virginia tech creative writing mfa

• Creative Writing

The  Creative Writing  major prepares you to be a writer of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, drama, or to go into editing or publishing. At Virginia Tech, you will create your own literary events, publish your writing in on-campus journals and professional magazines, and interact with famous writers. In addition to your creative writing classes you will complete courses in literature, digital media, and critical frameworks. Under the guidance of published writers, you’ll develop a portfolio showcasing your range and versatility as a writer.

Career Options

• Creative manager
• Literary agent
• Grant writer
• Video game developer
• Editor and copywriter
• Web designer
• Television writer
• Journalist and reporter

Matthew Vollmer

540-231-8322

[email protected]

403 Shanks Hall 180 Turner Street, NW Blacksburg, VA 24061

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• Available to Fall Transfer Applicants
• Available to First-Year Applicants
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• College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences

Degree Types

• Bachelor of Arts
• Master of Fine Arts
• Autobiography
• Children's Literature
• Creative Non-Fiction
• Electronic Literature
• Experimental
• Fantasy Fiction
• Flash Fiction
• Graphic Novel
• Kid's Literature
• Literary Mag
• Literary Magazine
• Literary Realism
• Mystery Writing
• New Media Creative Writing
• Novel Writing
• Playwriting
• Post-Modernism
• Prose Poems
• Prose Poetry
• Reading Series
• Science Fiction
• Screenwriting
• Short Shorts
• Short Stories
• Short Story
• Speculative Fiction
• Visiting Writer
• Young Adult Fiction

Undergraduate Major

Undergraduate advising.

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• Multimedia Journalism
• Professional and Technical Writing
• Communication

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Virginia Tech

Virginia, united states.

Virginia Tech’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program began in the fall of 2005, and graduated our first full class of students in the spring of 2008. In the ten years since the program started, we’ve been consistently ranked among the top 30 programs in the country by Poets & Writers in their MFA rankings.

Our three-year curriculum offers tracks in poetry and fiction, and is based upon the recommendations outlined by AWP for creative writing graduate programs—but our MFA also includes a professional focus, with extensive pedagogical training in both composition and creative writing, courses in literary editing and new media creative writing, and seminars on publishing and ‘Life After your MFA.’

Our program is small—we admit 3-4 students a year in each genre—and we pride ourselves on the diversity and rigor of our program, our respect for our students’ voices, our financial support for our students, the individual attention students receive from faculty, our robust Visiting Writers Series, and the accomplishments of our faculty. Our students and alumni are exceptional; they have published books, received prestigious awards and fellowships for their writing, and gone on to further success as writers, teachers, and professionals.

O U R P R O G R A M A T A G L A N C E:

- All students equally and fully funded through Graduate Teaching Assistantships

- GTA-ships include tuition remission, health insurance, and stipends of more than $20,000 per year for all three years of the program

- Cross-genre work encouraged, with additional workshops in creative nonfiction, new media creative writing, and playwriting

- Emily Morrison Prizes in Fiction and Poetry, and other MFA writing awards offered each year

- Editorial positions and publishing experience via the minnesota review, and The New River

The faculty members in our creative writing program at Virginia Tech are accomplished, prize-winning, innovative, and diverse: Ed Falco, Evan Lavender-Smith, Jeff Mann, Lucinda Roy, and Matthew Vollmer. Janine Joseph is serving as Visiting Associate Professor for the 2022-23 academic year, and Sophia Terazawa is serving as Visiting Assistant Professor.

For more information about the program, please see our sites below.

Website: http://bitly.com/vtCWmfa

Twitter: http://twitter.com/vtcwmfa

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/VirginiaTechMFA

Contact Information

Virginia Tech Dept. of English 323 Shanks Hall (0112), 181 Turner St NW Blacksburg Virginia, United States 24061-0112 Email: [email protected] https://liberalarts.vt.edu/academics/majors-and-minors/creative-writing-major.html

Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing +

Undergraduate program director.

The 39-hour Creative Writing (CW) major is aimed at those students who want to pursue a career as a writer of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or drama, or those who wish to enter the fields of publishing, editing, or any career that requires established and multidimensional writing skill.

Students in the CW program can take courses in poetry, fiction, playwriting, writing for young people, and creative nonfiction. Additionally, students are urged to take a wide range of courses in literature reflective of your chosen genre, such as fiction or poetry, in order to familiarize yourself with major writer and literary traditions. By the end of this program, under the tutelage of a published writer, you will have developed a portfolio of potentially publishable material.

The CW Program also offers an 18-hour minor.

Minor / Concentration in Creative Writing +

Master of fine arts in creative writing +, graduate program director.

The graduate curriculum includes a professional focus so that students who graduate from our program will have expertise in areas such as pedagogy and new media creative writing. You may download the Graduate Policies and Procedures: MFA in Creative Writing for more information.

