: Watch alumni testimonies here

15) Bay Path University (Long Meadow, MA)

This 2-year online program is dedicated entirely to nonfiction. A supportive, diverse community, Bay Path offers small class sizes, close mentorship, and a potential field trip in Ireland.

There are many tracks, including publishing, Narrative Medicine, and teaching. Core courses include memoir, narrative journalism, and the personal essay. The price is $785/credit, for 39 credits, with scholarships available.

  • Incoming class size: 20
  • Acceptance rate: an encouraging 78%
  • Alumni: Read alumni testimonies here

Prepare for your MFA in advance:

  • Best English Programs
  • Best Creative Writing Schools
  • Writing Summer Programs

Best MFA Creative Writing Programs – References:

  • https://www.pw.org/mfa
  • The Creative Writing MFA Handbook: A Guide for Prospective Graduate Students , by Tom Kealey (A&C Black 2005)
  • Graduate School Admissions

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Julia Conrad

With a Bachelor of Arts in English and Italian from Wesleyan University as well as MFAs in both Nonfiction Writing and Literary Translation from the University of Iowa, Julia is an experienced writer, editor, educator, and a former Fulbright Fellow. Julia’s work has been featured in  The Millions ,  Asymptote , and  The Massachusetts Review , among other publications. To read more of her work, visit  www.juliaconrad.net

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Antioch University

California, united states.

Antioch University’s low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program is devoted not only to the education of literary and dramatic artists but to community engagement and the pursuit of social justice. The program features one-on-one mentoring with a variety of successful, publishing writers and includes instruction in craft, revision, and critical reading and thinking skills. The rights and ethical responsibilities of creative writers are also addressed, along with practical career concerns related to the business of writing and publishing. The MFA program prepares students for careers and meaningful lives as writers, editors, teachers, and engaged literary citizens.

Antioch's MFA program has distinguished itself from other MFA programs through our award-winning faculty in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, literary translation, playwriting, screenwriting, and writing for young people, as well as through innovative features such as the MFA field study, the Art of Translation course, Lunch Ticket (our online literary journal), and Lit Cit (our student-led podcast). The program is also remarkable for its successful publishing, and award-winning graduates.

best low residency mfa creative writing 2020

Contact Information

400 Corporate Pointe MFA in Creative Writing Program Culver City California, United States 90230-7644 Phone: 310-578-1080, x 201 Email: [email protected] http://antiochla.edu/MFA

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing +

Graduate program director, gayle brandeis.

Gayle Brandeis is the author, most recently, of Drawing Breath: Essays on Writing, the Body, and Grief (Overcup Books). Previous books include the memoir The Art of Misdiagnosis (Beacon Press); the novel in poems, Many Restless Concerns (Black Lawrence Press), shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson Prize; the craft book Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write (HarperOne); the poetry collections The Selfless Bliss of the Body (Finishing Line Press) and Dictionary Poems (Pudding House); the novels The Book of Dead Birds (HarperCollins), which won the PEN/Bellwether Prize judged by Barbara Kingsolver, Toni Morrison, and Maxine Hong Kingston, Self Storage (Ballantine), a Target Breakout Book, Delta Girls (Ballantine), and her first novel for young readers, My Life with the Lincolns, a statewide read in Wisconsin. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Salon, Longreads, The Rumpus, The Nation, and O, The Oprah Magazine, and have received several awards, including the Columbia Journal Creative Nonfiction Prize, the QPB/Story Magazine Short Story Award, a Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award, grants from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund and the Sierra Arts Foundation, and Notable Essays in The Best American Essays 2016, 2019, and 2020. Gayle was named the 2018 Multi-Genre Maverick Writer by the Willamette Writers. Her essay on the meaning of liberty was one of three included in the Statue of Liberty’s Centennial time capsule in 1986, and in 2004, The Writer magazine named Gayle a Writer Who Makes a Difference.

Gayle holds a BA in Poetry and Movement: Arts of Expression, Meditation and Healing from the University of Redlands and an MFA in Creative Writing / Fiction from Antioch University. She served as Inlandia Literary Laureate from 2012- 2014 and currently lives in Highland Park, IL.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/gayle-brandeis/

Carol Potter

Carol Potter’s most recent book of poems, What Happens Next is Anyone’s Guess, was awarded the 2021 Pacific Coast Series Award from Beyond Baroque Books. Of What Happens Next is Anyone’s Guess, Ellen Dore Watson writes:

The first three poems in this book will tell you why you need to read it entirely. Carol Potter’s imagination is positively athletic. Muscular, agile. These are poems in which “satisfying” and “close to ruin” can reside in the same moment. This is a poet who can also strike you with quiet recognition: “Sometimes you just need to rest your face.” Check out the love poem “Stealth, or A Sweet Bit of Stealing.” Potter brings playfulness to every poem, no matter how dead serious. One might wonder—amidst all these shenanigans—how does she also manage to be wise? Such is her gift.

—Ellen Doré Watson, author of pray me stay eager

Other books include Some Slow Bees, which winner of the 2014 Field Poetry Prize from Oberlin College Press, Otherwise Obedient (Red Hen Press, 2007), a finalist in the Lambda LGBT awards for 2007, and Short History of Pets which won the 1999 Cleveland State Poetry Center Award, and the Balcones Award. Two previous books were published by Alice James Books, Upside Down in The Dark (I995) and Before We Were Born (1990).

Publications include poems in The Massachusetts Review, The New England Review, Poetry, American Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, Hotel Amerika, The Los Angeles Review, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Poet Lore, Sinister Wisdom, The Kenyon Review, and many other journals.

Potter’s work has also appeared in numerous anthologies including The Pushcart Prize XXVI: Best of the Small Presses, December 2001, and most recently in The Road Taken, an anthology of contemporary Vermont poets.

Other awards a grant from the Vermont Council of Arts, 2019, a Pushcart Prize in 2001, The 2015 Ekphrasis Poetry Award, The 2015 Northampton Arts Biennial Poetry Contest, The New Letters Award for Poetry in 1990, the Tom McAfee Discovery Award from The Missouri Review, and three Massachusetts Council of the Arts Awards, and the 2004 A Center for the Arts Poetry Award. Potter was also the writer in residence at the Thurber House in April of 2003. She has had residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, Millay Colony for the Arts, Cummington Community of the Arts, Valparaiso in Mojacar, Spain, Villa Montalvo, and Centrum.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/carol-potter/

Sharman Apt Russell

Sharman Apt Russell (creative nonfiction faculty) is the recipient of the 2016 John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Nature Writing for Diary of a Citizen Scientist (Oregon State University Press, 2014), which also won the WILLA Award and was named by The Guardian as a top ten nature book. The Burroughs Medal was first given in 1926 and recipients include Aldo Leopold, Roger Tory Peterson, Rachel Carson, and contemporary writers like John McPhee and Barry Lopez. Her forthcoming Within Our Grasp: Childhood Malnutrition Worldwide and the Revolution Taking Place to End It (Pantheon Books, 2021) combines her longtime interest in the environment with her longtime interest in hunger.

She is now working on a memoir project about test pilots and the Mojave Desert that she loves and doubts in equal measure. Recent work in fiction include Knocking on Heaven’s Door (Skyhorse Publishing, 2016), an eco-sci-fi set in a Paleoterrific future, winner of the Arizona Authors Association and New Mexico/Arizona Book Award for Science Fiction, and her award-winning YA Teresa of the New World (Skyhorse Publishing, 2015), a story of plagues, were-jaguars, and the dreamscape of the sixteenth-century American Southwest.

