The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing
at the University of Missouri-St. Louis

The Degree Program

Students ordinarily specialize in one genre, either fiction or poetry, and regular workshops in these forms are at the heart of the degree program. Workshops are also offered occasionally in creative nonfiction. Five workshops, at least four in the student’s chosen genre, are required for the degree, though more may be taken as electives. Students also take from five to nine courses from a rich array of other offerings in the English Department, choosing from graduate courses in literary journal editing; in poetry and fiction form, theory, and technique; in literature and literary criticism; in composition theory; and in linguistics. A creative thesis of three to six hours completes the 39-hour program. This thesis is an independent writing project under the guidance of an MFA faculty member. The completed thesis must be approved of by a committee of the student’s choice before graduation. All MFA classes are offered in the evenings after four o’clock during fall and spring semesters, and occasionally in the summer sessions as well. Students normally take six hours a semester, though some take as many as nine and as few as three in certain semesters, completing the degree in from three to six years.

Early each fall semester, there is a one-day session of talks and panels and readings that all MFA students are required to attend.

Although the program is fairly young, its graduates have published well, with fiction and poetry appearing in the New Republic, Alaska Quarterly Review, Greensboro Review, Nimrod, New Letters, Sonora Review, Zyzzyva, Bamboo Ridge, Honolulu, The Missouri Arts Council Writers’ Biennial, River Styx, The Christian Century, Sou’wester, Passionfruit, The Crab Creek Review, Crab Orchard Review. Delmar, Aura, The Distillery, Under The Arch, The Best of Writers at Work, St. Louis, Micro Fiction (Norton), and New Stories From the South 2001 (Algonquin). One of our fiction students has published a novel, three of our poets have published books and chapbooks, and one was a winner in the AWP Intro Journals Project in 2003. One fiction writer won the Lorian Hemingway short story contest in 2003, and two essayists and poets in the program recently received honorable mentions in the AWP project. Two of our fiction writers won Margery McKinney awards for 2005.

Natural Bridge

The MFA program publishes Natural Bridge, a semi-annual literary journal containing poetry, fiction, essays, and poetry translations. Though only nine years old, Natural Bridge has been well reviewed and attracts work from published writers as well as from beginners. Every fall and winter term, MFA students taking the graduate course Literary Journal Editing are the first readers of all work submitted to the journal, and they are actively involved in its editing and production. The journal can be sampled at www.umsl.edu/~natural; also at this site is a fuller description of how Natural Bridge is integrated into the MFA program.

Visiting Writers

In addition to the full-time faculty, a distinguished visiting writer serves on the faculty for a full semester each year, teaching a workshop in fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction, teaching one other class of his or her choice, and conferring with students. Past visiting writers are the poets Donald Finkel, Sharon Bryan, and Jeff Friedman, and the fiction writers Jaimee Wriston Colbert, Lex Williford, Rick Skwiot, Phyllis Moore and David Haynes. Poet Joy Katz is our distinguished visitor for spring 2007. We will have a visiting essayist in spring of 2008.

The department regularly invites writers to campus to give readings and meet informally with workshop students. Fiction writers and essayists who have read on campus are Opal Palmer Adisa, Sandra Benitez, Jon Billman, Richard Burgin, Peter Carey, William Cobb, Rob Davidson, Debra Dickerson, Tony D'Souza, John Dufresne, Deborah Eisenberg, Robert Ford, Roger Hart, Amina Hussein, Margot Livesey, Beth Lordan, Jim McKinley, Speer Morgan, Tim O’Brien, Dale Ray Phillips, Ann Patchett, Harry Mark Petrakis, Imad Rahman, Jewell Parker Rhodes, Marilynne Robinson, Elizabeth Strout, Gladys Swan, Daniel Woodrell, and Steve Yarbrough. Recent visiting poets are Craig Arnold, John Brandi, David Clewell, Ira Cohen, Carl Dennis, Mary Dorcey, Sharon Doubiago, Jeff Friedman, Allison Funk, Ross Gay, Gary Gildner, Albert Goldbarth, Pamela White Hadas, Bob Hicok, Richard Howard, Allison Joseph, Maurice Kenny, Josh Kryah, K. Curtis Lyle, Adrian Matejka, David Meltzer, Eric Pankey, Lucia Perillo, Jim Simmerman, Jason Sommer, Kevin Stein, Robert Stewart, Arthur Sze, and Brian Taylor.

St. Louis area bookstores, colleges, and arts organizations provide a strong literary base and regularly attract well-known writers for readings and talks. And the St. Louis area is home to several literary magazines in addition to Natural Bridge--Boulevard, Delmar, Drumvoices Revue, River Styx, Sagarin Review, and Sou’wester. Over the years, UM-St. Louis MFA students have worked for or published in these magazines.