     * All students fully funded through Graduate Teaching Assistantships with annual stipends of $15,000

     * Three-year program; funding package includes full tuition remission and health insurance

     * No teaching first semester; teach creative writing in the third year

     * Opportunities for creative nonfiction, new media writing, and playwriting

     * Opportunities for editorial work on The Minnesota Review and The New River

Ed Falco's latest book is Toughs, a novel based in part on historical events in the life of gangster Vince Coll. His previous novel was The Family Corleone, which was developed from a screenplay by Mario Puzo. His most recent short story collection is Burning Man (SMU, 2011). His previous short story collections are Sabbath Night in the Church of the Piranha: New and Selected Stories (Unbridled Books, 2005), Acid (University of Notre Dame Press, 1996), and Plato at Scratch Daniel's and Other Stories (University of Arkansas Press, 1990). He is also the author of four novels: Saint John of the Five Boroughs (Unbridled Books, 2009), Wolf Point (Unbridled Books, 2005), A Dream with Demons (Eastgate Systems, 1997), and Winter in Florida (Soho, 1990), as well as a collection of literary and experimental short fictions, In the Park of Culture (University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), and a collection of hypertext short fictions, Sea Island (Eastgate Systems, 1995). Ed's plays--The Center, Possum Dreams, Sabbath Night in the Church of the Piranha, and others--have mostly been produced and read in and around Blacksburg, Virginia, where he teaches in Virginia Tech's MFA program, and he edits The New River, an online journal of new media writing.

http://www.edfalco.us/

Jeff Mann grew up in Covington, Virginia, and Hinton, West Virginia, receiving degrees in English and forestry from West Virginia University. His poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in many publications, including Arts and Letters, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Willow Springs, The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, Crab Orchard Review, and Appalachian Heritage. He has published three award-winning poetry chapbooks, Bliss, Mountain Fireflies, and Flint Shards from Sussex; five full-length books of poetry, Bones Washed with Wine, On the Tongue, Ash: Poems from Norse Mythology, A Romantic Mann, and Rebels; two collections of personal essays, Edge: Travels of an Appalachian Leather Bear and Binding the God: Ursine Essays from the Mountain South; three novellas, Devoured, included in Masters of Midnight: Erotic Tales of the Vampire,Camp Allegheny, included in History’s Passion: Stories of Sex Before Stonewall, and The Saga of Einar and Gisli, included in On the Run: Tales of Gay Pursuit and Passion; four novels, Fog: A Novel of Desire and Reprisal, which won the Pauline Réage Novel Award, Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War, which won a Rainbow Award, Cub, and Salvation: A Novel of the Civil War; a book of poetry and memoir, Loving Mountains, Loving Men; and two volumes of short fiction, Desire and Devour: Stories of Blood and Sweat and A History of Barbed Wire, which won a Lambda Literary Award. In 2013, he was inducted into the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival Hall of Fame. He teaches creative writing at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.

http://www.jeffmannauthor.com/

Lucinda Roy

Lucinda Roy is Alumni Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at Virginia Tech where she teaches creative writing in the graduate and undergraduate programs. A 2005 recipient of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Outstanding Faculty Award, Professor Roy’s publications include the poetry collections Wailing the Dead to Sleep and The Humming Birds (winner of the Eighth Mountain Poetry Prize); and the novels Lady Moses (a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection), and The Hotel Alleluia. Her memoir-critique entitled No Right to Remain Silent: What We’ve Learned from the Tragedy at Virginia Tech, was published by Three Rivers/Random House. Professor Roy was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Richmond in 2000, and she was selected by the Virginia Press Women’s Association as Newsmaker of the Year in 2009. At Virginia Tech, she has served as Chair of English, Director/Co-Director of Creative Writing, and Associate Dean for Curriculum, Outreach, and Diversity. She has been a guest on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, The Today Show, Sunday Morning, Oprah, NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show, Sky News, Al Jazeera, and many TV and radio shows. She has also been a featured guest on PBS and BBC documentaries. Her poetry, fiction, and commentaries have appeared in numerous publications including North American Review, American Poetry Review, Rattle, Prairie Schooner, the New York Times, Newsweek’s College Guide, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Guardian, Inside Higher Education, and USA Today. Professor Roy is currently at work on another poetry collection, articles and commentaries on school safety and gun violence, a young adult novel series, and a series of oil paintings depicting the Middle Passage.

http://www.lucindaroy.net/

Matthew Vollmer

Matthew Vollmer is the author of Future Missionaries of America (published by MacAdam Cage and Salt Modern Fiction), a collection of stories, and inscriptions for headstones, a collection of essays. A second story collection, titled Gateway to Paradise, was published by Persea Books in 2015. With David Shields, he is the co-editor of Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, “Found” Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts (forthcoming from W. W. Norton). To read samples from this work, and to browse a collection of literary artifacts, visit literaryartifacts.tumblr.com. His work has appeared in Paris Review, Glimmer Train, The Sun, Virginia Quarterly Review, Epoch, Tin House, The Oxford American, Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, Ecotone, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Antioch Review, Willow Springs, DIAGRAM, Portland Review, Tampa Review, Passages North, PANK, New England Review, The Normal School, Confrontation, Salt Hill, Fugue, PRISM International, and New Letters. Vollmer is the recipient of a 2010 National Endowment for the Arts grant, as well as the Sturm Award for Creative Arts at Virginia Tech. His work has been short-listed three times for the Best American Short Stories series, and appears in Best American Essays 2013. He also edits the 21st Century Prose Series for the University of Michigan Press.Vollmer holds a B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina, an M.A. in English from North Carolina State University, and an M.F.A. in fiction writing from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. As an Assistant Professor, he is a member of the MFA Faculty in the English Department at Virginia Tech, where he directs the undergraduate creative writing program.

