Hunter College -CUNY - MFA Creative Writing Posted on April 25th
1. Workshop
Fiction, non-fiction, and poetry workshops normally consist of twelve students and a distinguished instructor who critiques and guides their writing. Workshops are held once a week during the semester from 5.30 p.m until 7.20 p.m. To see what Hunter students are currently writing, you can go to Your fellow students and their work.
2. Craft
In the craft seminars, you read literature from a writer’s point of view, study particular aspects of the craft, and then generate work that strengthens your own skills as a writer of fiction, non-fiction, or poetry. Poets will explore the ways in which poems achieve their effects, focusing on prosody and technical devices, the handling of line and sentence, rhythm, syntax, sonic structures, the inner architecture of poems, both free verse and “formal,” and the ways you “fasten your voice to the page.”
Fiction writers might look at the art of dialogue, the use of light, color, and point of view.
Biographers and memoirists might spend their time learning not only how to write about place and how to structure a narrative, but also how to do research and conduct interviews, and, most importantly, how to deal with ethical issues in writing about their subjects.
Craft Seminars are held once a week from 5.30 p.m until 7.20 p.m. They will not clash with your workshop.
3. Literature
In the first year, you take one literature class each semester. You are free to choose from any of the graduate courses offered by Hunter’s English deparment. (See the English Department website for more information about teachers and courses.) This is the time to enrich your own work by going back to the Greek tragedies, or studying Chaucer or post-colonial literature. We will be happy to advise you on the literature courses that will be most rewarding for you. If you are a biographer you will be expected to study literature that enriches your particular field of interest.
4. Advanced Research-Skills Seminar (fiction and non-fiction)
This five-day seminar teaches MFA students advanced techniques for researching their fiction or non-fiction writing.
Both Years
1. The Distinguished Writers Series
Click here to see the world-class writers who have come to read and talk to our students. In this section, you’ll find Toni Morrison, Michael Ondaatje, Anne Carson, Sharon Olds, Salman Rushdie, and many, many more. Some of these writers have come to talk to classes, answer questions, offers insights into their work and lives.
HUNTER COLLEGE
THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
Dept. of English
695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065
T: 212 772 5164 F: 212 772 5411
mfa@hunter.cuny.edu
