Javascript is currently not supported, or is disabled by this browser. Please enable Javascript for full functionality.

Skip to Main Content
Columbia Campus    
2018-2019 Graduate Studies Bulletin 
    
 
  Mar 29, 2024
 
2018-2019 Graduate Studies Bulletin [Archived Catalog]

Creative Writing, M.F.A.


Return to Programs by College/School Return to: Programs by College/School


Learning Outcomes

  • Students will develop and refine their individual writerly voices, produce literary work of a high quality, and demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of their own aesthetics, as well as the literary models and cultural sources of those aesthetics. 
  • Students will demonstrate an advanced comprehension of editing and revision techniques and strategies, which include synthesizing challenges, advice and critiques from professors and fellow M.F.A. students. 
  • Students will demonstrate at least the early stages of professionalization, which may include preparation to publish creative work, performance of work for an audience, experience in literary editing, exposure to creative writing pedagogy, and/or knowledge of academic and alterative careers for creative writers. 
  • Students will actively engage in a wider literary culture and community, whether at the local, regional, national, or international level. 

Degree Requirements (45 Hours)

The student must choose one of three options within the program: poetry, fiction, or creative non-fiction. In addition to all the basic requirements for admission to the graduate English program, applicants must submit a writing sample in the genre that they wish to pursue (25 pages of fiction or writing for the media; at least 12 poems).

Requirements include:

  1. 15 hours of workshop courses
  2. 6 hours in theory (three of these hours may be in the theory and teaching of composition, exclusive of  ENGL 691  and ENGL 692 )
  3. 9 hours in literature
  4. 9 hours of approved electives
  5. Thesis, ENGL 799  (6 hours)
  6. A three-hour written comprehensive examination in the history and practice of the student’s genre
  7. A thesis, which will be a book-length work (a novel, a collection of short stories, a group of poems, or a piece of writing for the visual media) of a quality that compares favorably with work being published by university presses and commercial publishers
  8. An oral examination on the thesis

Return to Programs by College/School Return to: Programs by College/School