http://matthewvollmer.com/

Evan Lavender-Smith

Evan Lavender-Smith is the author of a hybrid-genre work, From Old Notebooks, which was a NewPages Noteworthy Book, a Small Press Distribution Recommended Book, a finalist for the Fence Modern Poets Series, and named a best book of the year by Biblioklept, HTMLGiant, Dzanc Books, 32 Poems and others. He is also the author of Avatar, a short novel, which was a Small Press Distribution Bestseller. His writing has been published by Arts & Letters, BOMB, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Fence, Glimmer Train, Harvard Review and many other magazines. His co-translation of Chilean poet Pablo de Rokha’s “Canto del macho anciano” was recently included in Pinholes from the Night: Essential Poems from Latin America. He is the founding editor of Noemi Press, the former editor-in-chief of Puerto del Sol, and a contributor at HTMLGiant. Recently he was named a finalist for the Creative Capital Award and he served as an ArtWorks grant panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts.

http://el-s.net/

Sophia Terazawa

Sophia Terazawa is the author of Winter Phoenix (Deep Vellum, 2021) and Anon (Deep Vellum, 2023), along with two chapbooks, I AM NOT A WAR (Essay Press), a winner of the 2015 Essay Press Digital Chapbook Contest, and Correspondent Medley (Factory Hollow Press), winner of the 2018 Tomaž Šalamun Prize.

Additional honors include the Bill Waller Award for Creative Nonfiction, LaVerne Harrell Clark Fiction Award, Monique Wittig Writer's Scholarship, along with nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and CLMP's 2022 Firecracker Award. Terazawa's work appears widely in journals and magazines, such as, The Offing, New Delta Review, The Iowa Review, and The Rumpus. She's a graduate of the University of Arizona's MFA program, where she also served as Poetry Editor of Sonora Review. Her favorite color is purple.

http://www.sophiaterazawa.com

Khadijah Queen

Khadijah Queen is a multidisciplinary writer and visual artist. Queen is the author of six books, most recently Anodyne (Tin House 2020), a finalist for the Colorado Book Award and winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. Her fifth book, I'm So Fine: A List of Famous Men & What I Had On (YesYes Books 2017), was praised in O Magazine, The New Yorker, Rain Taxi, and elsewhere as “quietly devastating” and “a portrait of defiance that turns the male gaze inside out.” Her verse play Non-Sequitur (Litmus Press 2015) won the Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women's Performance Writing. The award included a full production at Theaterlab in New York City, directed by Fiona Templeton and performed by The Relationship theater company. A hybrid essay about the pandemic, “False Dawn,” appeared in Harper’s Magazine, was named a Notable Essay of 2020 in Best American Essays (HarperCollins 2021), and reprinted in the anthology Bigger Than Bravery (2023). Individual poems, interviews, and essays appear in Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Georgia Review, The Believer, Orion, Fence, Poetry, Gulf Coast, The Offing, The Poetry Review (UK), and widely elsewhere. In 2022, she was awarded a Disability Futures fellowship from United States Artists. A Cave Canem alum, she holds a PhD in English and Literary Arts from University of Denver and teaches creative writing, literature and poetics. A book of criticism is forthcoming in 2024.

http://www.khadijahqueen.com

Publications & Presses +

The New River

The Minnesota Review

Visiting Writers Program +

For 2023-2024 our visiting writers are Monica Son, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Natasha Trethewey.

For 2022-2023 our visiting writers are Jon Lindsey (Soniat Series), Brooks Sterritt, Douglas Kearney, and Viet Thanh Ngyuen.

For 2019-20 our visiting writers so far are Brian Blanchfield, Kyle Dargan, Renee Gladman, Alyson Hagy, Paige Lewis (Soniat Series), and Jesmyn Ward.

For 2018-19 our visiting writers were Zadie Smith, Stephanie Burt, Steve Tomasula, sam sax (Soniat Series), Terry Tempest Williams, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Brian Evenson, Jamaal May, Anjali Sachdeva, and Cathy Hankla.

For 2017-18 our visiting writers were Cheryl Strayed, Tim Seibles, Chris Bachelder, Natalie Diaz, Rachel B. Glaser (Soniat Series), Ruth Ellen Kocher, Tommy Mira y Lopez, Tess Taylor, Carrie Meadows, Dan Albergotti, Vanessa Anjelica Villareal, Kiki Petrosino & Nic Brown (Glossolalia Festival)

For 2016-17 our visiting writers were Ocean Vuong (Soniat Series), Lynda Barry, Stuart Dybek, Tom Franklin, Beth Ann Fennelly, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Justin Cronin, Katherine Soniat, Matt Hart, David Shields, Jason Schneiderman, Wayne Miller, Chinaka Hodge & Scott McClanahan (Glossolalia Festival)

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Creative Technologies (MFA)

Creative technologies.

The Master in Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Technologies is the flagship visual arts graduate program at Virginia Tech. Our program is a terminal graduate degree that prepares students to leverage digital and new media technologies to develop original creative research.

The Creative Technologies MFA program is a diverse and dynamic community exploring complex issues in art, design, and technology. Our students create practice-based arts and human-centered design employing interdisciplinary methods within a top research university. Our graduates leave with the conceptual and technical skills needed to work in emerging fields of creative technologies.

MFA students are supported by faculty across all areas of the School of Visual Arts, who help students develop unique practices across wide-ranging subjects that reflect their research interests and passions. Our  award-winning faculty  are artists with ongoing professional practices. Faculty research is presented at a range of academic symposia and conferences internationally, and their artworks are regularly exhibited at galleries, museums, and film festivals around the world.

Areas of Emphasis

• Art History + Theory
• Code-Enabled Art
• Graphic Design
• Digital Fabrication
• Drawing + Painting
• Interactive Installation
• Laser Scanning
• Printmaking
• Photography
• Projection Mapping
• Virtual Environments

What TOEFL score do I need to have?