Sharman’s Standing in the Light: My Life as a Pantheist was one of Booklist’s top ten books in religion. Her Hunger: An Unnatural History was written with the help of a Rockefeller Fellowship. Her work has been translated into nine languages and her essays published in many magazines, journals, and anthologies. Sharman has also been awarded a Writers at Work Fellowship, a Henry Joseph Jackson Award, a Pushcart Prize, and a Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award. She has thrice judged the PEN Award in Children’s Literature.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/sharman-apt-russell/

Alistair McCartney

Alistair is Teaching Faculty in the MFA and UGS programs at Antioch. He works closely with all MFA students and faculty in multiple capacities, directs the Undergraduate Studies’ Creative Writing Concentration, advises UGS Applied Arts and Media students and UGS’s Two Hawks Quarterly Journal, and curates Antioch’s Literary Uprising reading series. He is the author of 2 experimental novels, The Disintegrations: a Novel (University of Wisconsin Press, 2017) and The End of the World Book (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008.) The Disintegrations won the Publishing Triangle’s Ferro-Grumley award for LGBTQ Fiction. TEOTWB was a finalist for the PEN USA Fiction Award 2009 and the Publishing Triangle’s Edmund White Debut Fiction Award 2009. McCartney’s writing has also appeared in journals such as Hotel, Light/Air, LIT, Fence, Nat.Brut, Vestiges, 3:AM, Animal Shelter (Semiotexte), Bloom, Dream Pop, Five 2 One, 1913, and the James White Review. Born in Perth, Western Australia, he lives in Los Angeles. A graduate of Antioch University MFA’s inaugural year, he has presented at institutions throughout the country, including CUNY Grad Center, PEN Center USA, Teacher’s and Writer’s Collaborative New York, Cal Arts, UC Santa Cruz, and UW Madison. In 2019, he was Artist in Residence for Art Workshop International in Italy. He is currently working on a novel and a book of poetry. You can learn more about his writing at www.alistairmccartney.com.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/alistair-mccartney/

Jim Krusoe (fiction) has published two books of stories, Blood Lake and Abductions. His first novel, Iceland, was published by Dalkey Archive Press. Since then he has had five novels published by Tin House Books: Girl Factory, Erased, Toward You, Parsifal, and The Sleep Garden (2016). His stories and poems have appeared in the Antioch Review, Bomb, Denver Quarterly, Iowa Review, Field, North American Review, American Poetry Review, Chicago Review, and Santa Monica Review, which he began in 1988. His essays and book reviews have appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, the Washington Post, Manoa, Brief Encounters, The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, and in the Tin House Writers’ Notebook. He is the recipient of a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a reading fellowship from the Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest fund. He teaches at Santa Monica College as well as in Antioch University’s MFA in Creative Writing program. He has also published five books of poems. He is currently working on a novel.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/jim-krusoe/

Terry Wolverton

Terry Wolverton is the author of eleven books of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Her most recent collection, Ruin Porn, consists of poems she created using the dis•articulations process she pioneered. Her novel-in-poems, Embers, was a finalist for the PEN USA Litfest Poetry Award and the Lambda Book Award.

Insurgent Muse: life and art at the Woman’s Building, a memoir published by City Lights Books, was named one of the “Best Books of 2002” by the Los Angeles Times, and was the winner of the 2003 Publisher’s Triangle Judy Grahn Award, and a finalist for the Lambda Book Award.

Her novel, Bailey’s Beads, was a finalist in the American Library Association’s Gay and Lesbian Book Awards for 1997; Kirkus Reviews said of it, “her ambitious debut…features…a stark but melodious prose style…confident style and affecting characters.”

Her fiction, poetry, essays, and drama have been published in periodicals internationally, including Crab Orchard Review, Prairie Schooner, Glimmer Train Stories, The Stinging Fly, and Zyzzyva, and widely anthologized. She has also edited several successful literary compilations, including the Lambda Literary Award-winning His: brilliant new fiction by gay men and Hers: brilliant new fiction by lesbians, volumes 1, 2, and 3.

Wolverton spent her early years working in experimental theatre and performance art. She has collaborated as a writer with Heidi Duckler Dance Theater on the site-specific performances subVersions, Under Eden, After Eden, Cover Story, Cleopatra and Catch Your Breath. Wolverton also worked with composer David Ornette Cherry to adapt Embers as a jazz opera and produced concert readings as part of the ALOUD series at the Central Library and at Grand Performances.

Wolverton has taught creative writing since 1977; in 1997, she founded Writers at Work, a center for creative writing in Los Angeles, where she offers several weekly workshops. She spent thirteen years at the Woman’s Building, a public center for women’s culture, eventually serving as its executive director.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/terry-wolverton/

Brad Kessler

Brad Kessler is a critically acclaimed novelist whose work has been translated into several languages. He won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in Fiction for his novel, Birds in Fall, a Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as a Whiting Writers Award. He is an educator and farmer and author of the literary non-fiction Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese. His other books include the novel, Lick Creek, and The Woodcutter’s Christmas, and the forthcoming novel, North (2021, The Overlook Press/Abrams). His work has appeared in many publications including The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, Bomb, Kenyon Review, and The New Yorker. He’s received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and the Lange-Taylor Prize from Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies. He teaches creative writing at the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles, and has lectured at – among other places – Northwestern University, Smith College, The New School University, and the Kenyon Writers Workshop. He lives on the smallest licensed goat dairy in the state of Vermont where he makes cheese alongside the photographer and activist, Dona Ann McAdams.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/brad-kessler/

Francesca Lia Block

Francesca Lia Block has published over 25 works of fiction, non-fiction, short stories, and poetry for adults, young adults, and children, including the Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement award-winning Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books. She has also published various essays, interviews and reviews. She was a finalist for Professor of the Year at University of Redlands and currently teaches at UCLA Extension, St. Mary’s College of California, Litreactor, and privately. Francesca is honored to be a part of the Antioch Los Angeles MFA program.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/francesca-block/

Victoria Chang

Victoria Chang’s forthcoming book of poems, With My Back to the World, is forthcoming in 2024 from Farrar, Straus & Giroux in the U.S. and Corsair in the U.K. Her latest poetry book is The Trees Witness Everything (Copper Canyon Press, 2022). OBIT (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), which was named a New York Times Notable Book and received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and the PEN Voelcker Award. It was also longlisted for a National Book Award and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Griffin International Poetry Prize. Her nonfiction book is Dear Memory (Milkweed Editions, 2021).

Her children’s picture book, Is Mommy?, was illustrated by Marla Frazee and published by Beach Lane Books/Simon & Schuster. It was named a New York Times Notable Book. Her middle-grade novel, Love, Love was published by Sterling Publishing. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Fellowship, the Poetry Society of America’s Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award, a Pushcart Prize, a Lannan Residency Fellowship, and a Katherine Min MacDowell Colony Fellowship. She is the current poetry editor of the New York Times Magazine. She lives in Los Angeles.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/victoria-chang/

Genevieve Hudson

Genevieve Hudson is the author of Boys of Alabama: a novel (W.W. Norton/Liveright, 2020), which Oprah Magazine selected as a recommended book to read in 2020. Her other books include the memoir-hybrid A Little in Love with Everyone (Fiction Advocate, 2018), and Pretend We Live Here: Stories (Future Tense Books, 2018), which was a LAMBDA Literary Award finalist and named a Best Book of 2018 by Entropy.

Her writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, selected by them for The Best Queer Internet Writing of 2017, and appears in McSweeney’s, Catapult, Tin House online, No Tokens, Joyland, Bitch Magazine, The Rumpus, and other places. She has received fellowships from the Fulbright Program, The MacDowell Colony, Caldera Arts, and The Vermont Studio Center. You can find her on Instagram @gkhudson or on Twitter @genhudson. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/genevieve-hudson/

Victoria Patterson

Victoria Patterson (fiction) is the author of the novel The Little Brother, which Vanity Fair called “a brutal, deeply empathetic, and emotionally wrenching examination of American male privilege and rape culture.” She is also the author of the novels The Peerless Four and This Vacant Paradise, a 2011 New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Her story collection, Drift, was a finalist for the California Book Award and the Story Prize and was selected as one of the best books of 2009 by The San Francisco Chronicle. Her newest story collection is The Secret Habit of Sorrow (Counterpoint Press, 2018). She lives in South Pasadena, California with her family.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/victoria-patterson/

Chris Feliciano Arnold

Chris Feliciano Arnold has written essays and journalism for The Atlantic, Harper’s, Foreign Policy, Outside, Vice News, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Folha de S. Paulo, and more. The recipient of a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, he has published fiction in Playboy, The Kenyon Review, Ecotone, and other magazines. Along the way, his work has been noted in The Best American Sports Writing and The Best American Short Stories. He lives and teaches writing in the San Francisco Bay Area. Presently, he is Distinguished Visiting Writer of Nonfiction at Saint Mary’s College of California.

