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Bennington Writing Seminars at Bennington College

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MFA Program

Current Faculty: Poetry: Michael Dumanis, Carmen Giménez, Dana Levin, Randall Mann, Craig Morgan Teicher, Mark Wunderlich Fiction: Jai Chakrabarti, Monica Ferrell, Manuel Gonzales, Deirdre McNamer, Stuart Nadler, Téa Obreht, Katy Simpson Smith, Taymour Soomro, Claire Vaye Watkins, Toya Wolfe Nonfiction: Eula Biss, Jenny Boully, Saeed Jones, Sabrina Orah Mark, Shawna Kay Rodenberg, Hugh Ryan

The program offers tuition assistance through partial scholarships. Students may also apply for Federal Student Aid.

The Writing Seminars offers one term of tuition remission thanks to a full-immersion teaching fellowship open to selected MFA students.

Students attend two ten-day residencies each year, in January and June, at the Bennington College campus in Bennington, Vermont. The program hosts a nightly reading series with faculty and visiting writers, as well as lectures, master classes, craft sessions, and professional development seminars.

The program also offers a dual-genre track; application fee is $100.

The application deadline is September 1 for the Winter term starting with the January residency and March 1 for the Summer term beginning with the June residency. View their  complete guidelines and prospective student FAQs  for more information, and apply here .

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Bennington College

Vermont, united states.

One of the top low-residency programs in the country, the Bennington Writing Seminars is a two-year, rigorous exploration of craft. You commit as much to reading as to writing and critical literary analysis. You craft bold new works of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, and may work in a dual-genre. You finish with a polished thesis and a critical paper. All this with the expert 1:1 guidance of acclaimed authors who develop a stake in your work. Our alumni, faculty, students, and staff publish work at the highest levels.

Our faculty-student ratio of 1:1 provides true mentorship. You work closely with a faculty member who is an accomplished writer and a distinguished teacher.

You may focus on one or more genres at Bennington. While most choose to specialize in fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, others work across two genres through our Dual-Genre Degree.

You may apply to begin during either of the 10-day residency sessions in January (winter term) or June (summer term)—application deadlines are September 1 and March 1, respectively.

We are committed to increasing access to our program for students from diverse backgrounds and to building community through sustained dialogue and practice. We offer scholarships, and fund the emerging voices we want to support and read.

Bennington offers a self-directed pace that allows you to develop a sustainable, lifelong writing practice. We know how important it is for MFA students to gain teaching experience so we've developed the Residential Teaching Fellows program—a first-of-its-kind teaching opportunity among low-residency MFA programs, among others.

We offer a range of scholarships and federal financial aid loans. All applicants are considered for merit scholarships.

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bennington college creative writing mfa

Contact Information

Bennington Writing Seminars One College Drive Bennington Vermont, United States 05201-6003 Phone: 802-440-4452 Email: [email protected] www.bennington.edu/mfa-writing

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing +

Graduate program director.

The Bennington Writing Seminars offers a low-residency Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Writing and Literature. This two-year graduate program involves five intense 10-day residency periods at Bennington College during January and June of each year. Between residencies, students spend the six-month terms corresponding directly with faculty who teach as part of the program's core staff. Additional faculty are invited to participate as associate staff during the 10-day residency periods, teaching literature from a writer's point of view. The five residencies feature workshops, readings, lectures, and discussions that are part of an ongoing investigation of what constitutes the world of letters.

In keeping with Bennington's progressive tradition, the course of study in the Seminars is structured largely by the student. Students, in concert with the core faculty, form their own reading lists, and submit interpretive and original work - fiction, nonfiction, and poetry - for critique at monthly intervals throughout the term. The development of individual work is at the heart of the program. Students are expected to devote at least 25 hours each week to their writing and reading.

Residency workshops in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry are conducted by the core faculty. Students design their course of study for the coming term - readings and writings - in consultation with the core faculty member with whom the student will be corresponding. Workshops are small, never more than 10 students and 2 teachers, and an intimate 5 to 1 student/teacher ratio is maintained throughout the program.

The first two semesters are devoted to original and interpretive work, with a minimum 10-page critical essay, based on work from the reading list, to be submitted to the core faculty member at the end of each term. The third semester requires that each student completes, in addition to original work, a minimum 20-page critical work. Finally, in addition to submitting a completed creative thesis, graduating students are required to present a literary lecture and give a reading of their own work during the fifth and final residency period.

Students are admitted to the program primarily on the strength of the original manuscript submitted with the application.

Bennington Writing Seminars

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The Best 15 Creative Writing MFA Programs in 2023

April 7, 2023

mfa creative writing programs

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

First of all, what is an MFA?

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

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

Reasons to Get an MFA in Creative Writing

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

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

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

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

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

Types of Creative Writing MFA Programs

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

Fully-Funded Full-Time Programs

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

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

Full-Time MFA Programs

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

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

Low-Residency MFA Programs

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

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

Online MFA Programs

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

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

The Top 15 Creative Writing MFA Programs Ranked by Category

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

Fully Funded MFA Programs

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

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

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

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

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

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

3) University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA)

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

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

4) University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI)

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

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

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

5) Brown University (Providence, RI)

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

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

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

Best MFA Creative Writing Programs (Continued) 

6) university of arizona (tucson, az).

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

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

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

7) Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ):

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

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

FULL-RESIDENCY MFAS (UNFUNDED)

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

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

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

9) Columbia University (New York, NY)

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

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

10) Sarah Lawrence (Bronxville, NY)

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

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

LOW RESIDENCY

11 bennington college (bennington, vt).

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

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

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

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

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

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

13) Vermont College of Fine Arts

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

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

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

ONLINE MFAS

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

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

  • Alumni: Watch alumni testimonies here

15) Bay Path University (Long Meadow, MA)

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

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

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

Prepare for your MFA in advance:

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

Best MFA Creative Writing Programs – References:

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

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Julia Conrad

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

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MFA Program in Writing / MFA Program in Writing is located in Bennington, VT, in a small setting.