90 or above.

Do I have to take the GRE exam?

Do i have to have a visual arts portfolio to apply.

Yes, we require a portfolio/website in order for our MFA applicant review committee to best assess whether you could succeed in our program.

Is there Graduate Assistant funding?

Yes, we have competitive GTA funding. The 9-month GTA funding for MFA students is contingent upon their appropriate and continued academic, artistic, and assigned job-specific effort and merit. Funding may be revoked at any time if MFA students fail to achieve expected milestones or do not meet their outlined GTA duties. We do not provide funded GTA support to MFAs beyond the four semesters allocated for normal degree completion.

What are your labs, studios, and workspaces like?

Facilities where MFA students may work are located in several different buildings on the Virginia Tech Blacksburg Campus. The spaces that support MFA courses and student work include the following:

The Armory Building (203 Draper Rd. NW) is home to the school's main office, exhibition venue, and classrooms utilized for undergraduate programs. Located downtown, the Armory provides a lively intersection of the town and campus, and also holds some SOVA faculty offices. 

The Armory Art Gallery is operated as an educational and outreach service of the University. Its exhibition calendar includes work by visiting artists, faculty, BFA senior exhibitions, and sometimes MFA students. 

The Media Annex, adjacent to the Armory Building downtown, is the primary location for MFA student working space, providing important room for research, studio exploration, and community. 

The Media Building, located centrally downtown, is occasionally utilized for School of Visual Arts classrooms, as well as some SOVA faculty offices.   

The Creativity and Innovation District LLC Building is centrally located and adjacent to numerous other School of Visual Arts spaces. This building offers state-of-the-art seminar and studio classrooms for studio art courses (such as painting, drawing, and sculpture) as well as graduate critique events, and unique opportunities for performances and screenings in its large venues. 

The Digital Arts and Animation Lab (DAAS) is located on the first floor of the Newman Library. The lab contains a render farm as well as 21 Mac computers configured with professional software (including Autodesk Maya, ZBrush, Adobe Suite) to facilitate creative production across digital arts and media technologies. 

ICAT Box, (CTBOX) located immediately adjacent to DAAS on the first floor of the Newman Library, contains 18 PC computers and software (such as Unity and Unreal Engine) as well as VR headsets and tracking systems, and other equipment for immersive and interactive media development. 

Henderson Hall houses the offices of numerous SOVA faculty, classrooms for the Graphic Design program (undergraduate), Art History (serving undergraduate and graduate students), as well as classrooms utilized by the Creative Technologies program. Our equipment check-out storage space is additionally located in this building.

A dedicated studio space for BFA students in their senior year

• Our students additionally have access to fantastic public digital laboratories facilitated by the University Libraries, including the various Media Design Studios, which are spaces for all members of the Virginia Tech campus community to create various types of media, including video, audio, and other multimedia, and access or check out high-end technology. This suite of options includes:

The Prototyping Studio (3D printing, laser cutting, and more)

The Virtual Environments Studio (VR production)

The 3D Scanning Studio (digitization of real world objects)

The Media Recording Studio (recording videos, audio, and music)

Students can also request access to immersive video and audio environments such as the Cube , an immersive video and audio black box theater, and the Perform Studio .

• Equipment and Tools accessible to MFAs who have received permission and requisite training include items such as the following: 

Digital Production

VR Headsets and Tracking Systems 

VR-Ready Computers

Plasma, HD and 4K Monitors 

Wacom Tablets

Capturing and Recording

3D Laser Scanner

Flatbed Scanners

Azure Kinect depth-sensor cameras

DSLR and Digital Video Cameras

Multiplane Camera

Digital Audio Recorders

6mm Cameras, 16mm editing 

Tripods, Lighting Kits, Projector Stands 

Multimedia Installation

Benq Projectors, Short Throw, 4K and HD 

Media Players 

PA System and other audio equipment

Water Vapor Fog Machine

Arduino boards, Raspberry Pi’s, sensors

Fabrication

3D Printers 

Plasma Cutters

Laser Cutters

Vinyl Cutters

Soldering Stations

HAAS 6 Axis Milling Machine

ABB 6 Axis Robotic Arms

Metal Cutters and Curling Rollers

Metal Lathe Machine

Laser and Inkjet Printers

Comprehensive woodshop tools

Ceramic 3D printer 

Pottery Wheels 

Soldering supplies

Outside of the School of Visual Arts, all of our students are welcome to use tech studios in the University Library such as the motion capture system and the prototyping studio. And they also have access to an incredible array of media equipment through the Library’s lending desk . 

College-level facilities include the Art + Architecture Library located in Cowgill Hall. Additionally, MFA students may be able to undertake research projects through the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology (ICAT), which can facilitate access to specialized equipment and production spaces. These include labs equipped and dedicated to innovative and experimental arts and technology research projects.

What are the MFA degree requirements?

The MFA in Creative Technologies requires the accumulation of a minimum of 60 graduate-level (5000-level) credit hours, including successful passing, presentation, and completion of the original MFA thesis project (artwork(s) and research effort), and written Electronic Thesis Document. Below is a summary of the degree requirements.