His first book, The Third Bank of the River: Power and Survival in the Twenty-First Century Amazon, is a work of narrative nonfiction published by Picador in 2018.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/chris-feliciano-arnold/

Jaswinder Bolina

Jaswinder Bolina is an American poet and essayist. His poetry collections include The 44th of July (2019), Phantom Camera (2012), Carrier Wave (2006), and the chapbook The Tallest Building in America (2014). His first collection of essays Of Color is being released by McSweeney’s in June 2020. His poems and essays have appeared widely in the U.S. and abroad and have been included in several anthologies including The Best American Poetry and The Norton Reader. He teaches on the faculty of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Miami.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/jaswinder-bolina/

Naima Coster

Naima Coster is the author of two novels, What’s Mine and Yours, an instant New York Times bestseller, and her debut, Halsey Street, which was a finalist for the 2018 Kirkus Prize for Fiction. Naima’s stories and essays have appeared in Elle, Time, Kweli, the New York Times, The Paris Review Daily, The Cut, The Sunday Times, Catapult, and elsewhere. In 2020, she received the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” honor. Naima tweets as @zafatista and writes the newsletter, Bloom How You Must. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/naima-coster/

Natashia Deón

Natashia Deón is a two-time NAACP Image Award Nominee for Outstanding Literature, Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award Nominee in Fiction, a practicing criminal attorney, and author of the critically acclaimed and widely reviewed novels, The Perishing and GRACE, which was named a Best Book by the New York Times and awarded Best Debut Novel by the American Library Association’s Black Caucus. A PEN America Fellow, Deón has also been awarded fellowships and residencies at Yale, Prague’s Creative Writing Program, Dickinson House in Belgium and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. She is a professor of creative writing at Yale, UCLA, and Antioch University. Her personal essays have been featured in The New York Times, Harper’s, The Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Bazaar, American Short Fiction, Buzzfeed and other places.

Deón was a 2017 U.S. Delegate to Armenia as part of the U.S. Embassy’s reconciliation project between Turkey and Armenia in partnership with the University of Iowa and is a Pamela Krasney Moral Courage Fellow. In that role, she founded REDEEMED, a criminal record clearing and clemency project that pairs writers with those who have been convicted of crimes.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/natashia-deon/

Vandana Khanna

Born in New Delhi, India, Vandana Khanna is a writer, educator, and editor. Her third collection of poems is forthcoming from Alice James Books in 2023, and her previous books have won the Crab Orchard Review First Book Prize, The Miller Williams Poetry Prize, and the Diode Editions Chapbook Competition. Her work has appeared widely in publications such as the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, The New Republic, New England Review, Guernica, and Narrative, as well as on BBC 3. She serves as co-poetry editor at the Los Angeles Review.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/vandana-khanna/

Sarah Van Arsdale

Sarah Van Arsdale is the award-winning author of four books of fiction and two books of poetry. Her most recent book, Taken, is a poetry collection that braids her personal experience with our current political and cultural landscape; it was published in October 2021, by Finishing Line Press.

Her fourth book of fiction, a collection of novellas titled In Case of Emergency, Break Glass, was published by Queens Ferry Press in 2016. Her third novel, Grand Isle, was published by SUNY Press in 2012. Her second, Blue, winner of the 2002 Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel, was published by the University of Tennessee Press in 2003, and her first, Toward Amnesia, was published in 1996 by Riverhead Books. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have been published in literary magazines including Guernica, Passages North, The New Guard, and Bayou; her essays on craft have appeared in The AWP Writers’ Chronicle, and The Writer.

She holds an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College. In addition to teaching in the Antioch/LA low-residency MFA program, she has taught with Art Workshop International in Assisi, Italy, at New York University, with Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv, and she is on the faculty of Writers Harbor/Maine Media in Rockport, Maine. For seven years, she curated BLOOM, a reading series in New York City, and serves on the board of the Ferro-Grumley Award in LGBTQ Fiction. She also works as a private manuscript coach. More of her drawings, short films, and writing can be seen at sarahvanarsdale.com.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/sarah-van-arsdale/

Sarah Manguso

Sarah Manguso is a fiction writer, essayist, and poet, and the author, most recently, of the novel Very Cold People. Her nonfiction books are 300 Arguments, Ongoingness, The Guardians, and The Two Kinds of Decay, and her other books include the poetry collections Siste Viator and The Captain Lands in Paradise and the story collection Hard to Admit and Harder to Escape.

Her work has been recognized by an American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Rome Prize. She grew up in Massachusetts and now lives in Los Angeles.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/sarah-manguso/

Ari Banias is the author of A Symmetry (W.W. Norton, 2021) and Anybody (W.W. Norton, 2016), which was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the PEN Center USA Literary Award. His work has been supported by fellowships from Headlands Center for the Arts, MacDowell, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, and Stanford University’s Wallace Stegner program. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Hyperallergic, Georgia Review, The Nation, The New Republic, A Public Space, and elsewhere. Ari lives in the Bay Area where he also teaches in the MFA program at the University of San Francisco.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/ari-banias/

Aditi Khorana

Aditi Khorana is the author of two Young Adult novels, Mirror in the Sky (Penguin/Razorbill 2016), named “one of the most powerful reads of the year” by Paste Magazine, and the critically acclaimed feminist historical fantasy, The Library of Fates (Penguin/Razorbill, 2017). Both her novels are Junior Library Guild selections. Her first book is the subject of a TEDx talk, Harnessing the Power of the Unknown. She is a member of the advisory board of the House of Beautiful Business, headquartered in Lisbon, Portugal, where she gives talks and workshops on feminist myth and the need for more inclusive narratives.

In a former life, Aditi was a producer at CNN, PBS, and ABC News. She also worked as an entertainment marketing consultant for various Hollywood studios, including FOX, SONY and Paramount. Her work has been featured on NPR, and in Los Angeles Review of Books, NBC News, Buzzfeed, EW, Bustle, Seventeen, Huffington Post, and Paste Magazine. She graduated from Brown University with a degree in International Relations and Modern Culture and Media, and has an MA in Global Media and Communications from the Annenberg School for Communications. She volunteers with 826LA, The Library Foundation of LA, and The Hammer Museum, teaching writing workshops for teens and kids.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/aditi-khorana/

Aminah Mae Safi

Aminah Mae Safi is the author of four novels, including Tell Me How You Really Feel (Feiwel & Friends) and Travelers Along the Way: a Robin Hood Remix (Feiwel & Friends). She’s an erstwhile art historian, a fan of Cholula on popcorn, and an un-ironic lover of the Fast and the Furious franchise. Her writing has been featured on Bustle and Salon and her award-winning short stories can be found in Fresh Ink (Crown Books) and the forthcoming First Year Orientation (Candlewick Press, 2023).

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/aminah-mae-safi/

Pitor Florczyk

Piotr Florczyk is an award-winning poet, scholar, critic, and translator of Polish poetry. His most recent books are From the Annals of Kraków, a volume of poems based on the testimonies of Holocaust survivors, and several volumes of translations, including Building the Barricade by Anna ?wirszczy?ska, which won the 2017 Found in Translation Award and the 2017 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award.

