The School of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of English are proud to announce the establishment of the Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing at the College of Charleston.
Crazyhorse Editors/Creative Writing faculty (left to right): Anthony Varallo, Jonathan Bohr Heinen, Malinda McCollum, Gary Jackson, Bret Lott (standing), Emily Rosko. Photo by Leslie McKellar.
Beginning in the fall of 2016, the College of Charleston will open its doors to graduate study in both poetry and fiction, and for good reason: the College is home not only to a cadre of nationally and internationally recognized writing faculty—Bret Lott, Gary Jackson, Emily Rosko and Anthony Varallo—but also houses one of the country’s premiere literary journals, Crazyhorse, published since 1960 and consistently ranked as among the top publishing venues in the nation. Undergraduate students have for years reaped the benefits of a creative writing concentration within the Department of English, but now, with the MFA, graduate students from across the country will be afforded the opportunity to study writing, literature, publishing and the arts at large on our campus. Given the city of Charleston’s literary heritage and its inherent ties to the arts, the program is sure to become one of the most significant homes for the study of writing in the country.
The MFA in Creative Writing, a two-year program of study, will feature separate Studio and Arts Management tracks, and will offer not only advanced degree training in the writing of poetry and fiction, but also opportunities to assist in the production of Crazyhorse. The backbone of the program will be workshops taught by writing faculty in the two genres, as well as training in the history and traditions associated with writing, theoretical and formal approaches to the craft, and intensive peer and faculty feedback. Students in both the Studio and Arts Management tracks will also gain reading, writing, and critical thinking skills valuable to such humanities-based industries as editing, publicity, marketing, and promotion in publishing and the arts; the Arts Management track will emphasize management, organization, decision-making, and problem-solving skills in preparation for jobs within the creative economy.
And all students, no matter the track, will be writing, and writing, and writing, seeking to find and hone the voice and vision that will see their work into print, and into the larger world of letters.
Stay tuned—we’ll have more on the program as we grow closer to our first class of writers! For questions about the program, contact Bret Lott. More information about the English department at the College of Charleston can be found here.
(This article was first published in the HSS Spring 2015 newsletter.)