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Creative Writing, Low Residency MFA

New England College’s Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing program is a transformative learning experience for writers. The program delivers a rigorous, individualized curriculum in six dynamic genres: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, writing for stage and screen, YA, and dual genre.

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Creative Writing MFA Program Overview

The MFA in Creative Writing at New England College, founded in 2002, is one of the country’s oldest and most highly esteemed low residency programs. We boast a small and selective program that allows us to sustain a close-knit, supportive community. Students are individually mentored by accomplished, award‐winning faculty members who are among the most compelling writers in their genres and who are also known for their excellence in teaching.

Students are offered the opportunity to work on the literary project of their choice during their time in the program, with cross‐genre writing, hybrid forms, and fluidity in genre encouraged.

  • Four-semester, 64-credit MFA program
  • Low residency model
  • MFA residencies in Henniker, New Hampshire, twice a year

 

2025 Residencies

Winter: January 7–12
Summer: July 10–20

 

Available Genres

  • Fiction
  • Nonfiction
  • Poetry
  • Writing for Stage and Screen
  • YA
  • Dual Genre

 

Additional Opportunities

  • Teaching assistantships
  • One-on-one mentorship

Virtual Information Session

If you’re passionate about storytelling and ready to take your writing to the next level, NEC’s MFA in Creative Writing program could be the perfect fit. Watch this recorded information session and hear from acclaimed faculty and learn how this program’s unique, supportive environment can help you reach your creative goals. Or contact the program director for guidance and answers to any questions about how this program can help you hone your craft.

Learn More About NEC’s MFA in Creative Writing

Creative Writing MFA Program Highlights

Flexibility Expertise Supportive
Low residency program that helps students maintain work-life balance. Study under faculty currently active in the field. Program that encourages the development of a close-knit academic community.

Why Earn Your Creative Writing MFA?

A master’s degree in Creative Writing immerses students in a creative workshop environment that allows them to hone their writing craft. It helps students express their creativity and increase their skills through different genres of writing that can prepare them for different career areas.

 

Low Residency Creative Writing MFA Learning Outcomes

Upon graduation from the MFA in Creative Writing, students will have learned to:

  • Produce and revise original works of literature through an exploratory process, culminating in the completion of a substantial body of high-quality literary work
  • Engage in critical discourse surrounding their own writing and the writing of others while developing an in-depth understanding of the writer’s craft and its use in the writing process
  • Locate their writing in historical, theoretical, and cultural contexts through an understanding of the movements that influence the writing, reading, and critical reception of literary works
  • Actively engage in academic, geographic, and cultural literary communities as they contribute to the advancement of the literary arts
  • Demonstrate the skills, knowledge, and discipline necessary for a successful postgraduate professional life in creative writing

What Can You Do with a Creative Writing MFA Degree?

Earning an MFA in creative writing can prepare graduates for several career paths. Some options focus on the creative process, while others use creative writing as a component of their work. Many of them focus on communication in some form.

Journalist

$57,500*

 Author

$73,690*

 High School Teacher

$65,220*
*Salary data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as of May 2023

Jennifer Militello Named New Hampshire’s Next Poet Laureate

Photograph © Beowulf Sheehan

New England College proudly announces that Jennifer Militello, accomplished poet and director of the College’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, has been named as New Hampshire’s next Poet Laureate after the State’s Executive Council confirmed Gov. Chris Sununu’s nomination of Militello.

Militello’s five-year term as Poet Laureate begins in April 2024. She will serve as an ambassador for poets in the Granite State and elevate the visibility and value of poetry in New Hampshire.

“I am absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to serve poetry and poets here in New Hampshire,” stated Militello. “I can’t wait to connect with writers and readers, students and teachers, as I move into this incredible role. And I feel fortunate to have the continued support of New England College as an institution that values the creative arts.”

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Why Choose NEC?

New England College (NEC) is a private, nonprofit college founded in 1946 to serve the needs of servicepeople attending college on the GI Bill after World War II and is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education. Today, NEC is an innovative, military-friendly institution and one of the top five liberal arts colleges in New Hampshire.

