The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing is a 48-semester-hour (sixteen-course) program of advanced writing workshops and graduate course work. The primary tracks are poetry and fiction, and admission is highly competitive. In addition to the poetry and fiction workshops, there are courses available that focus on writing drama, nonfiction, and screenplays, as well as courses that provide practical experience in editing.

The basic requirements to complete the MFA degree program are simple and straightforward, and include twelve semester hours of writing workshops, twelve hours graduate literature courses, and six to twelve hours of thesis work. Thesis hours enable students to produce a substantial creative writing thesis, a requirement of graduation.

Degree Requirements, MFA in Creative Writing

The majority of full-time MFA students take three years to finish the program. It is possible, however, for full-time students who enter with a previous graduate degree in English or with appropriate previous graduate course work to complete the degree in two years. In addition, students not holding teaching assistantships can finish in two years. Individuals who are admitted to the program as part-time students coordinate their schedules with their advisors.

David Wojahn, Program Director
Thom Didato, Graduate Programs Coordinatorg

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News & Events

April 24, 2008
The Department of English and the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University are pleased to host a reading by award-winning author, Bret Lott. The reading will take place Thursday, April 24th at 8 pm at Gallery 1708 (319 W. Broad St.) Lott is the author of 11 books, most recently the story collection The Difference Between Women and Men, Before We Get Started: A Practical Memoir of the Writer's Life, and the bestselling novel A Song I Knew by Heart. His newest book, the novel Ancient Highway, will be released by Random House in July. 

April 17, 2008
The Department of English and the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University are pleased to host a joint poetry reading by Claudia Emerson and Clint McCown.  The reading will take place on Thursday, April 17th, at 8 pm in the University Student Commons (Richmond Salons I/II), 907 Floyd Avenue. Emerson’s most recent collection, Late Wife, won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Her other poetry collections include Pharaoh, Pharaoh, and Pinion, An Elegy. McCown’s latest collection of poems is Dead Languages (Anhinga Press, 2008).  He published two collections of poems (Sidetracks and Wind Over Water), and three novels (The Member-Guest, War Memorials, and The Weatherman).

April 3, 2008
The Department of English and the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University are pleased to host a reading by acclaimed poet, Terrance Hayes. The reading will take place on April 3rd at 7 pm at VCU University Student Commons – Richmond Salons. Hayes is the author of Wind in a Box (Penguin, 2006), Hip Logic (Penguin, 2002) and Muscular Music (Carnegie Mellon University Contemporary Classics, 2005, and Tia Chucha Press, 1999). His honors include a Whiting Writers' Award, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, a National Poetry Series Award, a Pushcart Prize, two Best American Poetry selections, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. His poems have appeared in a range of journals, including The New Yorker, Fence, Tin House, The Kenyon Review and Ploughshares. He co-edits the poetry journal jubilat, and is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

February 28, 2008
The Department of English and the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University are pleased to host a reading by award-winning author, Thomas Mallon. The reading will take place on February 28th at 8 pm at VCU University Student Commons – Virginia Rooms. Mallon's seven novels include Henry and Clara, Bandbox, and the recently-published Fellow Travelers. He has written non-fiction books about plagiarism (Stolen Words), diaries (A Book of One's Own) and the Kennedy assassination (Mrs. Paine's Garage), as well as two volumes of essays (Rockets and Rodeos and In Fact). His work appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Book Review and other publications.

February 14, 2008
The Department of English and the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University are pleased to host a reading by award-winning poet, Jean Valentine. The reading will take place Thursday, February 14th at 8 pm at Gallery 1708 (319 W. Broad St.) Valentine's most recent book is Little Boat (Wesleyan University Press, 2007). Her previous collection, Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems 1965 - 2003, was the winner of the 2004 National Book Award for Poetry.

