mfa may 2014

P u b l i s h e r s W e e k l y . c o m

MFA 2014

A Survey Of Creative WritingPrograms In the U.S.

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Writing Can Be Taught M.F.A. PROGRAMS

2014PW surveys the wide world of creative writing programs

BY JULIE BUNTIN

Poet H.L Hix reads to Rutgers-Newark students.

P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY4

M . F . A . S U R V E Y 2 0 1 4

chance that a book by at least one gradu-ate or faculty member from this intense-ly competitive program (it accepts an estimated 2% of total applicants, mak-ing admission more competitive than top-notch medical schools) lives on your bookshelf.

Graduate-level writing programs be-gan to appear across the United States, booming particularly in the 1960s (corresponding with a surge in gov-ernment funding for the arts), when respected and still-running programs like UNC-Greensboro, Brown Uni-versity, the University of Oregon, and San Francisco State University began welcoming writing students and profes-sional writers-turned-professors into the academic fold. By the 1990s and early 2000s, youd be hard pressed to find a major university that didnt offer a cre-ative writing curriculum of some kind, if not an M.F.A. program proper. M.F.A.

Creative Writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University Low Residency MFA. Now offering Young Adult and Literary Translation as well as Fiction, Poetry, and Creative Nonfiction. Sessions in Oxfordshire, England and Madison, New Jersey. Mentors, workshops, lectures, publishing visits. The Literary Review. Fellowships, graduate assistantships, financial aid and good music. mfa.fdu.edu

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COE BOOTH REBECCA CHACE WALTER CUMMINS DAVID DANIEL

DONNA FREITAS KATHLEEN GRABER DAVID GRAND H.L. HIX

THOMAS E. KENNEDY MINNA PROCTOR ELIOT SCHREFER REN STEINKE

n a recent post on the New Yorkers Page-Turner blog, Junot Daz (Cornell 95) writes, These days you got fifth graders that can talk your ears off about M.F.A.s. Hes being hyperbolic, but maybe only a little. In a publishing climate where a collection of essays like MFA vs. NYC, published by highbrow intellectual magazine n+1 (run, notably, by a bunch of M.F.A. grads) can get nearly as much media cov-

erage as newly minted Pulitzer winner Donna Tartt, its pretty safe to say that not only are M.F.A.s everywheretheyre inextricably woven into the fabric of the contemporary world of American books.

The Iowa Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa is widely con-sidered the first institutionalized creative writing program. Established in 1936, the program has nurtured so many poets and writers that are now household names that its almost silly to begin to list them all. Jane Smiley, Paul Harding, James Tate, Ann Patchett, Charles Wrighttheres a high

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degree-granting programs have contin-ued to thrivenew ones, like those at Arcadia University and the University of ArkansasMonticello, an online-only programpop up every year.

M.F.A. grads are writing the books on the new and notable tables at Barnes & Noble. Theyre teaching high school po-etry or running your local newspaper or posting reality TV recaps on New York magazines website or editing stories for this very publication. Natasha Trethew-ey, U.S. poet laureate, has an M.F.A. from the University of MassachusettsAmherst. Even TV characters are get-ting M.F.A.s: according to the season two finale of Lena Dunhams HBO show Girls, protagonist Hannah Horvath is headed to Iowa for season three. Any critic of M.F.A. programs, like it or not, is, necessarily, a critic of Americas liter-ary culture and the publishing industry at large. The literary world is populated

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by writers whose M.F.A. applications can be interpreted as major career turn-ing points.

As programs continue to proliferate, they develop new ways to compete for the attention of potential candidates. While Iowa, Cornell, the University of TexasAustins Michener Center, Co-lumbia, and such institutions will al-ways have their allure, many programs are changing the structure of their cur-riculums to appeal to nontraditional writers and students, or those resistant to limiting coursework to just one genre. In addition to the traditional players, this issue of PW spotlights a number of programs rethinking what it means to get an M.F.A.either by excelling at the old model or offering writers an entirely new way of studying a craft no longer considered unteachable.

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Rigoberto GonzlezI didnt admit to my family that I was in school to become a

writer for the duration of my graduate education. As far as they knew, I was in school to become a teacher, which was something closer to what they understood and farther from my own fantasy, which was to write those books on the book-store shelves I was convinced sold enough copies to support an authors needs and caprices. But the more carefully I listened while I was an M.A. student at UC-Davis (where I specialized in poetry) and an M.F.A. student at Arizona State University (where I specialized in fiction), the clearer it became that a cold reality awaited me just after graduation. But instead of becoming anxious about that uncertain future, I sharpened my sense of purpose about the present, asking myself: why was I enrolled in a creative writing program?

The immediate answers to that question: I was there to expand my knowledge about contemporary literature; I was there to be part of a community of artists that would celebrate and commiserate with me; I was there to interact with professors who, by example, showed me it was possible to have more than one profession, whose passion for writing, whose love of books was contagious enough to send me home to the desk. The long-term answer was more resonant: I was enrolled in a writing program to imagine a cultured life, not just to dream about the rewards of being a writer.

Interestingly enough, I resisted returning to the M.F.A. program as a professor for many yearsmostly because I had learned how to eke out a living doing a series of part-time day jobs that covered (just barely) my basic expenses. But eventually I found my way home, to Rutgers-Newark, where I have been teaching since 2008. As a mentor to my graduate students, I keep reminding them that theyre writers first, but that the conversations in the classroom and among their peers are the most valuable part of their education; that learning how to articulate ideas and critical thoughts are skills they will use in a number of rolesas essayists, book re-viewers, teachers, etc.; that becoming versed in contemporary literature will orient their own visions as artists. Poets, in particular, I encourage to learn to write prose that will communicate with clarity the complexities of their work, which becomes useful when applying for grants, fellowships, or writing residencies. In short, the experiences I found helpful as an M.F.A. student and the information that I wish I had been given have shaped my supplementary lesson plans as a guide toward the profession. Sometimes advice is imparted during office hours, sometimes in the classroom at an opportune moment, but those practical exchanges are necessary in case my students decide that, like me, they too want to imagine themselves in-habiting the literary community long after they leave the place where they nurtured their first intimate circle of writers.

