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Creative Writing Master's
What is Creative Writing at WVU like?
Description
The Master of Fine Arts at West Virginia University is a three-year program that combines work in a primary genre and at least one other genre with course offerings in literature, pedagogy and professional writing and editing.
Our alumni have gone on to further graduate study in English, to careers in editing and publishing and to positions in academia. They have received awards such as the Olive B. O’Connor Fellowship at Colgate and the Emory University Creative Writing Fellowship, won national prizes like the Iowa Award for Poetry and the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Prize for Nonfiction and published books with Autumn House Press, Carnegie Mellon University, 42 Miles Press, Ohio University Press, University of Georgia Press, University Press of New England and William Morrow/Harper Collins, among others.
WVU’s MFA graduates have published in hundreds of literary journals, including prestigious venues such as AGNI, Southern Review, Gettysburg Review, Field, Prairie Schooner, Tar River Poetry, Ninth Letter, Northwest Review, Missouri Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Sewanee Review, The Journal, 32 Poems, Georgetown Review, Controlled Burn, Colorado Review, Pank, Malahat Review, Mid-American Review, The New York Times, Paste, Times, Chelsea, Washington Square, Laurel Review, Slant, New Orleans Review, and in the anthology Layers of Possibility: Healing Poetry. Recent MFA students have won Intro Prizes sponsored by the Association of Writers and Writing Programs and the GreenTower Press’s chapbook prize and have published book-length collections of poetry and fiction. Recent graduates have won honors such as the Iowa Poetry Prize and the Walt Whitman Award.
WVU’s MFA faculty members, Mark Brazaitis, Mary Ann Samyn, Glenn Taylor, Christa Parravani, Jenny Johnson and Brian Broome, have published more than 25 books and have won many prestigious prizes and honors.
Application Deadlines
Each graduate program sets their own term of admission and application deadline. Applicants can only apply for admission for the term displayed below. Any questions regarding the application deadline should be directed to the graduate program representative. Fall: January 15
At a Glance
- Admission Requirements
Contact Information
- College/School: Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
- Department:
- Degree Designation: MFA
- Degree Program:
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Requirements
What are the requirements to apply for Creative Writing at WVU?
University Requirements
To be eligible for admission into a graduate program at WVU an applicant must submit official, bachelors degree transcripts from a regionally accredited institution and hold a GPA of at least 2.75.
WVU operates decentralized admissions. Decentralized admissions allows each graduate program to set its own application requirements in addition to the University requirements.
Program Requirements
To be eligible for admission into the Creative Writing graduate program an applicant must submit the following documentation:
- Letters of Recommendation - Three
- Statement of Purpose
- Essay/Writing Sample
Additional application requirements:
- For the writing sample: a substantial writing sample in fiction, nonfiction or poetry
Certain application requirements may be waived based on a preliminary review of an application by program.
International Applicants must also submit the materials outlined here .
Who do I contact if I have questions?
Graduate Admissions and Recruitment
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (304) 293-5980
International Admissions
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (304) 293-2121
Program Contact
Mark Brazaitis
MFA Program Director
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 3042939707
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- M.F.A. in Creative Writing
- Graduate Students
Program Requirements
M.F.A. students must successfully complete 45 hours, distributed as follows: fifteen hours of creative writing workshops (one outside of the student’s genre); twelve hours of graduate-level English courses (non-creative writing); three hours of creative writing pedagogy; nine thesis hours; six hours (electives) to be determined in consultation with the Creative Writing faculty. The student is required to submit a book-length manuscript (minimum of 48 pages in poetry, 150 pages in fiction or nonfiction), ideally suitable for publication on its own, that has been approved by a thesis director and two readers. Final approval is granted following an oral defense of the thesis. The core of the program is the workshop, where students submit their own writing for discussion and critique. This writing will make up the bulk of the thesis, which will be completed under the close supervision of the thesis adviser and two additional thesis committee members. The non-creative writing courses will be the same as those taken by Ph.D and M.A. students.
MFA students complete a Plan of Study when they enter the program and, again, upon graduation. The Plan can be found here .
Thesis Information
Thesis deadlines can be found here . If you haven’t scheduled a thesis defense yet, do so soon. Check with your thesis chair about the best time and work with Kelly Johnson to secure a location.
- Creative Writing
- Majors and Minors
Creative writing opens doors to the stories that impact our lives and leave us changed.
Available as an undergraduate minor or a graduate degree, English majors who concentrate in creative writing study the craft of writing under the mentorship of faculty who are accomplished authors.
How will I focus my studies?
Learn more at the Creative Writing site
Creative Writing
Minor contact.
- Brian Ballentine
Minor Code - U005
WVU Morgantown
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