MFA CONNECT A creative writing magazine written by students in creative writing programs.

The Masters of Fine Arts degree at the University of Illinois provides students with the opportunity for graduate study and professional training in the writing of fiction and poetry. It also trains writers to become teachers of writing, supplying them with the terminal degree appropriate for university teaching and gives them experience in literary editing and publishing.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a world-class research and teaching institution. The University Library, with over eight million volumes, ranks as the third largest in the country. The MFA program is affiliated with an English Department routinely ranked among the highest in the nation. The creative writing faculty features several distinguished poets and fiction writers with national and international reputations, and the program’s Carr reading series brings in writers and poets of high caliber and international renown.

The primary goal of the MFA in Creative Writing is to give literary artists time and space to work on perfecting their art. Financial support, in the form of scholarships, fellowships, or teaching assistantships, is available to each student in the program. Upon completion of the program, students will have the pedagogical skills necessary to teach writing and will produce a book-length, publishable manuscript.

Students will also have the opportunity to gain extensive experience in literary editing and publishing while enrolled in the program. Ninth Letter, the University of Illinois’s innovative literature and arts magazine, is published by the M.F.A. in Creative Writing Program in collaboration with the School of Art and Design.

The semi-annual publication features emerging and established writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and other genres undefined, as well as visual artists working in a variety of mediums. All of this collaborative energy comes together in a highly designed format, both in print and on the web. Ninth Letter is dedicated to providing educational opportunities to all interested MFA candidates. Students may enroll in the Ninth Letter-based literary publishing course and are eligible to apply for a range of semester-long and annual assistantships.