Rigoberto Gonzlez is a writer and critic living in New York City. Hes associate pro-fessor of English at Rutgers-Newark.

WHY I TEACH WRITING

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M . F . A . S U R V E Y 2 0 1 4

leverage their training at the UCLA Ex-tension Writers Program into M.F.A. gold. A fellowship at a top program is worth in excess of $100K, said Mat-thews. Two students in two years, Ra-chel Kondo and Darri Farr, have got-ten full rides at the Michener Center. Thats a three-year package worth about $150Knot a bad return on a $1,400 investment for two of our courses.

The University of WisconsinMadi-son Continuing Studies Writers Pro-gram also offers a comprehensive array of courses and retreats to help writ-ers improve their craft, often before applying to an M.F.A. program. Its Write-by-the-Lake Writers Work-shop and Retreat draws more than 130 authors from around the country who partake in five days of rigorous craft discussions and master classes with titles like How to Create Non-Ste-reotypical, Three Dimensional Char-

Pre-M.F.A ProgramsGetting in is the hardest part. To Google M.F.A. acceptance rates is to open a Pandoras box of anxietyblog after blog tracking acceptances and mes-sage boards with strings 100 posts deep bemoan the less than 5% acceptance rates typical at many programs.

The UCLA Extension Writers Pro-gram is designed to help writers gain coveted acceptances to their first choice M.F.A. program. This open-enrollment program circulates upwards of 5,000 students annually who enroll in a wide variety of short-term creative writing courses that range in price from $530 to $3,500, depending on duration and faculty involvement. These classes can help writers hone their craft and prepare them for the intensive environment of the M.F.A. Lou Matthews, a longtime faculty member, has seen many students

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by Russian author Zakhar Prilepin, is forthcoming from Dzanc Books.

Like FDU, Converse Colleges low-residency M.F.A. program is structured around two nine-day residencies that take place on its South Carolina cam-pus. The program has seen graduates publish novels with Morrow and Simon & Schuster and poetry collections with Negative Capability Press. Its students fill the pages of major literary magazines like Colorado Review, Shenandoah, and the Southern Quarterly. Converse has recently developed the C. Michael Curtis Pub-lishing Internshipa paid internship in which a fourth semester student works with the university press in all facets of publishing and marketing.

Because low-residency programs only require faculty on campus a couple of times a year, they are often able to draw first-rate writers hesitant to commit to full-time university life. Leslie Jamison,

acters and Best Words, Best Order: A Poetry Workshop.

Low-ResidencyWhat if you want to study writing with-out uprooting your family or leaving your day job? Low-residency programs are an increasingly popular choice. Typi-cally, these programs require students on campus for 10 to 14 days twice a year; in the interim, students and fac-ulty correspond via email or postal mail, exchanging comments on each others work and sometimes engaging in group chats. Warren Wilson College is the oldest such program, boasting graduates like poet Cornelius Eady, as well as New York Times bestselling novelist David Wroblewski (The Story of Edgar Sawtelle).

Fairleigh Dickinson Universitys two-year low-residency program offers a degree in one of five disciplines: the

standard poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, as well as writing for children and liter-ary translation. During two 10-day resi-dencies, one held annually in England and the other on FDUs campus in New Jersey, students participate in a smor-gasbord of literary events and meet with faculty and fellow studentsthe rest of the year they are in constant, one-on-one contact with mentors and classmates online. Program director Ren Steinke adds, We are the only low-residency M.F.A. connected to a well-regarded literary magazine with a 57-year history [the Literary Review, for which PWs di-rector of digital operations Craig Mor-gan Teicher serves as poetry editor]. Students have the opportunity to work on the journal while they are in the pro-gram. Alumni of the program include James Weatherall (The Physics of Wall Street, Mariner Books) and Mariya Gu-sev, whose translation of Sankya, a novel

Find your voice with Chatham Universitys

award-winning MFA in Creative Writing program

offering both an on-campus and low-residency

online program with the ability to easily move

back and forth between the programs. With

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publishing, or social justice, students explore their

craft and become part of a larger community that

nurtures their growth as writers. One-of-a-kind

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and internships provide students the skills,

experience, and inspiration they need to prepare

for a writing career in a variety of fields.

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author of The Empathy Exams, recent-ly joined the faculty at Southern New Hampshire Universitys low-residency M.F.A. program, and the faculty at the Institute of American Indian Artss two-year old program features more all-star names than many more famous programs, including Sherman Alexie, Ramona Ausa-bel, Melissa Febos, and Manuel Gonzalez.

To some, an M.F.A. curriculum that only focuses on creative writ-ing workshops and craft classes can be too narrow. The University of HoustonVictorias program, which is also low-residency, requires stu-dents to take a substantial number of courses outside of the creative writing focus, with available elec-tives on practical topics like editing and digital publishing (both courses are in the universitys publishing program), as well as English courses

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Ren SteinkeThree snapshots from my M.F.A. at the University of Virginia:

1. Me, writing at a shabby card table in a basement apartment.2. In the seminar room with Charles Wright, who is talking about the poetic line as if its a mystical entity. Me with hairs rising from the top of my head from the electrical pressure of all the ideas. 3. A dinner party with my M.F.A. student friends. Over the pasta and red wine, were shouting about a novel by Jane Bowles. Next to our chairs, manila enve-lopes containing manuscripts that one or another of us has line-edited for the other.

