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    Program Overview

     

    The UN MFA in Writing Program offers focused instruction for creative writers who are committed to a literary career. The program is composed of four 16-week semesters and five 10-day conference-style residencies. The semesters and residencies are integrated to help those who desire to hone their writing and critical thinking in order to participate competitively in the wider domain of contemporary American letters.

    Our Faculty Mentors are chosen not only on the basis of their literary and teaching accomplishments, but also because their approaches to teaching and the craft of writing coincide with our emphasis on Mentorship.

    While devoting a minimum of 25 hours per week to your studies, you will have time to maintain commitments to family or job while you pursue your literary studies within a flexible structure of writing, guided readings, and critical response. Over the course of the program, you will earn 60 credit hours toward a Masters of Fine Arts degree in one of three genres: fiction, poetry, or literary nonfiction.

    The five short residency sessions convene all the MFA students and faculty twice a year. The site for these residencies is the Lied Lodge & Conference Center in Nebraska City. Featuring Adirondack-style timbers and stonework, this lovely retreat is set in the middle of a 260-acre wooded park.
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    SPOTLIGHT

    Recent News & Kudos

    Shanan Ballam (Class of July '07) ~ Poetry ~ "Suicide Watch" will be published in the Summer 2009 or the Winter 2010 volume of Calyx.

    Timothy Black (Current Student) ~ His first novella, Connecticut Shade (Wayne State College Press, 2009), is now also available on Amazon.com.

    Gary Dop (Class of December 2008) ~ Poetry ~ “From the Dishwater—Lorraine”  will appear in North American Review (Fall 2009); “My Uncle Learns Me How to Keep a Mechanic from Screwing Me Over” in an upcoming issue of Sow’s Ear Poetry Review; “The Long Madness” in an upcoming issue of The New York Quarterly; “Bill Bitner’s Bundle of Something Identical” and “Bill Bitner Smells” in Cave Wall (Summer 2009); “Minneapolis Snow,” “Guys Like Me,” and “To the Ice Cream Man” in Blue Earth Review (February 2009); and “Poem of 4 Explanations to Poems at Poetry Readings” appeared in Rattle (Winter 2009).

    Elizabeth Kay (Current Student) Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize for 2008 for Cravings; The Oak Muses; For Our Anniversary, A Poem of Where We Live ($2,500 cash prize)

    Jeff Lacy (Class of July '07) ~ Short Stories ~ "Flowers for a Lady" will appear in an upcoming issue of Greensilk Journal; "A Free Dog Ain't Free" was the featured story in in Wrong Tree Review's April 2009 issue; "Willie B. Polite" appeared in CONTE's Winter 2009 edition; "The Flip Shooter" in the Spring issue of Review Americana; "Polly Pomeroy" in the July 2009 issue of Full of Crow.

    Keli Stafford (Current Student)  ~ Poetry ~ "Winter" in the January 2009 issue of Whiskey Island Magazine; "The Departure" and "First Born” in the February 2009 issue of Grasslimb; "After Some Consideration," was chosen as an honorable mention in the Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Prize ($100 cash prize); and her poetry manuscript was a semi-finalist in the 2008 Codhill Press Poetry Chapbook Prize.

    Natalia Treviňo (Current Student) Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize for 2008 for Afterlife; Well, God; It was the Chef who finally explained ($5,000 cash prize).

    Philip Weitl (Class of July '08) ~Essays~ "Change of Seasons" earned runner-up honors in The Briar Cliff Review's annual Creative Nonfiction contest; "Salt of the Earth" will appear in an upcoming edition of Nebraska Life Magazine; "Two Rows of Corn" won the Flint Hills Review's annual Creative Nonfiction contest and will appear in the journal in October.

    For more News & Kudos, contact Jenna Lucas for access to our UN MFA Organization