The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

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

The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (MFA) at UM-St. Louis provides opportunities for growth in the writing of fiction and poetry (with some work in nonfiction) as well as practical training in literary editing. While normally a studio/academic program mixing the study of literature and criticism with workshops and independent study and editing, the plan of study is flexible and individual. The smallness of the program fosters a strong sense of each writer’s identity and ensures close contact between students and faculty. The program is selective, and only those with some demonstrated talent in their genre are admitted.

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 credit 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.

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, The Colorado Review, The Arkansas Review, 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). Our graduates have published five novels, and two of our current students also have published novels. One of our graduates has published a collection of short stories, and five of our graduates have published books of poety, including one published as winner of the Walt Whitman Award given by the Academy of American Poets. Our graduates have won the AWP Intro Journals Project, the Lorian Hemingway short story contest in 2003, the Nelligen prize, and the Margery McKinney prize, among other awards.

The Writing Faculty (go to faculty page ) The full-time writing faculty is a diverse group, widely published in several literary forms:

John Dalton, Director, (MFA University of Iowa)

Mary Troy (MFA University of Arkansas)

Steven Schreiner (MFA University of Iowa, Ph.D. Wayne State University).

Drucilla Wall (Assistant Teaching Professor)

Eamonn Wall (PhD City University of New York)

Past and Current Visiting Writers

Visiting Faculty for Spring of 2012

Stacy Tintocalis – (MFA Iowa Writers' Workshop, PHD University of Missouri) has taught fiction writing and creative nonfiction writing for over ten years. Her debut short-story collection entitled The Tiki King was recently published by Swallow Press, an imprint of Ohio University Press. Currently she is completing a textbook that is under contract with Pearson Longman entitled How Fiction Works: From Scene to Story. Her fiction has won The Journal’s annual short-fiction award and the Santa Clara Review editor’s choice prize. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Atlantic Fiction for Kindle, Crazyhorse, The Literary Review,Fiction, and Post Road, among others. http://stacytintocalis.weebly.com/index.html.

Howard Schwartz – (MA Washington University) is a widely regarded folklorist, author, poet, and editor of dozens of books. He has won the international Koret Jewish Book Award,[1] for the book Before You Were Born, and won the 2005 National Jewish Book Award for Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism. He has published four books of poetry, most recently, Breathing in the Dark. http://www.umsl.edu/~schwartzh/

Current and Recent Visiting Writers / Poets in our UMSL Reading Series

Eric Puchner - is the author of the story collection Music Through the Floor and the novel Model Home, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Barnes & Noble Discover Award, and won a California Book Award for fiction. His work has appeared in GQ, Tin House, Zoetrope: All Story, Best New American Voices,and Glimmer Train. He has received a Pushcart Prize, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. He is an Assistant Professor of Literature at Claremont McKenna College. http://www.ericpuchner.com/index.html

Kevin Wilson- Kevin Wilson is the author of the New York Times Bestselling novel, The Family Fang (Ecco, 2011) and the story collection, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth (Ecco/Harper Perennial, 2009), which received an Alex Award from the American Library Association and the Shirley Jackson Award. His fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, Tin House, One Story, Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere, and has appeared in four volumes of the New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best anthology. http://www.wilsonkevin.com/

Eric Pankey - Eric Pankey (M.F.A. University of Iowa, 1983) is the author of eight collections of poetry. His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared in Antaeus, The Antioch Review, The Gettysburg Review, Grand Street, The Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review, New Republic, The New Yorker, The Quarterly, Shenandoah, and many others publications. Winner of the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, Pankey has received numerous grants supporting his work, including fellowships from the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. http://www.ericpankey.com/

Other recent visiting writers and poets:

Fiction: Andrew Foster Altschul, Ethan Canin, Tony D’Souza , John Dufresne, Margot Livesey, Erin McGraw

Poetry: Carl Dennis, Ross Gay, Rodney Jones , Joy Katz, Randall Mann, Adrian Matejka
Arthur Sze

Non-fiction: Gary Geddes

Questions? E-mail Glenn Irwin or phone 314/516-5574. Or write:

Glenn Irwin, Assistant Director, MFA Program
Department of English
University of Missouri-St. Louis
One University Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63121

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Revised August 2011