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Creative Writing, The University of Chicago

So, You Want an MFA?

Whether you are curious about or actively planning to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing, we welcome you to attend this virtual panel! Creative Writing faculty and recent MFA graduates will share their experiences completing graduate degrees in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and translation. You'll get to ask about application tips, hot takes, whether the MFA path is right for you, and more! 

Poster

Daniel Raeburn  is the author of  Chris Ware,  a book of art criticism, and  Vessels :  A Memoir of What Wasn’t.  His essays have also appeared in  The New Yorker, The Baffler, Tin House,  and in  The Imp , his series of booklets about underground cartoonists. He’s been awarded fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Vermont Studio Center, the Howard Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches nonfiction writing at the University of Chicago and received his MFA in Writing & Literature from the Writing Seminars at Bennington College, a 24-month low-residency program.

Stephanie Soileau's collection of short stories  LAST ONE OUT SHUT OFF THE LIGHTS is forthcoming from Little, Brown & Co. in Summer 2020. Her work has also appeared in  Glimmer Train, Oxford American, Ecotone, Tin House, New Stories from the South , and other journals and anthologies, and has been supported by fellowships from the Wallace Stegner Fellowship Program at Stanford University, the Camargo Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She earned her BA in English at the University of Chicago and MFA at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She teaches fiction at the University of Chicago.

Will Boast is the author of a story collection,  Power Ballads , a memoir,  Epilogue , and a novel,  Daphne.  His short fiction, reporting, and essays have appeared in  The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, The Guardian, Glimmer Train,  and the  Virginia Quarterly Review,  among other publications. His first attempt at an MFA was at Indiana University. He completed the task at the University of Virginia. He then did even more workshopping through a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford and a Charles Pick Fellowship at the University of East Anglia. He's also been a Literature Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. He's taught fiction and non-fiction at Chicago since 2014. 

Lina M. Ferreira C.-V.  graduated with both a creative nonfiction writing and a literary translation MFA from the University of Iowa. She is the author of  Drown Sever Sing  from Anomalous press and  Don’t Come Back  the co-editor of the forthcoming anthology  The Great American Essay  and the editor and translator of the forthcoming  100 Refutations  from Mad Creek Books . She’s been the recipient of the Best of the Net award and the Iron Horse Review’s Discovered Voices award, has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and is a Rona Jaffe fellow. She moved from Colombia to China to Columbus to Chicago, where she works as an assistant professor for the University of Chicago.

Korey Williams earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell University—a full-residency and fully-funded 2-year program that offers 1- to 2-year Lectureship Appointments post-graduation. Although his concentration was in poetry, he pursued a cross-genre project and, thus, his thesis committee included faculty in both poetry and fiction. In addition to Cornell, Williams has studied at Illinois Wesleyan University and the University of Oxford. He is currently a doctoral student at the University of Chicago, and his work appears or is forthcoming in The Offing, Narrative Magazine, Spoon River Poetry Review, Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry, and elsewhere. 

Julie Iromuanya is the author of  Mr. and Mrs. Doctor  (Coffee House Press), a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, the Etisalat Prize for Literature (now 9 Mobile Prize for Literature), and the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize for Debut Fiction. Her scholarly-critical work most recently appears in  Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism,   Callaloo: A Journal of African American Arts and Letters,  and  Afropolitan Literature as World Literature ( Bloomsbury Publishing) .  She is a 2020 George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation fellow, and she was the inaugural Herbert W. Martin Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Dayton. Iromuanya earned her B.A. at the University of Central Florida and her M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Up until 2019, she taught in the MFA in Creative Writing program at the University of Arizona. She is currently an assistant professor in the Program in Creative Writing at the University of Chicago. 

Aspiring Author

15 Best Low Residency MFA Programs

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

A home office overlooking a university to show the best low residency mfa programs

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Antioch University

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

2. Bard College

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

3. Bennington College

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

4. Cedar Crest College

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

5. Goucher College

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

6. Institute of American Indian Arts

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

7. Lesley University

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

8. Lindenwood University

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

9. New York University

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

10. Pacific University

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

11. Sewanee School of Letters

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

12. University of New Orleans

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

13. University of Southern Maine (Stonecoast)

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

14. Vermont College of Fine Arts

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

15. Warren Wilson College

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

Recommended reading

Here at Aspiring Author , we love recommending bestsellers and fawning over hot new releases. On this real time recommended reading list, you will find a list of top rated books on the publishing industry, craft, and other books to help you elevate your writing career.

bennington college creative writing mfa

The Road Not Taken (Hart Sisters)

bennington college creative writing mfa

Bibliophile: Diverse Spines

bennington college creative writing mfa

Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book On Novel Writing You'll Ever Need

bennington college creative writing mfa

The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression (Second Edition) (Writers Helping Writers Series)

bennington college creative writing mfa

The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst

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CCA’s blend of theory and practice inspires students at every level to make work that matters. Select your status to learn about the application process, requirements, and deadlines, as well as contact information should you need any support along the way.

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MFA Writing

Define your voice and explore your creative practice—fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—alongside writers, designers, and visual artists.

Writing at CCA is dynamic

At CCA, you’ll join a writing community that truly sees and supports you.

We’ve grown an MFA Writing program at an arts college with 116 years of history in the San Francisco Bay Area. The workshops and seminars where we gather are places of inventiveness, self-discovery, and exuberance. Together we’ve created a close-knit community for diverse writers who are making their mark on the world.

We believe creativity is sparked when you have space to develop your ideas, and from your first to your final semester at CCA you’ll have close, sustained support from your professors through one-on-one mentorships. Our award-winning faculty includes Faith Adiele, Tom Barbash, Dodie Bellamy, Rita Bullwinkel, Jasmin Darznik, Joseph Lease, Trisha Ya-wen Low, Aimee Phan, Denise Newman, and Leslie Carol Roberts.

