cornell creative writing mfa faculty

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Creative writing m.f.a. (ithaca), field of study.

English Language and Literature

Program Description

The M.F.A. Program.

The Creative Writing program in the department of Literatures in English offers an M.F.A. degree only, with concentrations in either poetry or fiction. Each year the department enrolls only eight students, four in each concentration. Our small size allows us to offer a generous financial support package, details of which are outlined on our department website. At the same time, we have a large and diverse graduate faculty with competence in a wide range of literary, theoretical, and cultural fields.

Students participate in a graduate writing workshop each semester and take 6 additional one-semester courses for credit, at least four of them in English or American literature, Comparative Literature, literature in the modern or classical languages, or cultural studies (typically two per semester during the first year and one per semester during the second year). First year students receive practical training by working as Editorial Assistants for Epoch, a periodical of prose and poetry published by the Creative Writing staff of the department. The most significant requirement of the M.F.A. degree is the completion of a book-length manuscript: a collection of poems, short stories, or a novel.

The Special Committee. Every student selects a Special Committee who will be responsible for providing the student with a great deal of individual attention. The University system of Special Committees allows students to design their own courses of study within a broad framework laid down by the department, and it encourages a close working relationship between professors and students, promoting freedom and flexibility in the pursuit of the graduate degree. The student's Special Committee guides and supervises all academic work and assesses progress through a series of meetings with the student.

Teaching. Teaching is considered an integral part of training for the profession. The Field requires a carefully supervised teaching experience as part of the training for the degree. The Department of English, in conjunction with the John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines , offers excellent training for beginning teachers and varied and interesting teaching within the university-wide First-Year Writing Program. Graduate students are assigned to writing courses under such general rubrics as "Portraits of the Self," "American Literature and Culture," "The Mystery in the Story," "Shakespeare," and "Cultural Studies," among others. Serving as a Teaching Assistant for a lecture course taught by a member of the Department of English faculty is another way graduate students participate in the teaching of undergraduates.

Contact Information

250 Goldwin Smith Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY  14853

Concentrations by Subject

• creative writing

Visit the Graduate School's Tuition Rates page.

Application Requirements and Deadlines

Dec. 1  (Fall term admission only)

Requirements Summary:

  (includes Graduate School Requirements )

  The application must be submitted online. Detailed requirement summaries for applicants are available on the  MFA in Creative Writing Program website.

• Application and fee
• Academic Statement of Purpose
• Personal Statement
• Creative Writing Sample
• Three letters of recommendation
• Transcripts
• English Language Proficiency Requirement  for all applicants

Learning Outcomes

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Master of Fine Arts in Creative Visual Arts

The two-year Master of Fine Arts in Creative Visual Arts program is an intensive, intimate, and diverse community that supports both interdisciplinary and medium-specific practices, augmented by access to the breadth of fields of study across the university. Students work closely with a special advisory committee consisting of Department of Art and affiliate faculty of their choosing in addition to an average of 15 artists and critical practitioners that come to the College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP) to lecture and conduct individual M.F.A. studio visits. The Department of Art hosts two distinguished Teiger Mentors in the Arts annually and provides both experimental and formal exhibition opportunities in Ithaca and NYC. The program also features access to exceptional resources and facilities, an exploratory international travel experience, graduate assistantships, and generous tuition remission.

For more information about the program, please join us for our  Virtual Open House  on November 9, 2023.

Creative writing MFA students represent literary magazine at annual industry bookfair

Thanks to a gift from the Ronald Whittier Family Foundation, creative writing graduate students had the chance to attend the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Seattle in March. This annual conference gathers thousands of writers, students, editors, and publishers. “Experiencing such a breadth of authors and poets from across the world coming together for the love of all things literary was very inspiring and energizing,” said Meredith Cottle, MFA student in poetry.

Writers gave a wide range of readings and talks. “Each left me feeling inspired and excited to sit down and write," said Imogen Osborne (poetry).

The heart of the event is the Bookfair, where small presses exhibit and sell books, magazines, and other merchandise. It’s a great opportunity for students to meet their peers at other institutions, for editors to exchange advice, and for everyone to read up on what’s new in the field. Aishvarya Arora   (poetry) said that their favorite part of the AWP conference was “the opportunity to build community with and learn from many of the writers I admire.” 

This was EPOCH ’s first year as an official Bookfair participant, and Cornell MFA students staffed the table, sold copies of the magazine, and did some professional networking. They also had the opportunity to sample magazines that they might someday submit to. 

The EPOCH team is especially proud of the newest issue. Each year, Cornell’s cohort of first-year MFA students work as assistant editors for the magazine. In addition to providing new students with funding—which helps to make Cornell’s MFA program a fully-funded one—working for the magazine is a unique professional experience. Jianchen Wang   (fiction) said he was delighted to meet numerous Cornell graduates at the Bookfair, along with one of the authors featured in the latest issue of EPOCH .

“What a dream it's been to spend the past few days talking and thinking about writing at AWP,” said Samantha O’Brien (fiction).

Black print history, community featured in exhibit

Freund Prize winners to read Sept. 26 

New Faculty: Adhy Kim

New Faculty: Alexandra Kleeman

Cornell University

Ithaca , NY

http://www.arts.cornell.edu/english/graduate/mfa/

Degrees Offered

Fiction, Poetry

Residency type

Program length, financial aid.