His poems, translations, essays, and reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, The American Scholar, The Times Literary Supplement, The American Poetry Review, The Hopkins Review, The Threepenny Review, Salmagundi, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Slate, Harvard Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Boston Review, Notre Dame Review, New Orleans Review, Pleiades, The Southern Review, West Branch, The Louisville Review, World Literature Today, The Cincinnati Review, Gargoyle, America Magazine, Poetry International, The Yellow Nib, and other journals and magazines. He is a founding editor of Calypso Editions, a cooperative press dedicated to publishing poetry and prose in translation. His new co-founded press is called Textshop Editions.

Piotr Florczyk has been a fellow at USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research, the Czes?aw Mi?osz Institute, the Polish Book Institute, and the Delaware Division of the Arts, and has taught poetry, translation, and literature undergraduate and graduate courses at Claremont McKenna College, SDSU, University of San Diego, Antioch University Los Angeles, University of Delaware, and at UC Riverside. He is a doctoral candidate at USC and lives in Redondo Beach with his wife and their daughter.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/piotr-florczyk/

Lisa Locascio Nighthawk

Lisa Locascio Nighthawk’s debut novel, Open Me, was published by Grove Atlantic in 2018. A New York Times Editor’s Choice, Open Me was a semifinalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and was reviewed in The New York Times Review of Books, The New Yorker, and on NPR. Lisa is also the editor of an anthology, Golden State 2017: Best New Writing from California, published by Outpost19 Books.

Lisa’s stories, essays, and poems have been published in n+1, The Believer, Bookforum, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, Tin House, and many other places. Her essay “Byzantium,” was selected for inclusion in Best American Experimental Writing 2020, and she was awarded the 2017 Penelope Niven Creative Nonfiction International Literary Award for her essay “Protest,” which later appeared in The Southampton Review. Lisa is editor of the ekphrastic collaboration magazine 7x7LA and Executive Director of the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference. She lives in Los Angeles with her partner and their cat, Sybil.

Prior to joining Antioch, Lisa held teaching positions at UCLA (where she was Lecturer of Scandinavian), Wesleyan University, the University of Southern California, Colorado College, and New York University, among other institutions.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/lisa-locascio/

Ana Maria Spagna

Ana Maria Spagna is the author of several award-winning nonfiction books including Reclaimers, stories of indigenous women reclaiming sacred land and water, the memoir/history Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus: A Daughter’s Civil Rights Journey, winner of the River Teeth literary nonfiction prize, and three essay collections, Potluck, Now Go Home, and most recently, Uplake: Restless Essays of Coming and Going. She has also written a novel for young people, The Luckiest Scar on Earth, about a 14-year-old snowboarder and her activist father, and her first chapbook of poetry, At Mile Marker Six, will appear in Fall 2021. Ana Maria’s work has been recognized by the Society for Environmental Journalists, the Nautilus Book Awards, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Awards, and as a four-time finalist for the Washington State Book Award. Her essays have recently appeared in Fourth Genre, Ecotone, Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, The Normal School, and Hotel Amerika. After working fifteen years on backcountry trail crews for the National Park Service, she turned to teaching and, in addition to Antioch, has served as a visiting writer at Whitman College, St. Lawrence University, and the University of Montana.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/ana-maria-spagna/

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants. Her debut poetry collection, Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications 2016), is inspired by her family’s immigration stories and her time volunteering with the humanitarian aid organization, No More Deaths. A dramatization of her poem “Our Lady of the Water Gallons,” directed by Jesús Salvador Treviño, can be viewed at latinopia.com.

Bermejo was chosen as the first “Poet in the Parks” resident at Gettysburg National Military Park in partnership with the Poetry Foundation and the National Parks Arts Foundation in Fall 2017. Locating the Dead, a chapbook inspired by her time at Gettysburg during the first half of the Trump administration was published by A-B Projects as part of the collaborative art exhibit, “The Stacks.” “Battlegrounds,” a poem from this collection was featured as an Academy of Poets’ Poem-a-Day and on Poetry Unbound.

A former Steinbeck fellow, Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange poetry winner, Barbara Deming Memorial Fund/Money for Women grantee, and Tucson Festival of Books 3rd place poetry winner, she was once selected by her mentor, Eloise Klein Healy as a Los Angeles Central Library ALOUD newer poet. She has received residencies with Hedgebrook and the Ragdale Foundation and is a member of the Miresa Collective.

Bermejo is co-founder and director of Women Who Submit, a literary organization fighting for gender parity by empowering women and non-binary writers to submit work for publication. She received a BA in Theatre Arts from California State University of Long Beach and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She teaches adult writing workshops with UCLA Extension and children’s poetry workshops throughout LA County.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/xochitl-julisa-bermejo/

Ross Brown began his writing career on NBC’s award-winning comedy The Cosby Show and went on to write, produce and create comedies for ABC, CBS, and The WB. He is the author of the book Create Your Own TV Series for the Internet. His full-length plays Hindsight and Trapped have had staged readings at The Pasadena Playhouse and The Barter Theater in Virginia. His short plays have been performed in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minnesota. Prior to his writing career, Professor Brown worked as an assistant director on feature films including National Lampoon’s Vacation.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/ross-brown/

Nikki Darling

Nikki Darling holds a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from USC. Her debut novel, Fade Into You, was published by Feminist Press in 2018. She is completing her second book, The Call Is Coming From Inside the House. She lives in L.A. with her cat and a small dog.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/nikki-darling-phd/

Anjali Enjeti

Anjali Enjeti is a former attorney, organizer, and journalist based near Atlanta. She is the author of Southbound: Essays on Identity, Inheritance, and Social Change, which the Washington Post called “a nuanced and much-needed journey into exploring what it means to be American,” and The Parted Earth, a novel that the Star Tribune called, “a novel with the gravitas to transform.” Her other writing has appeared in the Boston Globe, Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Catapult, Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, and elsewhere. A former board member of the National Book Critics Circle, she teaches creative writing in the MFA program at Reinhardt University.

Since 2017, Anjali has been working on getting out the vote in Georgia’s AAPI community. In 2019, she co-founded the Georgia chapter of They See Blue, an organization for South Asian Democrats. In the fall of 2020, she was a member of Georgia’s AAPI Leadership Council for the Biden Harris campaign. She currently serves as a Fulton County poll clerk. For her writing and activism, she has appeared on NPR’s Morning Edition, Peacock’s Zerlina, WABE’s City Lights, Georgia Public Broadcasting’s On Second Thought, and WUTC’s Scenic Roots.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/anjali-enjeti/

Colette Freedman

Colette Freedman is an internationally produced playwright with over 50 produced plays and musicals. Her play Sister Cities has been produced around the country and internationally, including Paris (Une Ville, Une Soeur), Rome (Le Quattro Sorelle), and Australia. She also wrote the novel and the film which stars Jacki Weaver and Alfred Molina. She has authored ten books and is currently working on her eleventh. In collaboration with New York Times best-selling author Michael Scott, she wrote the thriller The Thirteen Hallows (Tor/Macmillan) Her other novels include The Affair and The Consequences (Kensington), Anomalies with Sadie Turner (Select Books) and I Wrote That One, Too with Steve Dorff (Backbeat Books). She also wrote the film And Then There Was Eve which won best feature at the LA Film Festival 2017 and co-produced the film Quality Problems, which won several film festivals. Her film Miles Underwater is currently in post-production, as well as her film 7,000 Miles starring Wendie Malick about Amelia Earhart. She has produced and co-written several over a dozen Lifetime thrillers with Brooke Purdy. Colette has several scripts in development, including Joint Venture, Scattering Rachel, and The Last Bookstore, which won Grand Prize at the CWA awards, We Screenplay’s Diverse Voices, Best SciFi Feature Action on Film, and Richmond International Film Festival. Currently, her musical Serial Killer Barbie (Heuer Publishing) is gearing up for a tour of New Zealand, and Mozart the Musical, which she conceived of with Tegan Summer, is set to play at Carnegie Hall in October 2022.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/collette-freedman/

Reyna Grade

Antioch alumna, Reyna Grande, is the author of the bestselling memoir, The Distance Between Us (Atria 2012), where she writes about her life before and after she arrived in the United States from Mexico as an undocumented child immigrant. The much-anticipated sequel, A Dream Called Home was released in 2018. Her other works include the novels, Across a Hundred Mountains (Atrial 2006) and Dancing with Butterflies (2009) which were published to critical acclaim. The Distance Between Us is also available as a young readers edition.

