Director's Letter

Letter from the MFA English Director

Welcome to the recently revamped website of the Florida Atlantic University MFA in Creative Writing. I hope you will take some time to look around and see what we have to offer.

Aside from the obvious appeal of our nearby beaches, why do students choose the MFA at FAU? In a word, community. Despite their not insignificant workload, our students work hard to build an inclusive, generous, and supportive community. They make time to read each other's work—even creating a monthly literary salon to share new work. They are also actively engaged in the larger community: working in after-school tutoring programs and completing internships with local publishers and with the Palm Beach Poetry Festival.

I am proud of the opportunities we are able to offer our students. In addition to summer internships, students can apply for summer travel grants, they can work on Coastlines, our literary journal, and they have several opportunities to teach creative writing: in our community workshops and in the introductory undergraduate course. And each year they are able to take a weeklong course with the nationally known writer invited to be our Lawrence Sanders Writer-in-Residence.

I am also extremely proud of the success our graduates have achieved. From tenure-track teaching positions to PhD programs to book publication, they have followed paths both traditional and unusual as they continue to develop as writers. You can find their work in many notable literary magazines, including The Cincinnati Review, Creative Nonfiction, CutBank, Gargoyle, Kenyon Review, Missouri Review, Ninth Letter, New Orleans Review, Rattle, Southeast Review, and Third Coast. And check out our MFA blog to read about the continuing adventures and achievements of our current and former students.