NEC offers 60 associate and bachelor’s degrees, as well as more than 20 master’s degrees and one doctoral degree program, all delivered by dedicated faculty focused on giving students opportunities to live what they learn. With access to many clubs, outdoor activities, natural areas, internships, and professor-led trips, NEC students have many ways to meet new people and try new things.

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Recognition and Rankings

Best College In New Hampshire as ranked by Inteligent.com

NEC Ranked Top College in New Hampshire

New England College in New Hampshire has earned recognition as a leading college in the state, as acknowledged by Intelligent.com, a credible source for evaluating higher education programs.

 

 

 

 

Edurank logo for best college in New Hampshire

NEC Ranked Leading College in New Hampshire

New England College in New Hampshire has earned recognition as a leading college in NH, as acknowledged by EduRank, a credible source for evaluating higher education programs.

 

 

 

 

AcademicInfluence.com logo for best college in New Hampshire

NEC Ranked Top College in New Hampshire

New England College in New Hampshire has earned recognition as one of the best colleges in New Hampshire, as acknowledged by Academic Influence, a credible source for evaluating higher education programs.

 

 

Recent Visiting Writers

  • Andre Dubus III

    MFA visiting artist

    Andre Dubus III is the author of The Cage Keeper and Other Stories; Bluesman; and the New York Times bestsellers, House of Sand and Fog, The Garden of Last Days (soon to be a major motion picture) and his memoir, Townie, a #4 New York Times bestseller and a New York Times “Editors Choice.” His work has been included in The Best American Essays and The Best Spiritual Writing anthologies, and his novel House of Sand and Fog was a finalist for the National Book Award, a #1 New York Times Bestseller, and was made into an Academy Award-nominated film starring Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly. His novella collection, Dirty Love, was published in the fall of 2013 and has been listed as a New York Times “Notable Book,” a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a 2013 “Notable Fiction” choice from The Washington Post, and a Kirkus “Starred Best Book of 2013.” His new novel, Gone So Long, was published in 2018 (W.W. Norton). Mr. Dubus has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, The National Magazine Award for Fiction, two Pushcart Prizes, and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. His books are published in over 25 languages, and he teaches full-time at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Fontaine, a modern dancer, and their three children.

  • Carmen Maria Machado

    Writer Carmen Maria Machado, 2023 writer-in-residence for NEC's MFA in Creative Writing

    Carmen Maria Machado grew up in a household where storytelling was always present and has been writing her whole life. She learned about stories through reading, as well as oral tradition in her family. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Guggenheim Foundation, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Millay Colony for the Arts.

    Carmen is the author of the bestselling memoir In the Dream House; the graphic novel The Low, Low Woods; and the award-winning short story collection Her Body and Other Parties. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the Bard Fiction Prize, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction, the Brooklyn Public Library Literature Prize, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. In 2018, the New York Times listed Her Body and Other Parties as a member of “The New Vanguard,” one of “15 remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century.”

    Her essays, fiction, and criticism have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Granta, Vogue, This American Life, Harper’s Bazaar, Tin House, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The Believer, Guernica, Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and elsewhere. She lives in Philadelphia and is the former Abrams Artist-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania.

  • Jericho Brown

    Jericho Brown is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Brown’s first book, Please (2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was named one of the best of the year by Library Journal, Coldfront, and the Academy of American Poets. He is also the author of the collection The Tradition (2019), which was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award and the winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. His poems have appeared in BuzzFeed, The Nation, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New Republic, Time, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry anthologies. He is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Creative Writing and the Director of the Creative Writing Program at Emory University in Atlanta.

  • Ocean Vuong

    Ocean Vuong is the author of The New York Times bestselling novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, out from Penguin Press (2019) and forthcoming in 30 languages worldwide. A recipient of a 2019 MacArthur “Genius” Grant, he is also the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a New York Times Top 10 Book of 2016, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Whiting Award, the Thom Gunn Award, and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. A Ruth Lilly fellow from the Poetry Foundation, his honors include fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, The Elizabeth George Foundation, The Academy of American Poets, and the Pushcart Prize.