Her books have been adopted as the common read selection by schools, colleges, and cities across the country. Reyna has received an American Book Award, the El Premio Aztlán Literary Award, and the International Latino Book Award. In 2012, she was a finalist for the prestigious National Book Critics Circle Awards, and in 2015 she was honored with a Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature. The young reader’s version of The Distance Between Us received an International Literacy Association Children’s Book Award in 2017. Writing about immigration, family separation, language trauma, the price of the American Dream, and her writing journey, Reyna’s work has appeared in The New York Times, the Dallas Morning News, CNN, The Lily at The Washington Post, Buzzfeed, among others. Reyna is a proud member of the Macondo Writer’s Workshop founded by Sandra Cisneros, where she has also served as faculty. She has also taught at several writers’ conferences, including the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and VONA (Voices of Our Nation’s Arts). She has two forthcoming books: A Ballad of Love and Glory, a novel set during the Mexican-American War (Atria, March 2022); and a collection of essays by and about undocumented Americans called Somewhere We Are Human: Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival, and New Beginnings (Harpervia, June 2022).

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/reyna-grande/

Joseph Han (he/they) is the author of Nuclear Family (Counterpoint Press, 2022), named a most anticipated book of the year by Buzzfeed, LGBTQ Reads, Goodreads, and The Millions. A recipient of a Kundiman fellowship, he was named a Writer to Watch in Spring 2022 by Publishers Weekly. His writing has appeared in Nat.Brut, Catapult, Pleiades Magazine, and Platypus Press Shorts. Currently, he is an Editor for the West region of Joyland Magazine and holds a Ph.D. in English & Creative Writing from the University of Hawai?i-M?noa.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/joseph-han-phd/

Erik Hansen

Erik Hansen (Affiliate Faculty) has extensive film industry experience, having sold six screenplays to major Hollywood studios, including the feature film Heart & Souls, starring Robert Downey, Jr., released by Universal Studios. He co-wrote “The Dog Ate It,” which won a Student Academy Award for best narrative short. He has also written numerous columns on Buddhism, three of which have been selected for “best-of” anthologies published by Shambhala Publications. He received his BA in English from UC Berkeley and MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans. He is an Assistant Professor of screenwriting at the University of New Orleans, where he received the university’s “Excellence in Teaching” award in 2016 and the “Excellence in Mentoring” award in 2018. Erik is currently developing a script entitled The One Who Got Away.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/erik-hansen/

Guadalupe García McCall

Born and raised in Eagle Pass, Texas, Guadalupe García McCall is the award-winning author of several young adult novels, some short stories for adults, and many children’s poems. Guadalupe has received the Prestigious Pura Belpre Award, a Westchester Young Adult Fiction Award, the Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children’s Book Award, and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award and the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, among many other accolades. She is an advocate for literacy, diverse books, and Own Voices. In her travels, she is always looking for a good taco place and she never met a chocolate mole sauce she didn’t love! She lives in the San Antonio area with her husband and sons. She likes to cook, garden, write, draw, and play with her granddaughter.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/guadalupe-garcia-mccall-mfa/

Tomas Moniz

Tomas Moniz’s debut novel, Big Familia, was a finalist for the 2020 PEN/Hemingway, the LAMBDA, and the Foreward Indies Awards. He edited the popular Rad Dad and Rad Families anthologies. He’s a 2020 Artist Affiliate for Headlands Center for Arts and a 2022 UCross resident. He teaches creative writing at Berkeley City College. He has stuff on the internet but loves pen pals: PO Box 3555, Berkeley, CA 94703. He promises to write back.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/tomas-moniz/

Joshua Roark serves as faculty for Antioch’s Post-MFA Certificate in the Teaching of Creative Writing. He is the editorial director of the publishing collective for emerging authors, Discover New Art, and is the Editor-in-Chief of Frontier Poetry. He published a chapbook of sonnets, Put One Hand Up, Lean Back, with Unsolicited Press. He and his wife live happily in Los Angeles.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/josh-roark/

Marco Wilkinson

Marco Wilkinson is the author of Madder (Coffee House Press, 2021). His essays have appeared in Kenyon Review, Seneca Review, Terrain, Bennington Review, Taproot and elsewhere. He is the nonfiction editor of the Los Angeles Review. He has received several fellowships, including a Hemera Foundation Tending Space fellowship and writing residencies at Craigardan and the Crosshatch Center for Art and Ecology. In addition to teaching in Antioch University’s MFA program, he is also a Visiting Assistant Professor at James Madison University where he teaches creative writing. Marco is also a horticulturist and has taught sustainable agriculture for many years.

https://www.antioch.edu/faculty/marco-wilkinson/

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Art Works

Juilene Osborne-McKnight, MFA Program Director 610.282.1100, ext. 1661 [email protected]

The Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in an artistic field (theater, fine arts, graphic design, dance, and writing) is considered the terminal degree in that field. The MFA presupposes that the owner of the degree will be a practitioner of the art. S/he may also be a teacher of creative writing, either part-time or fulltime, but the practice of the art form is the primary criterion.

DeSales University offers a low-residency MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing, which means that students are in residence only twice each year (ten days each January and ten days each summer). In between residencies, students read extensively in assigned areas of literature. They do close reading and deep written analysis of selected writers and guest speakers they encounter in their residency. Students also continually compose and revise their own work are in regular contact with a mentor and with the members of their own cohort via Blackboard.

There are four extraordinary differentiators for the MFA in Creative Writing and Publication program at DeSales University:

  • A unique five-year undergraduate-to-graduate MFA program plan of study allows writers to progress straight through undergraduate studies to the MFA residencies and practicums.
  • The summer residency takes place in the Celtic World and will include European writers as guest speakers.
  • Students choose either a track in Poetry or Fiction, but all students are required to complete a track in Publishing.
  • The program includes some study of spiritual writing with students participating in a day devoted to ‘Writing in the Spirit’ as part of the January residency. This day includes guest speakers who write from a faith-based viewpoint as well as a candlelit evening retreat of music, prayer, storytelling, art and poetry.

Mission Statement

The low-residency MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing at DeSales University welcomes aspiring and committed writers into an intellectual and artistic community established in the spirit of the guiding mission statement of DeSales University. Indeed, as St. Francis DeSales, himself a powerfully evocative writer, is also the patron saint of writers, we believe there exists no graduate degree better suited for DeSales University than the MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing.

Through its two intensive annual residencies and year-round exchanges among highly accomplished mentors and their students, the MFA provides a demanding yet mutually supportive learning environment focused on mastery of craft, embrace of the writing life, and an introduction to opportunities in professional writing and publishing fields. Through its unique positioning at the intersection of creative writing and the spiritual life, the program also offers traditional and nontraditional age students a crucial vision of wholistic centeredness that will complement and enrich their artistic pursuits. As the program’s capstone, the book-length thesis that completes the MFA experience will reflect that mastery and that vision.

In addition, following the model of the Catholic intellectual tradition established through long centuries, the DeSales MFA in Creative Writing will graduate not merely highly-trained writers duly capable of embracing market opportunities available to them, but also informed and committed citizens who will seek out ways to enhance the lives of their communities through the skills they will have mastered in pursuit of this, the terminal degree in their field. Moreover, in all their endeavors toward the accomplishing of the degree, but especially through their residencies throughout the Celtic world, they will be conscious of their citizenship within the greater global artistic community.