The Bay Area, a site of rich literary history, is our home. You’ll have access to resources and literary institutions you won’t find anywhere else, like City Lights Publishers, Litquake, and the Bay Area Book Festival. In the fall semester, we offer Tuesday Seminar, a course that brings illustrious professional writers right into the classroom with you.

Portrait of Faith Adiele posing in front of a colorful mural.

MFA writing professor Faith Adiele.

An exciting blend of the emergent and established

Our MFA Writing program recently celebrated its 20-year anniversary, and we embrace the rich literary history of the Bay Area, from the Beat poetry movement and the Language poets, to the annual Litquake literary festival, to the Slam/Spoken Word scene.

Follow MFA Writing

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Huge thanks to Rebecca Foust for sharing her publishing wisdom today in the studio. Some takeaways:

Aim high—it’s better than the alternative.

Be like Tom Petty—study the person a step or two ahead of you and follow their lead.

Nothing’s ever finished, so you may as well send it out.

📝 Students who couldn’t make it, you are in luck! She shared some fantastic handouts and you can find extra copies in the studio.

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Our first free all-program field trip takes us to City Arts & Lectures this Thursday to hear Leila Mottley talk about her new book Nightcrawling. We meet outside the Sidney Goldstein Theater at 7. See you there, MFAW.📚🤓

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By popular demand, we're devoting next week's Tuesday Coffee Hour to a practical, in-depth conversation about getting published in literary magazines. On 10/4 from 3-4 pm Rebecca Foust, poet and assistant editor of fiction at Narrative Magazine, will join us in the garden to talk about specific submission strategies and answer your questions about the publishing process. This is for writers of all genres, so come one, come all!

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October Happenings! Check out the fabulous upcoming events we’ve got lined up. ✍🏻📖💫

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Join a top-ranking MFA Writing program

Study.com ranks our program among the top five in California. Located in one of the world’s creative capitals, we encourage MFA candidates to explore many different forms and incorporate visual art into their work.

View the list

Studios & Shops

Practice critique, readings, and performance.

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MFA students are at home in the Humanities and Sciences Graduate Center on CCA’s main San Francisco campus. Outside the studio, we write and meet alongside redwood trees in our beautiful garden. Inside, we hold our workshops, readings, and craft talks. We also host our famed Tuesday Talks series in the Humanities and Sciences Graduate Center. Today’s most dynamic writers, including Hanif Abdurraqib, Camille Dungy, Andrew Sean Greer, R.O. Kwon, sam sax, and Tracy K. Smith, read and discuss new work and lead craft talks during masterclasses. There are endless opportunities to share your writing with peers, get constructive feedback, and nurture your craft.

MFA Writing student Gabe Martinez.

Support to tell your stories

We help our students locate and tell their stories; we write what we want, how we want. We embrace all forms of writing, from literary novels and poetry to science fiction and mysteries. Our MFA Writing program is designed to make sure each student finds their voice. You can explore nonfiction, fiction, and poetry during supportive workshops that celebrate voice and form. We believe in grounding our work in craft so we emphasize close reading and individualized instruction.

MFA Writing faculty Jasmyn Darznik.

Expand your creative practice

In addition to our vibrant writing workshops and dynamic seminars, we encourage graduate students to immerse themselves in our diverse art and design culture. Want to learn how to design beautiful publications, paint, or make a children’s book? Access CCA’s phenomenal resources, including Risograph printers for making broadsides, audio suites for recording podcasts, and a letterpress studio for making books and zines. You’ll work with top practitioners in their fields across the college’s faculty, grow as a writer, and learn to turn your research passions and written works into literal art objects.

A group of students having dinner in the MFA Writing Studio.

Frame and finish your book

You’ll get regular feedback during writing workshops and meetings with full-time faculty who believe in meeting one-on-one—not as part of any requirement, but because personalized attention is how you grow as a writer. Close reading, editorial guidance, and individualized reading lists all push our writing students toward success. We teach you craft as well as how to establish and maintain a serious writing practice.

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Your creative life at CCA and beyond

From studying one-on-one with faculty mentors to participating in craft workshops with visiting writers—among the best and brightest working today—you’ll be exposed to myriad forms. You’ll learn the elements of podcasting; how to make audio stories; how to prepare a full-length manuscript; and how to collaborate with painters, filmmakers, illustrators, photographers, and more.

Your community of mentors

  • Memoirist and travel writer Faith Adiele
  • Novelist Tom Barbash
  • Novelist Rita Bullwinkel
  • Novelist and memoirist Jasmin Darznik
  • Poet Joseph Lease
  • Poet and performer Trisha Low
  • Poet and translator Denise Newman
  • Novelist Aimee Phan
  • Eco-memoirist Leslie Carol Roberts

More studios, shops, and labs

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Access lithography presses and a range of bookbinding equipment at the San Francisco Center for the Book

View of Black-and-White Darkroom, range of enlarging stations and two print washers

The Black-and-White Darkroom has a range of enlarging stations and two print washers

San Francisco Media Center staff and equipment.

Check out DSLR cameras, lighting kits, GoPros, and more from the San Francisco campus Media Center

Study with award-winning writers

MFA Writing faculty have received major prizes, fellowships, residencies, and grants. Their books have been New York Times bestsellers and award-winning collections in fiction, hybrid essay/memoir, poetry, literary criticism, creative nonfiction, and memoir. Together they offer unique voices across multiple genres, aesthetic traditions, and vibrant writing communities.

Portrait of Jasmin Darznik, Chair of MFA Writing.

Jasmin Darznik, Chair of MFA Writing

Chair Jasmin Darznik is a New York Times- bestselling author of three books,  The Bohemians, Song of a Captive Bird , and The Good Daughter . Born in Iran, she immigrated to America as a child and is a first-generation college graduate. After receiving a Ph.D. in English from Princeton University, she obtained an MFA in fiction from Bennington College, broadening her academic scholarship to tell stories about women who've been left out or obscured from the historical record. Her forthcoming novel, American Goddess, takes on themes of celebrity, gender, and ethnic identity in Old Hollywood. 