    Vuong’s writings have been featured in The Atlantic, Granta, Harpers, The Nation, New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Village Voice, and American Poetry Review, which awarded him the Stanley Kunitz Prize for Younger Poets. Selected by Foreign Policy magazine as a 2016 100 Leading Global Thinker—alongside Hillary Clinton, Ban Ki-Moon, and Angela Merkel—Ocean was also named by BuzzFeed Books as one of “32 Essential Asian American Writers” and has been profiled on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” PBS NewsHour, Teen Vogue, Interview, Poets & Writers, and The New Yorker.

    Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he serves as an Assistant Professor in the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at UMass-Amherst.

  • Vievee Francis

    Vievee Francis

    Vievee Francis is the author of The Shared World, which is forthcoming from Northwestern University Press; Forest Primeval (TriQuarterly Books, 2015), winner of the 2017 Kingsley Tufts Award; Horse in the Dark (Northwestern University Press, 2012), winner of the Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize; and Blue-Tail Fly(Wayne State University Press, 2006). Her work has appeared in numerous print and online journals, textbooks, and anthologies, including Poetry, Best American Poetry 2010, 2014, 2017, 2019, and Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry. She has been a participant in the Cave Canem Workshops, a Poet-in-Residence for the Alice Lloyd Scholars Program at the University of Michigan, and teaches poetry writing in the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop (USA, UK, and Barbados). In 2009 she received a Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award, and in 2010, a Kresge Fellowship. She is the recipient of the 2021 Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry.

  • Victoria Chang

    Victoria Chang’s most recent book of poems is With My Back to the World (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2024). Her prior book of poetry is The Trees Witness Everything (Copper Canyon Press, 2022). Her nonfiction book, Dear Memory (Milkweed Editions), was published in 2021. Her book of poems, OBIT (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN/Voelcker Award. It was also a finalist for the Griffin International Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, as well as longlisted for the National Book Award. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Chowdhury International Prize in Literature. She is the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech and Director of Poetry@Tech.

Recent Alumni

Diana Whitney | Diana Whitney writes across the genres in Vermont with a focus on feminism, motherhood, and sexuality. Her first book, Wanting It, became an indie bestseller and won the Rubery Book Award in poetry. She was the longtime poetry critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, where she featured women poets and LGBTQ+ voices in her column. Her essays, op-eds, and book reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Kenyon Review, Glamour, and many more. Her anthology, You Don’t Have to Be Everything: Poems for Girls Becoming Themselves, was released by Workman Publishing to critical acclaim and won the 2022 Claudia Lewis Award for the best poetry book of the year and became a YA bestseller. Diana was awarded a 2021–2022 Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council for her new collection about girls, rape culture, and excavating female adolescence. She holds a BA from Dartmouth College and an MA from Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and attended the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. Her irreverent parenting column, Spilt Milk, syndicated for years, ran as a public radio commentary series and became a blog at The Huffington Post. Diana also works as a feminist activist in her community and beyond. Her advocacy for survivors of sexual violence has been featured in The New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Christian Science Monitor, among other press outlets.

Brent Ramsey | Brent is a former Paris fashion correspondent who has built a career in brand storytelling as a strategic communication consultant, content strategist, poet, and freelance journalist. Originally from Monroeville, Alabama, he received his MA in Global Communications from The American University of Paris, and a BA in Communication with a concentration in Print Journalism from University of South Alabama, followed by an MFA in Creative Writing from New England College, where he also served as adjunct for the Professional Writing program. In addition to running his own consultancy, Brent previously served as Director of Public Relations for a boutique agency in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where his client roster included high-end hospitality, fashion, and jewelry brands, as well as tech start-ups, super apps, and e-commerce companies. As a journalist, his work has appeared in Harper’s Bazaar, L’Officiel, Women’s Wear Daily, Notion, and other publications in the United States, the U.K., Europe, and Asia-Pacific. Brent is passionate about bridging theory with practical application, while also mentoring and preparing students for real-life opportunities in an increasingly global industry. In his free time, he enjoys writing, reading, traveling, and collecting vinyl records.

Kevin Bertolero | Kevin Bertolero is the founding editor of Ghost City Press and was a founding member of the Kettle Pond Writers’ Conference. He holds degrees in literature from Potsdam College and the University of New Hampshire, as well as an MFA from New England College. In 2022, he started & Change, a journal of gay poetry.

