Our MFA graduate curriculum provides an intensive, two-year, pre-professional course of study with an emphasis on the practice of literature as a fine art.
While it follows a studio-based model, the program is also intellectually rigorous, and includes course work in the study of literature from the vantage point of its composition and history. The student’s principal work is done in advanced workshops and in the writing of a book-length thesis of publishable quality in fiction or poetry.
The following information comes from the official EWU catalog, which outlines all degree requirements and serves as the guide to earning a degree. Courses are designed to provide a well-rounded and versatile degree, covering a wide range of subject areas.
Creative Writing, Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
As of Fall 2021, we are no longer admitting students wishing to pursue an MFA degree with a focus in creative nonfiction. We will, however, continue offering graduate workshops and form and theory classes in creative nonfiction.
| Required Courses | 20 | |
| GRADUATE WRITING WORKSHOP: FICTION, POETRY, LITERARY NONFICTION, DRAMA, SCRIPTWRITING OR TRANSLATION (Note: this course may be repeated for credit; students are encouraged to take one workshop from outside the major.) | ||
| Literary Form and Theory Courses | ||
| Choose one Literature course from outside the major area | 5 | |
| Choose one series–in student’s major area of study | 15 | |
Fiction | ||
| FICTION I-THE NOVEL | ||
| FICTION II-THE SHORT FORM | ||
| SELECTED TOPICS IN CRAFT | ||
Poetry | ||
| POETRY I-BACKGROUND AND THEORY | ||
| POETRY II-THE MODERNS AND MODERNISM | ||
| POETRY III-CONTEMPORARY WORLD POETRY AND POETICS | ||
| Electives in creative writing, literature and/or a secondary emphasis | 20-25 | |
| LITERARY EDITING AND DESIGN | ||
| PRACTICUM: WILLOW SPRINGS MAGAZINE, LITERARY EDITING AND DESIGN | ||
| PRACTICUM: WILLOW SPRINGS BOOKS, LITERARY EDITING AND DESIGN | ||
| SPECIAL TOPICS | ||
| LITERATURE OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST | ||
| EXPERIMENTAL COURSE | ||
| PRACTICUM IN INSTRUCTION: WRITERS IN THE COMMUNITY | ||
| COMPOSITION PEDAGOGIES: THEORIES AND PRACTICES | ||
| PRACTICUM: TEACHING FIRST-YEAR COMPOSITION | ||
| Thesis–minimum is 10 credits for graduation | 10-15 | |
| THESIS | ||
| Minimum Credits Required For Graduation | 72 | |
As a student in the MFA at EWU, you’ll have the opportunity to serve in professional practica throughout the community. Whether you’re interested in writing, editing, publishing, or teaching, we have something for you. Programs include:
Learn more about Professional Practicum Opportunities
MFA workshops in each genre are small (generally between ten and fifteen students) and are offered every term. The literature requirement consists of three Form & Theory courses (per genre) focusing on historical and contemporary works. These graduate courses are taught by Creative Writing faculty and are designed to make the study of literature of maximum value to the aspiring writer (rather than scholar or critic).
In order for MFA students to broaden their skills and benefit from exposure to a wider variety of perspectives, all are required to take one workshop and one literature class outside their genre. Additional Creative Writing elective courses are offered each year and have recently included Literature of the Northwest, Surrealism in Poetry, Beyond Realism in Fiction, Imagination and Wilderness, and Studies in the Novella.
Typically, students complete the MFA degree in two years, working one-on-one with a faculty member in their second year to produce a thesis of publishable quality work.
Pre-requisites: MFA students; or permission of instructor.
Classroom discussion of student writing, concentrating on editing and revision with a view to attaining publishable quality.
Pre-requisites: MFA or English MA students or permission of instructor.
A study of the novel, considering periods and stylistic approaches to the form. Works to be considered might include novels by Cervantes, Austen, Tolstoy, Faulkner, Nabokov, Baldwin, Cather, Coetzee, Hurston, Fowles, Morrison, Fitzgerald, Bellow, Calvino, Rulfo, Woolf, Robinson, and DeLillo, among others. Through a study of style and structure, the course concerns itself with the many shapes the novel takes, has taken, or might take, while also examining elements that link examples of the form.
Pre-requisites: MFA or English MA students or permission of instructor.
A study of the short form, considering roots, periods, and stylistic approaches. Works to be considered might include texts by Chekhov, Tolstoy, Kafka, Mansfield, Joyce, Porter, Toomer, Murakami, Carver, Munro, Dubus, Lahiri, Dybek, and Davis, among others. Through a study of style, structure, and historical development, the course will concern itself with the many shapes the short form takes, has taken, or might take, while also examining elements that link various examples of the form.
Pre-requisites: MFA or English MA students or permission of instructor.
An intensive study of selected authors and literary developments, both national and international, since 1960.