September/October 2011

Directors, coordinators, and professors of full- and low-residency MFA programs offer some advice for prospective students trying to decide which programs are right for them.

For writers looking to hone their craft outside of university walls, there are a wealth of workshops and learning opportunities offered by literary centers and collectives across the United States. We've rounded up eleven nonaccredited programs...

As taxpayer dollars for individual artists and the patronage of the wealthy become the stuff of literary legend, putting stock in MFA programs—as a student or tuition-paying parent—may be a modern means of investing in American literature.

Leaving the protected writing culture of an MFA program can be a shock to the creative system, but with a little perseverance, there are ways to sustain a writing life after you graduate.

Success in writing is by no means determined by a degree, as exemplified by authors such as Dave Eggers, Jonathan Lethem, Amanda Stern, and Elizabeth Strout—none of whom received an MFA.

Concluding that the degree-based program is a flawed model for learning to write, poet Fran Quinn has developed a series of popular weekend workshops, held in New York City, Indianapolis, and Chicago, that offer a space where writers learn to...

The nation’s top fifty MFA programs based on popularity, funding, selectivity, fellowship-placement statistics, job-placement statistics, and student-faculty ratios, plus a look at other important program features, such as size, duration, cost of living, and foreign-language requirements.

Answers to the most commonly asked questions about our rankings of full-residency, low-residency, and doctoral programs in creative writing.

An additional twenty-five MFA programs in our annual rankings, from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, to San Diego State University in California.

The top ten low-residency MFA programs in the United States, from Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina, to Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont.

The top fifteen creative writing doctoral programs in the United States, from the University of Denver in Colorado to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

We’ve compiled this annual guide to graduate creative writing programs—which includes our rankings of the top full- and low-residency MFA programs (with honorable mentions) and, new to this year, doctoral programs—to provide a spark for the deep thinking and serious consideration that the process of choosing a program requires.

Attorney, poet, editor, and freelance journalist Seth Abramson explains the methodology used to compile the Poets & Writers Magazine 2012 rankings of postgraduate creative writing programs.

For Mary Johnson, a former nun in Mother Teresa's order, the Missionaries of Charity, writing paved the path toward understanding her complex and sometimes embattled spiritual journey.

Despite the recent collapse of book review sections in newspapers and magazines, the form is still thriving across a variety of venues, from web-savvy publications to local papers.