Learning Outcomes

The University specifies that its graduate programs will enable its students to demonstrate:

  • specialized competence in a field of study, so that graduates will provide leadership and make significant contributions to their fields,
  • the skills necessary for advanced research/application in their specialized fields,
  • an enhanced formation of a Christian conscience as it applies to the ethical problems in their fields of interest.

Graduates of the MFA program in Writing and Publishing at DeSales University will demonstrate:

  • an awareness of the spiritual dimension of creative writing and contemplative silence
  • knowledge of writers, literary-historical periods, movements and writing styles in the English language
  • knowledge of the craft of writing and the ability to assess that craft in other writers
  • competence in the production of creative works of fiction and poetry by utilizing their knowledge of craft
  • knowledge of the publishing industry in all its variations

Admissions Requirements

Option One: The five-year BA/BS to MFA

Two types of undergraduate students can apply to this program:

  • High school seniors accepted to DeSales University with an SAT score of 1150 or higher (ACT of 23 or higher). Applicants must demonstrate serious interest in writing in their high school years, such as work on the school newspaper, the yearbook, the literary magazine, attendance at and submission to our Poetry Festival, etc. They must submit a ten page writing sample in applying to the MFA program.
  • Fall semester juniors at DeSales University who have maintained a 3.0 cumulative GPA and who had evinced serious interest in writing throughout the undergraduate years. All candidates must also submit a ten page writing sample. All undergraduate students entering this program must complete a minor in Creative Writing, so students who show interest in the MFA will be advised to begin that minor in their sophomore year.

Option Two: The five semester MFA

The DeSales five-semester MFA program option is designed for working professionals who have earned a bachelor’s degree and:

  • want to work for magazines, either full-time or freelance.
  • seek employment at publishing companies as editors, editorial staff members, copy-editors and proof-readers.
  • desire focused time to write and information to assist in publishing their own creative writing.
  • want to teach full- or part-time in college or high school writing creative writing programs.
  • aspire to work in a university setting as adjuncts, visiting writers, or as administrators.
  • desire to pursue advanced studies simply as an enrichment experience.

External students may enter the program at either the fall or winter residency. Admission to the program is rolling. A complete application to the program will include:

  • A completed Application for Admission
  • Official transcripts of all college work, undergraduate and graduate
  • Personal statement
  • Two letters of recommendation
  • A 25 page writing sample. The writing sample may be a short story or stories or a chapter from a novel if the applicant desire the fiction track or a collection of poems if the applicant desires the poetry track.
  • International applicants must submit evaluated transcripts by a member of NACES, meet the minimum graduate language requirements, and provide proof of finances for tuition and living expenses.

Academic Schedule

External MFA students will spend five semesters in the program, with two domestic residencies and two abroad. Their fifth semester will be the preparation of their thesis, their reading and defense, which will take place on the DeSales University campus.

The Academic Year of the MFA program consists of the following sessions:

Student Status

The MFA in Creative Writing and Publication program follows a prescribed curriculum, meaning that students are encouraged to follow the defined plan of study for the BA/BS to MFA and Five-Semester MFA options.

A student will be deemed inactive after twelve months of non-enrollment. The student must reapply to be reinstated to continue in the program.

Application Procedure

Acceptance into the program is determined by the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and Publication Committee for Admissions, Academic Standards, and Policies. Applications are considered at regular committee meetings throughout the year. Application and information about admission can be obtained online or by contacting the director of the MFA program at [email protected] .

International Admissions Requirements

Graduate Language Requirements

International applicants (regardless of citizenship) for whom English is a second language must submit English proficiency test scores as part of their application.

Please note that graduate admissions requires the following minimum scores on the TOEFL, IELTS, or the Cambridge English Language Assessment: Advanced (CAE):

Language Requirement Exceptions

Language skills assessment and other exceptions may be made on a case-by-case basis by the admissions committee. Examples of some language requirement exceptions could include:

  • If an applicant completed a degree from a postsecondary institution in an English speaking country
  •  an applicant attended a U.S. community college, college, or university full-time for at least two years without English of Speakers with Other Languages (ESOL) coursework
  • If an applicant has worked full-time in the U.S. for at least two years (non-healthcare programs only)

An official copy of test results must be sent by the testing agency directly to the appropriate program at DeSales University, 2755 Station Avenue, Center Valley, PA 18034.

Visit the following websites for up-to-date information:

  • The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) Web site at www.ets.org/toefl
  • The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) https://www.ielts.org/
  • The Cambridge English Proficiency (CPE): http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/exams/proficiency/

*All exams must have been taken within two years of application to a DeSales program

Official Transcripts

All undergraduate and graduate transcripts must be evaluated by a member of the National Association of Credential Evaluation Services (NACES) and sent directly to the Office of Graduate Admissions, 2755 Station Avenue, Center Valley, PA 18034.

Proof of Finances

A statement of finances that covers the cost of the attendance and living expenses for at least one full year must be submitted to the Director of Graduate Admissions/Designated School Official (DSO) upon acceptance to a graduate program.

Obtaining an F-1 Student Visa

The Director of Graduate Admissions/DSO will advise international applicants and students on the steps to obtain an F-1 Student Visa.

Current F-1 Students Transferring to DeSales

Upon admission to a graduate program, the Director of Graduate Admissions/DSO will provide forms for the student to complete for their current institution, requesting the Form I-20 to be transferred to DeSales.

Maintaining F-1 Student Status

Each F-1 student will meet with the Director of Graduate Admissions/DSO upon acceptance into the program regarding maintaining F-1 student status.

Transfer Policy and Prior Learning Assessment

Transfer credits are not accepted into the MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing program.

Registration

Registration for classes normally begins eight weeks before the first class. The University reserves the right to limit enrollment, or cancel a course if registration is insufficient. Registration is completed through Web Advisor at www.desales.edu/webadvisor . New students will need to contact the program director for registration information.

Tuition and Fees

Tuition and fees are available at www.desales.edu .

Refund Amount

  • Withdrawal after 1st class: 80% of tuition refunded
  • Withdrawal after 2nd class: 60% of tuition refunded
  • Withdrawal after 3rd class: 50% of tuition refunded
  • Withdrawal after 4th class: 20% of tuition refunded
  • Withdrawal after 5th class: No refund

Residency Courses:

  • No refund is made after the course has begun.

Graduation Requirements

Students must complete the following degree requirements:

  • Four intensive ten day residencies alternating at DeSales and in Europe.
  • Four practicum semesters with a writing mentor.
  • An additional semester to produce, complete and refine an original creative manuscript of poetry or fiction.
  • A defense of the creative manuscript, including a meeting with the thesis review committee as well as a public reading and q&a defense.

Program of Study

The MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing consists of the following:

The MFA paradigm does not utilize the ‘typical’ course descriptions or syllabi or standard classroom courses. Its structure is immersion followed by practicum. Its purpose is to provide students with two years of complete immersion in the practice of and works produced by practitioners of their art.

  • Prior to each residency, students will receive a list of required readings. These will be the fiction and poetry of their visiting writers.
  • Prior to each immersion, the student will receive a full schedule of events. This schedule will be in the form of a booklet and students would be required to attend every event. The booklet will list specific times, specific rooms, specific speakers and mentors and the biographical details of all visiting writers, editors and publishers. The booklet will also include policy and deadline information for the program.
  • Practicum begins immediately after immersion, with the first assignment drawing directly from immersion, as all students are required to write a 10-12 page “assessment” of their residency. That assessment is not focused on what they enjoyed or did not enjoy, but rather assesses what they learned about craft and from whom and in what context, what they learned about publishing and which aspects of that learning might be relevant to their practice or to their job search, if they intend to work in publishing. That assessment instrument is due to the student’s mentor within ten days of departure from the residency.
  • Immediately following residency, the literary and creative portion of the practicum begins. In practicum, each student individualizes what s/he intends to do within the framework of practicum’s requirements. This will include intensive literary reading and writing as well as work on the student’s own creative writing.