In the intervening years, I moved from writing poetry to writing novels, and al-though the scenery has changed and I have a real desk, this is pretty much what my life as a writer looks like, even now. Obviously, Picture 1 is the most important because a writer is only a writer so long as theyre working, but Pictures 2 and 3 have kept the work going.

On 2: my M.F.A. taught me how to put my love of literature into action, or in other words, how to work really hard at writing by learning to read more deeply. A writer has to learn to live with failure a lot of the time, and during those dry periods, its often the love of a novel or a poem or a storythe larger project of literature apart from ones own successful or unsuccessful attemptsthat is sustaining. Now, as a teacher myself, I tell my students to not be afraid of the work, but, in fact, to embrace it, to learn where to look for the next way back into the story.

On 3: right now, Im reading All I Have in This World, a beautiful novel by my former M.F.A. classmate Michael Parker, and its thrilling to see how much of him is in the bookhis humor, his Southern poetry, his singular perspective on music and cars and love. The best writers find a way to access the subject matter and voice that is unique to them, and its kind of ironic that this uniqueness is often forged within writer friendships, perhaps one of the most undersung gifts of a good M.F.A. program. Writer friends play their ideas off of one another; they argue; they talk about one anothers work; they try to help the other see his or her blind spots and particular strengths. All of that can help a writer find his path. In the M.F.A. program at Fairleigh Dickinson, its been important for us to foster an engaged, di-verse, and tight-knit community of writers, because, in both profound and mundane ways, community can help a writer do his best work.

When poet Frank Bidart visited our M.F.A. residency a few years ago, he said he didnt believe so much in talent anymore, but more in the idea of having a vision and working like hell to realize that vision. That rings true to me. An M.F.A. should create a space where its actually possible for all that to begin, both the vision and the work.

Ren Steinke is the author of the novels The Fires and Holy Skirts, which was a finalist for the 2005 National Book Award. Her new novel, Friendswood (Riverhead), will be published in August. She lives in Brooklyn and is the director of the M.F.A. program in creative writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

WHY I TEACH WRITING

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like British or American literary history and studies in Latino literature.

OverseasOne frequent complaint about M.F.A. programs is that they teach future writers to read and write in an American tradi-tion that turns a blind eye to the rest of the worlds literature. Schools like NYU and the University of Nevada have recently developed overseas programs to supplement their traditional M.F.A. with courses abroad. But what of schools that function as international low-residencies in their own right?

Cedar Crest Colleges Pan-European low-residency M.F.A. program is the first of its kind. Over the course of two years (theres also an optional three-year track) stu-dents participate in three residenciesin Dublin, Barce-lona, and Vienna/Bratislava. Each year the residency lo-cale rotates, so that students can study in each location. In keeping with its nomadic nature, this program is highly invested in writing about placeand each residency is tai-lored to take maximum advantage of its European setting.

OnlineIn response to an increasing need for flexibility, some M.F.A. programs are taking up permanent residence online. In addition to its residential M.F.A. program, the University of TexasEl Paso offers a track that stu-dents can complete without ever setting foot on cam-pus. All of the programs courses take place over email and university-facilitated message boards, as well as the occasional Skype call.

The University of ArkansasMonticello, whose first class will graduate this summer, is another online-only program. Eighteen students are currently enrolled in the M.F.A. program, undergoing extensive virtual creative writing training from faculty members Diane Payne (Burning Tulips), and Mark Nichols, among others. The program does offer graduate assistantships to offset tuition costs, and students can earn up to six credits by attending writing conferences nationwide or completing publishing internships in their community.

InterdisciplinarySince Iowas earliest days, most M.F.A. students focus on a single genre, defying literatures long history of writers who excel across disciplinesD.H. Lawrence would have needed six or seven M.F.A.s to cover his output. Chatham Universitys program in Pittsburgh, Pa., allows students the option of a dual-genre focus and the possibility of an additional concentration in such novel (in M.F.A.-terms) categories as travel writing, publishing, teaching, and na-

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Modeled on studio art training, our tutorial style offers one-on-one mentorship with a stellar faculty who teach to their passions. We encourage you to track your own interests, crossing freely between ction, poetry, playwriting, non-ction, and any other department to provoke new content and electrify form. We get as excited about hypertext, microction, and text-based artas we are about commercial novels, handmade books, vintage theater, and epic verse.

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ture writing. The M.F.A. program at Stony Brook South-ampton also encourages students to take workshops out-side of their main genre, something few other programs allow, let alone promote.

Pacific Lutheran Universitys M.F.A. program, called the Rainier Writing Workshop, is a three-year low-res pro-gram with four residency components. All students are re-quired to participate, in their second-year, in outside ex-perience that they design themselves. These second-year projects are implemented with the help of the program staff and have included organizing book fairs, internships at local presses, month-long residencies at writing centers, and international travel that enhances current projects. A number of PLU faculty teach in more than two genres, and PLU even allows students to turn in mixed-genre the-ses. The University of Wyomings program is similarly flexible in terms of permitting students to write across genres. Students apply within one of three genrespo-etry, nonfiction, and fictionbut once on-campus they are encouraged to pursue classes outside their creative-writing comfort zone. Other special features include the Eminent

Writers in Residence program, which will bring Dinaw Mengestu to campus in 2014. And best of all? UW fully funds every student accepted, including tuition waivers, annual stipends in excess of $11,000 in addition to a sum-mer stipend, and funding for travel and publication sub-mission costs.

Full FundingFully funded programs are the holy grail of M.F.A.smost aspiring writers are advised not to go into debt for an M.F.A., a degree thats doesnt necessarily promise a future job or a book deal. Programs that can afford to bankroll their students are the ones wading through the largest piles of applications every year.

No doubt because of the extremely competitive nature of admissions, many fully funded programs have an out-standing roster of writer-alums. Cornells M.F.A. program, which accepts around six students a year, awards each M.F.A. candidate a stipend of more than $25,000 annu-ally. Students can also apply to stay on for two additional paid years as post-degree English lecturers after their two-

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M . F . A . S U R V E Y 2 0 1 4

The literary world is populated by writers whose

M.F.A. applications can be interpreted as major

career turning points.


M . F . A . S U R V E Y 2 0 1 4

year M.F.A. is completedaccording to the administration, most students take advantage of that opportunity. Junot Daz, Tea Obreht, Lorrie Moore, Melissa Bank, and Stewart ONan are all gradu-ates of Cornells program.

Other notable fully funded programs include Washington University in St. Louis, which offers full and equal fund-ing for every student; University of Ore-gon, which offers health insurance waiv-ers and annual stipends that increase by $3,000 in the second year; and the University of Virginia, where all accept-ed students receive the same $16,000 fellowshipessentially getting paid to be taught the art and craft of writing by writers like Rita Dove, Greg Orr, and John Casey.

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PoetryCM BurroughsLisa FishmanMatthew ShenodaTony Trigilio David Trinidad

recent Visiting WritersChris AbaniDorothy AllisonBonnie Jo CampbellJulie CarrJohn DAgataJunot DiazEmma DonoghueJennifer EganDave EggersPeter GizziJane HamiltonAleksandar HemonJonathan LethemBernadette MayerRusty MorrisonMaggie NelsonJoyce Carol Oates D.A. PowellLia PurpuraClaudia RankineSalman Rushdie SapphireJohn SaylesBrenda ShaughnessyDavid ShieldsChristine SneedIrvine Welsh

Fiction / Nonfiction / Poetry

colum.edu/creativeWriting

Award-Winning Faculty

Distinguished Writers-in-Residence

Teaching Instructorships

Editorial Opportunities

Diverse Reading Series

Renowned Annual Literary Festivals

Vibrant Urban Campus

Thriving Literary Community

FictionGarnett Kilberg CohenDon De GraziaPatricia Ann McNair Joe Meno Nami Mun Audrey Niffenegger Samuel Park Alexis PrideShawn Shiflett

nonFictionJenny Boully Aviya Kushner David Lazar Jill TalbotSam Weller

PoetryCM BurroughsLisa FishmanMatthew ShenodaTony Trigilio David Trinidad

recent Visiting WritersChris AbaniDorothy AllisonBonnie Jo CampbellJulie CarrJohn DAgataJunot DiazEmma DonoghueJennifer EganDave EggersPeter GizziJane HamiltonAleksandar HemonJonathan LethemBernadette MayerRusty MorrisonMaggie NelsonJoyce Carol Oates D.A. PowellLia PurpuraClaudia RankineSalman Rushdie SapphireJohn SaylesBrenda ShaughnessyDavid ShieldsChristine SneedIrvine Welsh

Fiction / Nonfiction / Poetry

colum.edu/creativeWriting

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AAP1475_KSAS_PublishersWeekly_half_7.875x5.375.indd 1 4/17/14 2:49 PM

Matthew Shenoda

My own years as an M.F.A. student felt at the time a bit narrow and lacking the kind of expansive and divergent experiences I had hoped to gain from graduate school. But many years later as I have taught in various M.F.A. programs, I have come to understand that the elements I felt lack-ing in my own educational experience have been the primary drivers in shap-ing my pedagogical philosophies as well as classroom and mentoring practices. James Baldwin once said, The paradox of education is precisely thisthat as one begins to become conscious, one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. This seems a per-fect predicament for the writer, but also a sentiment that would hold true for all

WHY I TEACH WRITING

the educational institutions that exist in a given society. So I have come to adopt this as my position: that I believe in a crit-ical education, in an educational process that seeks to evolve social institutions by engaging in the complex and sometimes paradoxical relationship of being both a critic and beneficiary of these institutions and the societies that cultivate them.

The fundamental ideas of the rigorous and focused practice and study of writing that underpin the value of the M.F.A. de-gree seem to me to hold true to a set of artistic goals such as discipline, a mas-tery of craft, and ultimately a yearning for artistic innovation and a desire to evolve the art form. These goals have long been a part of many global traditions. That we have often deviated from these principles should not be surprising to anyone who has had to navigate 21st-century higher education practices. The pressure to

M . F . A . S U R V E Y 2 0 1 4

All incoming students in our highly selective, two-year

MFA program will receive full tuition and an annual

teaching fellowship of $30,000.

For more information, please visit us at:

writingseminars.jhu.edu

THE WRITING SEMINARSTHE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITYis pleased to welcome the following new faculty:

In PoetryJames Arthur

Dora Malech

David Yezzi

In FictionEric Puchner

Continuing faculty members include Jean McGarry and Mary Jo Salter (co-chairs), Alice McDermott, John Irwin, Brad Leithauser, and Matthew Klam.

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create curricular pathways that lead to codified and tangible outcomessuch as jobs and book publication, in the case of M.F.A.safter graduation is all too real, but the philosophical and pedagogi-cal foundations of why we teach, make art, and study it must remain central to

our practices, and, dare I say, we must maintain the idealistic belief that if one is trained to think critically, discipline one-self in craft, and manifest the imagina-tive and conceptual into a finished piece of writing, that this may lead to positive outcomes in the realms of publishing and employment.

I work vigilantly to avoid speaking with any singular set of values about the in-credible art of writing. I read as diversely and subtly as I can in order to serve my students, not with a road map to do as Ive done but with the ability to discover their own artistic lineage and to develop an aesthetic palette that always seeks to engage the complexity that Baldwin alluded to, to make art that reflects the expansive consciousness that educa-tion should inspire. And as I do these things, I realize more each year that the discipline of creative-writing education is

still very young and that my effort to fill gaps that felt gaping when I was a stu-dent is a step toward a more deliberate and holistic education. My hope is that the students I mentor may, too, discover my deficiencies in ways that I cannot see and one day fill those gaps in their own teaching and mentoring practices so that, with each generation of this discipline, we may come closer to learning just what it means to truly educate a writer.

Matthew Shenoda is the author of the books Somewhere Else, Seasons of Lo-tus, Seasons of Bone, and the forthcom-ing Tahrir Suite. He serves on the editorial board of the African Poetry Book Fund and is interim chair and associate profes-sor in the Department of Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago. For more information visit www.matthewshenoda.com.

Faculty:Fred Leebron (program director)

Robert Antoni

David Bezmozgis

Jeffrey Greene

Aleksandar Hemon

Jake Lamar

Gwyneth Lewis

Dinaw Mengestu

Jayne Anne Phillips

Kathryn Rhett

Writing is a journey...and a destination.Residencies in three European cities

Scholarships available

mfa.cedarcrest.edu

Pan-European MFA Creative Writing

Barcelona

Vienna/Bratislava

Dublin

School Writing Programs faculty and alumni published more than 50 books. To celebrate the news, the M.F.A. pro-gram launched a new annual tradi-tiona book party to honor publishing achievements from grads and faculty throughout the programs 20-year his-tory. Many of those achievements oc-curred in the realm of childrens litera-turethe New School has long offered a popular writing for children track, in which M.F.A. candidates can enroll in childrens literature craft classes and workshops. New School alum Caela Carter has a second teen literary novel, My Best Friend, Maybe, forthcoming from Bloomsbury in June, a follow-up to her successful debut, Me, Him, And It. Jess Verdi recently published My Life After Now with Sourcebooks Fire, a highly praised YA novel about a girl who is diagnosed with HIV.

Hollins University, in Roanoke, Va., offers both an M.A. and M.F.A. in chil-

drens literature and has just begun a new degree-granting M.F.A. program in childrens book writing and illustrat-ing. This unique curriculum requires students to embark on an independent study of art in addition to English and writing courses; they will be instructed by notable authors, editors, and illustra-tors like Julie Pfeiffer and Brian Atte-bery, among others.

Programs to WatchBetween the Iowas and the up-and-comers, many M.F.A. programs contin-ue to steadily graduate first-rate writ-ers and attract award-winning faculty. The Writing Seminars at Johns Hop-kins University in Baltimore, Md., has long been counted among the very best M.F.A. programs in the country. Estab-lished in 1947, the program has nur-tured writers like John Barth (who later taught there), Chimamanda Adichie,

M . F . A . S U R V E Y 2 0 1 4


David Lipsky, and ZZ Packer. No more than four poets and four fic-tion writers are accepted every year, and each incoming student receives a full-tuition scholarship and a teaching assistantship. Program alums make waves in publishing almost every yearBloomsbury just released alum Porochista Khak-pours The Last Illusion, in May.

Columbia College Chicago has also seen a sizable number of grads publish early and well. The pro-gram offers an M.F.A. in one of three core trackspoetry, fiction, and nonfic-tionbut all students also take a range of specialty classes during their time on campus, in subjects like science fiction, historical fiction, and even playwriting. Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Travelers Wife, is among the faculty, as well as Jenny Boully, Gary Johnson, and more. But perhaps most notably, Columbia Colleges program provides a

Fully funded programs are the holy grail of M.F.A.s.

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M . F . A . S U R V E Y 2 0 1 4

of the features of the Sarah Lawrence program is a great deal of one-on-one time with faculty.

Though Rutgers-Newark established its M.F.A. program less than 10 years ago, three alumni (Christa Parravani, Evan Roskos, and Ryan McIlvain) published books in 2013. Director Jayne Anne Phil-lips (Quiet Dell) works directly with fiction students, along with fellow prose faculty Tayari Jones (Silver Sparrow) and Anne El-liott Dark (In the Gloaming: Stories). The program is affordable and offers competi-tive financial aid to incoming students, including half-tuition scholarships, teach-ing assistantships (worth around $21,000 an academic year), and part-time lecturer positions. The time that youre able to devote to writing is invaluable, Christa Parravani (Rutgers-Newark 11), author of the highly praised memoir Her (Henry Holt, 2013), says of her time in the pro-gram. The structure of having to submit a piece of my book every month helped me build a manuscript. I had the great fortune of working closely with Jayne Anne Phil-lips and Alice Elliott Dark while I was there. Without their feedback, I never would have gotten the book into shape. I just wouldnt have been able to do it.

Both Jayne Anne Phillips and Al-ice Elliott Dark have M.F.A.s; the for-mer from Iowa, the latter from An-tioch UniversityLos Angeles, another low-residency program. This mirrored teaching structure, where M.F.A. grads teach future M.F.A. grads, is common in programs across the nation. Its hard to imagine an American literary landscape without M.F.A.s and the stability they offer writers in the form of jobs, health insurance, and community. And why would you want to? Where the publish-ing industry has begun to falter, offering smaller and smaller advances and taking fewer risks, M.F.A. programs have come to pick up the slack, creating an envi-ronment where new voices are treasured and literature is as vital as ever.

range of publishing opportunities that help alumni get noticed. Graduate stu-dents run a lively blog, Marginalia*, that gives prospective students a taste of what they can expect if they choose Co-lumbia. The program publishes an an-nual fiction anthology called Hair Trig-ger, composed of student writing and edited by students as well, providing twofold experience. The anthology has racked up 26 major awards, and the stu-dents that appear in its pages have gone on to win over 100 awards of their own. Finally, the department-run F Magazine is devoted to novels-in-progress.

