mfa creative writing portland oregon

CRWR Creative Writing Program

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About the MFA Program

You’ll hear our program is not for the faint of heart. It isn’t—and we’re proud of that. We hope to offer our students the rigorous apprenticeship we undertook with our own teachers.

Established in the 1960s by James B. Hall, the UO’s Creative Writing Program is one of the oldest in the country. Hall originally designed the Program so the writing workshop would be complemented with graduate courses in literature and other artistic disciplines. Under the direction of Ralph Salisbury and John Haislip, the Program featured more individual attention in conference hours and moved away from complementary classes in other fields. Upon his arrival in 1989, then-Director Garrett Hongo redesigned the Program along its current studio lines.

Graduates include PEN-Hemingway Award winner Chang-rae Lee, Yale Younger Poet winner Brigit Pegeen Kelly, National Poetry Prize winner Eugene Gloria, screenwriter Kenny Moore, and Bilingual Review Poetry Prize winner Andrés Montoya. Writers such as Robert Wrigley, Elizabeth McCracken, Reetika Vazirani, David Mura, Li-young Lee, James Houston, and Lynn Freed have served as visiting faculty.

For more information, see faculty interviews with Robin Tung (Affording the MFA):

• Garrett Hongo  (poetry)

Creative Writing MFA Student Handbook 2023-2024:

• 2023 – 2024 CRWR Handbook final tm

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Graduate Program

Explore Our Graduate Program

Since the 1960s, the University of Oregon Creative Writing MFA program has trained award-winning literary artists whose work has been published in widely respected publications around the globe. In our two-year residency program, MFA students concentrate in either poetry or fiction. Our coursework emphasizes the workshop, integrating concentrated time for writing with craft seminars and individualized reading tutorials.

Graduate Admissions

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

Within our two-year residency program, MFA students concentrate in either poetry or fiction. Our coursework emphasizes the workshop, integrating concentrated time for writing with craft seminars and individualized reading tutorials.

MFA Requirements

Join Our Community of Writers

“With talented students and generous faculty, the University of Oregon MFA helped me find the community of writers who journey alongside me, supporting and challenging me, to this day.”

—Morgan Thomas, MFA in fiction, '16

Fund Your Graduate Studies

Explore opportunities for funding your graduate studies in the Creative Writing program.

Funding and Research Support

Prepare for the Professional World

An MFA in creative writing opens the door to exciting job possibilities. Discover resources to help you earn your degree and prepare for your chosen career path.

Career and Professional Development

Resources for the Graduate Community

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Master of Fine Arts in Writing Admissions

The Master of Fine Arts in Writing program welcomes students who have demonstrated talent, commitment to the writing process, an openness to critique, and a dedication to individual voice and vision.

Qualified applicants should hold an undergraduate degree or be close to completing one at the time of application. Admission is based primarily on the quality and promise exhibited in the application manuscript and personal essay. Applicants should address their ability to participate productively and supportively in a writing community and to sustain commitment through extended independent work periods during the guided study.

March 1, 2024, is the priority due date for the Fall 2024 semester that will begin with an in-person  residency from June 20-30, 2024 on the Pacific University campus in Forest Grove, Oregon. We will accept applications until May 15, as space allows.

Pacific University Master of Fine Arts in Writing Program 503-352-1531 | [email protected]

530 NW 12th Ave., Portland, OR 97209 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday - Friday

Apply now for the Pacific University Master of Fine Arts in Writing program.

We are pleased to welcome international students to the Master of Fine Arts in Writing program where we value diverse ideas, cultures and aesthetics.

Explore MFA in Writing tuition and financial aid.

How to Become a Writer in Oregon with a BFA, MFA or Similar Creative Writing Degree

Created by CreativeWritingEDU.org Contributor

The influence Oregon writers have had on the national literary scene and popular culture more broadly is probably more significant than a lot of people realize. Generation-defining writers continue to call the state home. Greats like Chuck Palahniuk, Matt Groening, and Ursula Le Guin all have strong ties to Oregon. And those ties bind us all.

There’s a special connection between the people and places of Oregon and the writers, novelists, and other creatives that spray the walls with what the rest of us here are thinking but lack the courage and deft to express.

Palahniuk is an alumnus of the University of Oregon. Groening got involved with writing when he went to college just north of here at Evergreen State in Olympia. Le Guin taught writing at the University of Oregon. Today, the names Le Guin, Palahniuk, and even Groening show up in the syllabi of writing classes at the very same universities that once hosted them as students and faculty.

Literary Savagery and Social Satire are Equally At Home in Oregon

Today Palahniuk offers writing tips online, notably through a compilation entitled, “36 Writing Essays by Chuck Palahniuk.” His writing advice covers everything from writing workshops to character development and dialogue.

Historians have begun exploring whether Portland-native Matt Groening’s The Simpsons , the most popular animated show in the history of television, has been more influential on English language idioms than Shakespeare or the Bible. Whatever the verdict, there’s no doubt that Groening’s impact on adult animated scriptwriting is legendary and as far-reaching as it gets.

The godmother of modern American science fiction and fantasy called Portland home for decades, right up to her passing in 2018. She was the author of over 20 novels and 100 short stories, and winner of dozens of awards including the National Book Awards’ Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Stephen King and N.K. Jemisin both credit her as a personal influence. As Neil Gaiman put it:

“Her essays on writing changed me as a young writer, made me see the craft more seriously and made me try always to remember the joy in it.” ~ Neil Gaiman on Ursula Le Guin

If you’re here with us, right now on this page, then you’re thinking about an undergraduate or graduate degree in English or creative writing and how it could support your writing career . We’re here with you right here right now to tell you all about it.

Oregon’s Creative Writing Classes, Courses, and Workshops Can Prepare You for a Creative Writing Degree

Whereas creative inspiration can be more difficult to induce, practice and experience are two traits that successful writers share and control.

Writing groups are one such way of gaining practice and experience in the literary world. Chuck Palahniuk has been in writing groups throughout his writing career and to this day is active in sharing and receiving feedback from fellow authors.

Fortunately, there’s no shortage of these opportunities in Portland.

Based out of Portland, the Oregon Writers Colony welcomes all writers, especially the fearless and driven. Regular meetings are held in-person and virtually. Other events include coastal writing retreats, workshops, author presentations, and educational opportunities. This group also is strongly committed to a level playing field for all writers and aspiring writers.

Willamette Writers has community chapters across the state including in Vancouver, Eugene, Corvallis, Portland, and Salem. Craft, community, and career development are all at the forefront of this organization, which welcomes writers at all stages and in all genres. In addition to regular meetings it also sponsors a writing contest, offers tailored outreach to young writers, puts on workshops, and hosts an annual conference. Its Timberline Review literary journal showcases emerging talent.

Each month the Central Oregon Writers Guild convenes for small group discussions, guest speakers, panels, and more. Meetings are often held at the Bend downtown library with an option to attend remotely. The guild sponsors workshops several times a year that attract professional writers who speak about their craft. Critique groups are another important part of COWG where authors can gain valuable feedback from each other.

When it comes to shopping your work around to a publisher, you’re also in luck. Oregon, and especially Portland, has a ton of publishers who are always on the lookout for new material. Some of the state’s publishing houses include:

• Hawthorne Books, based in Portland, focusing on publishing literary fiction and non-fiction
• Poetry, fiction, and experimental art are the fortés of YesYes Books, headquartered in Portland
• Unsolicited Press in Portland publishes chapbooks, memoirs, essays, novels, short stories, poetry, creative nonfiction, and more
• If you write amazing poetry or fiction then check out Not a Pipe Publishing based in Independence outside of Salem

Local literary journals, writing groups, and open mic nights can greatly help your career as a writer. But you may find that eventually you get to a point where progress seems to slow.

Now it’s time to think about an academic program in writing and English.

Writing Colleges in Oregon Offering Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Creative Writing Provide a Path to Becoming a Writer

Creative writing professors in Oregon have experience with both the artistic and business side of writing. They’re professionals who know how to outline an enticing plot and how to market their book to a publisher. They’re people like Ursula Le Guin.

Everybody Has a Favorite from McMinnville-native Beverly Cleary

The names on Oregon’s list of literary masters can be intimidating, but it’s important to realize that they all started out just like you: someone who liked to write, who opted to take a freshman English class and go from there.

Pursuing a creative writing degree is what it takes to move past being a hobby writer to becoming something more. If you’re aspiring undergrad, It’s the process of earning a BA or BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) in creative writing that builds the skill and character you’re after. And for eager grad students interested in an MA or the lauded MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in creative writing, that process holds the real possibility of letting you make a career out of this whole writing thing.

Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) and Other Bachelor’s Degrees in Creative Writing in Oregon

Eastern oregon university.