Shilo Niziolek | Shilo Niziolek (she/her) is a disabled queer writer living in Portland, Oregon. Her memoir Fever is out through Querencia Press, and an excerpt from the book was a 2022 Pushcart nomination. Her chapbook of essays, A Thousand Winters in Me, is out through Gasher Press. Ghost City Press published Shilo’s microchapbook, I Am Not an Erosion: Poems Against Decay, a self-portraiture project that uses her own photos and medical records to make collage pieces. Shilo’s work has been published or is forthcoming in West Trade Review, Juked, [PANK], Entropy, Oregon Humanities, HerStry, Pork Belly Press, and Phoebe Journal, among others. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction and fiction from New England College and is associate faculty in the English Department at Clackamas Community College.

Day Heisinger-Nixon | Day Heisinger-Nixon is a poet, essayist, interpreter, and translator. Their debut poetry collection, ROOM | ROOM | ROOM, recipient of the 2024 Other Futures Award, is set for publication with Futurepoem in 2026. Raised in an ASL-English bilingual home in Fresno, California, Day holds an MA in Deaf Studies: Cultural Studies from Gallaudet University and an MFA in Creative Writing: Poetry from New England College. Their essays and poetry have appeared in or are forthcoming from Apogee Journal, Peach Mag, Boston Review, Foglifter, Nat. Brut, and elsewhere. A three-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and a nominee for the Best of the Net Prize, Day’s work has received recognition from Witness Magazine, Indiana Review, Boston Review, and Death Rattle Writers Festival, among other organizations. As an interpreter, Day works primarily between ASL, English, International Sign, and Spanish. In addition to these, Day holds varying levels of proficiency in several other languages, spoken and signed. They seek to practice a language justice-informed model of language work, and largely specialize in academic, conference, liaison, and solidarity interpreting. Day has interpreted in more than 20 countries in Europe, Asia, and North America.

Tara Betts | Dr. Tara Betts is the author of Break the Habit (Trio House Press, 2016), Arc & Hue (Willow Books, 2009), 7 x 7: Kwansabas (Backbone Press, 2015) and The GREATEST!: An Homage to Muhammad Ali (Argus House, 2013).

Catherine Kyle | Catherine Kyle is a writer, teacher, and scholar based in Seattle. She is the author of the poetry book Shelter in Place (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019), along with six shorter collections. She teaches literature and creative writing at DigiPen Institute of Technology.

Melissa Cahnmann-Taylor | Professor of TESOL and World Language Education in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of Georgia, Dr. Cahnmann-Taylor’s honors include a 2017 Richard Ruiz Scholar-Artist Residency Award (Guanajuato, MX), 2015 Beckman Award for Professors Who Inspire, a 2013–2014 Fulbright Award (Oaxaca, Mexico), three NEA Big Read Grants (Jeffers 2015, Poe 2016, Hua 2018), top Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prizes, a Jewish Currents Prize, first place in Anthropology and Humanism poetry prize, a Leeway Poetry Grant, and several Pushcart Prize nominations.

Cole Phillips | Writer and educator living in coastal Maine and teaching in New Hampshire at Manchester Community College. His work has been featured in New World Writing, Juked, Post Road, Green Mountains Review, and elsewhere and has been longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions. He was a semi-finalist for the 2021 River Styx Microfiction Contest. He is the author of Standish Blue (Ghost City Press) and is the prose editor for Malasaña.

Kimberly Priest | Kimberly Ann Priest is the author of Slaughter the One Bird (Sundress Publications, 2021), finalist in the American Book Awards, and the chapbooks The Optimist Shelters in Place (Small Harbor Press, 2022), Parrot Flower (Glass Poetry Press, 2021), Still Life (PANK, 2020), and White Goat Black Sheep (FLP, 2018).

Reverie Konieki | A voice can be singular, yet also belong to all the bodies and experiences it connotes. Language is where we construct the common dream of the human experience yet fail at ultimately allowing one to fully experience the body of another. My artistic aim is to explore these seemingly contradictory aspects of the physical and metaphysical with wonder.

Application Requirements

The NEC MFA program looks forward to your application. Though we have year-round rolling admissions, please note the preferred deadlines below which allow us to give an application our fullest consideration.