For writers who also have a pronounced interest in small press publishing and literary magazine editing, the M.F.A. at Boise State University offers strong pro-gramming. Boise is home to Ahsahta Press, run by poet and teacher Janet Holmes. Over the past decade, it has be-

come an increasingly important presence in the experimental poetry scene, publish-ing such well-known authors as Stephanie Strickland and Rusty Morrison. M.F.A. students not only help run the press, they can also complete coursework and obtain internships and graduate assistantships with the press and the programs literary magazine, the Idaho Review. The M.F.A. at Colorado State University offers simi-lar academic opportunities to assist with a press, the Center for Literary Publishing, and a magazine, Colorado Review.

The University of New Orleans offers both a low-residency program and a two-year residency program. Students who decide to pursue a degree in fiction, non-fiction, screenwriting, poetry, or playwrit-ing while living full-time in New Orleans are given three free tickets to area literary festivals each year, where they meet with editors and agents and take master classes. These meetings must be working, because graduates have published books with Henry Holt, Doubleday, Vintage, FSG, and Hyperion, to name just a few of the publishers who have signed alums from this program.

Writers interested in studying near the literary hub of New York City, but who would prefer to actually live a little outside the citys hectic streets might consider the M.F.A.s at Sarah Lawrence (in the suburb of Bronxville, N.Y.) or Rutgers-Newark, just across the river in New Jersey. Sarah Lawrence is riding high right now because faculty mem-ber Vijay Sheshadri just won this years Pulitzer Prize for poetry. But the pro-gram boasts a large list of famous faculty members, including Myla Goldberg, Matthea Harvey, and Nelly Reifler. One

STONY BROOK SOUTHAMPTONMFA IN CREATIVE

WRITING & LITERATURE

Accepting applications through January 15, 2015stonybrook.edu/mfa

Come on in, the water s fine!

Stony Brook University/SUNY is anaffirmative action, equal opportunityeducator and employer. Thispublication can be made available inalternative format upon request.

Southampton and Manhattan631.632.5030

[email protected]

The time that youre able to

devote to writing is invaluable.

Christa Parravani (Rutgers-Newark 11)

For our online database of M.F.A. programs, visitwww.publishersweekly.com/mfa.

seen a recent spate of graduates go on to publish evolved versions of their M.F.A. thesis manuscripts. Helen Si-monsons bestselling novel, Major Pet-tigrews Last Stand, began as her thesis; fellow alum Victor Gianni recently inked a deal to publish his M.F.A. thesis, Counselor, with Silverthought Press. The University of New Orleans also boasts an award-winning roster of M.F.A. alumni, including former Stegner Fellow Skip Horack, who won the Bakeless Literary Prize and has published titles with Counterpoint and Mariner Books.

Julia Pierpont, who graduated from NYUs M.F.A., sold her first novel at

I n 2010, it was Ta Obreht (Cornell 09) with The Tigers Wife. In 2011, it was Chad Harbach (Virginia 04) with The Art of Fielding. In 2012, it was Karen Russell (Columbia 06) with her Pulitzer-finalist Swamp-landia!, and a year or two from now, it will be Garth Hallberg (NYU 06). Knopf recently purchased the 34-year-old authors 900-page debut novel, City of Fire, after a bidding war esca-lated the closing price to nearly $2 million. But how much does an M.F.A. have to do with a writers success?

Nickolas Butler, whose Shotgun Lovesongs is one of the most anticipat-ed fiction debuts of this spring, credits his M.F.A. for his success. He started the book while enrolled in Iowas M.F.A. program. There, Butler met agent Rob McQuilkin, who went on to negotiate the sale of Butlers first book to Katie Gilligan at St. Martins/Thomas Dunne Books. Danielle Ev-ans, author of the acclaimed short sto-ry collection Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self (Riverhead, 2010), also met her agent, Ayesha Pande, during agent-student meetings orchestrated by Iowas M.F.A. program.

Exposure to agents and editors is often one of an M.F.A. programs ma-jor selling points. The New School, UC-Irvine, Columbia College, Michi-gan, and Houston all make no secret of their efforts to introduce students to industry insiders. Sonja Condit first made contact with her agent, Jenny Bent, when Bent was visiting Con-verse Colleges M.F.A. low-residency program while Condit was a student there. Starter Home, Condits debut, was published by Morrow in Decem-ber 2013.

Lorrie Moore, who taught in the M.F.A. program at University of Wis-

consinMadison for 25 years and re-cently began a new gig at Vanderbilt, has watched many students transition from apprentices in the classroom to highly successful published authors. A surprising number of my stu-dents do go on to become writers, she says. Two of her former students, Emma Straub (The Vacationers, May) and Chloe Benjamin (The Anatomy of Dreams, Sept.), both thank Moore in the acknowledgments of their upcom-ing books. Moore, too, is an M.F.A. graduate; her first story collection, Self Help, is largely composed of pieces from her Cornell thesis.

Stony Brooks M.F.A. program has

Whats the Big Deal?M.F.A.s make writers into authorsBY JULIE BUNTIN

M . F . A . S U R V E Y 2 0 1 4


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Wilson), and the genre-defying An-der Monson (Alabama). Still, despite these successes, writers asked about their experience getting an M.F.A. are more likely to wax nostalgic than discuss publication details, signifying that for many, a programs real value is intangible. Iowa gave me freedom and time and community, says Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams, which just weeks ago landed Graywolf Press a spot on the New York Times bestseller list. I had room to experi-ment, to discover different approaches to writing. I crossed paths with Char-lie DAmbrosio, one of the most im-portant mentors of my life. The com-munity at Iowa didnt end when I left: it persists across distances, in feedback and commiseration.

In fact, Charles DAmbrosio, too, graduated from Iowas M.F.A. pro-gram, class of 91.

auction to Noah Eaker at Random House while she was still in work-shop. Being in the program helped me create the right mind-set both for writing the book and selling it, Pierpont says. Pierponts agent, Elyse Cheney sold Among the Ten Thousand Things, the story of a New York family falling apart, in 2012 for six-figures. Pierpont wrote its first pages in Zadie Smiths workshop.