COLLEGE OF ARTS, HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

Accreditation:  NWCCU

Degree: Bachelor – BA, BS

Public School

• English-Writing

George Fox University

Degree: Bachelor – BA

Private School

• English-Writing concentration

Linfield University-McMinnville Campus

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

• Creative Writing

Oregon State University

COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS

Pacific University

Portland State University

COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

Degree: Bachelor – BFA

Southern Oregon University

Master of Fine Arts (MFA) and Other Master’s Degrees in Creative Writing in Oregon

COLLEGE OF ARTS, HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL  SCIENCES

Accreditation: NWCCU

Degree:  Master – MFA

• Creative and Environmental Writing

University of Oregon

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Creative Writing (MFA)

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The Creative Writing Program at the University of Oregon is a two-year residency in which Master of Fine Arts (MFA) students concentrate in either poetry or fiction. The Program emphasizes the workshop, integrating concentrated time for writing with craft seminars and individualized reading tutorials.

You’ll hear our program is not for the faint of heart. It isn’t—and we’re proud of that. We hope to offer our students the rigorous apprenticeship we undertook with our own teachers.

Program Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this program, students will be able to:

• Proficiency in close reading. We expect our MFA candidates to read widely and meticulously while pursuing their studies. Our aim is for each student to encounter a variety of historical periods, aesthetic styles, and critical approaches. Any student graduating from our program should be capable of examining a single text for its many formal conventions and the style or styles with which it is conversant.
• Development of vocabularies for assessing literature, with an emphasis on craft. Our graduate students are expected to acquire the clear and sophisticated language that enables them to speak at length about a range of craft considerations for any single piece of literature. This applies to the published works they encounter in our craft seminars, but it is equally essential in the Creative Writing Workshop, when they comprehensively critique the works of their peers.
• Application of the formal elements of craft in either genre. We expect our apprentice poets and fiction writers to be able to identify, assess, and deploy many of the formal conventions they encounter in the Creative Writing workshop and craft seminar. We believe that the practice of exploring formal challenges is necessary for the MFA student in order to build on his or her own resources as an artist. We especially believe that a knowledge of such conventions is a responsibility of any writer in our MFA program.
• Familiarity with fundamental concepts, forms, modes, and traditions in literary fiction and/or poetry. At the graduate level, this outcome is particularly geared toward and measured by the MFA exam that all of our graduating students take at the end of their second year. Our expectation is that our students will demonstrate a command of the texts they have encountered while earning their degrees, along with the multitude of aesthetic concepts, compositional possibilities, and artistic concerns to which they have been exposed.

NOTE: The list of outcomes above builds on the basic expectations we also hold for  our undergraduate students in the Creative Writing Program. Because our pedagogical  goals are continuously fundamental in nature, both at the undergraduate and graduate  level of study, we view our curriculum and the varietal redundancies below as a  cumulative process, one through which our poets and fiction writers build a portfolio of  knowledge whose components are interactive. This is to say we view historical periods,  critical modalities, and aesthetic movements to be in constant conversation with one  another. 

Additionally, what distinguishes the outcomes below from their undergraduate  counterparts is that we expect all our MFA candidates to wear two hats simultaneously:  that of the apprentice writer and that of the apprentice teacher, given that all of the  people enrolled in our program teach Creative Writing classes in their first year and  Composition in their second. The following outcomes should be considered very much  in this context, in that our graduate students are expected to both pursue these goals as  scholars then contemplate the many ways these skills translate to their own pedagogical  experience.

The entirety of our curriculum is structured with the expectation that we enable our  MFA graduates to continue to grow intellectually and develop as writers and masters of  the craft once they have received their degrees, long after they have left the University  of Oregon.

Master of Fine Arts Degree Requirements

The candidate must complete the graduate work during six consecutive terms in residence at the university. The candidate must pass a written examination on a reading list of works of fiction or poetry.

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Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

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Kaitlyn von behren.

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Kaitlyn Von Behren is a first-year poet from Wisconsin. She can't stop writing about mythology, healing, and being a girl. You can find her writing in publications such as The Mochila Review , Redivider , and Red Cedar Review , among others. 

Nicolette Ratz

Lila cutter.jpg.

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Pronouns: He/Him/His

Tor Strand is a poet who promises to write an essay one of these days. He is also trying his hand at the making of abstract art through stained glass. Tor is a recipient of the Mari Sandoz emerging writer award, a Fishtrap fellowship, and the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency. Samples of his work can be found or forthcoming in Inverted Syntax, The Santa Ana River Review, and Palette Poetry.

Lila Cutter

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Lila Cutter is a first-year MFA candidate studying Poetry, with a background in equitable arts education work. Though originally from Iowa, she spent the past five years in California’s Bay Area, working for the writing nonprofit 826 Valencia as an educator and Internship Manager. Lila studied literature and public action at Bennington College and earned her B.A. from University of Iowa in Creative Writing. Within her poetry, Lila is interested in refracting perceptions of femininity.

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Pronouns: he/him/his

Sam Olson was raised in Portland, OR. He returns to the Oregon after nearly a decade spent between Montana and Washington, where he facilitated poetry workshops, taught environmental science, and patrolled wilderness trails. In part, his poetry seeks to respond to Elizabeth Woody’s demand that "we must all the power of our minds and hearts to bring the salmon back.".

 Hannah Ariesen

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Pronouns: she/they

Hannah Ariesen is a first-year poetry MFA candidate from Las Vegas, Nevada. She most recently worked as a barista and part-time substitute teacher. They enjoy writing about and exploring the relationship between the self, the spirit, and the natural world. When not writing, you can find her walking aimlessly in parks and likely saying hello to trees.

Monique Lanier

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Monique originally comes from Salt Lake City, UT. She spent the last couple years in Cambridge, MA where she graduated with a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. In her poetry you will find her wrestling with theodicy, the apocalypse, motherhood, gender, and, of course, the Anthropocene and Patriarchy. To lighten things up, she explores longing, elemental distance, and the erotic/sensuality of, in, and lost, with the Beloved.

Selene Ross

Selene ross.jpg.

Selene Ross loves words, stories, and sounds. She is an audio producer, fiction writer and musician from Berkeley, California, or more specifically, El Sobrante–a semi-rural "census designated place" just east of Richmond. Her stories have been featured on  The Kitchen Sisters , KALW, NPR, KCRW and independent podcasts. Before moving to Corvallis, she lived in Oakland and was a senior audio producer at Dipsea, where she directed voice actors, oversaw sound-design and led the development of a new genre of sleep audio. Her short stories often explore themes of power and trust and the raptures and ruptures thereof, especially as experienced by teenage girls. She has a B.A. in Environmental Studies & Sociology from UC Santa Barbara and a love of all things weird and wonderful. Learn more at  selross.com . 

Aviva Wei Xue

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Aviva Wei Xue is a first-year fiction MFA candidate from mainland China. Having published a book and several articles in literary and feminist studies with Bloomsbury, Routledge,  International Journal of Women’s Studies  and  Comparative Literature in China , she is now working on her short stories and a novel, delving into counter-narratives and metafictional writing. She describes herself as nimble, hard-working and sensitive, daring like a leaping cat experimenting new things, and meticulous like Australian waxflowers, tiny yet blossom seriously. 

Haley Kennedy

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Haley is a computational linguist with a BA in Linguistics and an MSc in Speech and Language Processing. Her recent fiction explores our relationships with language, housing, wildlife, and water. She wants to be a xenolinguist when she grows up.

Veronica Suchodolski

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Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

Veronica Suchodolski found her way to Corvallis via Western Mass, New York City, and Seattle. She holds a BA from Barnard College and worked professionally as a social media manager. In fiction, she’s interested in women, social class, and expectation — “how we thought it would be, and how it is.” Loves farmers markets, hates driving, friendly with other dogs.

Sukayna Davanzo

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Sukayna is a fiction MFA candidate, originally from Dearborn, Michigan. She previously studied literature at Wayne State University, where she earned a BA and MA in English with a concentration in Middle Eastern representation/Orientalism in modern and post-modern media. In her fiction writing, Sukayna is interested in exploring the intergenerational relationships and tensions between immigrant women. When she isn’t writing, Sukayna can be found taking long walks or watching The Great British Bake Off on repeat.

Elliot Laurence

Pronouns: He/They

Elliot 'Icarus' Laurence is a writer from St. Louis, Missouri. He drove to Oregon with his sister, his dog, and his cat to write about underrepresented groups in a style he calls 'poverty fiction'. As a transgender Air Force veteran and activist for the LGBTQ+ community, Laurence is a recipient of the Young Alumni Award from Webster University, where he earned his B.A. in English, minor in Creative Writing, and certificate in Digital Media. Laurence enjoys hiking when they have time; Laurence likes having time. 

