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
| Atlantic Monthly Award Pamela Haag (2009) has won honorable mention in Atlantic Monthly's annual collegiate writing contest. The essay is "Resurrection City," which combines a family narrative with an historical narrative about the resurgence of evangelism in the mid-1970s. Haag recently signed a contract with HarperCollins for a book tentatively titled Marriage and Its Discontents. |
| Book News Stephen Kimber (2001)'s new book Loyalists and Layabouts: The Rapid Rise and Faster Fall of Shelburne, Nova Scotia (1783-1792) will be released in Canada by Doubleday on May 13. Pat Willard's (2005) Family Reunions, Fish Fries, Box-Supper Socials and Chittlin' Feasts: How America East! Got Me Back in Touch with Real American Cooking is due out from Bloomsbury in July. Recent MFA graduates Lisa Davis, Kathe Lison, Leslie Miller and Theresa Vigour have all secured new book contracts. |
| 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. |