Master of Fine Arts Creative Writing
MFA in Creative Writing Admission Requirements
Applicants must meet the minimum university requirements for graduate study. Applications from candidates in any field will be considered. Admission is based on samples of creative writing in the student’s chosen genre (10-20 pages), academic record, a personal statement, and two letters of recommendation, one of which must come from a creative writing instructor or professional writer. Please do not send letters from friends or any other non-professional contact.
Program Description
The Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing at Mount Saint Mary's University, Los Angeles is an artist-training program for graduate students who want to write professionally in the genres of novel, short story, playwriting, poetry, screenplay and non-fiction. Ideal for working adults, the degree program can be taken fully online, fully on-campus, or a combination of the two. Utilizing the latest technology in remote learning, the MFA in Creative Writing offers students the freedom to fit a graduate degree into their lives while maintaining other commitments. Students may pursue the degree in Spanish as well as English.
What gives our program its special character? We develop writers in multiple genres, believing that you can excel in more than one. We are interested in the whole writer, an expert who isn't narrow. Our integration of the humanities into our course of study reflects commitment to intellectual rigor and liberal arts as the cornerstone of human understanding. We pay close attention to the needs of developing artists in courses that are innovative and demanding.
The teachers in our program put a premium on helping our students into their professional careers, through continued mentoring. This means not only teaching the techniques that make you the best writer you can be, but also preparing you for the publication market. Our writers and director, combined, have a long track record of helping students garner national and international literary prizes and book-length publications. Whatever your career path, our job is to help you write stories, novels, plays, poems, or screenplays, at the highest level, and get them into print or staged before an appreciative public. In that, we are practical minded. Our curriculum is set up to get you there.
Our students are of all ages and from many different educational backgrounds. You need not have completed a degree in literature in order to apply. Combining humanistic depth, intellectual rigor, multicultural and bilingual study, technology, a flexible online format, cross-training in multiple genres, and practical preparation--Mount Saint Mary's MFA in Creative Writing truly stands apart.
Degree Requirements
15 units of Creative Writing courses
(anything with a CRW prefix)
Poetics (CRW 244) in the first year, 3 units
9 units of Literature and Thought, chosen from the following:
Afro-LatinX/ Mixed Genre, 3 units
The Creative Habit, 3 units
Publishing: Editing, 3 units
Syntax, Structure, and Stylistics, 3 units
Border LatinX American Writing, 3 units
3 units elective from FLM or HUM
6 units Thesis (CRW 296 x 2)
Creative Writing Workshops (15 units)
Complete 15 units of Creative Writing Workshops.
Poetics (3 units)
Poetics (CRW 244) in the first year.
Literature and Thought (9 units)
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Any courses in the CRW 299 sequence
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CRW 232 or CRW 242 (Screenwriting--only one Screenwriting course may count for the block)
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Courses with the prefix CRW in:
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CRW 250 Afro-LatinX/ Mixed Genre, 3 units
CRW 252 Border LatinX American Writing
CRW 244 The Creative Habit, 3 units
CRW 299C Studies in Publishing: Independent Publishing, 3 units
CRW 270 Syntax, Structure and Stylistics, 3 units
- CRW 271 Auteur Theory
- CRW 248 Special Topics
Elective (3 units)
- 3 units of an elective from HUM or FLM
Thesis (6 units)
Complete 6 units of Thesis (CRW 296). These are taken in consecutive semesters, normally in the last two semesters of the student's course of study.
Thesis continuation is for students who take a third semester.
Required for completion of the degree is submission of a 150-250 page manuscript in one genre – fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, play, or screenplay; or 50 pages of poetry – closely reviewed, edited and refined with the assistance of the student’s Thesis Committee. The Creative Writing Thesis can be written in English and/or Spanish. For more information on the Thesis proposal and approval process, contact the MFA in Creative Writing Program office.
Total Credit Hours: 36
Humanities and Film Television & Photography students may take Creative Writing courses with the consent of their program directors and permission of the instructor. A short writing sample is required.