University of Alaska Anchorage
-
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.
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.
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.
Creative Writing MFA Students & Faculty in the News!
UAA M.F.A. alumna wins Alaska State Writer Laureate honor
MFA graduate Heather Lende publishes new book
Sneak peek at ‘Letters from Chamonix,’ new book from UAA’s creative writing program director
Writing teacher for UAA’s MFA program publishes twist on classic stories of Rapunzel and Snow White
New book by MFA alumnus Christine Byl