MFA Writing Faculty

Portrait of Faith Aidele.

Faith E Adiele

Portrait of Tom Barbash.

Tom Barbash

Portrait of Rita Bullwinkel.

Rita Bullwinkel

Portrait of Joseph Lease.

Joseph Lease

Portrait of Trisha Low.

Denise Newman

Portrait of Aimee Phan.

Leslie Carol Roberts

Portrait of Michael Wertz.

Michael Wertz

View all MFA Writing faculty

Faculty stories

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Two-year intensive program

Our two-year, 48-unit MFA Writing program includes workshops, craft seminars, literature courses, and mentorships. Courses like Experiments in Life Writing, Contemporary International Fiction, and Writing As An Act of Witness will inspire you to take risks and try new styles as you hone your craft and deepen your writing practice.

One of the many perks of being at an art school is the chance to take courses outside of the writing discipline as well as to collaborate with painters, photographers, filmmakers, bookmakers, and more. This unique opportunity allows you to move in new directions as you find and express your unique voice. Preview our workshops and courses .

Year 1: Fall Semester

Year 1: spring semester, year 2: fall semester, year 2: spring semester.

Total 48.0 units

Publish your dream project

MFA in Writing program alumni have impressive success getting their work out in the world, publishing books across genres. Recent publications include:

  • Tom Comitta, The Nature Book , Coffee House Press, 2023
  • Dior Stephens, Cruel/Cruel , Nightboat, 2023
  • Alka Joshi, The Perfumist of Paris, Harper Collins, 2023
  • Sonja Swift, Echo Loba, Loba Echo , Rocky Mountain Press, 2023
  • Jessamyn Violet, Secret Rules to Being a Rock Star , Three Rooms Press, 2023
  • Alka Joshi, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur , Harper Collins, 2021
  • Julie Lythcott-Haims, Your Turn: How to Be An Adult , Henry Holt, 2021
  • Alka Joshi, The Henna Artist , Mira Publishing, a division of Harper Collins, 2019
  • Rheea Mukherjee, The Body Myth , Unnamed Press, 2019
  • Adam Nemett, We Can Save Us All , Unnamed Press, 2018
  • Sonia Belasco, Speak of Me As I Am , Philomel Books, 2017
  • Julie Lythcott-Haims, Real American , St. Martin’s Griffin, 2017
  • Molly Prentiss, Tuesday Nights in 1980 , Simon & Schuster, 2017
  • Catie Jarvis, The Peacock Room , Hyperborea, 2016
  • Andrew Nicholson, A Lamp Brighter Than Foxfire , Colorado State, 2015
  • LaTasha Nevada Diggs, TWerk , Belladonna Press, 2013

In addition to becoming published authors, our students find traction at established and emergent platforms like Medium , and also work as educators; performance artists; editors; and writers for newspapers, magazines, and marketing agencies.

Potential career paths

  • Freelance writer
  • Content strategist
  • Arts administrator
  • Social activist
  • Technical writer
  • Publication and production assistant
  • Small press publisher

Learn about career development

News & Events

What’s happening for mfa writing students.

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Reading and lecture series span disciplines

Curtis Arima (chair of Jewelry and Metal Arts), Stories from Camp: A stone’s throw (detail), 2023.

How to Apply

Make writing your top priority.

Our two-year program welcomes students of all ages, career profiles, and backgrounds, including law, advertising, tech, music, and academia. We focus on your writing sample and your letters of recommendation in making admissions decisions.

Start your application

You’ll apply to CCA and submit all required application materials via SlideRoom. Afterward, you may be contacted for an interview with a faculty member as part of the application process. Being selected for an interview doesn’t indicate applicant status or increase or decrease an applicant’s chances of being admitted into their desired graduate program. Interviews are conducted at the program’s discretion and are used to gain more insight into an application.

Create an account and start your application

MFA Writing application requirements

  • Application and $70 nonrefundable application fee To be completed and submitted on SlideRoom.
  • Resume/curriculum vitae Please outline your educational and professional background and relevant experiences and activities, including community work. Resumes/CVs must be in PDF document format.
  • Two recommendation letters You’ll request two letters of recommendation from academic or professional sources in SlideRoom by entering the contact information for your recommenders/references. They will then receive an automated email from SlideRoom with instructions for uploading their letter of recommendation.
  • Unofficial college transcripts You are required to provide your complete undergraduate academic history. Students who have already taken graduate courses are encouraged to submit those transcripts, too. For international applicants, all transcripts must be in English or accompanied by a certified English translation. Please provide an unofficial transcript from the college where you will receive or have received your bachelor’s degree, as well as unofficial transcripts for all other undergraduate coursework. Unofficial transcripts will be used for review purposes. Once you have been admitted and enrolled, all students will need to submit official, sealed transcripts showing the completion of a bachelor’s degree to our graduate admissions office by August 1 of the fall semester they begin enrollment at CCA.
  • Proof of English proficiency (international applicants only) Review and plan to meet our English proficiency requirements for graduate students .
  • Personal essay In a personal essay, submitted as a PDF, write 500 to 1,000 words about your writing experience, why you want to study writing at the graduate level, your educational objectives, and any critical influences on your work.
  • Portfolio Your portfolio, submitted as one to two PDFs (up to 10 MB each), should consist of a selection of writing samples (totaling no more than 25 double-spaced pages) that reflect your main areas of interest. You may include poems, short stories, a section of a novel, text for performance (include video, if available), creative nonfiction, or writing for new genres. You’re welcome, but not required, to submit visual materials in support of your application, including book arts and videos. Please note: We do not accept co-written material.

