Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing
You may be surprised to learn that the Research Triangle's sole Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing is at NC State and not at UNC or Duke, who have powerhouse undergraduate programs. It happens there's a long history of Creative Writing at NC state with novelist-teachers like Guy Owen (The Flim-Flam Man), Lee Smith (Family Linen, Oral History), and Angela Davis-Gardner (Plum Wine) as well as poets like Gerald Barrax (Leaning Against the Sun). Through the years we've had some superb writers pass through our graduate writing program—Kaye Gibbons, Pamela Duncan, Lynn York, T.R. Pearson, Haven Kimmel, not to mention our just-published MFAs: novelist William Conescu (Being Written, 2008), poet Michael Begnal (Ancestor Worship, 2007), Amy Knox Brown and her short story collection (Three Versions of the Truth, 2007), and Therese Fowler (Souvenir, 2008). NCSU has a first-rate faculty who believe that the workshops, though important, are not everything. The one-on-one in the office, the wrangling with manuscripts until they're finished, the individual attention—that's what makes this program different.
Our current faculty includes two-time National Book Award nominee in poetry John Balaban (Path, Crooked Path, Locusts on the Edge of Summer) and the much-awarded Dorianne Laux (Awake, Facts About the Moon), a recent hire from the wonderful MFA program at Oregon. Our fiction instructors are the Nebula Award-winning science fiction writer John Kessel (Good News from Outer Space, The Baum Plan for Financial Independence), former Sports Illustrated reporter and novelist Wilton Barnhardt (Gospel, Emma Who Saved My Life), late of programs at Warren Wilson College and UC-Irvine, best-selling author Jill McCorkle (The Cheer Leader, Carolina Moon), late of the Bennington MFA and Harvard's creative writing program. You'll be in good hands with this crew.
The MFA accepts only about a dozen students year, six in fiction and six in poetry. Consequently, students will receive considerable individual attention from faculty and be able to pursue interests in history, linguistics, science, design, or other disciplines that may inform and enrich their creative writing. It's a 36-hour program: four workshops, four lit courses, a few electives, thesis hours. There is no foreign language requirement. There is, taken upon one's final term, a degree essay required (of 15-20 pages) in the form of a take-home exam. This is not a research or scholarly paper--it is to be a close reading and explication of a few writers studied in the student's two years, one writer comprehending the techniques and strategies of another. The finished Master's Thesis for the MFA should be . . .
- For Fiction: a book-length manuscript of approximately 200 pages or more, preferably finished
- For Poetry: a collection of 60 pages
Ideally, the thesis should be a work of literary value and publishable quality, worthy of submission to an agent or publisher. Again, the goal is to prepare you for your life as a working writer. Some applicants write to us with many questions about teaching, being trained as a teacher, can we find you work as a creative writing teacher . . . We are not here to make creative writing teachers. We are here to temper and improve poets and authors. We'll train you as a T.A., and—believe us—there'll be plenty of teaching to come if writing is your path, but this is first and foremost a two-year literary fine arts program. We want writers.
Click on the right side for details about application fees, deadlines, teaching assistantships, etc.
We're in Raleigh, the state capital of North Carolina. It's a great place to live, regularly appearing at the top of those lists ranking the highest standard of living and "Best Places to Live" polls. The Research Triangle (for the record: North Carolina State University in Raleigh, Duke University in Durham, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), is as ranked the No. 2 metro area in the nation for highest percentage of bachelors degrees in the population. It is an artistically rich, educated, historical region that supports great independent bookstores and a constant flow of great visiting writers who appear at our bookstores or in the universities' reading series; Raleigh boasts renowned performance series in all the major arts, as well as many cultural resources, libraries, collections, museums. (And the area is not without Southern charm and delightful weather most of the year!)
For more information about the program, please contact:
WILTON BARNHARDT
Director, MFA
Campus Box 8105
NC State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-8105
Or call him at (919) 515-4129 . . . or, more dependably, write us at mfa@chass.ncsu.edu or wwbarnha@unity.ncsu.edu.
Dr. Carmine Prioli, the Graduate Director for English, can give you details about application nitty gritty (all of the process can be begun online). He is at (919) 515-4107 or at prioli@ncsu.edu.
We have a great reading
series and two big prize-offering contests each
year (with graduate
prizes). Most of the details can be found at . . . http://www.ncsu.edu/creativewriting.
(All of our websites are undergoing reconstruction, so forgive the short-lived cyberclutter, please . . .)
