Creative Writing, MFA

Program Description

Like our undergraduate programs, our two-year online MFA in Creative Writing sets itself apart by teaching from a foundation of consciousness and creativity, developing the poet/writer holistically. We use meditation as a tool to help students access their creative imaginations. Our faculty and students practice the Transcendental Meditation technique, which settles the mind, enhances clear thinking, and heightens creativity. Many poets and writers have written about their need to go deeply inward to create. The mind’s freedom to leap to surprising, fresh associations is greatly facilitated by its ability to transcend. By tapping deep levels of creative imagination, poets and writers can bring out stories, ideas, images, and metaphors with the power to move, transform, and bring change.

Our faculty are highly credentialed and accomplished working poets and writers who deeply understand the creative process - not just inspiration, but especially the fine-tuned labor of honing craft and technique. We believe that an inclusive, nurturing, yet challenging and stimulating learning environment supports students to experiment with craft freely and to mine their subject matter deeply. This approach stimulates creativity, productivity, and discovery. It helps students find their authentic voice and pushes them into innovative approaches that will make their work stand out. We stimulate meta-cognitive awareness through self-evaluation. We also use a unique narrative evaluation system that encourages risk-taking, experimentation, self-referral, and self-reliance.

Beyond this, our MFA makes room to nourish the part of the writing process that cannot be taught: the ineffable energy and life force - ‘duende,’ as the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca called it - that brings writing to life and make it great. Our aim is to nurture the unimaginable and help students journey so deeply within themselves that they can find words to say the unsayable.

On a pragmatic level, the online MFA model offers unique advantages. Students can flexibly complete the requirements of a high-quality MFA while balancing life and work commitments in their home communities. Assignments can be completed asynchronously while regular classes bring everyone together online. In this way, our MFA provides both the nurturing literary community and the solitary discipline of writing that working poets and writers require. Each semester starts with a two-week online residency (students are required to attend five residencies during the program). Each residency offers flexible modes; students can attend sessions live online or, if their work schedules don’t allow, asynchronously. Prestigious visiting poets and writers offer advanced workshops, master classes, craft talks, panels, and readings. Our residency guests have included a great variety of authors: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Mark Spragg, Eugenia Kim, Susanne Paola Antonetta, Debra Marquart, Tiffany Midge, Carolyn Holbrook, David Mura, Nathan McClain, Lynne Thompson, Danusha Laméris, Molly Fisk, Francesca Bell, Rafael Gonzalez, Kim Shuck, Linda Noel, and many more. We have also included presentations from literary presses such as Red Hen Press, Sundress Publications, Two Sylvias Press, Blue Light Press, and more.

While residencies provide bonding, nourishment, and inspiration, at the core of our semesters are immersive mentorships that give students the unique time and opportunity to work on book-length manuscripts under professional guidance. Mentorships are individualized, limited to six students each, and structured for optimum social interaction and accountability.

Mentorships focus mainly on writing and revision, but also include craft talks, reading, and craft analysis in support of students’ creative work. We encourage diverse voices and offer students alternatives to the traditional workshop model in order to empower underrepresented voices.

Aside from the residencies and mentorships, students take additional online courses that prepare for the writing life. In the first and second semesters, these classes delve into the creative process. After that, students take literary theory, publishing practicum, social media marketing, publishing and professional presentation, and more. The program stimulates social awareness in a writing outreach, which can serve as a brief internship or a teaching practicum. Our writing pedagogy course helps students prepare a teaching portfolio before they exit the program. The Writer Online gives students a working knowledge of how to create a social media platform and author website, while The Writer in the World gives an overview of contemporary publishing resources and requirements, including editing, finding an agent, and more.

The MFA offers specialization options in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, plus a dual genre track. All assignments and requirements of the program support the launching of a career - a student’s journey from aspiring poet or writer to author. The MFA thesis is a book-length manuscript of publishable quality. Students also write a critical introduction to the thesis, contextualizing their own process, and they create online author platforms as well as marketing plans for their books. During the capstone residency, students teach master classes on craft and give public readings of their thesis work.

The MFA is a terminal degree in the field that prepares students for a variety of possible careers, including (community) college and university teaching, freelance writing, magazine or book editing, publishing, coaching, advertising, public affairs, and more. Our visiting authors and faculty model what it means to be a writer in the world and how to choose career paths that support and augment the writing life. Alumni of our program remain part of our inclusive, creative, and dynamic literary community.