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Grace Hime is a fiction candidate from Wisconsin, who enjoys visual storytelling as much as writing. She is constantly trying to combine the two, creating collages and scrapbooks to accompany her work, which has been described as "camp with an indelible sincerity", "Americana with classical appeals". Grace likes the term "kitschy" and would invite you to the poker table. The buy-in is two Milk-Bones and a cigar.

Miranda Kross

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Miranda hails from Connecticut and identifies as an east coast cynic. She has a B.A. in English with a double minor in Women's and Gender Studies and Philosophy from Southern Connecticut State University. Her fiction deals primarily with grief monsters, garbage, bodily yuckiness, and being a child. "Hi, Mom and Dad." 

Creative Nonfiction

Emily podwoiski, emily_podwoiski.jpg.

Emily Podwoiski practices écriture féminine by placing women at the heart of her narratives. Born and raised in Metro Detroit, Emily holds her BA in English from University of Michigan-Dearborn and her MA in English from Wayne State University. She is currently working on a collection of personal essays about love, loss, and the literary roots of Valentine’s Day. In her essays, she obsesses over Old Hollywood Bombshells with a capital B, Emily Dickinson’s love letters, seashell jewelry, Nicolas Cage in Moonstruck (1987), and all things valentine.

Cooper Dart

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Cooper is an essayist from central Idaho who writes in, of, and from the rural American West. His obsessions include pickled red onions, Muji’s 0.38mm gel pens, and the light fixture aisle of Home Depot. His essays can be found in  DIAGRAM ,  The Adroit Journal , and  Washington Square Review , and he holds a B.A. in environmental studies and anthropology from Bowdoin College.

bec_echlers.jpg

Pronouns: they/them/theirs

Bec Ehlers was raised in Seattle and has recently returned to the PNW after years in New York devising accessible theatre and petting bodega cats. Their work centers on the body, through the experiences of living in a body and being a caregiver to the bodies of others. Their writing has been seen in print with Harmony Ink Press and Sinister Wisdom , and onstage with Macha Monkey Productions and Fantastic.Z Theatre

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RT Villa is from the middle of nowhere mid-Atlantic. Her essays and prosetry explore escapism, the mundane horrors of the everyday, and the tension points of relationships between beings and themselves, others, and the objects around them. Their work has been featured in  McSweeney's ,  The Believer,  and  Grub Street , among other publications. They are the nonfiction editor of the  VIDA Review , and currently call Oregon home, along with their chunky child of a cat. 

Isabelle Robinson

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Isabelle Robinson is a cross-genre writer and poet from South Florida, by way of a long line of New York Jews. In 2018, she returned to New York to study English and creative writing at Barnard College. In all forms, her work is moored in themes of grief and loss, violence, and memory. If she had to choose an emblem of her writing, it would be an empty chair. Her other literary and academic interests include playwriting, Shakespeare, gender and sexuality studies, and the photographic essay. She loves rooftops, Scream (1996), the almighty em-dash, and everything bagels — ideally toasted with veggie cream cheese.

Natalie Van Gelder

Natalie Van Gelder’s research, writing, and teaching interests center around the use of narrative medicine in the medical humanities and writing across the curriculum, specifically as it applies to neurodiversity, child development, and trauma studies. She holds an MA in creative writing from California State University Northridge and a BA in English and sociology from CSU Bakersfield. Natalie calls Agua Dulce, California home and is often inspired by her childhood and the natural landscapes of the Mojave Desert where she grew up. When not writing or teaching, Natalie can often be found looking down at the ground in search of insects or up at the stars wondering about extraterrestrials.

Ellison Rose

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Pronouns: They/She

Ellison is a nonfiction writer and poet born and raised in the rural South. They hold a B.A. in English: Creative Writing from the University of Memphis and spent 8 years in food service before making their way to the MFA. While here, they intend to use their work to explore rural cultural wealth, as well as the legacies of immigration, assimilation, and intergenerational trauma. When not hunched over a book or a notebook, you can find them scampering through the forest taking film photographs of water droplets, or else sprawled out on the carpet making flower crowns while listening to podcasts.

Katherine Cusumano

Katherine Cusumano is a writer and editor whose work focuses on gender, culture, and the outdoors. Her essays and reportage are interested in the ways people relate to the world around them: their environments and their obsessions. Before coming to Corvallis, she spent seven years working as a journalist in New York; her writing has appeared in the New York Times , Outside , W Magazine , and many others. She grew up in Bermuda, and she still thinks of it as home. Her full portfolio exists at  katherinecusumano.com .

Contact Info

Email: [email protected]

College of Liberal Arts Student Services 214 Bexell Hall 541-737-0561

Deans Office 200 Bexell Hall 541-737-4582

Corvallis, OR 97331-8600

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Portland State University

Oregon, united states.

The Portland State MFA is an intensive program of core workshops and seminars, emphasizing faculty mentorship throughout each student’s coursework and thesis completion. Flexible electives and mixed-genre seminars encourage writers to experiment in multiple genres and with hybrid forms.

PSU is located in the heart of Portland’s robust literary community. Internship opportunities have included Literary Arts, Tin House, Hawthorne Books, Fishtrap, The Accomplices, Oregon Humanities, Earthzine, and the Portland Tribune.

MFA students edit, produce, and market Portland Review (established 1956).

Our residential program is designed to serve both full-time and part-time students.

Contact Information

PO Box 751 Department of English Portland Oregon, United States 97207-0751 Phone: (503) 725-3521 Email: [email protected] Fax: (503) 725-3561 www.pdx.edu/creative-writing

Bachelor of Arts in English +

Undergraduate program director, bachelor of fine arts in creative writing +.

Portland State's BFA in Creative Writing provides students with the core skills and experience to enter the creative field or graduate study as writers, editors, teachers, and contributors to American letters. We feature a comprehensive and intensive program of classes in craft and technique, exposure to established writers, and opportunities for students to work closely with peers and professionals as they develop their creative and critical skills.

As part of a large and diverse university, students can choose from a wide array of department electives in creative writing, literature, publishing, composition, and technical writing -- and may further explore interdisciplinary connections through PSU’s College of the Arts, including courses in Architecture, Art, Art History, Film, Music, and Theatre.

Admission to the BFA is by application only and is highly selective. Please note that out-of-state first-year and transfer applicants in Western Undergraduate Exchange states applying early for fall admission can qualify for significantly reduced tuition.

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing +

Graduate program director.

Portland State University's MFA in Creative Writing is a residency program offering concentrations in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry. Located in the urban center of one of the most vibrantly literary cities in America, our program provides emerging writers with opportunities for creative and intellectual exploration while working closely with a faculty of distinguished writers.

The MFA program offers an intensive curriculum of workshops, craft seminars, and literature courses, with an emphasis on faculty mentorship. Consistent with PSU's mandate to serve our city's cultural and professional needs, engagement in Portland's vibrant local community of writers is central to our students' movement from academic to creative careers.

Prospective students must apply to the genre in which they wish to work. Core workshops are taken in the student's primary genre, but writing electives may allow students to explore other genres. Students of fiction and nonfiction may work in long or short form and the thesis may be a collection of short pieces or a full-length work. Many students come to our program with a background in English literature, writing, or journalism, but this is not required. The program can be completed in two years of full-time coursework; however, many students take additional courses or attend part-time, and they have a maximum of five years to complete the degree.

Master of Arts in English +

Paul collins.

Blood & Ivy. Edgar Allan Poe. Duel with the Devil. Murder of the Century. The Book of William. The Trouble with Tom. Not Even Wrong. Sixpence House. Banvard's Folly.

http://www.literarydetective.com/

Red Clocks. The Listeners. Farewell Navigator: Stories.

http://www.lenizumas.com

Lucinda. The Wasteland and Other Poems.

http://www.pdx.edu/mfa-creativewriting/mfa-faculty

Gabriel Urza

All That Followed.

http://www.gabrielurza.com/

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Creative writing (mfa).

Oregon State University has a long tradition of excellence in producing and teaching creative writing, going all the way back to the 1950s when the future distinguished novelist William Kittredge was a student here, and Bernard Malamud won a National Book Award while teaching in the English Department.

This is a distinguished past, but our present is even more remarkable.

Creative Writing has never been more vital or successful at OSU than it is right now, with a nationally competitive pool of applicants in fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction, full funding for all our students through GTA positions, with full tuition waiver, a vibrant Visiting Writers Series, and the new Stone Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement. For information on the high-residency program and its GTA fellowships, please contact the SWLF main office at [email protected] , call 541-737-3244, or visit their website.

A low-residency variant of the program is also available on the OSU-Cascades campus in Bend, Oregon.

