Creative Writing Programs :: NewPages Guide

University of Missouri-St. Louis

MFA in Creative Writing

One University Blvd

St. Louis, MO 63121

Website: umsl.edu/~mfa

Program director: Mary Troy

Program contact: Mary Troy or assistant director Susan Grant

Phone: (314) 516-6845

Email: marytroy@umsl.edu or susan_grant@umsl.edu

Degrees offered: MFA

Genres: Fiction and Poetry

Type of program: Residency

Length of program: 3 or more years, up to 6

Total credits required: 39

Application deadlines: Feb 15

Scholarships available no

Core faculty: Mary Troy, John Dalton, Steven Schreiner, Howard Schwartz, Eamonn Wall, Nanora Sweet

Assistantships: yes

Publishing/editing courses: yes

Literary magazine: yes

Reading series: yes

Recent visiting writers: , Kathleen Finneran, Joy Katz, David Haynes, Lex Williford, Jeff Friedman, Jaimee Wriston Colbert

Program description: We are a small highly selective program with seminars and workshops limited to 12 students. We accept 6 in fiction and 6 in poetry each year. We are designed for working adults, so our classes are in the evenings and we provide a firm and supportive network/community of writers through readings, listservs, parties, and counseling sessions. In the 10 years we’ve been in existence, our graduates have published novels, and collections of poetry, and have won awards for their work. Many of our current students and our graduates publish well in the top literary journals. All our students are encouraged to take the literary journal editing class which produces our internationally circulated journal, Natural Bridge, and thus gain valuable experience in how to get their own work in print. We are studio/academic program with some regular Masters level courses allowed, but not required. We are flexible enough to know some students are best served by an almost completely studio program, and some need more literary study. Also, we have a strong composition program in the department and some students take comp theory courses to prepare themselves for work in a university.