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ApplyProgram Description | Admission | Degree Requirements | Degree Plans | Courses
Program Description
The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, Publishing, and Editing is designed to assist students in their development as writers of fiction, poetry, and/or creative nonfiction; to provide practical, hands-on experience in the field of editing and publishing; to deepen a student’s critical engagement with language and literature; and to prepare those students for careers as published authors, as well as teachers of creative writing in community colleges and universities.
Admissions
Students seeking admission to the graduate program in English must supply the following materials directly to the Office of Graduate Admissions:
- Graduate Application
- Application fee
- Official transcripts of all college-level work, including one that shows conferral of the undergraduate degree (Note: The student must have completed at least twelve hours of upper-division English courses with a 3.0 GPA or better; students with credentials from foreign universities must have their transcripts reviewed by a transcript evaluation service)
- Official scores for the GRE General Test (Note: The subject test in English is not required)
- Three letters of recommendation that discuss the applicant’s potential for success in an English graduate program
- A a creative writing sample of either 20 pages of prose or a collection of 8 - 10 poems. (Note: Applicants may submit a critical writing sample to supplement but not substitute for a creative work)
- International applicants ONLY: Official TOEFL scores
The English MFA Program welcomes qualified international applicants; however, an individual who does not hold American citizenship must be accepted under regular admission status, without qualifications.
A holistic review of each applicant's file will be completed, and admission will be granted on a competitive basis.
Degree Requirements
Establishing Degree Candidacy
Degree candidacy is required before the English MFA student is allowed to begin thesis work, sit for the written comprehensive examination, take a directed study, and/or transfer in graduate credit from an accredited university. To establish cadidacy, the student must
- Satisfy any conditions attached to admission
- Complete ENGL 5330 Graduate Research: Methods and Theories, earning at least a B.
(A student should complete ENGL 5330 during the first semester of graduate work, if possible, but in any event must complete the course by the end of the second long-term semester for which he or she is enrolled.) - Complete the Block 1 requirement.
- Complete six additional hours of graduate coursework.
- Maintain a B average or better for the twelve hours completed.
Completing the Program
- To earn the MFA in English, students must complete a minimum of forty-eight hours of graduate credit with a focus in either Fiction or Poetry, as indicated below.
- All MFA students must take at least one course from each of five blocks; included among the total classes must be at least one course each in British and American literature.
- All MFA students are required to take ENGL 5330 Graduate Research: Methods and Theories at the first opportunity.
- All MFA students complete a two-semester thesis sequence(ENGL 6098 and
ENGL 6099). - All MFA students must pass the English graduate program’s written comprehensive examination (offered in October, February, and June of each year) and an oral defense of the thesis. Students must be enrolled in the University for the terms in which they sit for the written comprehensive and oral examinations.
- A student may take ENGL 5339 Directed Study of Selected Topics in Literature and Language twice, with pre-approval by the Department Chair. A student may take one 4000-level English course for graduate credit, with pre-approval by the Department Chair and Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. See the Graduate English Handbook for guidelines and restrictions.
English Course Blocks
- Block 1: English Language, Early and Middle English Literature
- Block 2: Theory, Pedagogy, and Writing Disciplines
- Block 3: Early Literature
- Block 4: 19th-Century British and American Literature
- Block 5: 20th-and 21st-Century Literature in English
The MFA student must take at least one course in each of these blocks. The student need not take the block courses in sequence.
With the approval of the Chair of the Department, a student may substitute up to six hours of the following special and variable topics courses for block requirements: ENGL 5369, Studies in the Novel; ENGL 5370, Studies in Multicultural Literature; ENGL 5374 Studies in Women's Literature; ENGL 5388, Major Figures in American Poetry; ENGL 5391, The Study of Major Figures in British Poetry; and ENGL 6330, Special Topics in English. The block requirement for which such a course may be substituted will be announced explicitly in the online course listings before registrationa dn in the instructor's syllabus.
Degree Plans
Students enrolled in the MFA in Creative Writing, Editing, and Publishing may choose either a focus in Fiction or a focus in Poetry.
