Explore the MFA in Writing Residency
A closer look at MFA in Writing residency and semester work
VCFA’s academic calendar is divided into two semesters per year: a summer and winter semester, respectively. Each semester begins with a nine-day residency that provides a vibrant whirlwind of workshops, lectures, panels, discussions, and readings. Students, faculty, and visiting writers come together to connect and collaborate.
Residencies offer a student-centered learning environment that honors diverse perspectives and voices. This close community of writers challenges, inspires, and affirms. During residencies, students and faculty convene together and have ample opportunities for informal exchange over meals or at events, creating powerful relationships and artistic support systems that last long past graduation.
At each residency, students are paired with a faculty advisor and develop an individualized semester study plan based on their goals and intensive dialogue with faculty mentors.
In addition to their Writing community, students are on campus with our five other MFA programs during residency: Film, Graphic Design, Music Composition, Writing for Children & Young Adults, and Visual Art. Each writer will have the opportunity during residency for interdisciplinary study, work, and networking.
Upon completion of the two-year program, students will have attended five unique and invigorating residencies that guide their creative work while offering minimal disruption to their professional life and personal schedule.
The MFA in Writing program offers hybrid residencies for all students, meaning that students may elect to participate in person or remotely. Workshops and other residency events are hybrid, meaning some faculty and students will be online and others will be in person. Writing students are required to select a residency mode three months prior to the residency. The number of faculty who participate remotely will be determined by the number of students who elect to participate remotely. The entire staff and faculty of VCFA remain jointly committed to supporting these hybrid residencies and the needs of the students and faculty. It is important to note that all participating students and faculty are required to participate fully in all events at each residency, regardless of whether they are in person or remote.
WINTER 2024 WORKSHOP OFFERINGS
Semester Work
Mentorship & Individualized Study
Following each residency, students return home and devote at least 25 hours per week to their studies. Our 5:1 student-faculty ratio maximizes individual attention and fosters close relationships.
The semester’s main focus is creative work, supplemented by a substantial reading list and critical analysis. Students engage remotely with their faculty advisors through monthly exchanges of creative and critical work and ongoing dialogue about their process and development. Our mentorship model provides more individualized feedback on student writing than most traditional classroom programs. Faculty advisors tailor feedback and critique to meet students’ individual needs, while maintaining an academic rigor that has marked our program’s success.
Explore, Experiment, Expand
At VCFA, no matter which path you choose, exemplary writers, thinkers, and teachers will accompany you on your journey. And with opportunities to intern with our renowned literary magazine, “Hunger Mountain Review,” you will gain professional publishing experience.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is your teaching philosophy?
There is no “one way” to write in our program. The MFA in Writing recognizes that writing approaches and styles are as diverse as our students themselves, and we value and encourage differences while emphasizing a common pursuit of excellence.
The two years students spend in this program invigorate a lifelong commitment to writing and reading. We seek to provide a foundation from which students can continue to refine their craft and expand their knowledge of literature. In addition, our program helps students develop lasting writing practices and processes while becoming part of a close community of writers that acts as a support system for years to come.
Creative Nonfiction
Creative nonfiction is a distinct and valued genre at VCFA. We believe that all voices, styles, and subject matter are equally valid in the search for emotional and artistic truth. The work of our faculty and visiting writers embodies the broad range of approaches open to our CNF students.
We teach personal, meditative, and lyric essays; the memoir; immersion writing; hybrid and experimental forms; as well as the traditional, more formal essay. Students explore the self within the context of family dynamics and childhood, the natural world, travel, place, and spiritual, social and cultural issues. We work with students individually to discover their most profound work in a safe and nurturing environment.
Meet our CNF faculty!
Fiction
Henry James once wrote that the house of fiction has many windows. These words could serve as a statement of purpose for the fiction faculty at VCFA.
We teach all forms and style—novels, novellas, short stories, story collections, and flash fiction. Our fiction faculty has, as a whole, published work in every genre, and our aesthetic tastes are eclectic. We aim to help students find a unique voice and vision. We encourage exploration and inventiveness, while emphasizing craft, structure, and the necessity of reading widely and critically.
Meet our fiction faculty!
Poetry
At VCFA, we understand that we are catalysts to a process that will continue well beyond a writer’s time in our program; we seek to help foster a productive and enduring life of writing and reading poetry.
We encourage exploration and innovation. We also facilitate exposure to elements of craft, literary history, and contemporary poetry. In addition, we encourage our poets to familiarize themselves with the kinds of poems they want to write in a given semester: narrative poems, lyric or meditative poems, poems written in traditional forms as well as in experimental modes, longer works such as suites and sequential poems, and hybrid forms such as “off the page” poetry which combine writing with art and photography.
We also encourage poets to familiarize themselves with translation whether or not they choose to participate in our more structured translation option. Our residencies in Slovenia and Cozumel often present, among many other benefits, opportunities to collaborate directly with poets writing in another language.
Meet our poetry faculty!
What can I expect from workshop?
The creative writing workshop is a core component of the residency experience, one that all students fully participate in. We offer a wide array of workshops, including manuscript-based, theme-based, cross-genre, generative, experimental, hybrid, and more. Workshops are led by one or two faculty members and typically include between six to eight students. Our small workshops allow for optimum creativity and encourage participants to explore with new eyes and open minds their chosen genre(s). These art-based laboratories are dynamic, safe spaces in which to learn, experiment, grow.
What is the difference between the Critical Thesis and the Creative Thesis?
The Critical Thesis, completed by the end of your third semester, focuses on close, critical reading on a topic of your choosing. You will have plenty of time to learn the craft of writing a critical essay as you move through the program. Your Creative Thesis, completed by the end of your fourth semester, is a book-length collection of original work (short stories, a novel, poems, essays, or memoir) completed or substantially revised while in the program.
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