Program Learning Outcomes

Upon successfully completing the MFA in Creative Writing, students will be able to:

1. Create original work in a specific genre of emphasis that demonstrates both creativity and proficiency in craft and technique, including well-developed style and authentic voice.
2. Demonstrate dedication to both experimentation and revision during their immersive engagement with the writing process.
3. Internalize the philosophy of consciousness and explain its influence on their creative process.
4. Analyze and explain the varied influences of contemporary literature on their creative work.
5. Produce an online professional portfolio that demonstrates a wide array of professional knowledge.
6. Adapt their individual creative process from inspiration to completed work, resulting in the creation of a book-length manuscript of publishable quality.

Entrance Requirements

Applicants to the online MFA in Creative Writing are required to submit the following materials for admission into the program.

• Transcript Showing Conferral of a Bachelor’s Degree
  Applicants must hold a BA degree in any subject. A major, minor, or emphasis in creative writing, literature, communication studies, or journalism is preferred.
• Portfolio of Original Work
  Applicants must present a portfolio of original creative work in a specific genre of emphasis: poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or dual genre. The required length is 20-25 pages of prose (double-spaced) or 10-15 pages of poetry (single-spaced, one poem to a page). A dual genre application should include portfolios in two genres with a total length of 20-25 pages. Excerpts from longer work should start with the first chapter and include a brief synopsis. The admission portfolio should showcase the range and potential of the project the applicant plans to work on in the program. The quality of the admission portfolio is the key deciding factor in the admission process.
• Statement of Purpose
  Applicants must present a statement of purpose (500-1,000 words, typed, double-spaced) outlining their relationship to their chosen genre(s) and their own writing process, as well as their reasons for applying to our program.
• Sample Academic Essay
  Applicants must present a 750-word (3-page) academic essay demonstrating critical thinking or a 750-word (3-page) craft analysis essay exploring the mechanics of craft in a literary work.
• Letters Of Recommendation
  Applicants must submit three letters of recommendation by writers, teachers, or other professionals who know the applicant from a professional and/or academic setting.
• Interview
  Applicants must engage in a pre-acceptance interview (in person or online) with the MFA program director.
• Résumé (Optional)
  Applicants are welcome to include an up-to-date résumé that showcases their degrees and relevant coursework, attendance of summer writing programs or conferences, TA-ships, professional work experience, publications, and/or other awards and accomplishments.
• Transcendental Meditation
  Students are encouraged to begin practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique prior to beginning classes. Admitted students not yet practicing Transcendental Meditation will be supported in finding a TM instructor in their home communities before or at the start of their MFA journey.

In our MFA in Creative Writing, we build and maintain a safe and positive online learning environment that is respectful and inclusive of diverse voices. While we strongly promote freedom of expression, we also strongly promote D.E.I. awareness, ally-ship, advocacy on behalf of minority voices and perspectives, and empathic consideration of others. Racism, homophobia, sexism, ageism, misogyny, harassment, abusive or threatening language, hate speech, and otherwise disrespectful or intolerant behaviors are not acceptable in our program. We reserve the right to screen applicants on their ability to be harmonious, supportive cohort members willing and able to be good allies to peers in our diverse, inclusive community. We reserve the right to reject portfolio submissions that are not D.E.I. aware and that include hate speech, especially if the applicant cannot contextualize their creative choices articulately and in a considered, informed manner during their interview.

Graduation Requirements

To graduate with an MFA in Creative Writing, students must successfully complete a minimum of 48 credits of required coursework and the following capstone assignments:

• Thesis
  An original creative work of publishable quality in the student’s chosen gene(s) of emphasis (60-250 pages in length, depending on genre)
• Critical Introduction to the Thesis
  A 10-to-15-page analysis of the student’s creative process and choices of craft, giving their thesis a scholarly and literary context.
• A Professional Portfolio
  The professional portfolio is a combination of all the professional work completed by students in the program. It may include some or all of the following: a) a Social Media Portfolio (a website, links to active social media pages, and samples of published work; b) a Writing Pedagogy Portfolio (sampling of curriculum development including lesson plans, syllabus, rubrics of learning objectives and outcomes, assessment, an outline for a master class, plus a statement of teaching philosophy); and/or c) a Writing Outreach Portfolio (documentation of an outreach project or publishing practicum, including events, classes, workshops, materials, and/or publications produced, curated, and/or organized by the graduate).

Students are also required to participate in or present the following:

• A Public Reading of creative work scheduled during the capstone (5th) residency. With permission from the program director, this capstone public reading can also be scheduled for the 4th or 6th residency, depending on the student’s graduation schedule.
• A Master Class or Presentation that can be offered during the capstone (5th) residency. This requirement can only be waived with permission from the MFA program director.