15 credit hours in primary Studio courses (5000- level course credits, specifically within SOVA)

14 credits in additional Studio courses (many of these may be fulfilled by SOVA’s studio courses, by the semesterly Graduate Studio course offering(s), and/or supplemented by applied graduate-level credits outside of SOVA. Up to 9 of these credits may be taken outside of the ART department if approved on the Plan of Study by the Graduate Program Director and Thesis Committee)

1 credit of Ethics and Integrity content (required by Graduate School)

1 credit of Diversity and Inclusion content (required by Graduate School) 

1 credit of GTA Training (required by Graduate School)

9 credits in Art History/Theory courses, 3 of which must be ART 5854G (ART 5854G IS New Media Art Theory/Advanced Theories and Processes of Contemporary Art). Note that there are certain courses across the university that will not count towards these credits, please discuss with the Graduate Program Director before enrolling in any graduate art history/theory courses outside of SOVA.

9 credits in ART 5534 Graduate Art Critique (to be taken for the first 3 semesters the graduate student is enrolled in the MFA program, except for the MFA’s final Thesis Semester, at which point Graduate Art Critique enrollment is optional. Graduate Art Critique enrollment in the Thesis Semester, if pursued by the MFA student, may count as MFA studio credits in the final semester if the requisite 9 credits are complete)

12 credits in ART 5594 Research and Thesis (as noted above, the MFA Thesis culminates in a public presentation, exhibition of artwork(s), and submission of a written Electronic Thesis Dissertation document.)

A Note on Supplemental Courses In addition to the required 60 credit hours, students may be required to take certain courses to strengthen their background in specific areas, as determined by the MFA faculty.  Supplemental courses do not count toward the 60 hour Plan of Study, but do count toward full time status and graduate assistantships.

Is the MFA CT Program a STEM related field?

Yes, our program is considered a STEM related degree. This designation for a program of our kind is unique to the state of Virginia. Our program grants international students the ability to work within the field after graduation for up to 3 years. Please learn more about this opportunity through the VT OPT-Link .

When is the application deadline?

February 28, 2024.

Where do I apply?

Start your application   here .

What do I include in my application?

A resume/CV; a 1-2 page personal statement; a portfolio of your relevant artwork, scholarship, or other research; and 3 letters of recommendation (submitted directly by the recommender).

In your personal statement, it's important to describe why you want to pursue an MFA degree and the artistic and/or interdisciplinary research you intend to conduct while you're here.  Connect that research to your past experiences, both in and outside your previous education.  What other projects have you done in the past that are relevant?  What other traits, experiences, or skills do you have that will prepare you to undertake MFA research?  And finally, what do you think you might do after graduating?

In your portfolio (which might take the form of a website, or a PDF with a series of links to video hosted on google drive or vimeo, for example), you'll want to include images and/or video of the strongest artwork and/or scholarship you have created thus far.  I suggest organizing your portfolio to make it easy for the committee to see first whatever you consider to be your strongest, most relevant work.  You should also make sure to write a paragraph describing what you hoped to accomplish with each work and what you used to create it.

In our review of your application, we will be looking for evidence that you are prepared, that you can contribute positively, and that you will be able to conduct self-driven artistic and/or interdisciplinary research.

Where are our alumni?

CT MFA program graduates have gone on to many accomplishments professionally and academically beyond the program. Our alumni work across numerous fields, including but certainly not limited to the following examples: 

• professional visual artists working at national and international levels
• higher education (visiting faculty, tenured, and tenure-track faculty)
• work in technology and information science fields (i.e., Google, Microsoft, etc.) 
• professional media fields and creative positions in studios centering a wide range of areas, e.g., design, animation, game design/development, motion graphics, art direction, visualization, filmmaking, storyboarding, illustration, etc.
• roles with regional and nationally-acclaimed museums and galleries
• research positions at universities and government institutions
• roles at nonprofit organizations
• numerous transdisciplinary fields 
• Additionally, some of our MFAs go on to pursue PhDs.

Virginia Tech

Blacksburg , VA

https://liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-and-schools/department-of-english/academic-programs/master-of-fine-arts-in-creative-writing.html

Degrees Offered

Fiction, Poetry

Residency type

Financial aid.

All students fully funded through Graduate Teaching Assistantships with annual stipends of $21,000

Teaching opportunities

TAships are available

Editorial opportunities

Students are given the opportunity to help edit two literary journals– The Minnesota Review and The New River: A Journal of Digital Writing and Art .

Cross-genre study

Workshops available in playwriting, creative nonfiction and new media.

• Anuradha Bhowmik MFA (Poetry) 2018
• Weston Cutter MFA (Poetry) 2009
• Mirri Glasson-Darling MFA (Fiction) 2019
• Alison Hazle MFA (Poetry) 2024
• Lauren Jensen-Deegan MFA (Poetry) 2010
• Kate Kimball MFA 2010
• Amy Long MFA (CNF) 2016

Send questions, comments and corrections to [email protected] .

Disclaimer: No endorsement of these ratings should be implied by the writers and writing programs listed on this site, or by the editors and publishers of Best American Short Stories , Best American Essays , Best American Poetry , The O. Henry Prize Stories and The Pushcart Prize Anthology .

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Virginia Tech

MFA in Creative Writing

Student Profiles

Class of 2027.

Dylan Ever spins stories out of folklore and fables, interweaving critters, creatures, and confused twenty-somethings. In her art she loves exploring combinations of music, visuals, and writing, and can often be found plucking at a guitar, building spaceship-esque synthesizers, or out writing poetry for passersby on her typewriter.

Piper Fitzgerald

Piper Fitzgerald grew up in the Meramec Area of Missouri and attended Saint Louis University to complete her undergraduate degree in English. When she isn’t reading or writing, she is hiking, practicing her photography, watching films, or spending time with her pets.

