Creative Writing (MFA)

Highlights:

* A fully funded three-year program with a $20,000 stipend per year.

* Students have additional funding opportunities for research and travel via the departmental English Graduate Union, the Graduate and Professional Student Council, Confluence Center and the Arizona Institute for Resilience, among other organizations.

* Three genres: Poetry, fiction and nonfiction, with active encouragement to work across genres.

* The opportunity to apply to teach creative writing at the undergraduate level.

* Excellent student-teacher ratio.

* An active series of visiting writers and editors.

* A challenging, supportive and dynamic atmosphere in a culturally vibrant, progressive border city.

* An extremely active and critically acclaimed faculty.

* MFA thesis defense that may include outside readers. Past outside readers have included such writers as Jenny Boully, Brandon Shimoda, Gary Paul Nabhan, Steven Church, Luís Alberto Urrea, and Kim Stanley Robinson.

* The lushest desert in the world with mountains all around.

The M.F.A. in Creative writing

Since 1972, the University of Arizona has offered one of the preeminent MFA programs in the country for the study of creative writing. With workshops and craft seminars in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, we offer intensive instruction in literary craft and the study of literature from a writer's perspective, as well as opportunities to strengthen professional skills and flourish as a writer. The program requires three years in residence, the completion of 42 academic units, including workshops and craft courses. A student's studies culminate in the production of an aesthetic statement and a thesis manuscript. The program is fully funded at $20,000 a year, with teaching assistantships offered to all incoming MFA students and the opportunity to apply to teach creative writing. Assistantships include salary, health insurance and a complete tuition waiver.

A writer engages in the world. With this in mind, we invite students to develop a course of study parallel to the page, whether it is in the University, the city of Tucson, the Sonoran desert, or beyond. You have the chance to volunteer with and/or have a for-credit internship with such organizations as the UA Poetry Center, Sonora Review, Fairy Tale Review, Diagram, New Michigan Press, Edible Baja Arizona, terrain.org,  Kore Press,  and the poetry collective POG. The Field Studies in Writing program sends three students to write and research in residence at the UA-Mexico border.

The literary community here is strong. Please look into the offerings at the Poetry Center, our partner in many adventures. In addition to the Poetry Center Readings & Lectures Series, the creative writing faculty curates the UA Prose Series, which brings in four writers a year. MFA students run the Works-in-Progress (WIP) Reading Series. The University of Arizona is the home to the Sonora Review, one of the oldest student-run literary magazines in the country. Every year, the program sends out the Look Book to agents and editors, introducing them to our current graduating class' work. For more information, please investigate our Student Guide, as well as Alumni News.

And perhaps the best advertisement for the program is the work of our recent graduates. The MFA Look Book, published by the program every two years, is sent to editors, agents, influential literary people, and friends of the program each year. But you can check it out for free here.

For an overview of Tucson literary happenings, see: http://www.writersbuffet.org/, http://tucsonlit.com/, or the Poets & Writers overview of our literary city. 

Check out our Facebook page or the UA MFA twitter for news. 

Susan Briante
Director

• International applicants to Arizona Online campus, Global Direct campus, or a Global Microcampus should choose the Distance Learner (DL) visa type in their Application Profile.
• International applicants to the Main campus must currently hold a US visa that permits incidental study. 
• Please verify your visa eligibility with International Student Services before applying.  The application fee is non-refundable and will not be refunded if your visa status is not eligible.  
• Applicants must meet all Graduate College minimum admission requirements, including English proficiency.
• Applicants should be prepared to submit copies of their visa documents, additional transcripts, or degree documentation if requested.
• University of Arizona regulations require that all international students on non-immigrant visas carry the University of Arizona student health insurance plan.