For prospective student inquiries, including questions about the program or how to apply, please contact us

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Graduate Admissions

+1 415-548-2271 (call, text)

Nurture your craft in a dynamic environment

Related programs

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Visual & Critical Studies

This is an attempt at creating an objective ranking of graduate creative writing programs.

For further and more detailed information on how the scores are generated see the methodology page.

Lists of authors without graduate creative writing degrees or whose degree status is unknown are available. 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 .

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Hal Ackerman

Instructor, Writing for Stage & Screen [email protected]

  • Former co-chair of the Screenwriting Program at UCLA.
  • His play, Testosterone: How Prostate Cancer Made a Man of Me, received the William Saroyan Centennial Prize for Drama and won Best Script at the 2011 United Solo Festival.
  • He has sold material to all the broadcast networks and major studios.
  • His book Write Screenplays That Sell…The Ackerman Way is now in its third printing.

Khris Baxter

Instructor, Writing for Stage & Screen [email protected]

  • Screenwriter, producer, and the founder of Lost Mountain Entertainment.
  • Developed and financed a wide range of projects in partnership with Cross Creek Pictures and Echo Lake Entertainment.
  • Co-produced “Above the Shadows,” which won the Audience Award at the 2019 Brooklyn Film Festival.
  • Teaches Writing for Film & TV at Dickinson College.
  • Serves as a judge for the Virginia Film Office’s annual screenwriting competition.

Peter Behrens

Instructor, Writing for Stage & Screen [email protected]

  • Screenwriter, essayist, and fiction writer.
  • Author of four books of fiction, including “The Law of Dreams,” which won the Governor-General’s Award and has been published in nine languages.
  • His stories, essays, and reviews appear in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, NPR’s All Things Considered, and many anthologies.
  • Former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and former fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Cathy Smith Bowers

Instructor, Poetry [email protected]

  • Poet Laureate of North Carolina from 2010-2012.
  • Her poems appear widely in publications such as The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, Poetry, The Southern Review, and The Kenyon Review.
  • Author of five collections of poetry.

Morri Creech

Associate Professor, Poetry Writer in Residence, Queens University of Charlotte [email protected]

  • Author of four collections of poetry, one a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
  • His poems appear in Poetry, The New Criterion, The New Republic, The Southwest Review, The Hudson Review, Crazyhorse, Critical Quarterly, Sewanee Review, Southern Review, and  elsewhere. 
  • He has received the Stan and Tom Wick Award, a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, and a fellowship from The Louisiana  Division of the Arts.

David Christensen

Instructor, Writing for Stage & Screen [email protected]

  • Executive producer at the National Film Board of Canada where he oversees a slate of documentary, interactive, and animation productions made nationally and internationally.
  • Two Oscar-nominated films and multiple premiers at Berlin, Sundance, Toronto, and New York film festivals.

Ann Cummins

Instructor, Fiction [email protected]

  • Author of a story collection and novel.
  • Recipient of a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship.
  • Stories appear in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Antioch Review, The Best American Short Stories, and The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories.

Jonathan Dee

Instructor, Fiction [email protected]

  • Author of eight novels.
  • His novel “The Privileges” was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize and winner of the 2011 Prix Fitzgerald and the St. Francis College Literary Prize.
  • A former contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, a senior editor of The Paris Review, and a National Magazine Award-nominated literary critic for Harper’s.
  • Received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Kristin Dombek

Instructor, Nonfiction [email protected]

  • Author of “The Selfishness of Others: An Essay on the Fear of Narcissism,” which has been translated into multiple languages, and “How to Quit,” forthcoming soon.
  • Essays appear in The New Yorker, Vice, The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, London Review of Books, n+1, The Financial Times, The Paris Review, and Best American Essays.
  • Recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Rona Jaffe Foundation.
  • Has taught at Queens College/CUNY and Princeton.

Shelley Evans

Instructor, Writing for Stage & Screen [email protected]

  • Has written teleplays for ABC, CBS, Showtime, USA Network, Hallmark Movies and Mysteries, and Lifetime Television.

Elizabeth Gaffney

Instructor, Fiction [email protected]

  • Author of two novels.
  • Has also translated three novels and a memoir from German.
  • Resident artist at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the Blue Mountain Center.
  • Former staff editor at The Paris Review, and currently serves as the editor-at-large of A Public Space.

Myla Goldberg

Instructor, Fiction [email protected]

  • Bestselling author of four novels, including “Bee Season,” which was a New York Times Notable Book and winner of the Borders New Voices Prize. It was adapted to film and widely translated.
  • Has also published an essay collection, a children’s book, and short stories that have appeared in Harper’s.
  • Teaches also in the fiction programs at Sarah Lawrence and NYU.

Emily Fox Gordon

Instructor, Nonfiction [email protected]

  • Author of a novel, a collection of personal essays, and two memoirs, one of which was a New York Times Notable Book.
  • Her work appears in Boulevard, Salmagundi, The American Scholar, and Southwest Review, and has been anthologized in the Anchor Essay Annual.
  • Has taught writing workshops at Rice University, the University of Houston, The New School, the University of Wyoming, and the MFA program at Rutgers/Camden.
  • Recipient of two Pushcart Prizes.

Trish Harnetiaux

Instructor, Writing for Stage & Screen [email protected]

  • Her play “Tin Cat Shoes” premiered in 2018 kicking off Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks (Playwrights Horizons Superlab).
  • Three other plays have been published by Samuel French.
  • Executive producer on the off-beat comedy series “Driver Ed” which premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival.
  • She has been a resident at MacDowell, Yaddo, The Millay Colony, and SPACE at Ryder Farm.

Marcus Jackson

Instructor, Poetry [email protected]

  • Author of two poetry collections.
  • His poems appear in The New Yorker, Harvard Review, The New York Times, and The Cincinnati Review.

