Creative Writing and Literary Arts Program | Creative Writing and Literary Arts

Coronavirus information

In response to the COVID-19 global pandemic, the University of Alaska Anchorage has taken steps to protect the health and safety of our campus community. Visit the University of Alaska Coronavirus Information website to learn how UAA and the university system are responding to this situation. Find links to communications, policy guidance, resources and information about the university's community restrictions, which apply to all faculty, staff and students. The UAA Student Health and Counseling Center remains open at this time to serve UAA students. For information about COVID-19 symptoms and current health recommendations, visit the CDC website and the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services.

How to Apply

Our MFA in Creative Writing and Literary Arts is a wonderfully unique program. Do you love to read? Do you dream of living the writing life? We are currently accepting applications for the incoming summer cohort. The application deadline has been extended to February 17th for summer admission.

Learn About the Application Process

UAA'S MFA IN CREATIVE WRITING

Say it, before it melts like hoar in the winter sun. - Eva Saulitis

The Master of Fine Arts (MFA) at the University of Alaska Anchorage is a low-residency program in creative writing that emphasizes a literary approach to exploring and redefining relationships between people and place. We take advantage of the North's boundless terrain to help writers discover their own place in the world. This philosophy encompasses a landscape of memory, family, and culture, making it possible to imagine anything and to write about it—from the local to the global, from the personal to the communal, and from the unlimited mind to the infinite universe.

The MFA is a 45-credit degree program taken over a three-year period. One course, worth five-credits each, is taken each semester for nine semesters. The course work culminates in a book-length thesis of creative work accompanied by a critical essay and an annotated bibliography. The accredited degree program offers studies in three genres: Fiction, Literary Nonfiction, and Poetry that will teach students how to master craft, read the classic works that define the evolution of their genre, and develop skills to balance the demands of life with the discipline of writing.

Learn more about the MFA in Creative Writing

2019 Northern Renaissance Arts & Sciences Evening Reading Schedule

Stunning Alaska lake with mountain range behind

CWLA Summer Residency

The Residency allows students and faculty to immerse themselves in the work of writers: reading, writing, and sharing ideas. The classes and workshops are informative, intensive, and inspirational. Students have the opportunity to learn from every faculty member, in every genre, while discovering which mentors are best suited for their own work. Everyone, faculty and students, gathers informally at most meals and the entire group shares several meals including the informal "graduation" ceremony.

The Residency is the exhausting and exhilarating highlight of the year. It is during the Residency that students and faculty establish a sense of community that sustains them throughout the rest of the year.

The 2019 Summer Residency ran from Saturday, July 13th to Thursday, July 25th.

What to Expect in Anchorage What to Expect at UAA

Northern Renaissance Arts & Sciences Reading Series