But what about graduates whose deals arent lucrative enough to make head-lines? Many writers wielding M.F.A.s are building careers in the indie lit world. The first collection of stories from cur-rent Michener Fellow Kelly Luce, Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail, was also the debut title from the Austin, Tex., indie-publisher A Strange Object. Being in the same city for grad school meant I got to work more closely with my editors than I otherwise would

have. We got a lot of support and at-tention from the citys lit community, says Luce. The book received glowing reviews, including a star from Publishers Weekly, and was mentioned by the New York Times in an article about Austins literary scene.

Nouvella Press, a novella-only print publisher formerly known as Flatman-crooked, has published M.F.A. grads from Iowa, Wisconsin, Emerson, and Syracuse, among othersone of its authors, Edan Lepucki (Iowa 06) has a debut novel from Little, Brown com-ing out this June. Sarabande Books, a 20-year-old indie, just released Pray-ing Drunk, the second collection of stories by Kyle Minor, a graduate of the M.F.A. programs at Ohio State and Iowa. Many poets have found their publishing home at Sarabande, too, including Kathleen Ossip (New School 00), Rick Bursky (Warren

MFAProgram in Creative Writing

Assistantships,

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A fully funded two-year studio program infiction, nonfiction, & poetry

Faculty: Andy Fitch, Alyson Hagy, Harvey Hix,Mark Jenkins, Frieda Knobloch,

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2014 Writer in Residence:

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The University of Wyoming MFA Program Department of English 3353 1000 E. University Avenue Laramie, WY 82071 307.766.6453 [email protected] www.uwyo.edu/creativewriting

Recent Visiting Writers:Dinaw Mengestu, Sherwin Bitsui,

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M . F . A . S U R V E Y 2 0 1 4


att Pruntys program down in Sewanee, Tenn., at the University of the South, and Ive heard very good things about Iowa and Michigan. Epler adds, The most important thing to me is that pro-grams dont get fledgling writers into terrible amounts of debt: I admire most the fully funded programs.

Of course, its not all about the degree. As Molly Friedrich, of the Friedrich Lit-erary Agency, notes, I cant remember a time when [an M.F.A.] truly influenced my decision to pursue an author. If the query letter is eloquent and enticing, I ask to see more, and then its all about the writing.

Many agents and e d i t o r s u s e M.F.A. programs as resources for finding new tal-ent. Like all agents, I probably put Iowa at #1, although given how much commercial fiction I represent, that does not neces-sarily fit my list, says Alexandra Machinist of ICM Partners. I then have positive views of Michigan, Virginia, and Notre Dame. My last one would have to be a tie between Irvine and Johns Hop-kins. I have seen amazing material from both, and I see great fiction out of Columbia, but it is inconsistent.

Ethan Nosowsky, editorial director of Graywolf Press, agrees with Machinist on Iowa, Johns Hopkins, and Michi-gan. Hes also a fan of Columbia and UT Austin, and notes, In no particular order, these places catch my eye, but re-ally, great writers emerge from all sorts of programs, or they emerge without a program. Jeffrey Shotts, executive edi-tor of Graywolf, echoes this sentiment: As an M.F.A. graduate myself, from Washington University in Saint Louis, I have to say that in one way those pro-grams mean everything, and in another way, the larger way, all that matters is the writing, regardless of how it came to be. I am intrigued to see how specific teachers are influencing and mentoring new writers, especially in poetry. His top five, some of which include a few Graywolf authors as teachers, consist of Washington University in St. Louis, University of Iowa, University of Mich-igan, Warren Wilson M.F.A. Program, and University of Houstonin no par-ticular order.

Different factors contribute to what makes an M.F.A. program stand out. Sam Hiyate of the Rights Factory says

his favorite is the New School, from which he once repped five M.F.A. grads. Great talent certainly endears an agent to a school. Hunter College is by far my favorite M.F.A. program, because not only has it given me brilliantly tal-ented authors like Scott Cheshire (High as the Horses Bridles, Holt), Kaitlyn Greenidge (We Love You, Charlie Free-man, Algonquin), and Carmiel Banasky (The Suicide of Claire Bishop, Dzanc), but it continues to foster bright new literary talent, says Carrie Howland of Donadio & Olson. Columbias M.F.A. program not only boasts a brilliant faculty, but it does an excellent job engaging agents. Between the thesis anthology, which is mailed to agencies each year, and the annual agent/author mixer, they really help bridge that gap between agent and writer.

There are also less obvious programs seen as hidden literary gems. Rob McQuilkin of Lippincott Massie Mc-Quilkin says, I first became acquainted with the M.F.A. program at the Uni-versity of New Orleans through my client Amanda Boyden, who attended the program along with her husband, Giller Prizewinner Joseph Boyden, and eventually taught there. Our agency has gone on to work with several of her students, including young adult novel-ists Jen Violi and Lish McBride, a final-ist for the Morris Prize in Young Adult Fiction.

There are other M.F.A. programs flourishing below the Mason-Dixon line. Barbara Epler, publisher of New Directions, says, I very much like the University of Florida in Gainesville, with the great Michael Hofmann, and the one at Brown University, long un-der Forrest Ganders sharp eye and warm heart. I have also had very good experiences visiting the excellent Wy-

Agents and Editors Talk M.F.A. ProgramsBY PAIGE CRUTCHER

Critique ServicesPoetry, short stories, novels, scripts, nonfiction. Detailed. See success stories. Write-by-the-Lake Writers Workshop & RetreatJune 16-20, 2014; June 14-19, 201512 sections w/Master ClassesGrad credits option Weekend With Your NovelNov 14-16, 2014 Writers InstitutePremiere Midwest conference; Mar 2015, craft, contest, agents, publishing, fireside chats. Midwest Prairie Review literary journal.continuingstudies.wisc.edu/writing/uwwriters.wordpress.com/@UWwritersChristine DeSmet, [email protected], 608-262-3447

Create wonderment with your words

M . F . A . S U R V E Y 2 0 1 4

write an editorial note, says Marcus. Sometimes I steal from other editors when I have a chance, but there are defi-nitely useful tools that you learn in an M.F.A. that can be applied to editing.

