Writing has long been your gift and your desire. You may remember yourself surrounded by books in the library, falling under their musty spell. At a young age, you were delighted to find you could make words dance together in unusual ways. One line followed the next and the next until you had a box of diaries and more ideas for characters than you could fit in the margins of your notebooks. You wrote blank verse, one-act plays, personal essays, and maybe even a novel. You polished your skills, studied the classics and your contemporaries. Now you are ready for the next step. With Emerson’s MFA in Creative Writing you will focus your energy, commit to the words, immerse yourself in your craft, and make writing your life. With Emerson’s help, you can make a life in writing.

When you pursue an MFA in Creative Writing, you open up your solitary journey to gifted companions in your art. Whether your passion lies in

fiction or nonfiction, poetry or prose, you will never know your true talents until you test them among other talented writers. At Emerson, you will find those literary proving grounds as well as a distinguished community of practicing writers and a host of opportunities to grow in sophistication as a writer.

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Making a Life in Writing

The Program Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

A premier writing program, ranked by U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report ranks Emerson’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program among the country’s top graduate programs of its kind. Well-respected, workshop-based MFA residency programs such as Emerson’s have proven to be incubators for rising literary talent. With one of the nation’s largest programs in creative writing, we are able to give you the breadth and depth of experience and instruction that most small programs cannot—three smaller programs, all supported by a larger community of writers.

Our MFA program focuses on the actual practice of writing as well as its literary underpinnings. You are exposed to writing as an art form and as a professional pursuit. We know your goal is to publish, to bring your work to an audience and the marketplace.

Whom Are We Looking for?

Students who enroll in Emerson’s MFA program all share one similar vision—they seek to create a life with writing at its center. Whether you are enrolling straight from your undergraduate institution or whether you have worked professionally, you will join a group of students who are talented, aspiring artists with imaginative literary minds. You will find that students are incredibly supportive of each other and often form writers’ groups that continue beyond their time at Emerson.

Workshop experience in multiple genres: fiction, nonfiction, and poetry

We believe the MFA program is a chance for you to explore aspects of writing and literature that interest you. Although you will concentrate and complete your thesis in one literary genre (fiction, nonfiction, or poetry), you may elect to take workshops that cover topics such as poetry, fiction, memoir, short-short story, and screenwriting. Workshops serve as the core of our program.To complement the workshop experience, you will take literature courses and an array of electives. You may also elect to take the Teaching College Composition course, which will help you acquire the credentials to teach writing at the university level.

You will conclude the MFA program by producing a thesis of professional quality in a single genre: a novel or novel excerpt; a nonfiction book or excerpt; or a collection of poems, short stories, or essays. The thesis often forms the basis for future published work.

Program Structure Literature Courses

Workshops

• 52 credit hours • Fall admission • Full- or part-time enrollment. Full-time enrollment is typically 8 or 12 credits per semester. • Full-time students usually complete the degree in two-and-a-half years; part-time students usually complete the degree in three-and-a-half years.Degree Requirements • Five writing workshops (four within your chosen genre, one in a genre of your choosing) • Three literature courses • Master’s thesis (8 credits) • Three departmental electives • Optional internship (may fulfill up to 8 credits)

• Construction of Taste • Literary Theory and Criticism • Poetry and Poetics • Seminar in Nonfiction • Seminar in Short Fiction • Seminar in the Novel • Theory of the Novel • Topics in Drama • Topics in Fiction • Topics in Multiple Genres and Hybrid Forms • Topics in Nonfiction • Topics in Poetry

• Fiction Workshop • Advanced Fiction Workshop • Novel Workshop • Playwriting Workshop • Poetry Workshop • Form in Poetry • Nonfiction Workshop • Screenwriting Workshop • Writing the Nonfiction Book

• Directed Study • Internship • Teaching College Composition • Additional workshops and literature or publishing courses