All M.F.A. degree candidates are guaranteed two years of funding

Teaching opportunities

At Cornell, teaching is considered an integral part of training for a career in writing. The Department of English, in conjunction with the First-Year Writing Program, offers excellent training for beginning teachers and varied and interesting teaching in the university-wide First-Year Writing Program. These are not conventional freshman composition courses, but full-fledged academic seminars, often designed by graduate students themselves. The courses are writing-intensive and may fall under such general rubrics as “Portraits of the Self,” “American Literature and Culture,” “Shakespeare,” and “Cultural Studies,” among others. A graduate student may also serve as a Teaching Assistant for an undergraduate lecture course taught by a member of the Department of English faculty.

• Diane Ackerman MFA 1973
• Gilbert Allen MFA (Poetry) 1974
• Donald Anderson MFA (Fiction) 1989
• John Brehm MFA (Poetry) 1981
• Jason Brown MFA (Fiction) 1995
• H. G. Carrillo MFA (Fiction) 2007
• Katherine Lien Chariott MFA (Fiction) 1999
• Susan Choi MFA (Fiction) 1995
• Chris Drangle MFA (Fiction) 2013
• Junot Díaz MFA (Fiction) 1995
• Chanda Feldman MFA (Poetry) 2003
• Alice Fulton MFA (Poetry) 1982
• Aisha Gawad MFA (Fiction) 2013
• Estella Gonzalez MFA (Fiction) 2009
• Gabriel Gudding MFA (Poetry) 2000
• Stephen D. Gutierrez MFA (Fiction) 1987
• Edward Hardy MFA (Fiction) 1988
• Terrence Holt MFA (Fiction) 1979
• Christopher Kempf MFA (Poetry) 2009
• John Landretti MFA (CNF) 1993
• Beth Lordan MFA (Fiction) 1987
• Sally Wen Mao MFA (Poetry) 2012
• Kenneth A. McClane MFA (Poetry) 1976
• George McCormick MFA (Fiction) 2006
• Lorrie Moore MFA (Fiction) 1982
• Manuel Muñoz MFA (Fiction) 1998
• Téa Obreht MFA (Fiction) 2009
• Daniel Peña MFA (Fiction) 2013
• Adam O'Fallon Price MFA (Fiction) 2014
• Mark Rader MFA (Fiction) 2002
• Rob Roensch MFA (Fiction) 2002
• Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers MFA 2011
• Anne Marie Rooney MFA (Poetry) 2010
• Abby Rosenthal MFA
• Julie Schumacher MFA (Fiction) 1986
• Wendy S. Walters MFA (Poetry) 1995
• Autumn Watts MFA (Fiction) 2005
• Crystal Williams MFA (Poetry) 2000
• Cori Winrock MFA (Poetry) 2007
• Jake Adam York MFA (Poetry) 1997
• Alexi Zentner MFA (Fiction) 2009

Send questions, comments and corrections to [email protected] .

Disclaimer: No endorsement of these ratings should be implied by the writers and writing programs listed on this site, or by the editors and publishers of Best American Short Stories , Best American Essays , Best American Poetry , The O. Henry Prize Stories and The Pushcart Prize Anthology .

Cornell University Fully Funded MFA in Creative Writing

Cornell university.

Cornell University, based in Ithaca, New York, offers a two-years of fully funded MFA in creative writing program. This Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degree concentration in either poetry or fiction. Also offer a large and diverse graduate faculty with competence in a wide range of literary, theoretical, and cultural fields. The most significant requirement of the MFA degree is the completion of a book-length manuscript: a collection of poems or short stories, or a novel, to be closely edited and refined with the assistance of the student’s special committee. All MFA degree candidates are guaranteed two years of funding.

• Deadline: Dec 15, 2024 (Confirmed)*
• Work Experience: Any
• Location: North America
• Citizenship: Any
• Residency: United States

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The Creative Writing Program is known nationally and internationally for its diverse faculty, intimate size and postgraduate teaching fellowships.  

Time and sanctuary: Writing program shapes promising voices

By kate blackwood.

Zahid Rafiq worked for 10 years as a journalist in the Indian-held Kashmir, a region that has been seeking independence for several decades and has been a site of repression and violence.

Now a graduate student in Cornell’s Creative Writing Program, he’s still writing stories, but in a new place – Ithaca – and with a new purpose: finding the language to write about war in a meaningful way.

“In journalism in a war, the focus is eventually on numbers,” Rafiq, MFA ’21, says. “One body, two bodies. But in my fiction, the whole point is to focus on the human being. To ask, what it means to live, to die, what it means to waver in between?”

This semester, Rafiq is completing his thesis project, a collection of short stories about everyday life amid war, set in Kashmir. Fiction faculty members Helena María Viramontes and Emily Fridlund are engaging with his work with a willingness, he says, “to understand where I want to go, rather than where they want to go.”

“This program is a kind of sanctuary,” Rafiq says. “It is a moment of respite when you get a space to write with a little bubble of safety around you.”

Giving language to the moment

Succeeding as a creative writer is hard. Publishers accept only 1% to 2% of submitted novels, and getting a teaching position at the college level can have similar odds. Just getting into a graduate writing program poses a challenge; Cornell’s Creative Writing Program , in the College of Arts and Sciences, accepts only eight graduate students a year out of the hundreds that apply.

But for those students who make it in, the graduate writing program gives promising fiction writers and poets the time, space and mentoring they need to find their voices, develop their art and produce important work at a time when the world needs insight from artistic voices.