  Creative Writing Website

  College of Liberal Arts

 Corvallis  OSU-Cascades

Primary Contact

Creative writing director, admissions requirements, required tests, english language requirements .

English language requirements for international applicants to this program are the same as the standard Graduate School requirements .

Additional Requirements

Please, before applying to this program, always refer to the application guide to confirm application requirements.

Application Process

Please review the graduate school application process and Apply Online .

Dates & Deadlines ?

Admissions deadline for corvallis students, admissions deadline for osu-cascades students, funding deadline for all applicants, concentrations , mais participation.

This program is not offered as a MAIS field of study.

AMP Participation ?

This program does not participate in the Accelerated Master's Platform (AMP)

Contact Info

Graduate School Heckart Lodge 2900 SW Jefferson Way Oregon State University Corvallis, OR 97331-1102

Phone: 541-737-4881 Fax: 541-737-3313

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Print Media

Request more information, program description.

The Master of Fine Arts in Print Media is a 60-credit, two-year program with a flexible structure that facilitates a unique studio practice that is both independent and collaborative.

Hone your skills in bookmaking, intaglio, lithography, screenprint, relief, risograph, photo and digital methods in professional facilities with the support of highly skilled faculty, mentors, and visiting artists.

The program offers a diverse range of traditional and emerging printmaking career pathways, integrating new techniques and media to expand our capacity as makers and collaborators in the fine art, academic, and commercial realms.

The Hallie Ford School of Graduate Studies

The Hallie Ford School of Graduate Studies includes seven graduate programs, allowing students to take electives across the college and explore other forms of research, making, and opportunities for collaboration.

Dual MA/MFA Option

The dual degree option allows MFA in Print Media Students to add an additional year to their studies and receive an MA in Critical Studies, affording more time for research, writing, and critical inquiry.

Learn about the program

MFA Thesis Videos

See All Program News

2023 National Portfolio Day Hosted at PNCA

Launch your future in art and design! Visit with counselors, admissions team members, and faculty from art and design schools for a portfolio review before applying to colleges or universities.

PNCA Graduate Symposium: Art + Social Consciousness

PNCA welcomes the Portland community to participate in this year’s Graduate Symposium with keynote speakers featuring: Nina Elder + vanessa german!

Amanda Ross-Ho and Catherine Taft, in conversation, hosted by PNCA & ILY2

In conjunction with Amanda Ross-Ho's solo exhibition, ICE TIME, currently on view at ILY2, the conversation will take place Monday, October 16, 2023 at 6:30pm in PNCA's Shipley Collins Mediatheque. The gallery will be open for special viewing hours just prior to the conversation, from 5:00-6:00pm on October 16 at 925 NW Flanders St, Portland.

The exhibition draws upon Ross-Ho's formative years as a competitive and theatrical figure skater in the 80s and 90s. Using this as a formal departure point and a tracking device, ICE TIME outlines parallels between the variable logics of arenas that present, record, accumulate, and erase gestures (rink, table top, studio, gallery). Skins, surfaces, and corporeal forms are explored for their response to pressurized and formulaic systems of training and inscription. The body is invoked as a tool, a material, a witness, and a unit of collateral damage. Few have a better perspective on Ross-Ho’s thinking about her practice than Taft, her longtime friend and colleague. In 2024, the Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art, Middelburg, Netherlands will publish a ten-year career monograph on Ross-Ho’s practice, featuring a key essay by Taft. Taft and Ross-Ho will address the forms and figures embedded in ICE TIME within the larger context of her practice, the entangled mediums of photography and sculpture, experimental archives, and the idiosyncratic disciplines of organized artistic sports–of which both have personal experience. Amanda Ross-Ho’s method synthesizes autobiography and anthropology, sentimentality and clinical forensics. She considers memory and its reproduction through a highly specific material archive. The formal results are evocative sculptures, abstract translations of these physical artifacts. Ross-Ho has written about producing “alternative archives of anomalous memory.” Her work has been exhibited widely, in the Whitney Biennial, at the Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, The Walker Art Center, the Bonner Kunstverein, and the Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art. Catherine Taft is deputy director and curator at LAXART. Previously, she was associate curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where she co-organized the inaugural show of its new building, “America is Hard to See” (2015) and curatorial associate in the department of architecture and contemporary art at the Getty Research Institute where she worked on the exhibitions and publications, “Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950–1970” (2011) and "California Video" (2008). Her writing appears regularly in publications like Artforum, Cura, and Mousse, and she has contributed to monographs on artists including Matthew Barney, Carroll Dunham, Elliot Hundley, Yayoi Kusama, and Sterling Ruby. Taft is currently working on a survey of ecofeminist art (Fall 2024) for which she was awarded an Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Research Fellowship. She is a 2021 Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellow and serves as visiting faculty at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. ICE TIME, Amanda Ross-Ho's solo exhibition, is  on view at ILY2  through October 28th. View the full  PNCA Lecture Series  and learn more about PNCA's  MFA in Visual Studies  on PNCA's website.

This event will be in-person in  PNCA's Shipley-Collins Mediatheque  and livestreamed on  PNCA Live Video

Free + Open to the Public

Pacific Northwest College of Art, 511 NW Broadway, Portland OR

MFA Open Studios: November 2nd + 18th

The Hallie Ford School of Graduate Studies welcomes the Portland community to see what our MFA students have been making!

October First Thursday at PNCA + North Park Blocks - 10/05/23

The Center for Contemporary Art & Culture at Pacific Northwest College of Art is excited to invite the public to the October First Thursday Art Walk in the North Park Blocks for a series of exhibition openings, performances, live music, drop-in activities and refreshments!

Life In The Program

Graduate Lecture Series: Deborah Freedman

October 4, 2023 - 6:30 pm

Shipley-Collins Mediatheque

Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Art and Design 511 NW Broadway Portland, Oregon, 97209

Visiting Artists and Printers

We are pleased to welcome distinguished visiting artists and master printers to our print studio for extended working residencies. This affords our students the opportunity to work alongside and learn from practitioners who are pushing the medium forward.

Community Events

Throughout the year, we invite members of the community into our print studio for collaborative printmaking events. For Reclaim MLK Day, we had a great day working with the young artists and activists of Don't Shoot Portland! The kids created all of the artwork themselves, and we helped them burn screens and make prints.

We screen printed, and printed large woodblock prints on the Ray Trayle press to produce work with the kids for the Reclaim MLK Day Children's March.

Get in touch

Get in touch with MFA in Print Media Chair, Matthew Letzelter: [email protected] to schedule a tour or to learn more.

Oregon State University

Academic Catalog

Creative writing graduate major (mfa).

This program is available at the following locations:

• OSU-Cascades

The School of Writing, Literature, and Film offers the Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing (fiction, poetry, nonfiction writing) at the Corvallis campus and a Low-Residency MFA partner program on the OSU-Cascades campus in Bend, Oregon.

The MFA Program in Creative Writing on the OSU Corvallis campus is a two-year, high residency, studio/research program that interweaves literary artistic practice and literary scholarship. Tracks in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry are supported by writing workshops led by nationally known writers, as well as by courses in form, craft, and theory. Intensive mentoring during the thesis year, training in creative writing pedagogy, professional internships, and opportunities for outreach and community engagement produce graduates who are both accomplished creative writers and advocates for the role of literary arts in American culture and society.

OSU-Cascades's Low-Residency MFA is a two-year program combining writing workshop with studies in craft, literature, and vocation. The program offers intensive 10-day residency sessions in June and November and individualized mentorships by nationally known writers throughout the year. The program's intensive low-residency format is designed to balance the modern writer's need for both solitude and community, for both self-reliance and responsibility—to give our students the freedom as well as the discipline to write. Our curriculum builds sustainable writing habits, develops skills needed to support a creative livelihood after graduation, and creates an environment for taking imaginative risks.

Major Code: 8920

Upon successful completion of the program, students will meet the following learning outcomes:

• Conduct research or produce some other form of creative work.
• Demonstrate mastery of subject material.
• Conduct scholarly or professional activities in an ethical manner.
• Develop and employ methods of intensive revision.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the contemporary creative writing profession.
• Develop proficiency in teaching introductory creative writing courses.

 Cascades Low-Residency MFA Requirements

Corvallis mfa requirements.

Please refer to the MFA Handbook .

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Undergraduate Program Creative Writing

• Transfer Guide

Degree Details

• Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) Total Credits 180 Start Term Fall, Winter, Spring Delivery Method On campus Degree Planner (BFA)

Learn more about our academic program delivery methods

Creative Writing Bachelor's Degree Overview

The degree provides you with a comprehensive and intensive curriculum of classes and workshops in craft and technique, exposure to the work of established writers, and opportunities for you to work closely with peers and published writers as they develop and hone their creative work and critical skills.

