Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction
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About the Program
Goucher College's limited-residency MFA in Creative Nonfiction allows students to complete most of the requirements off campus while developing their skills as nonfiction writers under the close supervision of a faculty mentor. The limited-residency format is particularly well suited for the education of a writer, providing the nurturing supervision of a mentor while allowing students the freedom and solitude to be creative. To this end, the program has endeavored to recruit and hire faculty members who are respected practitioners in the genre, have excelled in the teaching of creative nonfiction, and can work with a wide range of student interests.What distinguishes Goucher's MFA from other graduate creative writing programs, including those that take advantage of the limited-residency format, is its exclusive focus on a single genre. The program is also distinguished by its strong professional focus on writing and publishing. Toward that end, second year students make an annual trip to New York to meet with editors and agents in the publishing world.
The program is normally completed in two years and includes four semesters of work, an internship, two spring mini-residencies, two two-week summer residencies, and a final partial residency the summer the student graduates. The spring residency is not required of students who entered the MFA program prior to Fall 2007.
Balancing original writing with critical reading, it provides instruction in the following areas of creative nonfiction: narrative nonfiction, the personal essay, memoir, literary journalism, travel/nature/science writing, and biography/profiles.
Nationally recognized writers who have been associated with Goucher's MFA in Creative Nonfiction program include:
- Diane Ackerman
- Ted Conover
- David Finkel
- Marita Golden
- Mary Karr
- Verlyn Klinkenborg
- John McPhee
- Susan Orlean
- Richard Rodriguez
- Richard Selzer
MFA CNF News
| Amazon Best Books of July Pat Willard (2005)’s America Eats!: On the Road with the WPA has been named one of Amazon’s Best Books of July. Amazon calls the book “a celebration of our nation’s table and a welcome addition to the popular food lit genre.” AmericaEats! originated as a 1935 WPA project that sent out-of-work writers (including Eudora Welty and Ralph Ellison) across the country to write about regional foods and food customs such as church suppers and county fairs. The project was never completed and instead was filed away at the Library of Congress until Pat discovered it and set out to see how many of the traditions written about by the WPA still existed. The book will be reviewed in the September issue of Atlantic. |
| Best Historical Memoir The 2008 New York Book Festival has named Margaret Ahnert's (1999) book The Knock at the Door: A Journey Through the Darkness of the Armenian Genocide winner of its Best Historical Memoir Award. The book received the USA News Best Book Award in World History earlier in the spring. |
| Book News Stephen Kimber (2001)'s new book Loyalists and Layabouts: The Rapid Rise and Faster Fall of Shelburne, Nova Scotia (1783-1792) , was released in Canada by Doubleday in May. |
| USA News Best Book Award in World History Margaret Ahnert (2000) won the USA News Best Book Award for 2007 in World History. |
| Colorado Book Award Shari Caudron (2005) has been awarded the Colorado Book Award. |
| MFA Alum to Teach in China Paul Morris (2005) taught creative nonfiction at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, last October. |
| James Conaway's Collection of Essays A collection of essays by visiting faculty member James Conaway was published in October. |