Ishion Hutchinson, associate professor of Literatures in English and director of the Creative Writing Program.

“Creative writers have always given language to a moment that helps to deepen the ways of thinking through it,” says Ishion Hutchinson , associate professor of Literatures in English and director of the Creative Writing Program. “It helps to clarify and to move us beyond sound bites and language that is reductive. Creative writers complicate and push forward the ways in which we talk about our historical moment.”

Established in 1967, the Creative Writing Program is known nationally and internationally for its highly regarded and diverse faculty; intimate size; and postgraduate teaching fellowships. With a recognizable influence on contemporary literature, the sought-after graduate program is now at the forefront of developing today’s young writers into tomorrow’s leading poetic and fictional voices. Graduates follow in the footsteps of the program’s Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners, best-selling authors and influential faculty.

Smart design

Only four students are admitted in each genre – poetry and fiction – each year. Students complete two years of master’s of fine arts (MFA) work, taking workshops and other classes as they write a creative thesis. During the first year each student also works as an editorial assistant at Cornell’s renowned magazine , Epoch . During the second, students are teaching assistants in undergraduate writing courses.

After completing the MFA , students are awarded a summer fellowship fully funded through the David L. Picket Summer Graduate Stipends in Creative Writing. This supported time allows them to focus on writing and thesis completion. Once finalized, students have the opportunity to stay on for two years as lecturers in creative writing. Both opportunities are a rarity in MFA programs.

Michael Prior, MFA ’17

“That aspect of the program prepares students for careers in writing, including  becoming professors,” Hutchinson says. “They gain experience in teaching, which is invaluable because the job market is extremely competitive.”

For Michael Prior , MFA ’17, the program’s dual focus on writing and teaching paid off. During his 2018-2019 Picket Fellowship, he revised his MFA thesis, a book of poems exploring intergenerational trauma related to World War II internment camps for people of Japanese descent.

“My maternal grandparents and their families had their possessions and property stripped and were put into a camp for the war,” Prior says. “The book also explores being biracial.”

He published his book “Burning Province,” in 2020 with Random House, and got multiple teaching offers. He is now a professor teaching creative writing at Macalester College in Minneapolis.

“The creative writing industry is very hard to get a job in,” Prior says. “The experiences at Cornell – teaching and working with faculty and having that extra fellowship – were a huge help on my resume when I was applying.”

The small size of the program allows faculty to grow particularly attentive toward each student’s journey, says poet Valzhyna Mort , assistant professor of Literatures in English. “We say, ‘We are here with you. You have a devoted readership.’ This is what any poet hopes for, to find at least one really curious, empathetic and deep reader. All of us are that for our students during these years.”

Valzhyna Mort, assistant professor of Literatures in English.

“The greatest thing about this program is the intimacy of it because there are so few of us,” says India Sada Hackle, MFA ’22, a first-year poet from Cincinnati, Ohio. “We’re never a number.”

In addition, Cornell funds every graduate student in creative writing fully and equally.

“A lot of programs have hierarchical funding,” Prior says. “You can be sitting at a workshop table and someone across from you is getting double what you’re getting, based on how the faculty feels about them. I think that breeds unnecessary competition, which is not, ultimately, conducive to a good community or developing writers.”

Barbara and David Zalaznick’s endowment to the program brings well-known writers and poets to campus several times a semester through the Zalaznick Reading Series . Past writers in this series include Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison, M.A. ’54, former U.S. poets laureate Billy Collins and Charles Simic, and novelists Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood.

Affecting literary trends with diverse voices

The faculty’s reputation drives the program.

“My colleagues are spectacular writers and poets who have unique voices,” Hutchinson says. “You can’t find this kind of writing anywhere else, and I think that’s what excites students to apply.”

In addition to claiming numerous awards for their work, faculty members publish poems and stories regularly in leading publications. Robert Morgan’s poem “ Cowbell ” appears in the April issue of The Atlantic; Nafissa Thompson-Spires’ story “ Belles Lettres ” was featured on the Symphony Space audio program “Selected Shorts” in June 2020.

Fiction professor Ernesto Quiñonez is a frequent storyteller on The Moth , and Harper’s magazine published Hutchinson’s poem “ Little Music ” in January. His poem “After the Hurricane” appears in the important 2020 anthology “ African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song ” – lending its title to a major section of the anthology.

At right, NoViolet Bulawayo, MFA ’10, visits with Kenneth McClane, center, the W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of Literature Emeritus, and creative writing students during her campus visit Oct. 23, 2014.

With this publishing prominence, the writing program has “affected literary trends” in ways other schools have not, says Viramontes. This extends to alumni of the program, she says, including National Book Award winner Susan Choi , MFA ’95; Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz , MFA ’95; Téa Obrect, MFA ’09, winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction ; 2018 Kirkus Prize winner Ling Ma, MFA ’95 ; and NoViolet Bulawayo, MFA ’10 , whose novel “We Need New Names” was shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize.

Poetry alumni have also been recognized for excellence, Hutchinson says, including: Dana Koster, MFA ’08; Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers, MFA ’11; Nicholas Friedman, MFA ’12; and Sally Wen Mao , MFA ’13.

An emphasis on diversity has taken root and grown in the program since Viramontes arrived in the 1990s, she says; that contrasts with her own experience of struggling as an MFA student in California when classmates “were not open” to her writing about Latino characters.