You get the opportunity to learn from distinguished faculty who bring their real-life experience and expertise as published authors into the classroom. Faculty are deeply engaged with creative writing students and act as mentors and advisors. Students in the program enjoy small class sizes, access to internship opportunities in a vibrant literary city, and a supportive community of peers. Students complete a final portfolio project that they can use alongside a resume. There are active creative writing student groups and writing events, including an annual reading series that brings writers of national and international reputation to campus. The B.F.A. requirements are designed to provide introductory-level experience writing in the three customary genres: fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. This is followed by intensive work in one of those genres.

The creative writing major is highly flexible with an elective structure that allows you to pursue your interests in literature, literary theory, film, screenwriting, and publishing. The department also offers an undergraduate degree or minor in English , a minor in film studies , and a certificate in comics studies .

Creative Writing Bachelor's Degree: Why PSU?

• Pathos Literary Magazine : A creative publication, staffed entirely by students, that exclusively publishes student work in three issues per year.
• Portland Review : A literary journal produced by graduate students in the English department that promotes the works of emerging writers and artists alongside the works of well-established authors. Portland Review has been publishing exceptional prose, poetry, and art since 1956 and has been noted in the Best American series and honored by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Oregon Arts Commission.
• Vanguard : A weekly print and digital newspaper distributed for free throughout the Portland State campus area. Entirely student-run, employing about 60 paid student reporters, multimedia contributors, photographers, graphic designers, and editors, its publishing body is the Portland State Media Board, consisting of four students, four faculty members, and one community member. The newspaper and its staff have earned several collegiate journalism awards, including the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association General Excellence Award and the Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Circle Award.
• Ooligan Press : An award-winning nonprofit general trade press that publishes books honoring the cultural and natural diversity of the Pacific Northwest. Ooligan Press is a teaching press staffed by students pursuing master’s degrees in the Department of English.
• The Writing Center : A service to help students improve their writing and understand strategies to gain critical thinking skills they can adapt to all their writing projects. Writing center staff support students by acting as consultants rather than copyeditors, guiding students through their work by asking questions rather than editing specific text, with the goal of ensuring that the student-writer maintains agency over their writing.

Portland State offers many opportunities for students to engage in the broader creative community in the city through internships and jobs. Our students are able to work and carry out internships while they’re in school, allowing them to build relationships and add experience to their resumes.

What can I do with a Bachelor's degree in Creative Writing?

Master of Fine Arts

Creative and environmental writing.

Unique, affordable, and rigorous, the Eastern Oregon University low-residency MFA in Creative Writing is where your writing practice and intellectual curiosity will find a welcoming, supportive, and inclusive community of writers. We also offer a special (optional) concentration in Landscape, Ecology, and Community.

Renowned poets discuss nature, injustice at Ars Poetica 

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke joins MFA faculty members for a virtual reading and talk April 28.

The 2nd Annual La Grande Lit Week

July 17-22, 2023, update: due to mid-afternoon heat concerns, the events scheduled, between 3:45-5:45 pm on july 22 at hq have been shifted., please see updated schedule below., free literary readings and conversations,, showcasing our great downtown, daily one-hour classes led by lit week authors for just $20, ( click here for registration ; full class descriptions available here ).

The La Grande Lit Week is a project of the Eastern Oregon University MFA Program in Creative Writing , bringing together faculty and visiting writers during its annual residency for seven days of literary events in Northeastern Oregon on the I-84 corridor. The line up features winners of the Oregon Book Awards, the Washington State Book Awards, and the Pacific Northwest Book Awards, as well as authors touring new or recent books. Most of the featured authors will be in conversation with EOU MFA faculty after their readings. Please see the full schedule below.

We give thanks to our partners and sponsors. In 2022, the Union County Chamber of Commerce provided a helpful seed grant for the inaugural La Grande Lit Week. Other partners include Fishtrap, JaxDog Café and Books, Liberty Theatre Cafe, Side A Brewery, Cook Memorial Library, La Grande Parks and Recreation, hq, The Local, Elgin Opera House, and Art Center East. And all thanks to our students and faculty who are our biggest supporters.

We also humbly acknowledge the original inhabitants of the land that La Grande and EOU are upon: the Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla, and Nez Perce people. We celebrate their traditions, languages, and stories. We acknowledge their continuing connection to this land, water, and community and pay our respects to these original stewards of northeastern Oregon.

All readings and conversations are free and open to the public. For those interested in honing their own writing craft, one-hour “community classes” will be offered by Lit Week writers on special topics. Registration for each class is $20. Classes will be held in Badgley Hall on the EOU campus. Click here for registration. Further questions may be directed to Nick Neely, Assistant Professor of English/Writing, [email protected] .

2023 La Grande Lit Week Schedule

Monday, july 17, 6:30 pm, cook memorial library, 2006 4th st.

Michelle Nijhuis is an award-winning science journalist and the author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in the Age Extinction . She’ll be in conversation with MFA faculty member Kathryn Miles , whose most recent book is Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders .

Wednesday, July 19

6:30 pm, market place fresh foods (rooftop), 1912 fourth st.

EOU MFA faculty reading featuring Megan Kruse , Melissa Matthewson , and Joe Wilkins .

7:30 pm, Market Place Fresh Foods (rooftop)

Eileen Garvin is the author most recently of the bestselling novel The Music of Bees , which is set in Hood River where she lives, and the memoir How to Be a Sister . She’ll be in conversation with MFA faculty member Claire Boyles , author of Site Fidelity.

Friday, July 21

12:45-3:45, badgley hall, eou, one university blvd.

One-hour community classes offered by Sindya Bhanoo, John Daniel, Jessica Gigot and others. Registration required.

4 pm, Loso Hall Lobby, EOU

Kathleen Flenniken , Jessica Gigot , and John Daniel . Flenniken’s most recent poetry collection is  Post Romantic ; she is a winner of a Washington State Book Award and the state’s former poet laureate. Gigot’s latest book is the essay collection A Little Bit of Land , and her second book of poems, Feeding Hour , won a Nautilus Award and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. Daniel is the winner of three Oregon Book Awards in poetry and nonfiction; his latest book of poetry is Lighted Distance s : Four Seasons on Goodlow Rim and his previous book is the novel Gifted .

7 pm, The Local, 1508 Adams Ave

Sindya Bhanoo is a journalist and the author of the story collection  Seeking Fortune Elsewhere , winner of the 2023 Oregon Book Award for Fiction and the New American Voices Award. She’ll be in conversation with EOU MFA faculty member Megan Kruse , author of Call Me Home.

8 pm, The Local

EOU MFA Alumni Reading

Saturday, July 22

9 am-12 pm, badgley hall, eou.

One-hour community classes taught by Garrett Hongo, Kathleen Flenniken, Emme Lund, and others. Registration required.

1:15 pm, Schwarz Theatre (Loso Hall), EOU

MFA student thesis readings: Gabriel Boehmer , Christen Careaga , Rebecca DeLore, Christopher Densmore , Jensen Heike , Patsy Lally , Becky Murray , Gregory Rawlins , and Kasey Zmrhal .

Followed by the MFA program graduation ceremony.

4:45 pm, hq 3 pm, Schwarz Theatre

Garrett Hongo is the author most recently of the memoir The Perfect Sound and is a previous finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. He’ll be in conversation with EOU MFA faculty member Christopher Kondrich , author of Valuing: Poems , a winner of the National Poetry Series.

Followed by Hongo’s playlist related to The Perfect Sound .

3:45 7 pm , hq, 112 Depot Street

A group reading from Cascadia Field Guide , featuring poets and writers John Daniel, Kathleen Flenniken, Garrett Hongo , Nick Neely , Dao Strom , and Joe Wilkins .

7 8 pm , hq, 112 Depot Street

Emme Lund is the author of the novel The Boy with a Bird in His Chest , which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in Fiction and a Pacific Northwest Book Award, and longlisted for The Center for Fiction 2022 First Novel Prize. She lives in Portland. She’ll be in conversation with EOU MFA faculty member Molly Reid , author of The Rapture Index: A Suburban Bestiary .

8:15 9 pm , hq

To conclude Lit Week, a visual-audio-poetry performance by Dao Strom , author of Instrument which won the 2022 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

Admission Requirements

Applications for the 2024-2025 academic year are now closed. The next application period for the EOU low-residency MFA will open in October 2024 with a priority application deadline in January 2025 for best consideration (please check back for the updated deadline). After the priority deadline, applications will reviewed on rolling basis if space remains available. Accepted applicants must signal their intention to enroll in the program within one month of official acceptance by making a nonrefundable $500.00 deposit. The Master of Fine Arts degree requires two types of admission: (a) Admission to Eastern Oregon University with “Graduate Student” status; and (b) Admission to the MFA program. Both applications should be submitted at the same time.