Publishing Courses

• Book Design and Production • Book Editing • Book Publishing Overview • Column Writing • Copyediting • Applications for Print Publishing • The Editor/Writer Relationship • Electronic Publishing Overview • Magazine Design and Production • Magazine Editing • Magazine Publishing Overview • Professional Ethics in Magazine Publishing • Topics in Writing and Publishing

Electives

Ploughshares

Published by Emerson College and co-founded by Emerson faculty member DeWitt Henry, Ploughshares is a literary magazine of national stature. The Literary Magazine Review noted that Ploughshares is “the magazine that has published a good deal of what has become our significant contemporary literature.” Nearly every year, work that first appears in Ploughshares is included in the Best American Short Stories and Best American Poetry anthologies. The magazine also received a 2007 Commonwealth Award from the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC), Massachusetts’s highest honor bestowed in the arts, humanities, and sciences. Internship opportunities at Ploughshares allow Emerson graduate students to participate in creating one of the country’s leading literary journals.

Redivider

Redivider is a journal of new literature and art produced by the graduate students in the Writing, Literature and Publishing Department at Emerson College. Since its debut in 2004, Redivider has published original work by such established authors as George Singleton,

Billy Collins, Robert Olen Butler, Bob Hicok, Steve Almond, Claudia Emerson, and Paul Muldoon, as well as interviews with Shelley Jackson, Kelly Link, Antonya Nelson, and Richard Russo, among others. Working on Redivider is an excellent opportunity to learn the basics of running a literary magazine. Graduate students are encouraged to apply for a reader, editor, or production position with the student-run magazine.

Teaching College Composition

Each year a selected number of MFA and MA students learn to teach writing at the undergraduate level. Teaching College Composition is a 4-credit, one-semester course that prepares students to teach at Emerson during their master’s program and then at other institutions after graduation. Although taking the course does not guarantee a part-time teaching position at Emerson, students who have completed the course are interviewed by faculty and are often offered appointments. Many students find that this foundation in teaching is a valuable tool in pursuing jobs after graduation.

Office of Graduate Admission 120 Boylston Street Boston, MA 02116

617-824-8610gradapp@emerson.edu

A Faculty of Accomplished Writers and Scholars

With workshops capped at a dozen students, you benefit from personal attention from faculty members who are writers and publishing professionals working diligently to help you reach your goals. Some students seek out Emerson specifically to take courses with our faculty of accomplished writers and scholars. Among our distinguished writers-in-residence are novelists Margot Livesey and Maria Flook, and poet Gail Mazur. Visit emerson.edu/academics/departments/writing-literature-publishing/faculty to learn more about our Writing, Literature and Publishing faculty members.

Additionally, as an MFA student, you will work side by side with our MA students in Publishing and Writing, with whom you may someday work professionally. Students in both programs make invaluable connections with each other and with faculty members through the cross-pollination of programs.

A Writer’s Life in Boston and Beyond

Graduates of Emerson’s MFA program are award-winning writers and poets who publish novels, story and poetry collections, memoirs, and critical essays. They have their work featured in a variety of popular and literary magazines. Many balance their writing pursuits with complementary positions in the worlds of publishing and education. Some have gone on to establish their own literary journals and many teach in colleges and universities around the country.

• The Other Half of Life, Kim Ablon Whitney, MFA ’03 • What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, Laura van den Berg, MFA ’08 • Outscapes: Writings on Fences and Frontiers, Jessie Janeshek, MFA ’05 • Lonely Planet Chile and Easter Island, Carolyn McCarthy, MFA ’03 • 101 Baseball Places to See Before You Strike Out, Josh Pahigian, MFA ’01 • Life Disrupted, Laurie Edwards, MFA ’06 • Live Nude Girl, Kathleen Rooney, MFA ’05 • The Temporary Life, Eric Wasserman, MFA ’02 • This Must Be the Place, Kate Racculia, MFA ’05 • Hold Love Strong, Matthew Goodman, MFA ’00 • The Tourist, Olen Steinhauer, MFA ’99

Selected Books by Emerson MFA Alumni