Shannan Mann

Shannan Mann  has been awarded/placed for the  Palette  Love & Eros Prize,  Rattle  Poetry Prize, Auburn Witness Prize, Foster Poetry Prize,  Peatsmoke  Summer Contest,  Frontier  Award for New Poets, and the Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize among others. Her poems appear in  Poetry Daily, Black Warrior Review, Poet Lore, Gulf Coast, The Literary Review of Canada, EPOCH ,  december,  & elsewhere. Her essays appear in  Tolka Journal,   Going Down Swinging, Grain  and have been awarded the Alta Lind Cook Prize and Irene Adler Essay Prize. She also translates Sanskrit poetry. At present, she’s working on a magic-realist/horror/humor novel about rageful women, the apocalypse, and conscious frying pans. Personally, she loves reading more than writing. Professionally, she’s part of the  Chill Subs  team. Spiritually, she is married to  Karan Kapoor . Together, they raise their daughter, Anasuya Lilayana, and run the lit mag  ONLY POEMS . 

Isaac Maxey

Isaac Maxey is from Shawsville, VA. He has a piece upcoming in  North American Review.  Takes bad photos, calls them candid. Lies to your face.

Nuran Ọládèjì

Nurain Ọládèjì was raised in southwest Nigeria. He holds degrees in the crop sciences and has worked as an agroecological researcher before pledging his fealty to the letters. His chapbook,  Home Is a Heart That Flees , was selected by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani for inclusion in the 2024  New-Generation African Poets (Kumi) chapbook box set. He has published poetry and fiction in  Poetry Wales ,  Transition ,  Olongo Africa ,  Acumen , and elsewhere.

Maria Psarakis

Maria Psarakis is a writer from Virginia. She holds a BA in Environmental Studies and Political Science from the University of Richmond. 

William Shaw

William Shaw is a writer from Sheffield. His writing has appeared in  Strange Horizons ,  The Georgia Review , and  Daily Science Fiction . His first book, a critical study of the  Doctor Who  episode  The Rings of Akhaten , was published in 2020. He is quoted on the Wikipedia page for  @dril.

  Britt Washburn

Brit Washburn is the author of the essay collection  Homing In: Attempts on a Life of Poetry and Purpose  (Alexandria Quarterly Press, 2023), and the poetry collections  Notwithstanding  (Wet Cement Press, 2019) and  What Is Given  (forthcoming from Wet Cement, Spring 2025). She is a graduate of the Creative Writing Program at Interlochen Arts Academy in Northern Michigan, where she was born and raised, and of the soon-to-be late, great Goddard College in Vermont. Brit has been awarded an artist’s grant by the Vermont Studio Center and works as a freelance writer, editor, indexer, a Montessori teacher, and instructor in the Great Smokies Writing Program at University of North Carolina Asheville. Her work can be found in print and online via  www.britwashburn.com .

Class of 2026

Jesus Govea

Jesus Govea is a writer from Chicago, Illinois. He received his B.A in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago. He has been published in Poetry , Respect the Mic: Celebrating 20 Years of Poetry from a Chicagoland High School , and has appeared in Slam Your Poetry by Miles Mercill and Narcisa Nozica. He enjoys reading world literature, watching Columbo , and playing badminton.

Emelia Kamadulski

Emelia Kamadulski is a poet and artist born in St. Louis and raised in the Pacific Northwest and the Mountain West. Her work explores mental illness, love, family, and the boundaries between art, place, and identity. She graduated from the University of Denver with a BA in creative writing and a minor in studio art. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys birdwatching, fiber crafts, and haunting her local library.

Karan Kapoor

Karan Kapoor is a poet from New Delhi, India. They have been awarded or placed for the James Hearst Poetry Prize, Frontier Global Poetry Prize, and BLR Prize among others. A finalist for the IHLR Chapbook Prize and Vallum Chapbook Award, their poems have appeared in AGNI, North American Review, The Los Angeles Review, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. You can find them at: karankapoor.net .

Riley O’Mearns

Riley O’Mearns is a poet and a Gemini. Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, she holds a BA in Creative Writing from Saint Mary’s College in Indiana and an MA in English from Kansas State University. Her work fosters a gentle curiosity about identity and nature. She has so much to love: crocheting, her cats, the Legend of Zelda series, yacht rock, and the em dash (among other things).

Ifreen Raveen

Ifreen Raveen is a writer from Indian Administered Kashmir. She has previously worked as an associate software engineer and an independent journalist. Her stories focus on the inner lives and private spaces of women living in a conflict zone, collective and generational trauma, and the many projections of everyday life under prolonged political turmoil. She believes in the power of storytelling, of words and imagination, for personal healing, and to remember, connect people, and transcend limitations.

Kirk Reilly

Kirk Reilly is a fiction writer, playwright, and former actor from Central Florida. He received a BFA in Creative Writing from Brooklyn College. His plays have been developed and/or performed at HB Studio, Brooklyn College, The Tank NYC, and Treefort:Storyfort.

Amanda Silva

Amanda Silva (or A.C. Silva) was born and raised in Carlisle Pennsylvania, earned her B.A. in Written Arts and Spanish Studies from Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson New York, and has lived in Boston Massachusetts ever since. Her short stories have been published by Haunted Waters Press , Add To Cart Magazine , and The Bangalore Review. She likes her fiction funny, suspenseful, and/or unsettling.  Her favorite person is her cat, Bowling Ball. Her favorite animal(s) are the hordes of wild turkeys that roam the streets of Boston. Her favorite mode of transportation is swimming. She dreams of someday owning a haunted house.