Preferred Deadlines

  • Summer: May 15
  • Winter: November 1

 

Personal Essay: 1–4 pages
Applicants should address their preparation for graduate work as writers and scholars, the vision and goals they have for themselves and their work as writers looking to undertake a graduate degree program, and any other information pertinent to their application process.

Writing Sample: 10–15 pages in poetry; 20–25 pages in prose and Writing for Stage and Screen
Applicants should submit a sample of creative work in the genre for which they are applying. Dual genre applicants should submit a sample that contains both genres of interest, with a shorter sampling of their secondary genre focus included. Prose should be double-spaced; poetry may be single-spaced.

Two Letters of Recommendation
Letters of recommendation should address an applicant’s potential for rigorous creative and critical work at the graduate level.

Please have recommenders send letters to your counselor or graduateadmission@nec.edu.

Official Transcripts
Applicants must submit proof that they have earned a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution. Rare exceptions may be made for individuals who can show a high level of professional achievement.

Official transcripts are legal documents and must be sent from the institution to your counselor or graduateadmission@nec.edu.

For additional Admissions questions, please contact the Graduate Admissions Office at graduateadmission@nec.edu or 603.428.2252.

Apply Now

Teaching Assistantships and Scholarships

The NEC MFA offers several merit-and need-based financial assistance packages.

Full Teaching Assistantships
Full Teaching Assistantships cover the full cost of tuition. The teaching load for full teaching assistants is four courses per year.

Partial Teaching Assistantships
Partial Teaching Assistantships provide partial tuition for students. The teaching load for part-time teaching assistants is one to three classes per year.

The Joel Oppenheimer Scholarship
The Joel Oppenheimer scholarship is awarded to an MFA student whose writing sample demonstrates outstanding literary achievement and exceptional promise.

The Joel Oppenheimer Scholarship is awarded in memory of the distinguished Black Mountain poet, Joel Oppenheimer, who taught at New England College from 1982 to 1988. He lived among the poets and artists of Greenwich Village, and was a columnist for The Village Voice from 1969 to 1978 before settling in Henniker, New Hampshire, where he was a popular presence in the local community. His most important publications include Collected Later Poems of Joel Oppenheimer (1997); Names and Local Arbitrations (1988); Drawing from Life: A Selection of Joel Oppenheimer’s “Village Voice” Columns (1997); Don’t Touch the Poet: The Life and Times of Joel Oppenheimer (1998); Just Friends: Friends and Lovers Poems, 1959–1962 (1980); New Spaces Poems 1975–1983 (1985); and Poetry: The Ecology of the Soul (1983).

Pilgrim Plus Scholarship
New England College provides NEC alumni with a 25% tuition discount applied to graduate level classes across a wide range of graduate programs.

For additional information and assistance with program tuition and financial aid, you may contact Student Financial Services at 603.428.2226 or sfs@nec.edu.

Complete the Assistantship Application

Degree Requirements

Download Course Requirements

Faculty

  • Allison Titus

    Allison Titus has written three books of poems, a novel, and several chapbooks. Her newest book is called HIGH LONESOME. Her honors include poetry fellowships from the NEA, Yaddo, and the Donaldson Writer-in-Residence program at William & Mary, and her work has appeared in A Public Space, Tin House, The Believer Magazine, and Ninth Letter, among other places. She is co-editor of the forthcoming anthology THE NEW SENT(I)ENCE: Revisioning the Animal in 21st Century Poetry, a collection of writing/manifesto that centers the nonhuman animal’s agency, consciousness, and creaturehood.

  • Andrew Morgan

    Andrew Morgan is a professor, poet, editor, and volunteer whose work can be found in magazines such as Conduit, Verse, Slope, Stride, Fairy Tale Review, New World Writing, Post Road, Pleiades (as part of a “Younger American Poets” feature) and is the recipient of a Slovenian Writer’s Association Fellowship, which sponsored a month-long writing residency in the country’s capital city of Ljubljana. Currently an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at New England College, his first book, Month of Big Hands, was published by Natural History Press in 2013.