“Here at Cornell there was an effort to always have some diversity,” says Viramontes, Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences in English. “I’m happy to say it was faculty members who worked toward pushing marginalized voices into the center. Because we have a diversity of faculty, we have a diversity of graduate students.”

The attention to diversity among faculty and the student body, Prior says, made a lasting impact on his writing.

“When I was going through the program, there were more poets of color than white poets,” Prior says. “One of the things we’re always trying to do as writers is to figure out our own personal canon, our own artistic lineage. The pressure for a writer of color is navigating multiple lineages at once. My professors, like Ishion Hutchinson, like Alice Fulton , like Helena María Viramontes, were helpful and suggested possible directions for the work. I wouldn’t have the book without them.”

Freedom in the creativity space

The faculty support, the funding, the teaching experience, and the time in which to write do not guarantee literary success – or make the art any easier, current students say. But these aspects do open opportunities.

India Sada Hackle, MFA ’22

“Writing is a hard job,” says Rafiq, “but this is a nice place to take a breath. The challenges that are, are far less than they are in the world.”

Hackle says the time and space she now has as a student in the creative writing program translate into freedom.

“Whatever I want to be consuming, I have the freedom,” Hackle says. “Whatever I want to be investing in, I have the freedom to do so. Whether it’s research or the genre, there’s lot of freedom in the creativity space.”

Hutchinson says the students who enter the writing program already have within themselves the instinct to become writers.

“We sharpen it to the best of our capacity,” he says. “At the end of four years, they leave more confident and ready for a long career in writing.”

Kate Blackwood is a writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.

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The 10 Best Creative Writing MFA Programs in the US

The talent is there. 

But the next generation of great American writers needs a collegial place to hone their craft. 

They need a place to explore the writer’s role in a wider community. 

They really need guidance about how and when to publish. 

All these things can be found in a solid Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degree program. This degree offers access to mentors, to colleagues, and to a future in the writing world. 

A good MFA program gives new writers a precious few years to focus completely on their work, an ideal space away from the noise and pressure of the fast-paced modern world. 

We’ve found ten of the best ones, all of which provide the support, the creative stimulation, and the tranquility necessary to foster a mature writer.

We looked at graduate departments from all regions, public and private, all sizes, searching for the ten most inspiring Creative Writing MFA programs. 

Each of these ten institutions has assembled stellar faculties, developed student-focused paths of study, and provide robust support for writers accepted into their degree programs. 

To be considered for inclusion in this list, these MFA programs all must be fully-funded degrees, as recognized by Read The Workshop .

Creative Writing education has broadened and expanded over recent years, and no single method or plan fits for all students. 

Today, MFA programs across the country give budding short story writers and poets a variety of options for study. For future novelists, screenwriters – even viral bloggers – the search for the perfect setting for their next phase of development starts with these outstanding institutions, all of which have developed thoughtful and particular approaches to study.

So where will the next Salinger scribble his stories on the steps of the student center, or the next Angelou reading her poems in the local bookstore’s student-run poetry night? At one of these ten programs.

Here are 10 of the best creative writing MFA programs in the US.

University of Oregon (Eugene, OR)

Starting off the list is one of the oldest and most venerated Creative Writing programs in the country, the MFA at the University of Oregon. 

Longtime mentor, teacher, and award-winning poet Garrett Hongo directs the program, modeling its studio-based approach to one-on-one instruction in the English college system. 

Oregon’s MFA embraces its reputation for rigor. Besides attending workshops and tutorials, students take classes in more formal poetics and literature.  

A classic college town, Eugene provides an ideal backdrop for the writers’ community within Oregon’s MFA students and faculty.  

Tsunami Books , a local bookseller with national caché, hosts student-run readings featuring writers from the program. 

Graduates garner an impressive range of critical acclaim; Yale Younger Poet winner Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Cave Canem Prize winner and Guggenheim fellow Major Jackson, and PEN-Hemingway Award winner Chang-Rae Lee are noteworthy alumni. 

With its appealing setting and impressive reputation, Oregon’s MFA program attracts top writers as visiting faculty, including recent guests Elizabeth McCracken, David Mura, and Li-young Lee.

The individual approach defines the Oregon MFA experience; a key feature of the program’s first year is the customized reading list each MFA student creates with their faculty guide. 

Weekly meetings focus not only on the student’s writing, but also on the extended discovery of voice through directed reading. 

Accepting only ten new students a year—five in poetry and five in fiction— the University of Oregon’s MFA ensures a close-knit community with plenty of individual coaching and guidance.

Cornell University (Ithaca, NY)

Cornell University’s MFA program takes the long view on life as a writer, incorporating practical editorial training and teaching experience into its two-year program.

Incoming MFA students choose their own faculty committee of at least two faculty members, providing consistent advice as they move through a mixture of workshop and literature classes. 

Students in the program’s first year benefit from editorial training as readers and editors for Epoch , the program’s prestigious literary journal.

Teaching experience grounds the Cornell program. MFA students design and teach writing-centered undergraduate seminars on a variety of topics, and they remain in Ithaca during the summer to teach in programs for undergraduates. 

Cornell even allows MFA graduates to stay on as lecturers at Cornell for a period of time while they are on the job search. Cornell also offers a joint MFA/Ph.D. program through the Creative Writing and English departments.

Endowments fund several acclaimed reading series, drawing internationally known authors to campus for workshops and work sessions with MFA students. 

