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MFA FAQ

 

Sample three-year schedule

 

Learn more about our students and graduates

 

 

Please note that our program’s degree requirements and residency structure changed starting in the Fall of 2007.  Most students will now follow a three-year program of study while a few other students (usually those who already hold an M.A. in English or other relevant degree) will follow a two-year program.  Click here for more details. 

 

The GCSU Catalog may not be updated yet, so please refer to these web pages for current information.  Contact MFA Coordinator Martin Lammon if you have any questions.

 

 

 

 

Karen Salyer McElmurray teaches creative nonfiction and fiction

 

MFA students and faculty enjoy a night downtown at the Brick

 

The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program offers workshops with award-winning faculty writers in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and memoir, and scriptwriting, and students may write the thesis (a book-length work) in any of these four genres. Unlike other MFA programs, we not only encourage students to work in other genres, we require our students to take one or two workshops in at least one genre other than their thesis genre. In addition, students take creative writing seminars in Poetry & Poetics or Prose Forms, Teaching Creative Writing, Theories of Composition and Literature, as well as noncreative writing classes in literature and other related courses. Click here to see a sample program of study schedule. For the program’s degree requirements, see the GCSU Graduate Catalog. 

 

 

 

Arts & Letters

Journal of Contemporary Culture

 

Most students accepted to our program receive graduate assistantships.  Students on assistantship teach, work as consultants in the GCSU Writing Center, assist with the department’s journals: Arts & Letters and the Flannery O’Connor Review, and perform other professional duties. We are the only MFA program in the country that offers assistantships to “Peace Corps Fellows” who have returned from their volunteer assignments. In addition to assistantships, outstanding students may also apply for scholarships that will supplement their stipends. For more details about these opportunities, click here. 

 

 

 

Andalusia is the farm where O’Connor wrote most of her published fiction.

 

For photos of GCSU and Milledgeville,

Click here!

 

GCSU offers a unique setting for students interested in pursuing the MFA in Creative Writing.  Our university is small (about 6,000 students), located in historic downtown Milledgeville (home of Flannery O’Connor and former capital of Georgia from 1803-1868).  We’re located about 90 miles southeast of Atlanta, and within an easy drive (about three hours, more or less) to ocean beaches or the North Georgia mountains. Here, writers find an opportunity to write without the distractions one finds at a larger campus or in a big city.  Here, you’ll find a community of faculty and students committed to their writing, to their studies, and to each other. Here, you can visit Flannery O’Connor’s family farm, Andalusia, and if you’re interested we can even set up opportunities for you to have a quiet place there to work on your writing, in exchange for helping with the care and restoration of the farm.

 

 

Li-Young Lee meeting with MFA students at GCSU

 

 

 

Our students have published in journals such as Crazyhorse, Ploughshares, River City, and many more. Graduates have found teaching positions at St. John’s University, Penn State-The Behrend Campus, UNC-Chapel Hill, Tusculum College (TN) and many more!

 

Visiting Writers

 

Don’t let our small size fool you, however.  Our students work closely with many visiting writers.

 

For a calendar of our visiting writers, click here.

 

Involved Students

 

Our students also attend the annual AWP national conference (Chicago in 2004, Vancouver in 2005, Austin in 2006) and publish their award-winning writing in journals across the country. In the spring of 2007, GCSU was a major sponsor of the AWP conference in Atlanta.  In the spring of 2008, we will be attending the conference in New York. Our students also receive free copies of all issues of the AWP Writer’s Chronicle and Poets & Writers.

 

Learn more about our students, where they’ve published, and what they’re doing after they graduate.

 

You can even contact our current students to ask them questions via our program’s email at mfa@gcsu.edu.  If you’d like to apply, click here for information.

 

 

 

GCSU is a member of

 

The Association of Writers

and Writing Programs

 

One of only 20 member colleges nationwide

 

 

 

Creative Writing Program

Campus Box 44

Georgia College & State University

Milledgeville, GA  31061

 

English Office: (478) 445-4581

MFA Office: (478) 445-3509