Admission requirements for the MFA program

Admission requirements for the MFA program:  1. Admission to Eastern Oregon University with “Graduate Student” status. 2. Grade point average (GPA) of at least 3.0, calculated on either of the following two options: (a) Last 60 quarter hours completed of undergraduate upper-division coursework; or (b)  15 quarter hours of approved graduate-level coursework. 3. Official college transcripts for all undergraduate and graduate coursework. 4. Two letters of professional reference attesting to the applicant’s ability to be successful in a graduate program. 5. A short (750 word) essay explaining your reasons for wishing to pursue the MFA in Creative Writing at EOU and how you will integrate the demands of the program with your current responsibilities. 6. Creative Portfolio of your best creative work (10-15 pages of poetry; 15-20 pages of fiction or non-fiction).

Transfer Credit

The MFA Program allows a limit of 15 graded graduate-level credits (quarter hours) to be transferred from another accredited graduate-level institution.   If you have regularly attended Summer Fishtrap Gathering, Fishtrap Outpost, and/or Fishtrap’s Yearlong Workshop, you also may petition the MFA Director directly to convert up to 15 hours to graduate-level credits.  All graduate-level courses taken prior to program admission, and all graduate-level transfer courses, will be reviewed for appropriateness of transfer into the MFA program. Courses will not be accepted that are not appropriate to the MFA degree requirements. Courses completed prior to seven academic years before admission will be reviewed for appropriateness of transfer into the MFA program, but are not guaranteed to be accepted.

Applying for the MFA program

Submit electronically both the EOU Graduate Admission application and the MFA Program Application (i.e., cover sheet and creative portfolio), along with all required supporting documents, and official transcripts. Students who would like to participate in the Landscape, Ecology, and Community concentration should express this wish in their cover letters. Student who would be interested in studying on a part-time basis that would extend their time in a program to a third year should also highlight this intention in their cover letter.

Special note regarding admission to EOU

All MFA students are required to be fully admitted to the MFA program and EOU in order to complete the MFA degree. However, some students may desire to enroll in genre courses or elective courses on a part-time/non-admitted status. Enrollment in graduate writing workshops, seminars, and Individualized Studies requires full MFA program and EOU graduate student admission. Part-time and/or non-admitted course enrollment is permitted, but with the following exceptions: 1. Graduate student admission to EOU is required if a student will be registering for more than eight credits in any given term. 2. Graduate student admission to EOU and MFA Program admission is required, regardless of the number of registered credits per term, in order to receive financial aid. Financial aid is available both for full-time and part-time graduate students. Contact the EOU Financial Aid office at 541-962-3550 for information regarding submission of the FAFSA form and application procedures. Remember: All MFA students must be fully admitted both to EOU and the MFA program in order to enroll in any of the writing workshops and to receive the MFA degree. Students are strongly encouraged to apply for admission early in the program. For any application questions, please contact the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences program assistant Kayla Standley at 541-962-3508.

Our MFA is flexible in requiring just one residency commitment a year: back-to-back weeks in July at the storied Fishtrap Gathering of Writers at Wallowa Lake near the artsy town of Joseph, and in nearby La Grande on EOU’s campus. These experiences offer distinct vibes under the same skies, separated by a scenic 1.5-hour drive around the Wallowa Mountains, known as the Little Alps of Oregon. Students may opt to attend just two summer residencies or they may attend a third on-campus week in a third summer and take slightly less distance-based coursework.

At Fishtrap, students enjoy a morning generative workshop with the conference’s world-class faculty (see the 2023 line-up ) and gather in the evenings for faculty readings and open mics under the lakeside tent. There’s ample time for writing by the lake or taking trails into the Wallowas. For those unable to get away from home for two weeks, a virtual Fishtrap workshop option is also available (see the 2023 offering ). Of course, we whole-heartedly encourage in-person attendance: this place, this community, is stunning.

In La Grande, on EOU’s view-filled campus, students take a morning craft class and an afternoon critique-based workshop with our award-winning MFA faculty and in the evenings attend La Grande Lit Week readings and conversations with more award-winning authors at downtown mainstays like our local brewery, coffeeshops, or a brick-lined music venue (Lit Week is open to the public and runs concurrently with the residency). In the afternoon, Lit Week visiting writers also teach 1-hr classes on special topics that are optional for students. During free hours, students write, hike or otherwise explore this outdoorsy area, watch a film, go bowling, and drink a lot of coffee. Meals and conversation late into the night inspire imaginative leaps and grow bonds between fellow students and faculty mentors.

Through the rest of the summer, students continue to work one-on-one at a distance with their EOU workshop instructor to push forward a project they started or shared during the on-campus week.

Rigorous coursework continues remotely during the academic year (see the full course of study ). Our faculty work closely with students on their writing and provide instruction in contemporary literature, rhetoric, and special topics crafted to address student interests. We also provide students with meaningful, hands-on learning opportunities such as optional practicum classes in creative writing pedagogy, editing and publishing, and “professional portfolio,” in which students build professional materials specific to their long-term goals. Opportunities also exist to participate in the editing of our literary journal Oregon East and help with program communications and event planning, whether for credit or as a volunteer.

“My time in the MFA program at EOU was the one of the most enriching and rewarding experiences for me as a writer. Working with my professors and classmates helped me gain confidence in my work and submit it for publication. Now, as a doctoral student in creative writing, I’m able to draw upon the extensive foundation of genres and writing styles I encountered at EOU. Today I participate in readings in my local literary community and my school’s literary magazine. In all, EOU’s beautiful atmosphere and its knowledgeable and talented faculty are truly inspiring.”

Amy Parker, '17 Master of Fine Arts in Writing New York state

Tuition, Fees & Aid

We are committed to being the best value for a low residency creative writing MFA in the west. Click "learn more" below for more details on tuition, fees, and financial assistance. Learn More

• Course of Study

EOU offers a traditional genre-based two-year low residency program that requires 60 credits of course work, including two 14-day summer residencies followed each year by online courses. Learn More

• Faculty Biographies

EOU’s creative writing faculty are an award-winning and committed group drawn from all over the country. Learn More

Applications are now closed for the ’24-’25 academic year

Applications for the ’25-’26 cohort will be accepted starting in october 2024.

At Eastern Oregon University, we share a core belief that creative individuals are an under-appreciated and under-used resource. The creative makers among us have much to offer their communities and we commit ourselves therefore to fostering that creativity. It is our belief, too, that finding community-based solutions to the real problems communities face can and should be a collaboration in which the creativity of artists and writers play vital, enduring roles for enriching the lives of all. The Grande Ronde Valley and nearby Wallowa Valley are gateways to Eastern Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains and Oregon’s largest wilderness, the Eagle Cap Wilderness, all of which provide an exceptional resource for student writers in our Landscape, Ecology, and Community concentration. In collaboration with our program partner, Fishtrap: Writing and the West , and the Summer Fishtrap Gathering of Writers at Wallowa Lake near Joseph, Oregon, we strive to create a truly one-of-a-kind literary experience for our students .

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Oregon writing program awarded $850K from estate of Bernard Malamud’s son

P ORTLAND, Ore. ( KOIN ) — The estate of a Pulitzer-Prize-winning author’s son has awarded Oregon State University with $850,000 for its writing program.

The university announced the major gift from Paul Malamud’s estate on Monday morning. Paul, who died in 2022, is the son of Bernard Malamud , who died in 1986.

According to the university, Bernard sought teaching positions from about 200 colleges in the late 1940s and only received two offers — one from OSU.

He taught at the university from 1949 to 1961 , an experience that inspired his 1961 work “A New Life.”

The author is best known for his novels “The Magic Barrel” and “The Fixer,” which won National Book Awards in 1959 and 1967. The latter earned him a Pulitzer Prize in the fiction category.

Malamud’s 1952 novel “The Natural” also inspired the baseball film of the same name , starring Robert Redford.

According to OSU, the $850,000 gift from Malamud’s son’s estate “establishes the first endowed faculty position fund in the School of Writing, Literature and Film in the OSU College of Liberal Arts, adds to an existing scholarship and creates a visiting writer endowment.”

School of Writing, Literature and Film Director Tim Jensen said the award is the best way to honor Malamud’s legacy.

“As a faculty member, Malamud helped lay the foundation for our excellent programs; today, our MFA in creative writing is among the most distinguished graduate programs at the university, our majors in literature and creative writing are growing, and we offer superb courses in rhetoric and composition,” Jensen added in a statement.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com.