The five-year BA/BS to MFA

Internal students will enter the program with the summer international residency at the end of their junior year. Their second residency will take place over Christmas break during their senior year. They will have completed two semesters of the five semester program by the time they complete their undergraduate work. Two more residency semesters will follow, one domestic, one international. Their final semester, which does not include a residency will be completion and finalization of the thesis, reading and defense. They will graduate with a terminal degree.

Manuscript and Defense

In the final semester of the program, students must present a book-length collection of poetry, short fiction or long fiction. All manuscripts must be bound. Poetry manuscripts must be 64 pages. Fiction manuscripts should be between 150-400 pages, depending on format (short stories, novella, novel).

Tables of contents are necessary for poetry and short fiction. Title page is necessary. An ‘Acknowledgements’ page for any included work previously published is necessary. All manuscripts must contain a cover page with name, date, student’s previous academic degrees and the statement, “This manuscript is submitted as the thesis in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master’s of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at DeSales University” followed by the date.

Students will confer with their mentor on the thesis manuscript; these conferences may begin as early as the first semester and will continue throughout the program. By the fifth semester, students should already have produced significant material that will inform the thesis. When the thesis is complete, the following protocol will occur:

  • The mentor will inform the Director in writing that the thesis is ready for review and defense.
  • The student will submit four bound copies of the manuscript to the Director at least four weeks before the defense.
  • The Director will assemble a committee to review the manuscript over a ten-day period. If it is not accepted by all committee members, it is returned to the student for revision.
  • Once the manuscript has been accepted, the defense is scheduled. All members of the committee and the student’s mentor will attend the defense, during which the student will present the work, discussing its intent, its appropriateness within the student’s chosen literary tradition, and the process that went into the creation of the work.
  • The student then presents a public reading to an invited audience, followed by a question and answer session. This public reading should be scheduled soon after the defense.

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MFA Programs

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  • Introduction
  • What an MFA Degree Can Offer
  • How to Choose an MFA Program
  • Low-Residency MFA Programs
  • Online MFA Programs
  • Other Resources

There are a variety of reasons for pursuing an MFA—the desire for a concentrated period of time to write, the need for feedback on a specific work-in-progress, and the search for expert guidance on issues of craft and technique among them. One common reason is the desire to teach creative writing: An MFA is a terminal degree, which means that it better qualifies you to teach at the university level. Search the  MFA Programs database , our comprehensive guide to graduate creative writing programs in the United States and other English-speaking countries to get a sense of what these programs offer.

An MFA degree program can offer you classes in craft and technique, workshops, seminars, feedback on your writing, exposure to other writers’ work, and opportunities to meet peers and established writers. In addition to providing a way for writers to make contacts with agents, editors, and publishers, MFA degree programs often offer prestige and professional credentials as well. Also, many writers find that working for a concentrated period of time in an academic setting allows them the space they need to read, think, and write.

With more than two hundred writing programs in North America alone, deciding which ones to apply to and which one to attend can be a tricky business. Although the majority of programs share basic characteristics—requiring thirty-six to seventy credit hours and two to three years to complete, offering concentrations in at least poetry and fiction (and increasingly, nonfiction and translation), and expecting students to complete a creative writing thesis—they differ in many ways.

Some programs offer coursework in fields related to writing, such as digital language arts and publishing, and some are more academically rigorous than others. Some programs have long-established reputations, while some were begun in the past decade. For most students, the number one criterion is faculty: If you admire the work of writers who teach at particular programs, it might be a good idea to apply to those programs. Funding is another important criterion; some programs offer full funding, others partial funding, and some do not offer any funding. Some sources of funding to look out for include teaching assistantships, fellowships, and scholarships.

Low-residency MFA programs allow writers to earn a degree without having to spend much time living on a particular campus. Many writers who have established personal and professional commitments in a certain place pursue low-residency programs so that they can earn an MFA degree without too much disruption to their lives.

Most low-residency programs take two years to complete and require students to spend one to two weeks on campus twice each year during intensive seminars. In between the on-campus meetings, students work individually with faculty members—on a predetermined schedule—to create a personal reading list and to complete and revise creative work. As with traditional MFA programs, low-residency programs usually expect students to have completed a book-length thesis by the end of the program.

Online MFA programs allow writers to earn a degree with a flexible schedule from anywhere in the world. Faculty members lead workshops, which often connect students internationally.

Some programs include webinars and online conferences, live chats, and one-on-one tutorials offering a variety of ways to connect with faculty and students. Other programs include a residency for an opportunity to meet authors, editors, publishers, and other students in person.

Most online programs take two years to complete (sometimes longer for part-time students), and as with traditional MFA programs, students are expected to complete a book-length manuscript.

Many individual colleges and universities that offer MFA degrees in creative writing offer information on their websites about MFA programs in general. Such information can be a good starting point for helping you decide whether pursuing an MFA degree is the right choice for you. Talking to individuals who are in MFA programs or who have earned MFA degrees can be another useful step. You can search the Poets & Writers Directory for writers who attended particular programs.

Our MFA Programs database provides information on faculty, funding, deadlines, and more to guide you through your research. The Poets & Writers Guide to MFA Programs , a collection of articles edited by the staff of Poets & Writers Magazine , includes straightforward advice from professionals in the literary field, additional resources to help you choose the best programs to apply to, and an application tracker to keep you organized throughout the process.  The Poets & Writers Complete Guide to Being a Writer  (Avid Reader Press, 2020) by Kevin Larimer and Mary Gannon has a chapter dedicated to advice about MFA programs.

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Course of Study

Mfa creative writing course of study.

Arcadia’s low residency MFA Program in Creative Writing utilizes up-to-date technology for an experience that fits your lifestyle. Through residencies, mentoring, and workshops, you will learn to read critically and write creatively while preparing for your career.

Residencies

During the two-year duration of the MFA Program, you will meet in person three times: the first at the beginning of the program in August, at our campus; the second during the following summer for the residency abroad, in Scotland; and the final time in January of the second year, again on Arcadia’s campus.

Each residency is about a week long, and includes workshops, writing exercises, discussions with a visiting writer, and the building of community within the group.

Workshops are conducted during each fall and spring semester, and consist of online discussion boards. Asynchronous discussions have weekly deadlines but no set time to attend a session, making it possible to fit the workshops into your schedule.

Additionally, the software we use for the discussions themselves and for file sharing are accessible via laptops, tablets, and smartphones, so the course goes anywhere you want it to.

Each week, you will review some of your peer’s submissions and get to submit work for peer review several times per semester.

Practicum courses consist of one-on-one mentoring with an instructor through the semester. You will have at least four meetings per semester, but usually no more than six or seven. Because you schedule these meetings at your convenience, often in the evenings, you can accommodate work and family schedules. These meetings can be held via video call, so students can complete the Practicum courses from wherever they reside.

Each meeting focuses on a piece of writing submitted to your instructor a few days before the appointment. Each practicum appointment is about an hour long and consists of an in-depth discussion about the work in question and the specific methods or techniques the student might adopt to improve their writing.

At the end of your second year in the program, you will turn in a thesis. For fiction students, this is a manuscript of roughly 60,000 words, and can be either a novel or a collection of short fiction. For poets this is a manuscript of about 48 pages of verse.

The guidelines can be discussed with the faculty and changed based on your goals. Most importantly, in producing the thesis you develop the habits necessary to lead the life of a writer, including a plan for publication after the program ends.

Craft Course

MFA students must take a course on the craft of contemporary literature, either fiction or poetry, depending on the track they are in. This is a literature course, not a creative course, but focuses on the technical aspects of contemporary writing. The course is always offered online.

Literature Course

In addition to the craft course, MFA students must take one graduate level literature course while in the program. The choice of which course is completely up to the student, and it can be taken at any point during the program. We have online offerings every semester.

