McNeese State University - MFA Creative Writing Posted on April 23rd
The Master of Fine Arts program at McNeese is for you if you’re a serious writer eager to explore your potential as a creator of literary fiction and poetry. While here, you’ll write and read constantly, encouraged and guided by professors who are passionate about language and art. Graduate workshops in poetry and fiction are offered every semester and serve as the heart of the experience.
The poetry workshops are conducted by Morri Creech, recipient of both a $15,000 Ruth Lilly Fellowship and a $20,000 NEA award and author of three incredibly rich books of poetry. (For our workshop philosophies, see below). In order to keep these workshops personal, the class sizes are kept very small. Indeed, with typically just ten folks in fiction and ten in poetry at any one time, I don’t doubt that we’re the smallest program in the country. But we think of this as one of our strengths.
Academic courses in literature, theory, and criticism provide examples of the best that’s been done so far. It isn’t hard to choose your classes carefully and earn your MA in English during the same three-year period in which you’re working on your MFA. The curriculum is sixty hours and culminates in your thesis, a book length manuscript with significant artistic merit.
Visiting poets and fiction writers come to campus each semester to read their own work and conduct manuscript conferences with the grad students one-on-one. Recent poetry guests include X.J. Kennedy, W.D. Snodgrass, Ellen Bryant Voigt, A.E. Stallings, Paul Zimmer, and Dana Gioia. Recent fiction writers include Ron Carlson, Antonya Nelson, ZZ Packer, Tim Gautreaux, and Robert Olen Butler. A current reading schedule is available on this website.
Virtually all of our MFA grad students work as Teaching Assistants, though the competition for these spots is quite fierce. If you are awarded a Teaching Assistantship, your tuition is waived and you receive a stipend of $9000, paid out every two weeks when class is session. While some graduate programs pay more, many pay less, and Lake Charles is not nearly as expensive a place to live as many cities. In return for the stipend, you typically teach (or team-teach) two sections of developmental English or freshman composition. Additional responsibilities include tutoring in the Language Lab, office hours, and other minor duties. In essence, you become a junior member of academia. You will find it demanding and fulfilling.
I do not promise publication, fame, riches, or movie deals. We are interested in the creation of exceptional fiction and poetry, and an atmosphere conducive to this is what we strive to maintain. Ultimately, all I can promise is three years to see what kind of writer you are, and what kind of writer you can become.