Recent visiting readers include Salman Rushdie, Sandra Cisneros, Billy Collins, Margaret Atwood, Ada Limón, and others. 

Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ)

Arizona State’s MFA in Creative Writing spans three years, giving students ample time to practice their craft, develop a voice, and begin to find a place in the post-graduation literary world. 

Coursework balances writing and literature classes equally, with courses in craft and one-on-one mentoring alongside courses in literature, theory, or even electives in topics like fine press printing, bookmaking, or publishing. 

While students follow a path in either poetry or fiction, they are encouraged to take courses across the genres.

Teaching is also a focus in Arizona State’s MFA program, with funding coming from teaching assistantships in the school’s English department. Other exciting teaching opportunities include teaching abroad in locations around the world, funded through grants and internships.

The Virginia C. Piper Center for Creative Writing, affiliated with the program, offers Arizona State MFA students professional development in formal and informal ways. 

The Distinguished Writers Series and Desert Nights, Rising Stars Conference bring world-class writers to campus, allowing students to interact with some of the greatest in the profession. Acclaimed writer and poet Alberto Ríos directs the Piper Center.

Arizona State transitions students to the world after graduation through internships with publishers like Four Way Books. 

Its commitment to the student experience and its history of producing acclaimed writers—recent examples include Tayari Jones (Oprah’s Book Club, 2018; Women’s Prize for Fiction, 2019), Venita Blackburn ( Prairie Schooner Book Prize, 2018), and Hugh Martin ( Iowa Review Jeff Sharlet Award for Veterans)—make Arizona State University’s MFA a consistent leader among degree programs.

University of Texas at Austin (Austin, TX)

The University of Texas at Austin’s MFA program, the Michener Center for Writers, maintains one of the most vibrant, exciting, active literary faculties of any MFA program.

Denis Johnson D.A. Powell, Geoff Dyer, Natasha Trethewey, Margot Livesey, Ben Fountain: the list of recent guest faculty boasts some of the biggest names in current literature.

This three-year program fully funds candidates without teaching fellowships or assistantships; the goal is for students to focus entirely on their writing. 

More genre tracks at the Michener Center mean students can choose two focus areas, a primary and secondary, from Fiction, Poetry, Screenwriting, and Playwriting.

The Michener Center for Writers plays a prominent role in contemporary writing of all kinds. 

The hip, student-edited Bat City Review accepts work of all genres, visual art, cross genres, collaborative, and experimental pieces.  

Recent events for illustrious alumni include New Yorker publications, an Oprah Book Club selection, a screenwriting prize, and a 2021 Pulitzer (for visiting faculty member Mitchell Jackson). 

In this program, students are right in the middle of all the action of contemporary American literature.

Washington University in St. Louis (St. Louis, MO)

The MFA in Creative Writing at Washington University in St. Louis is a program on the move: applicants have almost doubled here in the last five years. 

Maybe this sudden growth of interest comes from recent rising star alumni on the literary scene, like Paul Tran, Miranda Popkey, and National Book Award winner Justin Phillip Reed.

Or maybe it’s the high profile Washington University’s MFA program commands, with its rotating faculty post through the Hurst Visiting Professor program and its active distinguished reader series. 

Superstar figures like Alison Bechdel and George Saunders have recently held visiting professorships, maintaining an energetic atmosphere program-wide.

Washington University’s MFA program sustains a reputation for the quality of the mentorship experience. 

With only five new students in each genre annually, MFA candidates form close cohorts among their peers and enjoy attentive support and mentorship from an engaged and vigorous faculty. 

Three genre tracks are available to students: fiction, poetry, and the increasingly relevant and popular creative nonfiction.

Another attractive feature of this program: first-year students are fully funded, but not expected to take on a teaching role until their second year. 

A generous stipend, coupled with St. Louis’s low cost of living, gives MFA candidates at Washington University the space to develop in a low-stress but stimulating creative environment.

Indiana University (Bloomington, IN)

It’s one of the first and biggest choices students face when choosing an MFA program: two-year or three-year? 

Indiana University makes a compelling case for its three-year program, in which the third year of support allows students an extended period of time to focus on the thesis, usually a novel or book-length collection.

One of the older programs on the list, Indiana’s MFA dates back to 1948. 

Its past instructors and alumni read like the index to an American Literature textbook. 

How many places can you take classes in the same place Robert Frost once taught, not to mention the program that granted its first creative writing Master’s degree to David Wagoner? Even today, the program’s integrity and reputation draw faculty like Ross Gay and Kevin Young.

Indiana’s Creative Writing program houses two more literary institutions, the Indiana Review, and the Indiana University Writers’ Conference. 

Students make up the editorial staff of this lauded literary magazine, in some cases for course credit or a stipend. An MFA candidate serves each year as assistant director of the much-celebrated and highly attended conference . 

These two facets of Indiana’s program give graduate students access to visiting writers, professional experience, and a taste of the writing life beyond academia.

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (Ann Arbor, MI)

The University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program cultivates its students with a combination of workshop-driven course work and vigorous programming on and off-campus. Inventive new voices in fiction and poetry consistently emerge from this two-year program.

The campus hosts multiple readings, events, and contests, anchored by the Zell Visiting Writers Series. The Hopgood Awards offer annual prize money to Michigan creative writing students . 

The department cultivates relationships with organizations and events around Detroit, so whether it’s introducing writers at Literati bookstore or organizing writing retreats in conjunction with local arts organizations, MFA candidates find opportunities to cultivate a community role and public persona as a writer.