Fred Leebron

Program Director, Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Instructor, Fiction [email protected]

  • Former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford and Fulbright Scholar.
  • Author of five books of fiction, including “Six Figures,” which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and became a feature-length film.
  • Co-editor of “Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology;” and co-author of “Creating Fiction: A Writer’s Companion.”
  • Recipient of an O. Henry Award, a Puschart Prize, a Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown Fellowship, and two fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Instructor, Poetry

  • Author of six books of poetry, including “The Carrying,” which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.
  • Her book “Bright Dead Things” was named a finalist for the National Book Award, a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
  • Currently the Poet Laureate of the United States and a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Fellow.

Rebecca Lindenberg

Instructor, Poetry [email protected]

  • Author of two poetry collections, including the winner of the 2015 Utah Book Award.
  • Awarded an Amy Lowell Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Grant, a Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown Fellowship, and a residency grant from the MacDowell Arts Colony.
  • Her poetry, lyric essays, and criticism appear in The Believer, Poetry, McSweeney’s Quarterly, American Poetry Review, Conjunctions, and Iowa Review.

Rebecca McClanahan

Instructor, Poetry and Nonfiction [email protected]

  • Author of eleven books, most recently “In the Key of New York City: A Memoir in Essays” and a revised edition of “Word Painting: The Fine Art of Writing Descriptively,” which has sold nearly 50,000 copies.
  • Her work appears in Best American Essays, Best American Poetry, Kenyon Review, Georgia Review, and in anthologies published by Doubleday, Norton, and Penguin.
  • Recipient of two Pushcart Prizes, the Glasgow Award in nonfiction, and four fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council.

James McKean

Instructor, Poetry and Nonfiction [email protected]

  • Author of three books of poems and two books of essays.
  • His poetry and nonfiction appear in Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, The Best American Sports Writing, and Poetry Northwest, and have been featured in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry.

Orlando Menes

Instructor, Poetry [email protected]

  • Author of five poetry collections.
  • His poems appear in Poetry, Ploughshares, Harvard Review, The Antioch Review, Hudson Review, Shenandoah, Callaloo, and The Southern Review.
  • Editor of “Renaming Ecstasy: Latino Writings on the Sacred.”
  • Has published translations of poetry in Spanish, including My Heart Flooded with Water: Selected Poems by Alfonsina Storni.

Daniel Mueller

Instructor, Fiction [email protected]

  • Author of three short story collections.
  • His work appears in The Missouri Review, The Iowa Review, Story Quarterly, Story, The Mississippi Review, Henfield Prize Stories, and Playboy.
  • He is the director of the Creative Writing program at the University of New Mexico.

Brighde Mullins

Instructor, Writing for Stage & Screen [email protected]

  • Her plays have been developed and produced in New York, Dallas, Salt Lake City, London, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
  • Recipient of an NEA Fellowship in Playwriting, a Whiting Foundation Award, a United States Artists Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
  • She has held residencies at Lincoln Center, New York Stage and Film, MacDowell, and Yaddo. She is a Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop and has been a Core Member of the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis.
  • Has taught at Harvard, Brown, and the University of Southern California.

Instructor, Fiction [email protected]

  • Author of three novels, including “The Perfect Man,” which won The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Best Book of Europe and South Asia.  His work has been translated into eight languages. 
  • Recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a PEN Beyond Margins Award. 
  • Has been a writer-in-residence at the University of Missouri, Western Michigan, and Northwestern University.

Jenny Offill

Instructor, Fiction [email protected]

  • Author of three novels, including “The Department of Speculation,” named one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by the New York Times, and shortlisted for the Pen/Faulkner Award and the L.A. Times Fiction Award.
  • Co-editor of two anthologies: “The Friend Who Got Away” and “Money Changes Everything.”

David Payne

Instructor, Fiction [email protected]

  • NY Times Notable author of five novels and a memoir.
  • His work appears in The New York Times, Libération, The Washington Post, and The Oxford American.
  • Has taught at Bennington, Duke, and Hollins.

Susan Perabo

Instructor, Fiction [email protected]

  • Author of two story collections and two novels.
  • Her fiction appears in Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize Stories, New Stories from the South, One Story, The Iowa Review, The Missouri Review, and The Sun.
  • She is a Writer in Residence and professor of English at Dickinson College.

Instructor, Nonfiction and Poetry [email protected]

  • Author of multiple books of poetry, nonfiction, and fiction, two of which won the Library of Virginia Book of the Year Award.
  • He is a professor of English at William and Mary College in Virginia.

Robert Polito

Instructor, Poetry and Nonfiction [email protected]

  • Author of numerous books of poetry and nonfiction, including “Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson,” which received the National Book Critics Circle Award.
  • Editor of the Library of America volumes “Crime Novels: Noir of the 1930s & 1940s” and “Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s,” as well as “The Selected Poems of Kenneth Fearing.”
  • His poems and essays appear in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Best American Poetry, Beast American Essays, and Best American Film Writing.
  • Recently served as President of the Poetry Foundation.

Patricia Powell

Instructor, Fiction [email protected]

  • Author of three novels. 
  • The recipient of a PEN New England Discovery Award and a Lila-Wallace Readers Digest Writer’s Award.
  • Has taught at Harvard University, U-Mass, MIT, and Mills College.

Steven Rinehart

Instructor, Fiction [email protected]

  • Author of a story collection and a novel.
  • The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the James Michener Center, and the Virginia Center for the Arts.
  • Writes and ghostwrites for a former US President, Fortune 100 CEOs, entrepreneurs, and social activists.
  • He teaches at the Gallatin School of NYU.

Instructor, Fiction [email protected]

  • Author of 12 books of fiction.
  • A two-time National Book Award Finalist, and an Edgar Award Nominee.

Elissa Schappell

Instructor, Fiction [email protected]

  • Author of two books of fiction, including “Use Me,” a runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway Award, a New York Times “Notable Book” and a Los Angeles Times “Best Book of the Year.”
  • Co-editor of two essay anthologies: “Money Changes Everything” and “The Friend Who Got Away”
  • Her fiction and nonfiction appear in One Story, McSweeney’s, BOMB, Interview, the KGB Bar Reader, The Paris Review, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Elle, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Real Simple.
  • She has taught at NYU, Texas State, and Columbia University.