Grace Turner

Grace Turner is a pack rat and an easy laugh. She takes sleeping very seriously and can often be found in the wild clad in vintage nightwear—the world is her bed/clamshell/crypt. She is interested in material culture and memory.

Eric Yoo was born in Texas and grew up in Virginia. He likes the Spurs and also the sport of tennis. His favorite drink is cold sparkling water on a hot day.

Class of 2025

Emilia Borjas

Emilia Borjas is a writer rooted in Fresno, CA. Her work has previously appeared in  Flies, Cockroaches, and Poets,  a journal produced in the Central Valley. She holds a BA degree in English and Secondary Education from CSU Fresno State. She digs cooking, billiards, and long car drives. 

Jay Steven Culmone

Jay Steven Culmone is a writer from Wallingford, CT. He has a B.A. in math and a B.A./M.A. in philosophy, and somehow he’s gotten away with never actually using them. His stories tend to live somewhere near speculative fiction/bizarro/fabulism. If he isn’t writing, he’s probably watching what is by all accounts too many cartoons.

Kapreece Dorrah

Kapreece Dorrah is a writer and performer from a mixture of South Carolina and Virginia. Kapreece, after an odyssey through the Carolinas, obtained his B.A. in English from Clemson University. At Clemson, he was involved in various councils and activism and helped to found a Black arts collective. He has now returned to Virginia seeking his M.F.A. in Creative writing. Kapreece’s writing/performance interests lie in poetry, playwriting, nonfiction, theatre, and the spoken word. His writing seeks to tackle topics such as generational trauma, childhood, sneakers, and everything in between. Aside from writing, he is interested in basketball, music, history and loves open mics. His favorite quote is by James Baldwin which is “artists are here disturb the peace,” which is what he hopes to do through his writing. 

Fez is an ecopoet from Northern Michigan with a love for things that *could* kill them but haven’t yet, like swimming during thunderstorms and eating raw brownie batter. Their work explores the body as wilderness and wilderness as bodies, with a particular fondness for decomposition and pleasure. They are a self-proclaimed “reformed horse girl.” 

Grace Gaynor

Grace Gaynor is a poet from Louisville, Kentucky. Her work explores lesbian identity, gender performance, and body image . She earned her BA from Hollins University, where she studied English and GWS. As an undergraduate, she served as an editor for Cargoes, a campus literary magazine. She enjoys cooking vegan dishes, reading, and sweet tea.

Shaheer Malik

Shaheer Malik is a writer from Lahore, Pakistan. In 2020, he graduated from Yale University with a BA in English Language and Literature after ping-ponging between History, Computer Science, and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. He has worked as a web-developer, tutor, clerk at a law office, political intern, freelance content writer, and a librarian. He likes to write about the spaces between languages, cultures, memories, and artistic mediums. He also likes Sufi poetry.

Elisha Mykelti

Elisha Mykelti is an Ohio-and-Tennessee-raised poet and editor. She dedicates herself to musical, dialectical, and innovative poetry that honors time and place, especially the South. Elisha serves on the editorial board for Sundress Publications. Her work has appeared in Berkeley Poetry Review . She holds a BA in English (Creative Writing) from the University of Tennessee. In her free time, Elisha does beadwork and reads tarot cards.

Catalina Santana

Catalina Santana is a fiction writer from Queens, New York. She received her BA in English from the University of Chicago. Her work explores identity, martyrdom, awe, racism and power. She is particularly interested in those themes within the context of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

Class of 2024

Xander Gershberg

Xander Gershberg is a poet, editor, and educator from Fairfield, CT, and has since made Minneapolis home. He currently serves as an editor-at-large for Spout Press. His work has appeared in  Poetry Online . His creative and academic work grapple with generational trauma and reparative writing, as well as queer and disability studies. He holds a BA in English and creative writing from Macalester College. In his free time, he likes to get lost in maps.

Shannon Pratson

Shannon Pratson is a writer from Charlottesville, Virginia. In 2015, she graduated from the University of Virginia with a BA in English. She has worked, in no particular order, in rural France, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and Boston, but considers the Virginia Blue Ridge home. When she is not writing, she enjoys reading, running, cooking, and spending time with her husband, John.

Mary Fischer

Mary Fischer is a writer from Northern California. She is interested in Midwestern towns with biblical names, women cowboys, and the suburbs.

Kristi Estefania Stout Larios

Kristi is a writer from North Carolina.  Her work has appeared in Small Orange and is forthcoming in The Rumpus . You can find her at kristi-stout.com.

Kayla Murphy

Kayla Murphy is from New Cumberland, Pennsylvania. She holds a BA in Sociology from Temple University. Her work has previously appeared in Hobart .

Dante Fuoco

Dante Fuoco is a genderqueer poet, playwright, solo peformer, video artist, and educator from Pittsburgh, Pa. His writing appears in Ovenbird, Exposition Review (winner of the Flash 405 contest), KGB Bar Lit Review, and elsewhere. She performed and produced her most recent solo show off-off-Broadway. A nationally recognized special education teacher, she has spent the last few years doing restorative justice work in NYC public schools. He holds a BA in English literature from Swarthmore College. (dantefuoco.com) 

Andres Macias

Andres Macias is a fiction writer from Southern California. He is interested in humans and human behavior.