What happens after graduation tells the big story of this program. Michigan produces heavy hitters in the literary world, like Celeste Ng, Jesmyn Ward, Elizabeth Kostova, Nate Marshall, Paisley Rekdal, and Laura Kasischke. 

Their alumni place their works with venerable houses like Penguin and Harper Collins, longtime literary favorites Graywolf and Copper Canyon, and the new vanguard like McSweeney’s, Fence, and Ugly Duckling Presse.

University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, MN)

Structure combined with personal attention and mentorship characterizes the University of Minnesota’s Creative Writing MFA, starting with its unique program requirements. 

In addition to course work and a final thesis, Minnesota’s MFA candidates assemble a book list of personally significant works on literary craft, compose a long-form essay on their writing process, and defend their thesis works with reading in front of an audience.

Literary journal Great River Review and events like the First Book reading series and Mill City Reading series do their part to expand the student experience beyond the focus on the internal. 

The Edelstein-Keller Visiting Writer Series draws exceptional, culturally relevant writers like Chuck Klosterman and Claudia Rankine for readings and student conversations. 

Writer and retired University of Minnesota instructor Charles Baxter established the program’s Hunger Relief benefit , aiding Minnesota’s Second Harvest Heartland organization. 

Emblematic of the program’s vision of the writer in service to humanity, this annual contest and reading bring together distinguished writers, students, faculty, and community members in favor of a greater goal.

Brown University (Providence, RI)

One of the top institutions on any list, Brown University features an elegantly-constructed Literary Arts Program, with students choosing one workshop and one elective per semester. 

The electives can be taken from any department at Brown; especially popular choices include Studio Art and other coursework through the affiliated Rhode Island School of Design. The final semester consists of thesis construction under the supervision of the candidate’s faculty advisor.

Brown is the only MFA program to feature, in addition to poetry and fiction tracks, the Digital/Cross Disciplinary track . 

This track attracts multidisciplinary writers who need the support offered by Brown’s collaboration among music, visual art, computer science, theater and performance studies, and other departments. 

The interaction with the Rhode Island School of Design also allows those artists interested in new forms of media to explore and develop their practice, inventing new forms of art and communication.

Brown’s Literary Arts Program focuses on creating an atmosphere where students can refine their artistic visions, supported by like-minded faculty who provide the time and materials necessary to innovate. 

Not only has the program produced trailblazing writers like Percival Everett and Otessa Moshfegh, but works composed by alumni incorporating dance, music, media, and theater have been performed around the world, from the stage at Kennedy Center to National Public Radio.

University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA)

When most people hear “MFA in Creative Writing,” it’s the Iowa Writers’ Workshop they imagine. 

The informal name of the University of Iowa’s Program in Creative Writing, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop was the first to offer an MFA, back in 1936. 

One of the first diplomas went to renowned writer Wallace Stegner, who later founded the MFA program at Stanford.

 It’s hard to argue with seventeen Pulitzer Prize winners and six U.S. Poets Laureate. The Iowa Writers’ Workshop is the root system of the MFA tree.

The two-year program balances writing courses with coursework in other graduate departments at the university. In addition to the book-length thesis, a written exam is part of the student’s last semester.

Because the program represents the quintessential idea of a writing program, it attracts its faculty positions, reading series, events, and workshops the brightest lights of the literary world. 

The program’s flagship literary magazine, the Iowa Review , is a lofty goal for writers at all stages of their career. 

At the Writers’ Workshop, tracks include not only fiction, poetry, playwriting, and nonfiction, but also Spanish creative writing and literary translation. Their reading series in association with Prairie Lights bookstore streams online and is heard around the world.

Iowa’s program came into being in answer to the central question posed to each one of these schools: can writing be taught? 

The answer for a group of intrepid, creative souls in 1936 was, actually, “maybe not.” 

But they believed it could be cultivated; each one of these institutions proves it can be, in many ways, for those willing to commit the time and imagination.

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Fellowship supports MFA creative writing student Yessica Martinez

By | Staff , Cornell Chronicle

Yessica Martinez has received a  Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans , a graduate school program for immigrants and children of immigrants, that will fund her pursuit of a Cornell MFA in creative writing. The 2018 fellows are the children of immigrants, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients, green card holders or naturalized citizens.

Martinez was born in Medellin, Colombia, and migrated to Queens, New York, with her family when she was 10 to escape the violence of her country’s civil war and drug-related conflict. Growing up undocumented, Martinez learned English and adapted to life in the states but yearned to return to her homeland.

As a high school sophomore, she joined other undocumented students in their struggle to secure the passage of the DREAM Act, a grassroots effort she continued at Princeton University, where she led the creation of a scholarship program for undocumented youth, planned lobbying visits and coordinated efforts to stop the deportation of a Salvadorian migrant.

Martinez majored in comparative literature and creative writing to uncover marginalized peoples’ perspectives and push back against dominant narratives. Advised by United States Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, she traveled along the U.S.-Mexico border and developed a poetry collection on state violence and migration.

As an educator, community organizer and writer, Martinez hopes to empower marginalized communities by affirming their strength, resilience and creativity.

This story also appeared in the  Cornell Chronicle .