Dana Spiotta

Instructor, Fiction [email protected]

  • Author of five novels, which have won the St. Francis College Literary Prize and have been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award.
  • Recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters John Updike Prize in Literature.
  • She also teaches at Syracuse University.

Maxine Swann

Instructor, Fiction [email protected]

  • Author of three books of fiction.
  • Awarded an O. Henry Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and her work has been included in The Best American Short Stories of 1998 and 2006.

Héctor Tobar

Instructor, Fiction and Nonfiction [email protected]

  • Author of five books of fiction and nonfiction, published in ten languages, including the New York Times bestseller “Deep Down Dark,” which was adapted into a feature film.
  • Work appears in Best American Short Stories, L.A. Noir, The New Yorker, and The Los Angeles Times, and he is currently a contributing writer for the New York Times opinion pages.
  • He is an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine.

Ashley Warlick

Instructor, Fiction [email protected]

  • Author of four novels.
  • Recipient of an NEA Fellowship and the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship.
  • Her work appears in The Oxford American, McSweeney’s, Redbook, and Garden and Gun.
  • She is a partner at M. Judson, Booksellers and Storytellers in Greenville, SC.

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Bennington College’s Usdan Gallery Presents Nationally Touring Exhibit About Former Faculty Milford Graves

Milford Graves Collage Excerpt

Music performances and documentary screening create a vibrant program of Milford Graves events.

Milford Graves: A Mind-Body Deal, a nationally traveling exhibition, gathers the multifaceted work of Milford Graves (1941-2021) to explore the practices and predilections of an extraordinary jazz innovator, tireless polymath, and legendary Bennington College professor.

Milford Graves: A Mind-Body Deal Exhibition at Usdan Gallery

The exhibition at Usdan Gallery at Bennington College opens Tuesday, February 27 with a celebratory reception from 6:00-8:00 pm featuring a pop-up performance by Bennington College music faculty Senem Pirler and Michael Wimberly, music faculty emeritus Bruce Williamson, and music instructor Michael Bisio. The exhibition is on view through April 27; Usdan Gallery is open to the public Tuesday-Saturday, 1:00-5:00 pm and by appointment. For more information, visit the Usdan Gallery website .

Milford Graves playing the drums

Milford was truly extraordinary. He made an indelible mark on this institution as well as on the worlds of jazz, improvisation, medicine, and wellness. He exemplified the far reaches of intellect and creativity and everything those explorations can yield in terms of personal joy and useful discovery.  Anne Thompson, Usdan Gallery Director and Curator

This multiform exhibition brings to life the range of Graves’s activities in sections loosely categorized around science, music, and healing. Together, they demonstrate how these pursuits mutually informed one another, manifested in exhibition objects including hand-painted album covers, idiosyncratic drum sets, multimedia sculptures, photographs, costumes, archival recordings, ephemera, and documentation of his house and garden.

After incarnations in Philadelphia, New York, and Los Angeles, A Mind-Body Deal has particular historic resonance in the Bennington College context, as it foregrounds Graves’s significance as a teacher and mentor. An event series centering music, movement, healing, and film will further explore and celebrate his legacy. 

Events Celebrating Milford Graves

Additional events that celebrate Graves and his influence are open to the public and include:

  • Jazz pianist Jason Moran will give a masterclass in improvisation that combines lecture and demonstration while working with an ensemble of Bennington music students. 
  • Pianist, composer, and artist Jason Moran presents a solo piano dedication to the life and work of Milford Graves, with whom Moran played. Moran is the Artistic Director for Jazz at The Kennedy Center. He has released eighteen solo recordings with Blue Note Records and Yes Records. His duet recording with percussionist/scientist Milford Graves was released in 2021. He curated the permanent exhibition Here to Stay for the newly opened Louis Armstrong Center in Queens, New York, and has co-curated the exhibition I’ve Seen the Wall: Louis Armstrong on Tour in the GDR 1965 at Das Minsk Kunsthaus in Potsdam, Germany. In 2022, Moran was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was recently awarded the 2023 German Jazz Prize for Pianist of the Year. His latest recording, From the Dancehall to the Battlefield , is devoted to the music of World War I jazz pioneer and organizer James Reese Europe. 
  • William Parker is a bassist, improviser, composer, writer, and educator from New York City. He has recorded more than 150 albums, published six books, and taught and mentored hundreds of young musicians and artists.  He has been called “one of the most inventive bassists/leaders since [Charles] Mingus,” and “the creative heir to Jimmy Garrison and Paul Chambers...directly influenced by sixties avant-gardists like Sirone, Henry Grimes and Alan Silva.” The Village Voice called him, “the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time” and Time Out New York named him one of the “50 Greatest New York Musicians of All Time.” 
  • Cooper-Moore is a composer-improviser, instrumentalist, designer and builder of musical instruments, and music educator living and working in New York City. His instruments have been exhibited at the Thread Waxing Gallery, NYC, and The Goddard Riverside Community Center, NYC.
  • This award-winning documentary directed by Jake Maginsky ’09 is the first feature-length portrait of renowned percussionist Milford Graves, exploring his kaleidoscopic creativity and relentless curiosity. Audience members will have an opportunity to discuss the film with the director following the screening.  
It is such a pleasure to share the work and vision of my friend and mentor Milford and to connect this community to work inspired by him. I hope that these events will help people understand how lucky we all are to have had Milford with us as a member of our faculty and that the curriculum and explorations in improvisation planned for the campus community will inspire all of us to live with Milford's intellectual and creative vigor.  Michael Wimberly, faculty member in Music

About Graves

A revelatory force in music starting in the mid-1960s, Graves liberated the role of the drummer—moving drums from the background to contribute equally with other instruments—and gave rise to the Free Jazz movement. Yet his life’s work encompassed medicine, botany, activism, and martial arts, elements that intertwined to inform his music and expansive consideration of healing and the mind-body relationship. 

