Master of Fine Arts

Current Students

 

Jen TappendenJennifer Tappenden is the founding editor of Architrave Press, 2012 Poet Laureate of the University of Missouri – St. Louis, and a Pushcart nominee. Her poems have appeared in Euphony, The Cape Rock, Limestone and elsewhere. Her interview (with Karen Lewis) of Thom Ward for Traffic East magazine was featured on Poetry Daily.

AngieAngie O'Gorman's articles and essays have appeared in America Magazine, Commonweal, National Catholic Reporter, and Natural Bridge. She compiled and edited a collection of essays entitled,  The Universe Bends Toward Justice: A Reader on Christian Nonviolence in the United States.  Her first novel, The Book of Sins, was published in 2010.  Susan Neville, author of Sailing the Inland Sea: On Writing, Literature, and Land, said of O'Gorman's novel, "She has imagined a future in which capitalism has bought out Christianity....Like all good dystopian novels, The Book of Sins asks us to consider what will happen if present trends continue, and her fully-realized characters cause us to question our own complicity in those trends."  Originally from New York, O'Gorman has lived in Guatemala, Honduras, and the West Bank where she worked with unarmed peacekeeping teams. She now lives in St. Louis, Missouri and works at Legal Services of Eastern Missouri. She is currently writing a series of linked stories and can be reached at thebookofsins.wordpress.com or ogorman4400@yahoo.com.
mark shaw

"The only way someone can improve his or her tennis skills is to compete with more talented tennis players. As a student at Covenant College and Washington University--St. Louis, I sometimes felt like I was one of the best writers in each one my creative writing courses. This was not because I was more talented than they were but because I worked harder than most of my classmates. The majority of them did not desire to become professional writers. However when I enrolled in UMSL's MFA program, I quickly realized that all of my new classmates were far more gifted than I was, and I needed their wisdom to sharpen my skills and to lift my writing to the privileged status of professional, published poetry and prose. Every semester I have been with the program my writing has improved a thousand fold.

I sometimes write Native American Literature, and I worried that my work might be denounced by my professors for not falling in line with the standards of Western Literature. Instead, I discovered that both my professors and my classmates encouraged me to experiment with various writing styles. It is a comforting thought to know that everyone in the MFA program will help me find my voice." - Mark Shaw

Mark Shaw is two-thirds of the way through the program but has taken time off to live on his American Indian reservation in Bowler, Wisconsin. As an enrolled member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Nation, he currently works for the Mohican News as a full-time staff reporter, photographer, and editor. 

LaurenLauren Wiser first studied fiction writing at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she earned her BA in English with a minor in Business in 2010. Now in her third and final year in the UMSL MFA program, Lauren is the current Managing Editor of Natural Bridge Literary Journal. She was nominated for the AWP Intro Journal Project and the MFA Prize. In her spare time, Lauren works at Left Bank Books in St. Louis' Central West End.
trattlesRyan Trattles is a fiction writer in his third and final year of the UMSL MFA program. He has work forthcoming in the Indiana Review, and has been nominated for the MFA Prize in fiction. Ryan now works as a Graduate Assistant in University Advancement, working on the UMSL Website transition. He teaches Introductory Fiction for the UMSL C.E. program, and serves as the WITS (Writers in the Schools) coordinator for UMSL. Ryan has been an Associate Editor of Natural Bridge and WomenArts Quarterly. Before coming to UMSL, Ryan earned his BS in Secondary Education from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh in 2009. There he served as President of the Oshkosh Boardgaming Society. Ryan is very good at boardgames.
amymiltonAmy Milton is a third year fiction MFA student.  Before attending UMSL she received her BA in Creative Writing from Butler University in Indianapolis. For her first two years at UMSL, Amy worked in the Writing Lab as a tutor, and now she is an intern at the Missouri Institute of Mental Health.
Sara RossSara Ross is in her third year of UMSL’s MFA program. In addition to her writing and studies, she works full time as executive assistant in the UMSL College of Fine Arts and Communication dean’s office, and leads a book discussion group for writers at Left Bank Books. Her favorite authors include Ann Patchett, Elizabeth Strout, Sarah Dessen, Jacqueline Woodson, and David Foster Wallace. She most often writes literary young adult fiction, but is also interested in creative nonfiction and poetry. Since beginning the MFA program, Sara has won an honorable mention in the AWP Intro Journals Nonfiction Contest and third place in the Margaret Leong Children's Poetry Contest.
Ryan KrullRyan Krull began writing fiction the final semester of his undergraduate career. After receiving a BA in communications he spent a year as a freelance journalist/bus boy. He has just begun his 2nd year in the UMSL MFA program and works in the College of Arts and Sciences as an Academic Advisor and Mentor in the college’s First Year Experience course. His short story “The Yogini Spinster” is forthcoming in Whiskey Island, the literary magazine of Cleveland State University’s MFA program. 
tina  Tina Shen learned English at the age of nine by putting her imagination in writing – her favorite composition from this period is an essay entitled “If I Will Win USA $90,000.” When her social studies teacher asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she replied, “artist,” at which the teacher laughed. The teacher explained that artists starved to death. Tina took this discouragement to heart, for she loved food dearly, and strayed from creative writing for more than a decade. In this lull, she pursued her undergraduate degree in Gender Studies from the University of Chicago, and worked as a receptionist, dog walker, canvasser, building manager, pet sitter, server, personal assistant, and kennel attendant. Her consistent failure to render her employment lucrative convinced her that she had a fair shot at starving to death even if she weren't to become an artist, and, with this in mind, she felt safe to finally embrace her propensity to write. Tina is now a second-year in the fiction program, and teaches first-year composition at UMSL. She grows food in her back yard, just in case her social studies teacher was right.
JoshJoshua Anderson is an ordained Presbyterian minister, husband, father of three children, and a second year MFA student. A graduate of the University of Virginia's undergraduate Area Program in Poetry Writing, Joshua is the winner of the 2003 Rachel St. Paul Poetry Prize.