November 16, 2007
The Sixth Annual VCU First Novelist Award, for a book published in 2006, will go to Peter Orner for his novel The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, published by Random House. The award will be presented at the First Novelist Forum at VCU Student Commons at 7PM. Previous awards have gone to Karen Fisher for A Sudden Country, Lorraine Adams for Harbor, Michael Byers for Long for This World, Isabel Zuber for Salt, and Maribeth Fischer for The Language of Good-bye. For more details, please visit http://www.firstnovelist.vcu.edu

November 8, 2007
The Department of English and the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University are pleased to host a reading by award-winning poet, C.K. Williams.  The reading will take place on Thursday, November 8th at 8 pm in the VCU School of Business Auditorium (Room 101, 1015 Floyd Avenue).  Please note the venue for this event was changed from the original announcement. C.K. Williams’ Collected Poems appeared in 2006.  He has published nine other books of poetry, the most recent of which, The Singing, won the National Book Award for 2003.  His previous book, Repair, was awarded the 2000 Pulitzer Prize, and his collection, Flesh and Blood, received the National Book Critics Circle Award.  He has published translations of Sophocles’ Women of Trachis, Euripides’ Bacchae, and poems of Francis Ponge, among others.  His book of essays, Poetry and Consciousness, appeared in 1998, and a memoir, Misgivings, in 2000.  He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and teaches in the writing program at Princeton University.

October 15, 2007
The Department of English and the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University are pleased to host a reading by author, Rebecca Curtis.  The reading will take place on Monday, October 15th, at 8 pm in the in the University Student Commons (Commonwealth A), 907 Floyd Avenue. Rebecca Curtis has a Masters in English from New York University and an MFA in fiction from Syracuse University.  She is the author of Twenty Grand and Other Tales of Love & Money (Harpercollins 2007).  Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Harper’s Bazaar, McSweeney’s, Conjunctions, Open City, N+1 and elsewhere, and her nonfiction has appeared in Jane Magazine.  She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation award and a Saltonstall Grant.  She has taught writing in the MFA programs at St. Mary’s College of California and at the University of Kansas.  She currently teaches in the writing program at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn.

September 27, 2007
The Department of English and the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University are pleased to announce that From the Book of Giants by Joshua Weiner was selected as the winner of the Tenth Annual Levis Reading Prize, awarded in the name of the late Larry Levis for the best first or second book of poetry published in the calendar year 2006. Mr. Weiner will receive an honorarium of $1000 and will be brought to Richmond all expenses paid for a reception and public reading to take place September 27th at 8PM in the Virginia Commonwealth University Student Commons, Richmond Salons III/IV (907 Floyd Avenue). A reception will follow. This reading at VCU is sponsored by the Department of English and the Graduate Writers Association, with additional funding provide by the family of Larry Levis. It is free and open to the public.

September 14-16, 2007
The Department of English and College of Humanities and Sciences will host the annual meeting of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals (RSVP), September 14-16, 2007. The conference topic is “Time and the Victorian Press.” Program chair for this year’s meeting is Prof. Mark Turner, King’s College, University of London. Highlights of the conference will include: (1) The Annual Wolff Lecture, this year by Joel H. Wiener, Professor of History at City University of New York; (2) The Colby Book Prize, an annual award for the book which makes the greatest contribution to the study of nineteenth-century periodicals, will be awarded to Prof. David Finkelstein of Edinburgh University, Scotland, for his book Print Culture and the Blackwood Tradition (University of Toronto Press, 2006); and (3) An architectural walking tour led by Prof. Charles Brownell of the Department of Art History, VCU, 16 September, 9:30 am. Full information and registration forms may be found here.

June-August 2007
The Department of English is taking these summer months to prepare for another great academic year. The MA program looks forward to an incoming class of 20 new students, while both the national-ranked MFA program and the new PhD program in Media, Art & Text will have 13 additional students respectively. Winners of the annual Levis Reading Prize and First Novelist Award will soon be announced, and the Department's distinguished Visiting Writers Series for 07-08 will host readings by such acclaimed authors as CK Williams, Thomas Mallon, Terrance Hayes, Brett Lott and others.

For a complete listing of past Department news and events click here.

Audio
Hear some recent Creative Writing Program award winners read from their work in RealAudio . . . listen here