MFA Program
See writers who attended this programPoetry: Anna Leahy, Brian Glaser, Martin Nakell
Fiction: Mark Axelrod, Richard Bausch, Jean Ho, Alicia Kozameh, Martin Nakell
Nonfiction: Anna Leahy, Tom Zoellner
Screenwriting: Mark Axelrod, Mildred Lewis
The program offers partial funding. Each fall, three fellowships with an annual monetary award of $18,000 plus full-tuition fellowships are awarded to select incoming MFA students. Additional full-tuition fellowships are available on a limited basis. All applicants are considered for these merit-based awards. MFA and MA students who take the composition pedagogy course in their first year of study can apply to the Graduate Student Instructor program. The Department of English is developing its hourly wage Graduate Assistantship program to prepare MFA students for work in arts organizations, publishing and editing, the nonprofit sector, and educational settings.
The program has part-time study options available. The English Department also offers a Dual MA/MFA degree.
The MFA in Creative Writing program begins with a course called Aspects of a Writer, which introduces students to the business of writing, sustaining a writing life, and literary citizenship. Students are encouraged to use electives to explore more than one genre as well as literature, digital humanities, and rhetoric. The culmination of the MFA program is a book-length manuscript.
The MFA program is home to Tabula Poetica, which houses a fall reading series and the international poetry journal TAB: The Journal of Poetry & Poetics, and the John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, which houses a spring reading series and the journal Mantissa. Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (where the MFA is housed) hosts Engaging the World, semester-long conversations about humanity, unity, and justice.
The priority application deadline for funding is February 1 for a fall start. Applications received after February 1 will be considered on a rolling basis as space is available, but will not be eligible for funding. The application deadline for spring start is November 1. Application fee waivers can be requested.
Liz Harmer, Sean Henry, Peggy Hesketh, J.B. Howard, Henneh Kyereh Kwaku, Mike Lester, Tlotlo Tsamaase, Julia Walton, Tryphena Yeboah