boston university mfa creative writing

Boston University Arts & Sciences Writing

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About the Program

Thank you for your interest in the Boston University MFA Program in Creative Writing, one of the oldest and most prestigious programs in this country. Our alumni in poetry include Elizabeth Alexander, Erin Belieu, Rafael Campo, Melissa Green, Glyn Maxwell, Carl Phillips and Don Share; in fiction, our alumni include Peter Ho Davies, Arthur Golden, Ha Jin, Jhumpa Lahiri, Askold Melnyczuk, Melanie Rae-Thon, Weike Wang, and Lisa Taddeo. The Atlantic magazine has ranked our program among the top five percent of all creative writing programs for the distinction of its faculty and alumni, and has ranked ours among the top ten programs overall.

Most notably, however, our program offers to poets and fiction writers in a single year (usually including summer study) a rigorous combination of literary study and focus on craft equivalent to what other MFA programs accomplish in two years. Our program also offers practical experience in teaching creative writing at the high school or undergraduate level through teaching fellowships. Such an intensive curriculum is only possible because of the dedication, talent and energy of the students who choose to attend the BU MFA Program. The accelerated nature of the program creates close bonds between each year’s cohorts of poets and fiction writers, who also benefit from the intellectual and artistic stimulation of being part of a large university in one of the most lively and beautiful cities in the United States. Finally, our students have the opportunity for world language study, including the option of taking BU’s renowned Translation Seminar, culminating in a Global Fellowship that affords them the opportunity for travel, writing, and study for a period of up to three months anywhere outside of the United States.

Please note that the MFA in Playwriting is now separate from the Creative Writing Program in Fiction and Poetry. Playwriting is now a three-year program housed at the Boston Playwrights’ Theater. For information on the program and its admissions, please click here .

For further information about the BU MFA Program in Creative Writing, please contact:

Annaka Saari Administrative Coordinator Creative Writing Program Boston University

236 Bay State Road Boston, MA 02215

(617) 353-2510 [email protected]

We look forward to reviewing your application, and send you good wishes for your writing.

Our MFA students have the opportunity to live, write, and travel anywhere in the world

Read about BU's renowned Translation Seminar

236 Bay State Road, Boston, MA 02215
Phone: (617) 353-2510
email: [email protected]

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Boston University

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MFA Program

Poetry: Andrea Cohen, Karl Kirchwey, Robert Pinsky Fiction: Leslie Epstein, Jennifer Haigh, Ha Jin

The program offers full funding. Every student receives full tuition coverage and a teaching stipend.

The program also offers Global Fellowships, which allow students the opportunity to live, write, and explore for up to three months, anywhere in the world.

AGNI , Clarion , 236 , Favorite Poem Project

This program features the Robert Lowell Memorial Lectures reading series and the Ha Jin Visting Lectures series. There is a foreign language requirement which may be satisfied in a number of ways.

Applicants may apply for an application fee waiver .

The Creative Writing Program was first established in 1954, shortly after WWII, as an MA program.

Elizabeth Alexander, Ellen Bass, Robin Becker, Duy Doan, William Giraldi, Arthur Golden, Ha Jin, Jhumpa Lahiri, Thu Nguyen, Patricia Park, Weike Wang

BU Creative Writing

for writers at Boston University and beyond

Contributors

This is the blog for the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Boston University. We’re looking to connect our far-flung alumni and current grad students, and also just give the world a little news about our program. Please feel free to leave comments.

All material published here is for educational and entertainment purposes only. All authors submitting work do so without compensation, and as such shall at all times retain all rights to said work; we shall make every effort remove anything posted here if it should be published elsewhere. While the information contained on this site is intended to be useful, both to you, the reader, and to those who wrote it, it should go without saying that the opinions expressed in the contents of individual posts do not necessarily reflect those of Boston University, its Board of Trustees, or of the Creative Writing Program, its faculty, or staff.

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