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Study In Usa > Colleges In Usa > Cornell University > Programs > M.F.A[Creative Writing]

Master of Fine Arts [M.F.A] [Creative Writing] From Cornell University

Master of Fine Arts [M.F.A] (Creative Writing)

Field of Study : 

₽3,890,157 /Yr

• The Creative Writing Program offers the MFA degree, with a concentration in either poetry or fiction.
• MFA students pursue intensive study with distinguished faculty committed to creative and intellectual achievement.
• MFA graduate students are a dynamic group of writers, scholars, and teachers, trained in a diverse range of critical approaches and areas of study, who produce innovative dissertations and theses.
• All students must be enrolled for a minimum of 12 credits per semester.

Important Dates

Tuition Fees

Other Expenses

Eligibility & Entry Requirement

Academic Eligibility: 

• Students must complete a B.A or  B.S (or the equivalent) in any field from a recognized institution.
• A GPA of 3.34 on a 4.0 scale is required to be eligible for the program.
• Along with the minimum eligibility requirements, international students hailing from non-English speaking countries need to prove English proficiency through  IELTS / TOEFL /any equivalent test to get admission to this program.

Scores Required

Avg. Score in

Minimum gpa

The GRE general test is not required.

Required Document List

The following required documents are:

• Resume/CV:  It is the outline of academic achievements and/or awards, publications, relevant work, and/or volunteer experience.
• Three  Letter of Recommendation: Letter of recommendation (combination of professional and academic recommenders) which includes information about the student, their connection with the person they are recommending, their qualification, and the specific skills they have.
• Statement of Purpose :  This statement must describe your qualifications and the objectives of your intended educational program.
• Personal Statement:  Personal Statement provides you with an opportunity to share experiences that provide insights on how your personal, academic, and/or professional experiences demonstrate your ability to be both persistent and resilient, especially when navigating challenging circumstances.
• Official Transcripts:  Applicants who have attended and/or received degrees from institutions outside the US must provide certified copies and certified English translations of transcripts or records of all previous post-secondary education and of all degrees conferred.
• Creative Writing Sample: S ample must be between 6,000 and 10,000 words, typed, double-spaced, in a conventional 12- or 14-point font. It may be an excerpt from a larger work or a combination of several works.
• ELP Scores:  Students have to submit their English language proficiency scores like IELTS , TOEFL , or other test scores.

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The careers after graduation are:

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The College Welcomes New Faculty for 2024-25

Twenty-eight new faculty have joined the College of Arts & Sciences this year, bringing innovative ideas in a wide diversity of topics, from climate politics to experimental fiction, from artificial intelligence to health economics, enhancing the College’s interdisciplinary strengths and curiosity-driven discoveries.

Faculty Profiles

In the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Yao Yang Ph.D. ’21 is addressing the grand challenges of renewable clean energy and green-house gas emission. By developing advanced electron microscopy and synchrotron X-ray methods, his work seeks to understand electrochemical mechanisms at the interfaces of chemistry and energy materials, with an emphasis on carbon dioxide reduction, clean hydrogen production and rechargeable batteries.

The Department of Government welcomes two new faculty members this year: Peter John Loewen, the new Harold Tanner Dean of Arts & Sciences, and Talbot Andrews.

Andrews looks at the human dimension of global warming: how people think about climate change and engage in climate politics. She’s especially interested in how disasters shape people’s opinions, and how political institutions can better prepare for and respond to climate disaster; her current project focuses on emotional communication around disasters.

New Faculty: Yao Yang

New A&S dean relishes ‘life in a university’

New Faculty: Talbot Andrews

Weinan Sun in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior works at the intersection of neuroscience and artificial intelligence (AI), exploring how insights from biological systems can inform and improve AI design. He is investigating the process of cognitive map formation in the hippocampus of animal brains and applying these insights to develop advanced AI systems for reasoning and planning.

In the Department of Physics, Jennet Dickinson is harnessing machine learning to develop novel approaches to fast silicon detector readout electronics as part of her work studying high energy proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. She’s particularly interested in measuring properties of the Higgs boson, the most recently discovered fundamental particle.

In the Department of Economics, Adam Harris is also expanding our understanding of AI, focusing on its impact on the economics of transportation and technology. He’s looking at efficiency and resilience in the U.S. trucking industry and how professional human decision-makers use assistive AI tools. 

New Faculty: Weinan Sun

New Faculty: Jennet Dickinson

New Faculty: Adam Harris

Four additional faculty members in the economics department will expand its diverse expertise this year. Economic theory and development expert Rohit Lamba recently published “Breaking the Mold, India’s Untraveled Path to Prosperity,” co-authored with Raghuram Rajan. He’s also working on algorithmic pricing and on uncertain repeated games – how to model dynamic games when players may not understand or agree on the future draw of games. 

Anran Li studies industrial organizations and health economics. Her current research focuses on regulations and market design for healthcare and the health insurance market, and she’s looking forward to teaching a course on industrial organization.

Jeremy Lise’s research is on labor economics and macroeconomics. His research focus is identifying and measuring the sources of wage inequality and he’s excited about teaching advanced labor economics.

Ezra Oberfield is studying how large firms such as Starbucks choose to organize themselves over space. He’s also interested in how recent changes in technology, which have spurred some large firms to greatly expand their footprints, have affected local competition in cities and in rural areas.

New Faculty: Rohit Lamba

New Faculty: Anran Li

New Faculty: Jeremy Lise

New Faculty: Ezra Oberfield

The College’s Klarman Postdoctoral Fellowship program, which brings early-career scholars of outstanding talent, initiative and promise to campus, has demonstrated its success by this year enriching the College with three new faculty members. 