Sample Course Sequence Scenario

  • Residency One, August : Arcadia University
  • Fall Semester:  Workshop 1, Practicum 1
  • Spring Semester:  Workshop 2, Practicum 2
  • Summer Semester:  Traditional Literature Course, Craft Course
  • Residency Two, July : Edinburgh, Scotland
  • Fall Semester:  Workshop 3, Practicum 3
  • Residency Three, January:  Arcadia University
  • Spring Semester:  Workshop 4, Practicum 4—Thesis Preparation. Thesis turned in at the close of Spring Semester 2024.

Requirements

  • EN550 MFA Residency I
  • EN551 MFA Residency II
  • EN552 Residency III
  • EN555A MFA Fiction Workshop I or EN555B MFA Poetry Workshop I 
  • EN556A MFA Fiction Workshop II or EN556B MFA Poetry Workshop II 
  • EN557A MFA Fiction Workshop III or EN557B MFA Poetry Workshop III 
  • EN558A MFA Fiction Workshop IV or EN558B MFA Poetry Workshop IV
  • EN560 Practicum 1
  • EN561 Practicum 2
  • EN562 Practicum 3
  • EN563 Practicum 4: Thesis Preparation
  • Choose any graduate literature offering from Arcadia
  • EN553 Craft of Contemporary Fiction or EN554 Craft of Contemporary Poetry

You must complete all of the above requirements before being awarded a degree. It is important to make all possible efforts to complete the classes in order, so as to maintain a community within the program. If you must take a leave of absence, it is best to take a full year so that it is easiest to rejoin the program at a natural point. Extenuating circumstances will be evaluated at the faculty’s discretion.

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  1. 15 Best Low Residency MFA Programs

    5. Goucher College. The only program dedicated solely to nonfiction writing, this low residency MFA attracts applicants and faculty interested in pursuing narrative, memoir, personal essay, and literary journalism. Literary agents and editors attend the two 10-day residencies in Baltimore, Maryland, and there are sponsored trips to New York to ...

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    There are several key features of our program that we think make it stand out: First, we are the only low-residency MFA in the state of Maryland that offers concentrations in both fiction and poetry; second, our program includes summer residencies on Hood College's beautiful campus, which is within walking distance of Downtown Frederick (and ...

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    Emerson College. In Boston, Massachusetts, you can attend Emerson College and enroll in its MFA in Popular Fiction Writing. This program is taught by award-winning faculty members and offers a concentration in all sorts of genres. Some of the more popular choices include mystery, horror, and young adult writing.

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    September/October 2016. This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the country's oldest low-residency MFA program in creative writing, established by poet Ellen Bryant Voigt in 1976 at Goddard College before relocating to Warren Wilson College in 1981. Contributing editor Jeremiah Chamberlin explores the program's history and legendary ...

  7. Creative Writing MFA

    Nurture your writing to its fullest potential. Lesley University's celebrated low-residency MFA program nurtures and challenges your creative potential. Attend nine-day residencies in the literary mecca of Cambridge. Pursue interdisciplinary study as a spur for fresh ideas. Cultivate mentor relationships with prize-winning writers.

  8. Low-Residency MFA Creative Writing Degree

    Read on to learn about the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program or apply today! For a better experience, ... Her 2019 novel, The Murder List, won the Anthony Award for Best Novel. Hank's 2020 novel is the chilling psychological The First to Lie nominated for both the prestigious Anthony Award for Best Novel and Mary Higgins Clark Award.

  9. Low-Residency Creative Writing MFAs

    Many low-residency MFA programs in creative writing offer scholarships, although often of limited amounts—so it only erases a bit of the expense. Other schools may pay for your entire MFA pursuit. A few examples: New England College: 25% tuition discount applied to graduate level classes for NEC alumni.

  10. Low-Residency MFA programs

    Michael Kobre, on-campus director of the Queens MFA program, has a simple philosophy on why low-residency programs are proliferating. "There's an enormous constituency of people who are passionate writers, but can't uproot their lives for two years.". The students in the Queens creative writing program range in age from 20 to 60, Kobre ...

  11. PDF Creative Writing Department

    MFA Certificate in the Teaching of Creative Writing. We invite you to call, email, or visit any time—perhaps during the next residency—to explore whether our program might be the right fit for you. Earning my MFA and Post MFA degrees at Antioch University changed my life. Not only am I a published poet, but I am living by Antioch's core value

  12. Low-Residency MFA

    Low-Residency MFA Program Overview. Write the book you're meant to write, as you earn your Mountainview Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in fiction or nonfiction. Our two-year, low-residency program allows students to live anywhere and work a full-time job. We never allow the number of students to exceed 65 total - about 16 per cohort - so our ...

  13. 2019 MFA Index: Your Guide to More Than 220 Programs

    The 2019 MFA Index provides the basic specs of a program as well as some application information to help you stay on schedule, but many of the most important and unquantifiable aspects of a program—faculty, curriculum, precise funding structure, and so on—require more research. Much of this information can be found in the Poets & Writers ...

  14. Low-Residency M.F.A. in Creative Writing

    The fifth and final residency will include a 60-minute lecture or course in your specialized area developed in the third semester. You will also deliver a public reading and lead a discussion from your creative thesis. Dig into the details of what a low-residency M.F.A. in creative writing program is like at Cornell College.

  15. Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing

    With a student-to-mentor ratio never greater than 5:1, students receive creative, focused, individualized feedback. Each residency is a 10-day intensive period of workshops, seminars, readings and more, in which we explore the wide landscape of the writing life from practical tricks-of-the-trade to subtleties of conceptual nuance.

  16. A Q&A with Solstice Low-Residency MFA's Founding Director

    We're excited about the Writing Social Justice Track launching in 2021. It's going to be like nothing else, and we can't think of a more crucial time to offer this sort of programming. To find out more, visit Solstice MFA's site. Contact: Meg Kearney, Founding Director & Quintin Collins, Assistant Director. Email: [email protected].

  17. The Best 15 Creative Writing MFA Programs in 2023

    Low-Residency MFA Programs. Low-residency programs usually meet biannually for short sessions. They also offer one-on-one support throughout the year. These MFAs are more independent, preparing you for what the writing life is actually like. Pros: No major life changes required. Cons: Less time dedicated to writing and less time to build ...

  18. Creative Writing Currently: Introducing the New Low-Residency MFA in

    The Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing at Hood College will begin accepting applicants in Fall 2023 for the inaugural June 2024 residency. For more information, please contact program director Elizabeth Knapp. AWP provides community, opportunities, ideas, news, and advocacy for writers and teachers of writing.

  19. AWP: Guide to Writing Programs

    California, United States. Antioch University's low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program is devoted not only to the education of literary and dramatic artists but to community engagement and the pursuit of social justice. The program features one-on-one mentoring with a variety of successful, publishing writers and includes instruction ...

  20. Creative Writing and Publication (MFA)

    The low-residency MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing at DeSales University welcomes aspiring and committed writers into an intellectual and artistic community established in the spirit of the guiding mission statement of DeSales University. Indeed, as St. Francis DeSales, himself a powerfully evocative writer, is also the patron saint of ...

  21. The Real Story Behind Low-Residency MFAs

    One all-important advantage of the low-residency model is that it allows for much more individualized attention. Whereas a teacher in a traditional program typically has 30-45 students per semester, a teacher in a low-residency program usually has only five, and works one-on-one with each of them. Because the teachers work with so few ...

  22. MFA Programs

    An MFA degree program can offer you classes in craft and technique, workshops, seminars, feedback on your writing, exposure to other writers' work, and opportunities to meet peers and established writers. In addition to providing a way for writers to make contacts with agents, editors, and publishers, MFA degree programs often offer prestige ...

  23. Course of Study

    MFA Creative Writing Course of Study. Arcadia's low residency MFA Program in Creative Writing utilizes up-to-date technology for an experience that fits your lifestyle. Through residencies, mentoring, and workshops, you will learn to read critically and write creatively while preparing for your career.