Program description: The Columbia University School of the Arts MFA Writing Program, offering concentrations in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry, and a joint course of study in Literary Translation, is highly regarded for artistic diversity and for its outstanding faculty of acclaimed writers and editors. The rigorous approach to literary instruction requires 60 credits over 2-3 years of study.

At the core of the curriculum is the writing workshop. All workshops are small, ensuring that all students present work at least three times per semester. Students receive substantial written responses to their work from their professors and classmates and have regularly scheduled one-on-one conferences with faculty. Thesis workshops are dedicated to shaping each student’s work into book form.

The School of the Arts Writing Program considers the study of literature from the practitioner’s point of view—reading as a writer—essential to a writer’s education. In addition to workshops, students take craft-oriented seminars and/or lectures designed to illuminate, inform, augment, and inspire each student’s experience and practice as a writer. New seminars, lectures, and master classes are created every year.

Extracurricular programming includes Life After the MFA professional panels and the annual Agents Mixer, Columbia Journal, Columbia Artists/Teachers, Incarcerated Writers Initiative, Veterans Writers Workshop, and Our Word (students advocating diversity).

Scholarships, teaching fellowships, and internships are available.