Ruth Aitken

Ruth Aitken [rhymes with bacon] likes writing fiction more than she likes writing about herself. When she plays Two Truths and a Lie, it’s easier to come up with three lies. Ruth Aitken invented hammocks. Ruth Aitken faked her own death for a 2007 episode of Punk’d. Ruth Aitken is four rats in a trenchcoat.

MFA Bookshelf

8 Lessons From Nikki Giovanni

Creative Writing Major

What is a major in creative writing.

Participate in a wide range of courses reflective of your creative interests. You'll learn about major writers, literary traditions, and contemporary innovations. Under the guidance of published writers, you'll also develop a portfolio of material showcasing your range and versatility as a creative writer.

Why Study Creative Writing at Virginia Tech?

Here, you will study with distinguished authors including Matthew Vollmer, Lucinda Roy, Jeff Mann, Evan Lavender-Smith, Sophia Terazawa, and Khadijah Queen. We also host a variety of campus readings for you to attend by renowned poets, playwrights, essayists, and fiction writers. Some of our past visiting writers have included:

• Viet Than Ngyuen
• George Saunders
• Carrie Fountain
• Douglas Kearney
• Matthew Salesses
• Jenny Boully
• Zadie Smith
• Terry Tempest Williams
• Kevin Young
• Terrance Hayes
• Cheryl Strayed
• Ocean Vuong

The major offers workshops that allow you to share your poems, stories, and essays with peer's to help you grow as a writer. With this opportunity, you can improve your writing skills while building your portfolio.

  3 Study Abroad Programs

  24 Average Class Size

  100+ English Courses Offered

Caty Gordon, '10

Caty graduated from Virginia Tech in 2010 with degrees in creative writing and professional and technical writing. After graduating from Columbia University with her M.F.A. in creative nonfiction, she moved on to serve as an editorial assistant for Simon and Schuster and Penguin Group USA, where she is presently employed.

Orlando Dos Reis, '10

Orlando graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in creative writing in 2010. Post-graduation, he moved on to Kansas State University to continue his education, earning his M.A. in English language and literature in 2013. He presently serves as an editorial assistant for Abrams in the New York City area.

Erica Corder, '16

Erica graduated from Virginia Tech in 2016 with degrees in creative writing and political science. After starting up an independent journalism publication called The Pylon, Erica accepted a job in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, where she currently works as a communications manager who tells the story of the college and its students and faculty in Blacksburg and beyond through writing, photos, and videos.

Shalini Rana, '18

Shalini graduated with double majors in creative writing and professional and technical writing. During her time at Virginia Tech, her poetry was published in undergraduate publications, Silhouette and Philologia, and received third place in the Steger Poetry Prize. Shalini works as a consultant for CollabraLink Technologies and continues writing. In the future, she plans to complete a poetry M.F.A. program.

Jessica Mardian, '20

In her creative writing courses, Jessica developed strong writing skills and found the space to express herself. She was published in the Silhouette literary magazine, was a finalist for the Steger Poetry Prize at Virginia Tech, and served as a speaker at the Creative Writing Showcase. Jessica plans to pursue a career a journalism and a MFA in Creative Writing, with a focus on poetry.

Careers and Further Study

What can you do with a major in Creative Writing?

Jobs Held by Our Graduates

• Creative manager
• Literary agent
• Grant writer
• Video game developer
• Editor and copywriter
• Web designer
• Television writer
• Journalist and reporter

Creative Writing Major at Virginia Tech

Beyond the Classroom

Experiential Learning

• INTERNSHIPS
• UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH AND INDEPENDENT STUDY
• STUDY ABROAD
• STRONG COMMUNITY
• WRITING WORKSHOPS

Engage in your profession by writing, researching, editing, and making connections with employers across the country. Apply the knowledge and skills you learn in the classroom to the workplace. Internships earn academic credit and provide valuable real-world experience. 

You will work with a faculty mentor to experiment with language, find inspiration, grow as an artist, and share your work with peers and mentors. Learn how to brainstorm and experiment, gain experience performing your work for audiences, learn how to critique stories, poems, and plays in a workshop setting, and submit your work to literary magazines.

We host a faculty-led trip to London, an exchange program with Loughborough University, and a Wintermester Experience that visits different locations each year .  These experiences enrich your understanding of the history and culture of the English language and its literature.

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Our diverse faculty is made up of published authors and poets, accomplished playwrights and essayists, and recipients of fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. We love mentoring our students and take great pride in watching them grow as writers.

During our Creative Writing major workshops, you will have the opportunity to share your stories, poems, and essays with your classmates. You'll offer critiques, compliments, suggestions, and interpretations of your peers work; you'll receive the same in return. No two workshops will ever be the same. Our goal is to help you improve your writing skills.

What You'll Study

Bachelor of Arts in English Degree

• Including Virginia Tech's Pathways

Creative Writing Major Requirements

• Introduction to Critical Reading
• Introduction to Critical Writing
• Literary History
• Acts of Interpretation
• Writing and Digital Media
• Capstone Experience 

Minor and Elective Hours

Our program gives you the opportunity to build knowledge in another area by pursuing a minor, double major, or cognate.

120 hrs B.A. English

45 hrs General Education

39 hrs Major Requirements

36 hrs Elective

Campus Life

Virtual tour.

Explore the university through either a guided or self-guided virtual tour

Discover all that Virginia Tech has to offer inside and outside of the classroom. Our campus life aims to build communities, promote holistic education, and cultivate environments that offer opportunities for leadership, innovation, and service.

Related Programs

How can we help you decide.

Cost and Financial Aid How to Apply

Visit Campus Virtual Tour

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