Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

Fiction – Poetry – Nonfiction

Making a Life in Writing

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Making a life in writing.

Writing has long been your gift and your desire. At a young age, you were delighted to find you could make words dance together in unusual ways. One line followed the next and the next until you had a box of diaries and more ideas for characters than you could fit in the margins of your notebooks. You wrote blank verse, one-act plays, personal essays, and maybe even a novel. Now you are ready for the next step. With Emerson’s MFA in Creative Writing you will focus your energy, commit to the words, immerse yourself in your craft, and make writing your life. Whether your passion lies in fiction or nonfiction, poetry or prose, you will never know your true talents until you test them among other talented writers. At Emerson, you will find these literary proving grounds as well as a distinguished community of practicing writers and a host of opportunities to grow in sophistication as a writer.

A premier writing program, ranked by U.S. News & World Report.

U.S. News & World Report ranks Emerson’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program among the country’s top graduate programs of its kind. Well-respected, workshop-based MFA residency programs such as Emerson’s have proven to be incubators for rising literary talent. With one of the nation’s largest programs in creative writing, we are able to give you the breadth and depth of experience and instruction that most small programs cannot.

Our MFA program focuses on the actual practice of writing as well as its literary underpinnings. You are exposed to writing as an art form and as a professional pursuit. We know your goal is to publish, to bring your work to an audience and the marketplace.

Workshop experience in multiple genres: fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

The MFA program is a chance for you to explore aspects of writing and literature that interest you. Although you will concentrate in one literary genre (fiction, nonfiction, or poetry), you may elect to take workshops that cover a variety of topics.  To complement the workshop experience, you will take literature courses and an array of electives, including courses offered by the master’s program in Publishing & Writing.

You will conclude the MFA program by producing a thesis of professional quality in a single genre: a novel or novel excerpt; a nonfiction book or excerpt; or a collection of poems, short stories, or essays. The thesis often forms the basis for future published work.

Faculty of accomplished writers and scholars.

With workshops capped at a dozen students, you benefit from personal attention from faculty members who are writers and publishing professionals working diligently to help you reach your goals. Some students seek out Emerson specifically to take courses with our faculty of accomplished writers and scholars. Among our current writers-in-residence are novelist Margot Livesey and poet Gail Mazur.

Additionally, as an MFA student, you will work side-by-side with our MA students in Publishing & Writing, with whom you may someday work professionally. Students in both programs make invaluable connections with each other and with faculty members through the cross-pollination of programs.