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The visiting writers series is sponsored by the mfa program in creative writing at osu, with support from the osu libraries and press, the osu school of writing, literature, and film, the college of liberal arts, kathy brisker and tim steele, and grass roots books and music. , all readings are free and open to the public with a q&a and book signing to follow. please check the schedule frequently as changes in the time or venue may occur..

Accommodation requests can be made by contacting Molly McFerran at (503) 737 - 3244 or [email protected]

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23-24 Visiting Writer

March 8: Fiction writer Jamel Brinkley, 7:30PM Corvallis Museum Downtown

Past Visiting Writers include:

Tania james.

Tania James is the author of four works of fiction, most recently the novel  The Tusk That Did the Damage  (Knopf).  Tusk  was named a Best Book of 2015 by  The San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian,  and NPR, and shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize .  Her short stories have appeared in  One Story, The New Yorker, Granta,  Freeman's Anthology,  Oxford American,  and other venues. James is an associate professor at George Mason University, and lives in Washington DC. Her forthcoming novel,  Loot,  will be published by Knopf in June 2023.

Venita Blackburn

Works by Venita Blackburn have appeared in thenewyorker.com, Harper’s, Ploughshares, McSweeney’s, the Paris Review and others. She received the Prairie Schooner book prize in fiction for her collected stories, Black Jesus and Other Superheroes in 2017. She is founder of the literary nonprofit Live, Write (livewriteworkshop.com), which provides free creative writing workshops for communities of color. Blackburn’s second collection of stories, How to Wrestle a Girl , will be published fall of 2021. She is an Assistant Professor of creative writing at California State University, Fresno.

Hanif Abdurraqib

Hanif Abdurraqib is a writer from the east side of Columbus, Ohio. He is the author of five books of poetry and nonfiction, most recently  A Little Devil in America: In Praise of Black Performance  and  A Fortune for Your Disaster .

Mitchell S. Jackson

Award-winning and critically acclaimed author Mitchell S. Jackson is a native of Portland, Oregon. Jackson's work explores his hometown, including the systemic forces that shaped his community, his family, and his early life. That exploration began with a novel titled The Residue Years— a book that announced Jackson as a bright new voice in literary fiction.

Jia Tolentino

Jia Tolentino is a staff writer at The New Yorker  and the author of the essay collection Trick Mirror . Formerly, she was the deputy editor at Jezebel  and a contributing editor at the Hairpin . She grew up in Texas, went to University of Virginia, and got her MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine , Grantland , and Pitchfork , among other publications. She lives in Brooklyn.

Ilya Kaminsky

Ilya Kaminsky is the author of the widely acclaimed  Deaf Republic  (Graywolf, 2019), which Kevin Young, writing in  The New Yorker,  called a work of “profound imagination.” Poems from  Deaf Republic  were awarded  Poetry Magazine's Levinson Prize and the Pushcart Prize. He is also the author of  Dancing In Odessa  (Tupelo Press, 2004) and  Musica Humana  (Chapiteau Press, 2002). Kaminsky has won the Whiting Writer's Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Metcalf Award, the Dorset Prize, a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, and the  Foreword Magazine’s Best Poetry Book of the Year award. Recently, he was on the short-list for the Neusdadt International Literature Prize. His poems have been translated into numerous languages and his books have been published in many countries including Turkey, Holland, Russia, France, Mexico, Macedonia, Romania, Spain and China, where his poetry was awarded the Yinchuan International Poetry Prize. His poems have been compared to work by Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, and Marina Tsvetaeva. 

Namwali Serpell

Namwali Serpell is a Zambian writer who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. She won the 2015 Caine Prize for African Writing for her story “The Sack.” She received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award for women writers in 2011 and was selected for the Africa39, a 2014 Hay Festival project to identify the best African writers under 40. Her first published story, “Muzungu,” was selected for  The Best American Short Stories  2009 and shortlisted for the 2010 Caine Prize.  The Old Drift  (Hogarth, 2019) is her first novel. 

Melissa Febos

Tomás q. morín.

Tomás Q. Morín is the author of Patient Zero and A Larger Country , winner of the APR/Honickman Prize and runner-up for the PEN Osterweil Award. He translated Pablo Neruda’s The Heights of Macchu Picchu and the opera Pancho Villa from a Safe Distance . With Mari L’Esperance, he co-edited Coming Close: Forty Essays on Philip Levine . He is at work on a memoir about fathers. In 2020 he will be a Civitella Fellow in Italy. He teaches at Drew University and in the low residency MFA program of Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Sarah Sentilles

Sarah Sentilles is a writer, teacher, critical theorist, scholar of religion, and author of many books, including Breaking Up with God: A Love Story . Her most recent book, Draw Your Weapons , was published by Random House in 2017. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times , The New Yorker , Oprah Magazine , Ms. , Religion Dispatches , Oregon Arts Watch , and the Los Angeles Review of Books , among other publications. She earned a bachelor's degree at Yale and master's and doctoral degrees at Harvard. She is the co-founder of the Immigration Alliance of Idaho. At the core of her scholarship, writing, and activism is a commitment to investigating the roles language, images, and practices play in oppression, violence, social transformation, and justice movements. She has taught at Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland State University, California State University Channel Islands, and Willamette University, where she was the Mark and Melody Teppola Presidential Distinguished Visiting Professor.

Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich is the author of THE FACT OF A BODY: A Murder and a Memoir, named an Indie Next Pick; one of the most anticipated books of 2017 by Buzzfeed, BookRiot, and the Huffington Post; a must-read for May by Goodreads, Audible.com, Entertainment Weekly, Real Simple and People; long-listed for the Gordon Burn Prize and a finalist for a New England Book Award; and one of the 10 best books of the year so far by Entertainment Weekly, Audible.com, and BookRiot. It was published May 16th in the US and May 18th in the UK, to be followed by the Netherlands, Turkey, Korea, Taiwan, Spain, Greece, and France. The recipient of fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, and Yaddo, and a Rona Jaffe Award, Marzano-Lesnevich lives in Boston, where she teaches at Grub Street and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Anis Mojgani

Anis Mojgani is the author of four poetry collections, all published by Write Bloody Publishing: The Pocketknife Bible (2015), Songs From Under The River (2013), The Feather Room (2011), and Over the Anvil We Stretch (2008). He is a two-time National Poetry Slam Champion and winner of the International World Cup Poetry Slam. A TEDx Speaker and former resident of the Oregon Literary Arts Writers-In-The-Schools program, Mojgani has performed for audiences as varied as the House of Blues and the United Nations. His work has appeared on HBO, NPR, and in such journals as Rattle, Paper Darts, Forklift Ohio, and Used Furniture Review.

Pulling inspiration from his Black and Iranian heritage, his childhood memories, his worldview, love, and existence, Anis takes seemingly commonplace subject matter and sculpts inspiration from them. Weaving dream-like tales that dip into imaginative imagery, Anis’s poems make the ordinary almost surreal and, through jolts of wide-eyed writing and striking honesty, make that which is fantastical remarkably relatable. Both innocent and heartbreaking, introspective and curious, the humanity his work carries causes listeners to remember and experience a childhood that is not their own but feels like it was.

Chang-rae Lee

Chang-rae Lee is the author of the novels Native Speaker (1995), A Gesture Life (1999), Aloft (2004), and The Surrendered (2010), which won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. His latest novel is On Such A Full Sea (2014), which won the Heartland Fiction Prize and was selected as a Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction.   His other awards and citations include the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, the American Book Award, the Barnes & Noble Discover Award, ALA Notable Book of the Year Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Literary Award, the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, and the NAIBA Book Award for Fiction. He has also has also written stories and articles for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta, Conde Nast Traveler, Food & Wine, and many other publications.  In 2000 he was named by The New Yorker as one of the 20 Writers for the 21st Century.  He has been awarded fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and The American Academy in Rome.   Chang-rae Lee was born in Seoul, Korea and emigrated to the United States when he was three. He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, Yale, and the University of Oregon. From 2002 to 2016, he was Professor in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University. In 2016 he joined the English department at Stanford, where he holds the Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professorship. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and daughters.

Shawn Wen is a writer, radio producer, and multimedia artist. Her writing has appeared in The New Inquiry , Seneca Review , Iowa Review , White Review , and the anthology City by City: Dispatches from the American Metropolis (Faber and Faber, 2015). Her radio work has broadcast on This American Life , Freakonomics Radio , and Marketplace , and she is currently a producer at Youth Radio. Her video work has screened at the Museum of Modern Art, the Camden International Film Festival, and the Carpenter Center at Harvard University. She holds a BA from Brown University and is the recipient of numerous fellowships, including the Ford Foundation Professional Journalism Training Fellowship and the Royce Fellowship. Wen was born in Beijing, raised in the suburbs of Atlanta, GA, and currently resides in San Francisco.