An autodidact, lifelong experimenter, and consummate improviser, Graves saw rhythm in all the layers of existence, from subatomic particles to heartbeats to the movement of planets. He is credited as one of the discoverers of the “variable heart rate,” a breakthrough that fed his drumming and led to advancements in cardiology. His accolades range from a Doris Duke Impact Award to a Guggenheim Fellowship to a patent for a device that prepares non-embryonic stem cells. 

Fascinated by martial arts, he created his own form, called “Yara,” by studying the movements of the praying mantis. His house in Jamaica, Queens—owned by his grandparents, and where his family still lives—formed the center of his work and the expression of his ideas. And while he taught music and improvisation to Bennington students for 39 years, he also taught gardening, acupuncture, and other wellness practices to his Queens neighbors. 

A Mind-Body Deal is curated by Mark Christman, executive artistic director of Ars Nova Workshop in Philadelphia with curatorial research from Jake Meginsky ’09 and organization for Bennington by Thompson. The exhibition debuted in Fall 2020 at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. A version of the exhibition, expanded with the inclusion of Danielle Jackson as curator, appeared under the title Milford Graves: Fundamental Frequency , at Artists Space in New York before traveling to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

About Usdan Gallery 

The gallery presents exhibitions of contemporary artists and ideas, engaging and advancing the College’s history of innovation within the arts and beyond. The 4,000-square-foot space is located on the main level of the Helen Frankenthaler ’49 Visual Arts Center in VAPA. Anne Thompson is the Director and Curator. For more information, visit the  Usdan Gallery website .

About Bennington College

Located in picturesque Southwestern Vermont, Bennington College holds a distinguished place among American colleges and universities. It was the first to include the visual and performing arts in a liberal arts education. It is the only college to require that its students spend a term—every year—at work in the world. 

Rooted in an abiding faith in the talent, imagination, and responsibility of the individual, Bennington invites students to pursue and shape their own intellectual inquiries, and in doing so to discover the profound interconnection of things. Learn more at bennington.edu .

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Launch for Emily Raboteau’s new book, ‘Lessons for Survival’

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bennington college creative writing mfa

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November 1: Spotlight: Writers on Iran featuring Salar Abdoh

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Creative Writing MFA Alumni Spotlight: Francisco Aragón ('03)

Published: February 20, 2024

Author: Paul Cunningham

Francisco Aragon

"I was affiliated with [University of Notre Dame], but I wasn't teaching; I was a full-time arts administrator. I was able to cultivate more meaningful and substantive initiatives that led to a more national footprint. That was when I [and Letras Latinas] began to collaborate with the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Poetry Society of America. I would be remiss if I didn't mention how crucial Letras Latinas' ties are with Notre Dame's Creative Writing program. We typically tap MFA students to introduce our visiting poets as well as conduct our oral history video interviews."   — Francisco Aragón, Poets & Writers

Francisco Aragon AWP

"Letras Latinas' mission is to amplify and support our storytellers-poets, playwrights, fiction writers, essayists. As long as our community is producing storytellers, and as long as we live in an environment in which communities are battling being erased—think about the political climate we're currently in in the U.S., with the attempted banning of library books by LGBTQ and Black voices—I don't envision the scenario where it's 'mission accomplished'" — Francisco Aragón, Poets & Writers

bennington college creative writing mfa

Russia establishes special site to fabricate fuel for China’s CFR-600

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A special production site to fabricate fuel for China’s CFR-600 fast reactor under construction has been established at Russia’s Mashinostroitelny Zavod (MSZ - Machine-Building Plant) in Elektrostal (Moscow region), part of Rosatom’s TVEL Fuel Company. 

As part of the project, MSZ had upgraded existing facilities fo the production of fuel for fast reactors, TVEL said on 3 March. Unique equipment has been created and installed, and dummy CFR-600 fuel assemblies have already been manufactured for testing.

The new production site was set up to service an export contract between TVEL and the Chinese company CNLY (part of China National Nuclear Corporation - CNNC) for the supply of uranium fuel for CFR-600 reactors. Construction of the first CFR-600 unit started in Xiapu County, in China's Fujian province in late 2017 followed by the second unit in December 2020. The contract is for the start-up fuel load, as well as refuelling for the first seven years. The start of deliveries is scheduled for 2023.

“The Russian nuclear industry has a unique 40 years of experience in operating fast reactors, as well as in the production of fuel for such facilities,” said TVEL President Natalya Nikipelova. “The Fuel Division of Rosatom is fulfilling its obligations within the framework of Russian-Chinese cooperation in the development of fast reactor technologies. These are unique projects when foreign design fuel is produced in Russia. Since 2010, the first Chinese fast neutron reactor CEFR has been operating on fuel manufactured at the Machine-Building Plant, and for the supply of CFR-600 fuel, a team of specialists from MSZ and TVEL has successfully completed a complex high-tech project to modernise production,” she explained.

A special feature of the new section is its versatility: this equipment will be used to produce fuel intended for both the Chinese CFR-600 and CEFR reactors and the Russian BN-600 reactor of the Beloyarsk NPP. In the near future, the production of standard products for the BN-600 will begin.

The contract for the supply of fuel for the CFR-600 was signed in December 2018 as part of a governmental agreement between Russia and China on cooperation in the construction and operation of a demonstration fast neutron reactor in China. This is part of a wider comprehensive programme of cooperation in the nuclear energy sector over the coming decades. This includes serial construction of the latest Russian NPP power units with generation 3+ VVER-1200 reactors at two sites in China (Tianwan and Xudabao NPPs). A package of intergovernmental documents and framework contracts for these projects was signed in 2018 during a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

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