Perhaps because of their proximity to big five publishing, New York City M.F.A. programs do seem to result in a formidable number of grads who go on to careers in the industry. The New Schools program has seen many students rise through the ranks in houses big and small; Kianoosh Hashemzadeh, editor at Atavist Books; Christopher Beha, dep-uty editor of Harpers; Melanie Cecka, associate publishing director at Knopf; Elizabeth Koch, founder of Black Bal-loon Books; Emma Komlos-Hrobsky, assistant editor at Tin House; Justin Marks, a founder of the poetry press Birds L.L.C.: all of them earned New School M.F.A.s, and there are more. The New School M.F.A. grads also appear in high-level arts-administrative roles; Jen Benka, executive director of the Acad-emy of American Poets, received a New School M.F.A. in poetry.

Though publishing institutes are popping up everywhere, for a certain ed-itorially inclined writing student a New York City M.F.A. program might be an even better choicewhere else can you simultaneously rub elbows with a future publishing comrade and someone who might become the first author on your list? Or dont bother with the city at allalternative paths have worked for Kelly Link (Greensboro), who founded Small Beer Press in Baltimore in 2000; Noah Eli Gordon (University of Mas-sachusettsAmherst 04), the brains be-hind Boulder, Colo.s Subito Press; and Jeff Shotts (Washington University in St. Louis), executive editor at Graywolf. Editors with M.F.A.s are making their mark in publishing.

Whi le many M.F.A. can-didates are looking for their future e d i t o r s through the traditional combo of query letters and blind luck, others might be on track to become those editors.

In 2009, Andy Hunter and Scott Lin-denbaum, two recent grads of Brooklyn Colleges M.F.A. program, decided to found a new quarterly literary journal. They both worked on Brooklyn Col-leges M.F.A.-student-run publication, the Brooklyn Review, and were disap-pointed by institutional restrictions, which didnt allow them to sell cop-iesthe journal was essentially used to decorate student and faculty lounges. They called their new literary publica-tion Electric Literature, and it has since become one of the most forward think-ing literary publications, produced for digital-first consumption.

The Brooklyn College M.F.A. pro-gram doesnt have a lot of emphasis on how to get published the way that, say, Columbia does, says Halimah Marcus, another Brooklyn College M.F.A. grad and current Electric Literature editor-in-chief. We just werent focused on that kind of thing in classwe were focused on improving our writing, and less on making waves in publishing. Electric Literature, which now publishes the popular digital magazine Recommended Reading, is financially stable enough to pay its writers, who have included Ben Marcus, A.M. Homes, and other notable names. Michael Cunningham, a pro-fessor in the Brooklyn College M.F.A. program, was published in the very first issue. The M.F.A. was very much the environment that contributed to this publication being created, says Marcus,

whose former co-editor, Benjamin Sam-uel, also holds an M.F.A. from Brook-lyn. Marcus began at Electric Literature as an internshe found out about the open position via the Brooklyn College listserv soon after she was accepted, and started at the same time as she began her classes.

Barbara Jones, an editor at Henry Holt, also got her first editing job thanks largely to connections she forged as an M.F.A. candidate in fiction at Co-lumbia University in the 80s. I came out of my M.F.A. and immediately be-gan working as an editor at the liter-ary magazine Grand Street, Jones says. The M.F.A. program tossed me into the literary world. The job at Grand Street was the start of Joness 20-year career as a magazine editorshe re-turned to book publishing in 2008. In my editing I carry with me a sense of sympathy toward the writers life, she says. I remember editing work for class and afterward the writer would take me aside and thank me. In retrospect it was like, duh, yes, this is what I should be doing. Jones no longer writes her own fiction, but a number of M.F.A.-carriers who work in publishing still straddle both sides of the desk.

Margaux Weisman, an assistant edi-tor at Morrow, holds an M.F.A. in fic-tion from the New School and has no plans to give up writing for editingor vice versa. I see my goals as a writer and editor as connected, she says. The more I work as an editor, the better of a writer I become. I cant imagine coming into this job and never having practiced writing and editing. The idea that an M.F.A. is an education in the critiqu-ing and editing of literature as much as the writing of it is commonly promoted in the workshop, and working editors agree. You dont get taught how to

From Workshop Table to Editors Desk: M.F.A.s Train EditorsBY JULIE BUNTIN

M . F . A . S U R V E Y 2 0 1 4


Jacquelyn Mitchard, Class of 2013, MFA Graduate

Southern New Hampshire University demanded everything I have, and gave me everything it has with practicality, class, and grace.

Youll join us for a weeklong residency twice a year to gain inspiration from your award-winning faculty, peers, and visiting authors. Our students graduate with a book-length manuscript of publishable quality, a network of agents and editors, college teaching opportunities, and a lifetime writing community.

Are you ready to start writing the next chapter of your life?

Youve always dreamed of having a book published: your name printed across the cover, your words spilling across the pages, your story shared with the world. That dream has always seemed out of reach until now.

TThe MFA Creative Writing degree in Fiction or Nonfiction at Southern New Hampshire University is a two-year low-residency writing program that allows you to write from home, making it possible to continue your day-to-day responsibilities.

Go Write Your Book

Southern New Hampshire University2500 North River Road | Manchester, NH 03106-1045 | 603.851.5155 | www.snhu.edu/pw | Facebook: /SNHUMFA | Twitter: @SNHUMFA

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