Klarman Fellow Anna Shechtman has joined the Department of Literatures in English to continue her studies of media, literary theory, American literature, film and television. Her book project traces the history of the "media" concept across American culture industries.

Klarman Fellow Nancy Lin has joined the Department of History of Art and Visual Studies. Her book project, “Art On-Site: Situating Global Contemporaneity in 1990s China,” explores the aesthetic and socio-political stakes for how and why artists during this period began to work on-site in everyday urban spaces such as city streets, construction sites and other unconventional locations.

Klarman Fellow Toni Alimi continues his research into the history of philosophy as a member of the Department of Philosophy and says that “the riches of Cornell’s intellectual life continue to be a delight.” He’s working on a book-length philosophical history of slavery. 

Also joining the philosophy department is Justin Steinberg, with expertise in early modern philosophy, the history of political thought and the history of ethics. He’s working on a book about individuation and social ontology among early modern naturalists.

New Faculty: Anna Shechtman

New Faculty: Nancy P. Lin

New Faculty: Toni Alimi

New Faculty: Justin Steinberg

The Department of Literatures in English is enhanced by three more faculty members besides Shechtman. Adhy Kim studies transnational Asian/American and Asian diasporic literature, as well as Korea, Japan and global Asias. His book project examines how speculative literature engages with natural history and with memory institutions like peace parks and museums to rethink post-1945 U.S.-Northeast Asian geopolitics. 

Alexandra Kleeman’s expertise is in  ecological fiction, experimental fiction, creative nonfiction and criticism. She’s working on a quasi-utopian novel in five parts, each set on a different island at a moment of economic upheaval, as well as a nonfiction project, an "unnatural history" of cows.​ 

Rebeca Hey-Colón has a joint appointment in literatures in English and the Latina/o Studies Program and is an expert in  Afro-Latinx, Latinx and Caribbean studies. She’s developing a new project centered on loss in Afro-Latinx, Latinx and Caribbean cultural production and is looking forward to teaching the Puerto Rican studies course “Diasporas, Disasters and Dissent.”

New Faculty: Adhy Kim

New Faculty: Alexandra Kleeman

New Faculty: Rebeca L. Hey-Colón

Cosmology’s strength in the College is further enhanced with two new faculty members this year. Dongwoo Chung’s research traces galaxies across the observable universe in space and time as they form and transform stars, gas and dust. They’re interested in how our universe formed its first stars and galaxies, and they’ll be exploring that and more using the  Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope , a project led by Cornell that will soon be operational in Chile. 

Drummond Fielding also works on galaxy formation, as well as magnetohydrodynamics and astrophysical plasma physics. He is working on two research initiatives to aid our understanding of cosmic ray transport and how galactic winds regulate the evolution of galaxies.

Yu Wang joins the Department of Science and Technology Studies with a focus on sound, data, and society and science and technology studies, as well as 20th century China. He’s researching radio infrastructure in Mao’s China for his book project "All Ears: Listening to Radio in China, 1940-1976."

New Faculty: Dongwoo Chung

New Faculty: Drummond Fielding

New Faculty: Yu Wang

Two musicologists have joined the Department of Music. Carmel Raz studies the h istory of music theory, musical cognition and science. She is investigating a tradition of texts   concerning the habitual, automatic actions involved in playing a musical instrument in a variety of philosophical texts. 

Victoria Netanus Xaka researches m usic and sound studies, Black studies, Black feminist theory and semiotics. She’s working on a book about Rwanda’s popular music industry that considers the role of sounding and listening for Blackness in the (post-genocide) production of a collective social body. 

Molly Womack, joining the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, also serves as the curator of the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates. Their lab seeks to better understand how biodiversity develops, how biodiversity evolves, and why it matters. Their projects with frogs explore skin and lung evolution, salinity tolerance and acoustic communication.

In the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Ayshwarya Subramanian focuses on the c ontext-specificity of cell states using computational systems biology. Her research project seeks to understand how to define the state of a cell from its internal and external cues.

New Faculty: Carmel Raz

New Faculty: Victoria Netanus Xaka

New Faculty: Molly Womack

New Faculty: Ayshwarya Subramanian

French literature and philosophy expert Chad Córdova joins the Department of Romance Studies, with a focus on studying the affinities between the purportedly “old” or “obsolete” and the supposedly “relevant” or “new.” One of his projects aims to rethink the history of what we now call “depression.”

Alexander Betts (who will begin at Cornell in January) will enhance the Department of Mathematics’ strength in number theory with expertise in arithmetic geometry, Diophantine equations and arithmetic homotopy theory. His main interest lies in understanding problems in number theory using tools imported from topology, especially fundamental groups.

Psychology welcomes two new faculty this year. Nori Jacoby’s expertise is in cognitive science. He studies the perceptual representations of populations around the world ranging from New York City-based musicians to Indigenous tribes in the Bolivian Amazon to international cohorts recruited for massive online experiments. He says he is “very excited about the scientific research environment” at Cornell.

Nora Prior specializes in neuroendocrinology, social neuroscience and bioacoustics. Her research looks across species to determine how social worlds emerge from and persist within perceptual experiences. 

New Faculty: Chad Córdova

New Faculty: Alexander Betts

New Faculty: Nori Jacoby

New Faculty: Nora H. Prior