  • Anna Qu

    MFA in Creative Writing Faculty

    Anna Qu is a Chinese-American writer. Her debut memoir, Made in China: A Memoir of Love and Labor was published in 2021 by Catapult. Publisher’s Weekly hailed the memoir as “the arrival of a new voice,” and Time has called it a must-read for the summer. Her work has appeared in the Threepenny Review, Lumina, Kartika, Kweli, and Vol.1 Brooklyn, among others. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and teaches workshops at Catapult and Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop.

  • Chen Chen

    Chen Chen is the author of two books of poetry, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (2022) and When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (2017), both published by BOA Editions and by Bloodaxe Books in the UK. His latest chapbook is Explodingly Yours (Ghost City Press, 2023). Chen’s debut essay collection, In Cahoots with the Rabbit God is forthcoming from Noemi Press. His work appears in many publications, including Poetry, The Poetry Review, Ploughshares, and The New York Times. His writing is also widely anthologized, including in 100 Poems That Matter, 100 Queer Poems, three editions of The Best American Poetry, and two editions of The Forward Book of Poetry. His honors include the Thom Gunn Award, two Pushcart Prizes, the National Book Award longlist, and fellowships from Kundiman, the National Endowment for the Arts, and United States Artists. He was the 2018–2022 Jacob Ziskind Poet-in-Residence at Brandeis University and has taught for the Stonecoast MFA program, the Antioch MFA program, and the UMass Boston MFA program. He is also recurring faculty at the Fine Arts Work Center. He holds an MFA from Syracuse University and a PhD from Texas Tech University. He lives in Rochester, New York, and teaches for the MFA program at New England College.

  • Chika Unigwe

    Chika Unigwe was born in Enugu, Nigeria. She was educated at UNN and KUL (Belgium) and earned her PhD from Leiden University, Holland. Widely translated, she has won many awards for her writing. Her books include The Middle Sister, On Black Sisters’ Street, and Better Never than Late. She is Creative Director of the Awele Creative Trust, and she was a judge for the Man Booker International Prize in 2016. In 2016–2017, she was Bonderman Professor of Creative Writing at Brown University.

  • David Ryan

    MFA in Creative Writing Faculty

    David Ryan is the author of Animals in Motion: Stories (Roundabout Press) and Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano: Bookmarked. His fiction appears in the 2022 and 2023 O. Henry Prize anthologies, The 2023 Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize (Spain/UK), Threepenny Review, Fiction, The Georgia Review, Harvard Review, New England Review, Conjunctions, Bellevue Literary Journal, Fence, Kenyon Review, New Letters, Esquire, Tin House, BOMB, and elsewhere. His work has been anthologized in Flash Fiction Forward (W. W. Norton), Boston Noir 2: The Classics (Akashic), and The Mississippi Review: 30 Years. His nonfiction appears in The Paris Review, Tin House, BOMB, Bookforum, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Fiction (Oxford University Press), and others. A recipient of a MacDowell fellowship and Connecticut State Arts grants, he’s a co-founding editor of Post Road Magazine, where he currently edits the Fiction and Theatre sections.

  • Diandra Pendleton-Thompson

    Diandra Pendleton-Thompson is an Afro-Latina multi-hyphenate with over two decades combined experience writing and performing for stage, screen, and alternative media. She began her journey as a theatre performer, switching gears after a car accident to pursue her other passion: screenwriting. Since then, she’s had the opportunity to work on properties like Star Trek, Star Wars, and Stranger Things. Diandra is currently the co-executive producer and writer for season 2 of Audible’s supernatural thriller, The Prophecy, starring Kerry Washington. In features, she adapted the bestselling YA fantasy book, The Kane Chronicles: Red Pyramid, for Netflix and wrote original drama, All of the Lights, for Sony and Issa Rae. Diandra also staffed on both seasons of the animated Emmy-nominated series, Star Trek: Prodigy, for Nickelodeon and Paramount Plus. Championing diverse characters and stories across genres, Diandra is an advocate for storytelling as a vehicle for both personal catharsis and social transformation. She is drawn to stories about outsiders and defiant women, and loves to highlight the intersection of faith, magic, and science in her writing. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Florida, Diandra now spends her free time hunting for the best karaoke bars, pizza, and BBQ in Los Angeles.

  • Jennifer Militello
    Photograph © Beowulf Sheehan

    Jennifer Militello is the Poet Laureate of New Hampshire. She is the author of the forthcoming hybrid collection Identifying the Pathogen, named a finalist for the 2024 FC2 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize, The Pact (Tupelo Press/Shearsman Books, 2021), called “emotionally resonant” by Publishers Weekly and “an incantatory homage to love” by the Times Literary Supplement, and the memoir Knock Wood (Dzanc Books, 2019), winner of the Dzanc Nonfiction Prize, as well as four previous collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, American Poetry Review, The Nation, The New Republic, The Paris Review, and Poetry.

  • Mazen Khaled

    Mazen Khaled’s early work is experimental, focused mainly on 16mm film and video. Since 2016, he has been focused on screenwriting and feature filmmaking. His gaze is humanistic, framing the human body but also focusing on the struggles playing out over it by the forces of society. His work has been screened at platforms such as the Rotterdam International Film Festival, the BFI London, the Dubai International Film Festival, the Rubin Museum NYC, and the Trondheim Academy of Art. His feature, Martyr, premiered internationally at the Venice International Film Festival 2017 where it was nominated for the Queer Lion award, and at SXSW 2018. Martyr is in global distribution and has been covered by international media, including The New York Times, the Los Angelas Times, and the Guardian, which called it “a masterful, visceral study of grief.”

  • Moses Ose Utomi

    Moses Ose Utomi is a Nigerian-American fantasy writer and nomad currently based out of San Diego, California. He has an MFA in fiction from Sarah Lawrence College and short fiction publications in Fireside Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, and more. He is the author of the young adult Fantasy novel DAUGHTERS OF ODUMA and the fantasy novellas THE LIES OF THE AJUNGO and THE TRUTH OF THE ALEKE. When he’s not writing, he’s traveling, training martial arts, or doing karaoke—with or without a backing track.

  • Paige Ackerson-Kiely

    Paige Ackerson-Kiely is the author of three collections of poetry—In No One’s Land (Ahsahta, 2007); My Love is a Dead Arctic Explorer (Ahsahta, 2012); Dolefully, A Rampart Stands (Penguin, 2019); and other works of poetry and prose. Her poems have appeared in numerous national and international journals, and she’s received grants and fellowships from Poets & Writers, Boomerang, Vermont Arts Council, and others. Paige is especially interested in the prose poem and is currently at work on a collection concerned with middle age and the history of transportation. She lives in New York City and directs the MFA in Writing Program at Sarah Lawrence College.

  • Tara Ison

    MFA Faculty Tara Ison

    Tara Ison is the author of four novels—A Child out of Alcatraz, The List, Rockaway, and At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf—the essay collection Reeling Through Life: How I Learned to Live, Love, and Die at the Movies; and the short story collection Ball. Her work has appeared in Tin House; BOMB; The Kenyon Review; Salon; Black Clock; O, the Oprah Magazine; and several anthologies. She is the recipient of multiple Yaddo fellowships, the PEN Southwest Award for Creative Nonfiction, and two NEA fellowships. She is also the co-writer of the cult classic movie Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. Ison is a Professor of Creative Writing at Arizona State University.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to complete the low residency MFA in Creative Writing program?

Full-time students typically complete NEC’s Creative Writing MFA program in as little as two years.

 

How is the Creative Writing MFA program structured?

NEC’s creative writing low residency MFA requires completion of 64 to 80 credits, depending on whether the student wishes to pursue a single-genre or a dual-genre core. The single-genre core consists of the following:
Mentorship Study: Creative Writing (36 credits)
Residency Study: Creative Writing (16 credits)
Mentorship Study: Thesis Development (12 credits)

 

What are the benefits of a Creative Writing MFA degree?

Obtaining a Creative Writing MFA can help individuals cultivate the skills and discipline needed to become writers in different genres. These skills can also help them use the written word to communicate effectively in all professional contexts.

 

How do I enroll in the Creative Writing MFA program?

You can enroll in NEC’s low residency MFA in Creative Writing by applying directly on the university website and fulfilling the application requirements. NEC doesn’t charge an application fee, and it doesn’t require standardized test scores.

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