Sarah Manguso

Sarah Manguso is the author of the nonfiction books 300 Arguments , Ongoingness , The Guardians , and The Two Kinds of Decay ; the story collection Hard to Admit and Harder to Escape ; and the poetry collections Siste Viator and The Captain Lands in Paradise . Her essays have appeared in Harper's , McSweeney's , the Paris Review , the New York Review of Books , and the New York Times Magazine . Her poems have won a Pushcart Prize and appeared in several editions of the Best American Poetry series. Her books have been translated into five languages, and her work has been supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Rome Prize. She served previously as the Mary Routt Chair of Creative Writing at Scripps College and currently teaches at CalArts. She has spoken at the Bay Area Book Festival, the Brooklyn Book Festival, the Hammer Museum, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and many colleges and universities. She lives in Los Angeles.

Jaclyn Watterson and Michael Shou-Yung Shum

Jaclyn Watterson is left-handed, vegetarian, and of choleric temperament. She gardens in fair weather on a small balcony and makes her home with the novelist Michael Shou-Yung Shum and several feline companions. Originally from Connecticut, she holds an MFA from Oregon State University and a PhD from the University of Utah. Ventriloquisms , her first book, is the winner of the 2016 Spokane Prize in Short Fiction hosted by Willow Springs Books and judged by Alexis Smith. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in New Delta Review , The Spectacle , Puerto del Sol , North Dakota Quarterly , Birkensnake , and many other journals.

Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Michael Shou-Yung Shum eventually found himself dealing poker in a dead-end casino in Lake Stevens, Washington. Two doctorates bookend this strange turn of events: the first in Psychology from Northwestern, and the second in English from the University of Tennessee. Along the way, Michael spent a dozen years in Chicago, touring the country as a rave DJ, and three years in Corvallis, Oregon, where he received his MFA in Fiction Writing. He currently resides in Queens, New York, with Jaclyn Watterson and three cats. Queen of Spades is his first novel.

Karen Russell

Karen Russell is the author of two collections of short stories, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves and Vampires in the Lemon Grove , and two novels:  Swamplandia! and Sleep Donation. Swamplandia! was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Russell's short stories have been featured in The New Yorker , Conjunctions , Granta , Zoetrope , and The Best American Short Stories . She received her MFA from Columbia University, and was named one of the “5 under 35” young writers by the National Book Foundation.  In 2013 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. Russell was a fellow at the Cullman Center and at the American Academy of Berlin, and she has taught writing and literature at Columbia University, Williams College, Bard College, Bryn Mawr College, and the University of Rutgers.  

Ellen Bass’s most recent book of poetry, Like a Beggar , was published in April 2014 by Copper Canyon Press. Her previous poetry books include The Human Line (Copper Canyon Press), named a Notable Book by the San Francisco Chronicle , and Mules of Love (BOA Editions), which won the Lambda Literary Award. She co-edited (with Florence Howe) the groundbreaking No More Masks! An Anthology of Poems by Women (Doubleday).

Her poems have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies, including The New Yorker , the New York Times Magazine , The Atlantic , The American Poetry Review , The New Republic , The Kenyon Review , Ploughshares , and The Sun . She was awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Elliston Book Award for Poetry from the University of Cincinnati, Nimrod/Hardman’s Pablo Neruda Prize, The Missouri Review ’s Larry Levis Award, the Greensboro Poetry Prize, the New Letters Poetry Prize, the Chautauqua Poetry Prize, a Fellowship from the California Arts Council, and two Pushcart Prizes.

Her non-fiction books include Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth (HarperCollins), I Never Told Anyone: Writings by Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (HarperCollins), and The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (Harper Collins), which has sold over a million copies and has been translated into ten languages.  She currently teaches in the low residency MFA program at Pacific University.

Prior to her visit to OSU, Ellen Bass will be writer-in-residence for the Long-Term Ecological Reflections program at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest hosted by the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word.

The Spring Creek Project is also a co-sponsor for this reading.

Ross Gay is the author of three books: Against Which , Bringing the Shovel Down, and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude , which won the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude is currently a nominee for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award and a finalist for the Ohioana Book Award.  Catalog was also a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in Poetry, the Balcones Poetry Prize, and it was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Ross is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a non-profit, free-fruit-for-all food justice and joy project. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Ross teaches at Indiana University.

Eileen Pollack

Eileen Pollack is the author most recently of The Only Woman in the Room : Why Science is Still A Boys’ Club and the novel A Perfect Life .  Other books include the novels Breaking and Entering (a New York Times Editor’s Choice selection) and Paradise, New York, as well as two collections of short fiction, an award-winning book of nonfiction, and two creative-nonfiction textbooks. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays and Best American Short Stories . She is a professor on the faculty of the Helen Zell MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan. She divides her time between Manhattan and Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Co-sponsored by OSU President’s Commission on the Status of Women; The College of Liberal Arts; The School of Writing, Literature, and Film; OSU Libraries and Press; Oregon State ADVANCE; Kathy Brisker and Tim Steele; and Grass Roots Books and Music.

T. Geronimo Johnson

T. Geronimo Johnson was born in New Orleans. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford, Johnson has taught writing at UC Berkeley, Stanford, Iowa Writers’ Workshop, The Prague Summer Program, San Quentin, and elsewhere. His first novel, Hold it ‘til it Hurts , was a finalist for the 2013 PEN/Faulkner Award. Welcome to Braggsville , his second novel, follows four UC Berkeley students who stage a protest during a Civil War reenactment in the heart of Georgia. As of summer 2015, Welcome to Braggsville has been longlisted for the National Book Award, longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, named one of the ten books all Georgians should read by the Georgia Center for the Book, and recommended by UC Berkeley as summer reading for incoming undergraduates. Visit his website at www.geronimo1.com .

Maggie Nelson

Maggie Nelson (Ph.D. in English Literature, the Graduate Center of the City University of New York) is the author of five books of nonfiction and four books of poetry. Her most recent book is  The Argonauts , a work of "autotheory" about gender, sexuality, sodomitical maternity, queer family, and the limitations and possibilities of language (Graywolf Press, May 2015). Her 2011 book of art and cultural criticism,  The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning  (W. W. Norton), was named a  New York Times  Notable Book of the Year and Editors’ Choice. Her other nonfiction books include the cult hit  Bluets ; a critical study of poetry and painting titled  Women, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions, and an autobiographical book about sexual violence and media spectacle titled  The Red Parts: A Memoir . Her poetry books include  Something Bright, Then Holes ; Jane: A Murder ; The Latest Winter ; and  Shiner .  Her poetry has been widely anthologized, including in the Best American Poetry series.

Elizabeth Rush

Elizabeth Rush is the author of many books including the recently released  Still Lifes from a Vanishing City: Essays and Photographs from Yangon, Myanmar .  Her work chronicles communities being irrevocably changed by late capitalist industrialization, and has appeared or is forthcoming in Granta , Orion , The New Republic , Le Monde Diplomatique, Al Jazeera, Witness, the H uffington Post, Frieze, Nowhere, Asian Geographic, The Dark Mountain Project and others. She is the recipient of the Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities at Bates College (2015-2017) and the Metcalf Institute Climate Change Adaptation Fellowship. She received her BA in English from Reed College and her MFA in Nonfiction from Southern New Hampshire University. Her current book project, When the Seas Rise , is an on-the-ground investigation of five North American coastal communities adapting to climate change. Instead of predicting the negative effects of climate change When the Seas Rise focuses on the lived experience, both past and present, of those already dealing with the results of a warming planet.

Nick Flynn has received fellowships and awards from, among other organizations, The Guggenheim Foundation, PEN, and The Library of Congress. Some of the venues his poems, essays and non-fiction have appeared in include The New Yorker , the Paris Review , and National Public Radio’s This American Life. He is currently a professor on the creative writing faculty at the University of Houston, where he is in residence each spring. In 2015 he published his ninth book, My Feelings (Graywolf), a collection of poems. His work has been translated into fifteen languages.

Major Jackson

Major Jackson is an American poet, professor and the author of three collections of poetry: Holding Company (W.W. Norton, 2010) and HOOPS (W.W. Norton, 2006), both finalists for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature-Poetry and Leaving Saturn (University of Georgia, 2002), winner of the 2001 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and finalist for a National Book Critics Award Circle. He is also a recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress.

Jackson is the Richard Dennis Green and Gold Professor at University of Vermont and a core faculty member of the Bennington Writing Seminars. He served as a creative arts fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, as the Jack Kerouac Writer-in-Residence at University of Massachusetts-Lowell and currently serves as the Poetry Editor of the Harvard Review.

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