Welcome From the director

Welcome to the Master of Fine Arts ( MFA) in Creative Writing information pages. The only MFA program in the University of Missouri system is located here in St. Louis, and we are proud of it. Because ours is an urban campus of working students, all our MFA classes are in the evenings after four o’clock with most of the classes beginning at 6:55. In spite of being non-traditional, we have created a strong writing community here at UMSL. We sponsor four or five readings by well-known, practicing writers each semester, and we also have parties, picnics, student and faculty readings, and days of talks and advice during the academic year. All the students in our program, even our alumni, are encouraged and expected to be fully a part of the writing community and to participate in our activities.

All of us on the MFA faculty know writing is a calling, and we feel privileged to be working with talented students who struggle to create the best stories, novels, poems, or essays they can. We are confident that some of our students will go on to publish well and will make their marks in literature, become part of the literary tradition that goes back many centuries. We know that even those who do not publish well—because part of publication is whimsy or luck—will write better than they did when they entered, and, if they do not give up, will write good works that are published with or without great recognition. They will write because they are writers.

Though the MFA degree is the appropriate terminal degree for teaching creative writing in a university or college, it is only as good as the publications that accompany it. An MFA degree and a book from a well-known press will qualify a beginning writer for an academic job. Teaching experience—whether as a Teaching Assistant for us or in the local community colleges or even in our continuing education program—will also help, but good publications are essential. Work on our nationally circulated and well reviewed literary journal, Natural Bridge, will help with jobs in publishing. This degree is not, however, a vocational one. We are more concerned with helping the writer become better, with nurturing talent. There are many other ways for a writer to support himself, and many of our students already have jobs, even careers, when they enter the program.

We also know the MFA degree is not for everyone, and not all good writers need or would benefit from such a program. It is a shortcut, though, for many, a way for a writer to get as much intelligent criticism as possible while learning to be his own best critic. The value of the workshops and of the degree itself is often most apparent ten, twenty years later as the writer creates in isolation.

Information on classes, requirements, how to apply, readings, student and faculty accomplishments, and more, are available at this MFA site, but if there is any more information you need, please email me-- marytroy@umsl.edu.

I always like to talk to writers.

Mary Troy
Director, MFA Program