Creative Writing Programs :: NewPages Guide

 

Spalding University

MFA in Writing (low-res)

851 S. Fourth St.

Louisville, KY 40203

Web: http://www.spalding.edu/mfa

Program director: Sena Jeter Naslund

Program contact: Karen J. Mann

Phone: 800-896-8941, ext. 2423

Degrees offered: MFA in Writing (Spalding’s School of Liberal Studies offers a BFA; see http://www.spalding.edu)

Genres: Fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, writing for children and young adults, screenwriting, playwriting

Type of program: Low residency

Length of program: 4 semesters

Enrollment: About 100 per semester in fall and spring and about 40 in summer

Total credits required: 64 credit hours

Application deadlines: January 15 for spring semester; February 1 for summer semester; July 1 for fall semester (but accepts application at any time)

Scholarships available: Yes

Core faculty: Sena Jeter Naslund, K. L. (Kenny) Cook, Robin Lippincott, Silas House, Molly Peacock, Greg Pape, Jeanie Thompson, Robert Finch, Roy Hoffman, Dianne Aprile, Richard Goodman, Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Sheila Callaghan, Eric Schmiedl, Brad Riddell, and see www.spalding.edu/mfa for a complete list.

Teaching assistantships: No, but have graduate assistantships for student editors of The Louisville Review, office assistants, writing center assistants, and newsletter editor

Publishing/editing courses: Each residency a member of the publishing community is invited to talk to our students

Literary magazines: The Louisville Review, a national literary magazine since 1976

Reading series: Spalding’s Festival of Contemporary Writing in spring and fall

Recent visiting writers: Michael Ondaatje, Susan Vreeland, W.S. Merwin, Scott Russell Sanders, Naomi Shihab Nye, Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket). For a complete list, see www.spalding.edu/mfa

 

Program description: Our four-semester, brief-residency MFA in Writing combines superb instruction with unparalleled flexibility. Each semester of the program begins with a ten-day residency, in which students and faculty gather for an intensive workshopping and learning experience.

At the conclusion of the residency, students return home to correspond, one on one, with a faculty mentor for the rest of the semester. During the semester, each instructor supervises a small number of students, and each student's program is highly individualized to meet each student at his or her level of writing.

Students may customize the location, season, and pace of their studies. The same amount of writing is required in each option:

• Spring (May) and fall (November) residencies in Louisville, each followed by a 6-month semester in which students may expect to spend about 25 hours a week on their writing and reading
• Summer (June/July) residency abroad (2009: Barcelona; 2010: Buenos Aires . . .), followed by a 9-month semester in which students may expect to spend 12-15 hours a week on their writing and reading
• Spring "stretch" option, combining the spring Louisville residency with the 9-month summer semester schedule
• A combination of spring, summer, and fall semesters

Program Director Sena Jeter Naslund, author of the bestselling, Ahab's Wife, Four Spirits, and Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette, brings more than thirty years of teaching experience in regular and low-residency graduate programs to the Spalding MFA Program.