Eastern Oregon University :: NewPages Guide to Creative Writing Programs
Eastern Oregon University
MFA in Creative Writing
About Eastern Oregon University's MFA in Creative Writing: Innovative, intense, intimate. The new low residency MFA in Creative Writing combines the rigor and energy of small, focused workshops (5-7 students working with faculty mentors) in the heart of Northeast Oregon’s Grande Ronde Valley. If you value the real West over the resort town West, then join us in the low residency MFA program at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande.
Contact Information:
College of Arts and Sciences
One University Blvd.
La Grande, Oregon 97850
Website: eou.edu/mfa
Program director: Jodi Varon and David Axelrod, co-directors
Program contact: Jodi Varon or David Axelrod
Phone: Varon: (541) 962-3525 Axelrod: (541) 962-3633
Email: Varon: jvaron@eou.edu Axelrod: daxelrod@eou.edu
Program Information:
Degrees offered: MFA in Creative Writing
Genres: fiction, poetry, nonfiction
Type of program: low residency
Length of program: 2 years
Enrollment: 5-7 students per workshop
Total credits required: 60
Application deadlines: March 1 for summer 2013
residency; October 31 for winter 2014 residency
Scholarships available: no
Core faculty: David Axelrod (poetry), Susan Denning (literary arts outreach), Christopher Howell (poetry, publisher in residence, Lynx House Press), Barry Kitterman (fiction), Jon Raymond (fiction, screenwriting), Jodi Varon (creative non-fiction), Lidia Yuknavitch (fiction, creative non-fiction),Christine Holbert (publisher-in-residence, Lost Horse Press)
Visiting faculty: Dan Chaon, Wendy Call, Justin Hocking. Full 2013-14 roster TBA soon.
Assistantships: A limited number of teaching fellowships for students able to deliver live courses on the EOU La Grande campus September-June proposed for second year students, beginning September 2014.
Publishing/editing courses: yes. Publishing/editing visiting faculty lectures summer 2013; proposed concentration 2013-14
Literary magazine: yes, basalt
Reading series: yes, Ars Poetica Literary Lecture Series
Recent visiting writers: Anthony Doerr, Molly Gloss, Danielle Duellen, Carl Adamshick, Michael McGriff, Crystal Williams
Program description: The Eastern Oregon University Low Residency MFA Program offers degrees in Fiction, Poetry, and Nonfiction. A two-year, 60-credit hour program, June and January residencies are held on the Eastern Oregon University campus in La Grande. Small, 5-7 student workshops facilitated by award-winning faculty, as well as one-on-one faculty mentor advising with each student combines creative nurturing and academic rigor while building a community of writers. Intensive study, writing, interaction, discussion, and tutorials take place in workshops, genre seminars, and lectures, augmented by faculty and visiting writer readings, student and graduate readings. All students participate in self-designed literary outreach projects in their home communities while students in the MFA, in practica that stem from the literary outreach coursework students complete in the first summer residency.
Because the MFA degree in Creative Writing supports a variety of practical, professional, and artistic applications, all students in EOU’s program will have the opportunity to choose from an array of lectures during the residencies: editing and publishing, wilderness writing, book arts and design, literary translation, digital communication. If you value the real West over the resort town West, cherish a natural setting ringed by mountains and wilderness in which to concentrate on your creativity, and relish the opportunity to build a lasting community of working writers in which you are an essential part, then join us in the low residency MFA program at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande.