university of california irvine mfa creative writing

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2023-24 edition, creative writing, minor.

The Department of English offers a minor in Creative Writing open to undergraduates across the UCI campus, giving them the opportunity to receive instruction and practice in the craft of prose fiction and poetry, and to learn the literary tradition of these art forms in English. The minor consists of workshop courses, writing courses, and literature courses, which serve to provide a foundation for students who wish to pursue creative writing professionally, as well as for those who have an amateur interest in the art.

Majors and non-majors should contact the Department in order to receive further information about its requirements and schedules.

Residence Requirement for the Minor : Four upper-division courses must be completed successfully at UCI. By petition, two of the four may be taken through the UC Education Abroad Program, providing course content is approved in advance by the department undergraduate chair.

• English, B.A.
• English, M.F.A.
• English, Minor
• English, Ph.D.
• Literary Journalism, B.A.
• Literary Journalism, Minor
• Master of English

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2023-2024 Catalogue

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Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.

Find a home for your poems, stories, essays, and reviews by researching the publications vetted by our editorial staff. In the Literary Magazines database you’ll find editorial policies, submission guidelines, contact information—everything you need to know before submitting your work to the publications that share your vision for your work.

Whether you’re pursuing the publication of your first book or your fifth, use the Small Presses database to research potential publishers, including submission guidelines, tips from the editors, contact information, and more.

Research more than one hundred agents who represent poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers, plus details about the kinds of books they’re interested in representing, their clients, and the best way to contact them.

Every week a new publishing professional shares advice, anecdotes, insights, and new ways of thinking about writing and the business of books.

Find publishers ready to read your work now with our Open Reading Periods page, a continually updated resource listing all the literary magazines and small presses currently open for submissions.

Since our founding in 1970, Poets & Writers has served as an information clearinghouse of all matters related to writing. While the range of inquiries has been broad, common themes have emerged over time. Our Top Topics for Writers addresses the most popular and pressing issues, including literary agents, copyright, MFA programs, and self-publishing.

Our series of subject-based handbooks (PDF format; $4.99 each) provide information and advice from authors, literary agents, editors, and publishers. Now available: The Poets & Writers Guide to Publicity and Promotion, The Poets & Writers Guide to the Book Deal, The Poets & Writers Guide to Literary Agents, The Poets & Writers Guide to MFA Programs, and The Poets & Writers Guide to Writing Contests.

Find a home for your work by consulting our searchable databases of writing contests, literary magazines, small presses, literary agents, and more.

Poets & Writers lists readings, workshops, and other literary events held in cities across the country. Whether you are an author on book tour or the curator of a reading series, the Literary Events Calendar can help you find your audience.

Get the Word Out is a new publicity incubator for debut fiction writers and poets.

Research newspapers, magazines, websites, and other publications that consistently publish book reviews using the Review Outlets database, which includes information about publishing schedules, submission guidelines, fees, and more.

Well over ten thousand poets and writers maintain listings in this essential resource for writers interested in connecting with their peers, as well as editors, agents, and reading series coordinators looking for authors. Apply today to join the growing community of writers who stay in touch and informed using the Poets & Writers Directory.

Let the world know about your work by posting your events on our literary events calendar, apply to be included in our directory of writers, and more.

Find a writers group to join or create your own with Poets & Writers Groups. Everything you need to connect, communicate, and collaborate with other poets and writers—all in one place.

Find information about more than two hundred full- and low-residency programs in creative writing in our MFA Programs database, which includes details about deadlines, funding, class size, core faculty, and more. Also included is information about more than fifty MA and PhD programs.

Whether you are looking to meet up with fellow writers, agents, and editors, or trying to find the perfect environment to fuel your writing practice, the Conferences & Residencies is the essential resource for information about well over three hundred writing conferences, writers residencies, and literary festivals around the world.

Discover historical sites, independent bookstores, literary archives, writing centers, and writers spaces in cities across the country using the Literary Places database—the best starting point for any literary journey, whether it’s for research or inspiration.

Search for jobs in education, publishing, the arts, and more within our free, frequently updated job listings for writers and poets.

Establish new connections and enjoy the company of your peers using our searchable databases of MFA programs and writers retreats, apply to be included in our directory of writers, and more.

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Each year the Readings & Workshops program provides support to hundreds of writers participating in literary readings and conducting writing workshops. Learn more about this program, our special events, projects, and supporters, and how to contact us.

The Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award introduces emerging writers to the New York City literary community, providing them with a network for professional advancement.

Find information about how Poets & Writers provides support to hundreds of writers participating in literary readings and conducting writing workshops.

Bring the literary world to your door—at half the newsstand price. Available in print and digital editions, Poets & Writers Magazine is a must-have for writers who are serious about their craft.

View the contents and read select essays, articles, interviews, and profiles from the current issue of the award-winning Poets & Writers Magazine .

Read essays, articles, interviews, profiles, and other select content from Poets & Writers Magazine as well as Online Exclusives.

View the covers and contents of every issue of Poets & Writers Magazine , from the current edition all the way back to the first black-and-white issue in 1987.

Every day the editors of Poets & Writers Magazine scan the headlines—publishing reports, literary dispatches, academic announcements, and more—for all the news that creative writers need to know.

In our weekly series of craft essays, some of the best and brightest minds in contemporary literature explore their craft in compact form, articulating their thoughts about creative obsessions and curiosities in a working notebook of lessons about the art of writing.

The Time Is Now offers weekly writing prompts in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction to help you stay committed to your writing practice throughout the year. Sign up to get The Time Is Now, as well as a weekly book recommendation for guidance and inspiration, delivered to your inbox.

Every week a new author shares books, art, music, writing prompts, films—anything and everything—that has inspired and shaped the creative process.

Listen to original audio recordings of authors featured in Poets & Writers Magazine . Browse the archive of more than 400 author readings.

Ads in Poets & Writers Magazine and on pw.org are the best ways to reach a readership of serious poets and literary prose writers. Our audience trusts our editorial content and looks to it, and to relevant advertising, for information and guidance.

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Poets & Writers is pleased to provide free subscriptions to Poets & Writers Magazine to award-winning young writers and to high school creative writing teachers for use in their classrooms.

Read select articles from the award-winning magazine and consult the most comprehensive listing of literary grants and awards, deadlines, and prizewinners available in print.

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MFA Program

Poetry: Natalie Shapero, Monica Youn Fiction: Michelle Latiolais, Claire Vaye Watkins

The program is fully funded through teaching assistantships and tuition fellowships.

This program features the MFA Reading Series.

The application deadline for the program in fiction is December 13. The application deadline for the program in poetry is January 17.

Creative Writing

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MFA Faculty

Admission   |  Required Coursework   |  MFA Faculty   |  Visiting Writers Series   |  RipRap   |  FAQs

English MFA Faculty

Stephen Cooper earned his M.F.A. from the University of California, Irvine and his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. His short stories and articles on literature and film have appeared widely and his honors include an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship and CSULB’s Distinguished Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activities Award. He is the editor of Perspectives on John Huston and co-editor of John Fante: A Critical Gathering . While researching and writing  Full of Life: A Biography of John Fante , he discovered and edited the manuscript of Fante’s last book,  The Big Hunger: Stories 1932-1959 . His work on Fante has appeared in multiple American, British, French, Italian, Dutch, and German venues. Both his biography of Fante and his edition of  The John Fante Reader were named among the Los Angeles Times Best Books of the Year. Branching out into film, he co-wrote and produced the 2018 Netflix Original Documentary Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski . His latest book, coedited with Clorinda Donato, is  John Fante’s ‘Ask the Dust’: A Joining of Voices and Views (Fordham UP, 2020). | [email protected]

Lisa Glatt  earned her M.F.A. from Sarah Lawrence College. She is the author of the novels The Nakeds , A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That , and the short story collection The Apple’s Bruise . Her poetry collections include Shelter and Monsters & Other Lovers . With her colleague and friend Suzanne Greenberg, Lisa has written two children’s novels ( Abigail Iris: The One and Only and Abigail Iris: The Pet Project ), both published by Bloomsbury/Walker. Lisa’s work has appeared in such magazines as Zoetrope, The Sun, Lit Hub, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.  | [email protected]

Suzanne Greenberg  is the author of the novel Lesson Plans , a Library Journal Editors’ Pick. Her collection of short stories, Speed-Walk and Other Stories , was the recipient of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize and a finalist for the John Gardner Fiction Book Award. She is the co-author of Everyday Creative Writing: Panning for Gold in the Kitchen Sink . With colleague Lisa Glatt, she co-authored the children’s novels, Abigail Iris: The One and Only and Abigail Iris: The Pet Project . Suzanne received her M.F.A. from the University of Maryland. In addition to her books, her creative work has appeared in numerous publications, including Cimarron Review, Mississippi Review, West Branch, The Washington Post Magazine and The Sun . | [email protected]

David Hernandez ’s most recent collection of poems, Hello I Must Be Going (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His other books include Dear, Sincerely (Pitt Poetry Series, 2016); Hoodwinked (Sarabande Books, 2011), winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry;  Always Danger  (SIU Press, 2006), winner of the Crab Orchard Series; and A House Waiting for Music (Tupelo Press, 2003). David has been awarded an NEA Literature Fellowship and two Pushcart Prizes. His poems have appeared in His poems have appeared in  Kenyon Review ,  Poetry ,  Ploughshares ,  Southern Review  and  The Best American Poetry . David is also the author of two YA novels,  No More Us for You  and  Suckerpunch , both published by HarperCollins. | [email protected]

Bill Mohr  has a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of California, San Diego. His first poem was published by Fuse magazine in San Diego in 1972. Since then, in addition to a dozen anthologies (including one in Japanese), his poems have appeared in a multitude of magazines, among which are 5AM, Antioch Review, Blue Collar Review, Blue Mesa Review, Caliban (on-line), Invisible City, KYSO, Miramar, OR, Santa Monica Review, Skidrow Penthouse, Sonora Review, Upstreet, and ZYZZYVA. In 2015, Bonobes Editores in Mexico published an edition of his poems in English and Spanish, Pruebas Ocultas. His scholarly publications include a critically acclaimed literary history of Los Angeles, HOLDOUTS: The Los Angeles Poetry Renaissance 1948-1992 (University of Iowa, 2011). He also edited two major anthologies of Los Angeles poets, The Streets Inside: Ten Los Angeles Poets (1978) and Poetry Loves Poetry: An Anthology of Los Angeles Poets (1985). In 2015, he co-edited Cross-Strokes: Poetry between Los Angeles and San Francisco with Neeli Cherkovski. From 1972 to 1988 he was the editor and publisher of Momentum Press, the archives of which are at UCSD. In 2014 he received the George Drury Smith Award from Beyond Baroque in Venice, California, and in the summer of 2015, he recorded over ten hours of biographical material for the Oral History Project at UCLA’s Special Collections. His current blog on poetry, culture, art, and politics (billmohrpoet.com) receives over 25,000 hits a month. A fully engaged academic, he frequently gives papers at conferences such as MLA, PAMLA, and the ALA. |  [email protected]

Patty Seyburn ’s fourth collection of poems, Perfecta , was published by What Books Press in fall of 2014. Her third book, Hilarity , won the Green Rose Prize given by New Issues Press (Western Michigan University, 2009). Her two previous books of poems are Mechanical Cluster (Ohio State University Press, 2002) and Diasporadic (Helicon Nine Editions, 1998), which won the 1997 Marianne Moore Poetry Prize and the American Library Association’s Notable Book Award for 2000. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, most recently The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry, Poetry in Michigan/Michigan in Poetry , and Irresistible Sonnets . Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including The Paris Review, Poetry, New England Review, Field, Slate, Crazyhorse, Cutbank, Quarterly West, and Boston Review . She won a 2011 Pushcart Prize for her poem, “The Case for Free Will,” published in Arroyo Literary Review . Seyburn grew up in Detroit. She earned a BS and an MS in Journalism from Northwestern University, an MFA in Poetry from the University of California, Irvine, and a Ph.D. in Poetry and Literature from the University of Houston. | [email protected]

Charles Harper Webb , M.F.A., Ph.D. has published eleven books of poetry, including Reading the Water, Liver, Tulip Farms & Leper Colonies, Hot Popsicles, Amplified Dog, Shadow Ball: New and Selected Poems , and What Things Are Made Of . His latest collection, Brain Camp , was published in 2015 by the University of Pittsburgh Press. A Million MFAs Are Not Enough , a collection of essays on the craft of poetry, was published in 2016 by Red Hen Press. Webb’s awards in poetry include the Morse Prize, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, the Felix Pollock Prize, and the Benjamin Saltman Prize. His poems have appeared in many distinguished journals and anthologies, including A merican Poetry Review, Paris Review, Iowa Review, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, Tin House, Poets of the New Century, Best American Poetry , and The Pushcart Prize . A former professional rock musician and psychotherapist, he is the editor of Stand Up Poetry: An Expanded Anthology , and recipient of a Whiting Writer’s Award, a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, the CSULB Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award, and the CSULB Distinguished Faculty Scholarly and Creative Achievement Award. | [email protected]

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Admissions - mfa in creative writing.

The 2023-2024 Graduate Admissions Application is now OPEN! https://grad.ucdavis.edu/apply The deadline to apply to our program is January 5, 2024

Graduate Studies' Applications Page covers most campus-level admissions questions, but feel free to contact our graduate program staff for more details and specific guidance. Applications are reviewed once all supporting materials have been received. For more information about your application status, please check online or contact our graduate program staff.

Application Requirements:

• Writing sample

Statement of Purpose

• Personal History & Diversity Statement
• Three letters of recommendation
• TOEFL or IELTS scores, if applicable
• Copies of transcripts
• Application Fee (2023-2024 cycle): $135 for U.S. and $155 for international applicants
• Admissions Requirements and Eligibility as set by UC Davis Graduate Studies

Either ten to twelve poems or up to thirty pages (double-spaced) of prose. Hybrid-form work must not exceed thirty pages.

To apply for admission to our Creative Writing MFA program, you are encouraged to include, as a writing sample, your very best creative writing.  Typically, two—or at the most three—genres exist in a graduate Creative Writing program: Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction.  At UCD, we think of genre as a useful thing to consider… but we do not think of the various genres—however many you would like to list—as necessarily unmixable modes.  

For us, the value of a piece of writing is better gauged directly—by what it says to its readers, and by what that saying does to those readers—rather than by its successful or unsuccessful identification with one or another of the historically certified genres.  This is not to say that we don't believe in genre, or in the usefulness of plumbing each purported genre's history; it is to say, rather, or  to notice…  that the border between one genre and another is not so much a Great Wall as a small fence.

Please highlight your academic preparation and motivation; interests, specialization and career goals; and fit for pursuing graduate study at UC Davis.

Preparation and Motivation  may include your academic and research experiences that prepare you for this graduate program (for example: coursework, employment, exhibitions, fieldwork, foreign language proficiency, independent study, internships, laboratory activities, presentations, publications, studio projects, teaching, and travel or study abroad) and motivation or passion for graduate study.

Interests, Specializations, and Career Goals may include your research interests, disciplinary subfields, area/s of specialization, and professional objectives.

Fit may include how your preparation, experiences, and interests match the specific resources and characteristics of your graduate program at UC Davis. Please identify specific faculty within your desired graduate program with whom you would like to work and how their interests match your own.

When writing your Statement of Purpose for Creative Writing:

Address any prior coursework, literary involvement, publications and other experiences that will help launch you into the graduate study of Creative Writing. Your Statement of Purpose must be entered directly into a text box in the application, and has a 4,000 character limit including spaces .

The University of California Davis, a public institution, is committed to supporting the diversity of the graduate student body and promoting equal opportunity in higher education. This commitment furthers the educational mission to serve the increasingly diverse population and educational needs of California and the nation. Both the Vice Provost of Graduate Education/Dean of Graduate Studies and the University of California affirm that diversity is critical to promoting lively intellectual exchange and the variety of ideas and perspectives essential to advancing higher education and research. Our graduate students contribute to the global pool of future scholars and academic leaders, thus high value is placed on achieving a diverse graduate student body to support the University of California’s academic excellence. We invite you to include in this statement how you may contribute to the diversification of graduate education and the UC Davis community.

The purpose of this essay is to get to know you as an individual and potential graduate student. Please describe how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. You may include any educational, familial, cultural, economic, or social experiences, challenges, community service, outreach activities, residency and citizenship, first-generation college status, or opportunities relevant to your academic journey; how your life experiences contribute to the social, intellectual, or cultural diversity within a campus community and your chosen field; or how you might serve educationally underrepresented and underserved segments of society with your graduate education.

This essay should complement but not duplicate the content in the Statement of Purpose. Your Personal History and Diversity Statement must be entered directly into a text box in the application, and has a 4,000 character limit including spaces .

Letters should be from professors or other persons situated to speak about your potential for graduate Creative Writing study. You might also think of potential letter-writers in terms of their ability to speak to your participation in a dedicated community.

Applicants must submit TOEFL/IELTS/Duolingo scores unless they have earned or will be earning a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree from either a regionally accredited or foreign college/university which provides instruction solely in English. See the English Language Requirement section for details. 

Transcripts are required from each post-secondary institution you have attended.

Copies or unofficial transcripts are allowed. If admitted, you’ll be required to send official transcripts for every institution listed on your application.

The application fee is set by the UC Davis Office of Graduate Studies. The application fee for the 2023-2024 cycle is $135 for domestic students and $155 for international students, payable online. Waivers of this fee are only available to participants in one of several graduate preparatory programs .  The MFA program has no ability to grant application fee waivers. 

Application FAQs : https://grad.ucdavis.edu/admissions-process-overview

We aim for a class of 10 to 12 writers, hoping for a balance between genres. The writing sample is the most important part of your application; the committee is looking for high quality work in the applicant’s genre of choice.  All students in the MFA program at UC Davis take at least one workshop outside their primary genre, so you need not apply to a second genre in order to have access to it as a student.

The committee makes admissions and financial aid decisions simultaneously.  We offer a limited number of first-year funding packages; all second year students have access to full funding.

For the Fall 2021 cohort, we received 137 applications, admitted 16 (13 initial applicants and 3 waitlisted applicants), and 11 of those students will be joining us in the Fall.

At UC Davis, we offer you the ability to fund your MFA. In fact, all students admitted to the program are guaranteed full funding in the second year of study, when students serve as teachers of Introduction to Creative Writing (English 5) and receive, in exchange, tuition and health insurance remission as well as a monthly stipend (second year students who come to Davis from out of state are expected to establish residency during their first year). We have a more limited amount of resources – teaching assistantships, research assistantships, and out of state tuition wavers – allocated to us for first year students, but in recent years, we’ve had excellent luck funding our accepted first years. We help students who do not receive English department funding help themselves by posting job announcements from other departments during the spring and summer leading up to their arrival. We are proud to say that over the course of the last twenty years, nearly every incoming student has wound up with at least partial funding (including a tuition waiver and health insurance coverage) by the time classes begin in the fall.

We have other resources for students, too – like the Miller Fund, which supports attendance for our writers at any single writer’s workshop or conference. Students have used these funds to attend well-known conferences like AWP, Writing By Writers, and the Tin House Conference. The Davis Humanities Institute offers a fellowship that first year students can apply for to fund their writing projects. Admitted students are also considered for University-wide fellowships.

For additional information, please contact: [email protected] (530) 752-2281

MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts

World-Renowned Faculty & Excellent Funding Opportunities

Recognition of Native Lands Statement

We acknowledge that the land on which we gather is the original and traditional territory of Tongva people [Tongva and Cahuilla people] and within Tongva, Cahuilla, Luiseño & Serrano original lands and contemporary territories.

In the spirit of Rupert and Jeanette Costo’s founding relationship to our campus, we would like to respectfully acknowledge and recognize our responsibility to the original and current caretakers of this land, water and air: the Cahuilla, Tongva, Luiseño, and Serrano peoples and all of their ancestors and descendants, past, present and future. Today this meeting place is home to many Indigenous peoples from all over the world, including UCR faculty, students, and staff, and we are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work on these homelands.

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing The Write Stuff for Writers

Credit Hours

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100% online, 8-week courses

Transfer in up to 50% of the degree total

Grow Your Writing Passion into a Career with Liberty’s Online MFA in Creative Writing

Many people write creatively, but few hone their skills to develop their writing craft to its highest form. Even fewer learn the other skills it takes to become a successful writer, such as the steps needed to get a book published and into the hands of readers. Liberty’s 100% online Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing can help you develop your writing passion into a career so you can set your works free to impact culture and the world.

Employers in every industry need professionals who have strong writing skills, so you can be confident that your ability to write effectively can also help set you apart in your current career. With in-demand writing expertise and the ability to customize your degree with electives in literature or writing practice, Liberty’s online MFA in Creative Writing can help you achieve your professional writing goals.

Our online MFA in Creative Writing is designed to help you build on your writing skills with specific workshops dedicated to the craft of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, or screenwriting. With a work-in-progress approach to writing practice and mentorship from our faculty of experienced writers and scholars, you can learn the specific skills you need to make your writing stand out.

Ranked in the Top 10% of Niche.com’s Best Online Schools in America

• What Sets Us Apart?
• Private Nonprofit University
• 600+ Online Degrees
• No Standardized Testing for Admission
• Transfer in up to 75% of an Undergrad Degree
• Transfer in up to 50% of a Grad/Doctoral Degree

Why Choose Liberty’s MFA in Creative Writing?

Our online MFA in Creative Writing is mainly offered in an 8-week course format, and our tuition rate for graduate programs hasn’t increased in 9 years. Through our program, you can study the writing process and develop your creative skills through workshops with experienced writing professionals. With our flexible format, you can grow in your creative writing while continuing to do what is important to you.

As a terminal degree, the online MFA in Creative Writing can also help you pursue opportunities to teach writing at the K-12 or college level. You will gain comprehensive and in-depth exposure to writing, literature, publishing, and many other professional writing skills that you can pass on to students. Partner with the Liberty family and learn under faculty who have spent years in the field you love. Your career in professional writing starts here.

What Will You Study in Our MFA in Creative Writing?

The MFA in Creative Writing program is designed to help you become an excellent creative writer across the genres of creative fiction, nonfiction, screenwriting, and poetry. You can learn how to produce aesthetically and culturally engaged creative works while gaining professional knowledge and practice. You will also study foundational contemporary literature so that you have a background in studying important works to draw on for your writing.

To help you in your professional writing, you will also study many essential skills in editing, layout, and the business of publishing so that you can best position yourself for success in the market. Through your creative writing courses and workshops, you can develop your craft so that you will be ready for your thesis project.

Here are a few examples of the skills Liberty’s MFA in Creative Writing can help you master:

• Marketing your projects and pursuing new writing opportunities
• Organizing writing and adapting it to different types of writing
• Tailoring writing to specific audiences and markets
• Understanding what makes art effective, compelling, and impactful
• Writing compelling stories that engage readers

Potential Career Opportunities

• Book and magazine writer
• Business communications specialist
• Creative writing instructor
• Publications editor
• Screenwriter
• Website copy editor and writer
• Writing manager

Featured Courses

• ENGL 600 – Editing, Layout, and Publishing
• ENGL 601 – Writing as Cultural Engagement
• ENGL 603 – Literary Theory and Practice
• WRIT 610 – Writing Fiction

Degree Information

• This program falls under the College of Arts and Sciences .
• View the Graduate Arts and Sciences Course Guides (login required).
• Download and review the Graduate Manual for MFA .

Degree Completion Plan (PDF)

Not sure what to choose?

Speak to one of our admissions specialists to help you choose the program that best fits your needs.

• Tuition & Aid

Your success is our success, which is why we are committed to providing quality academics at an affordable tuition rate. While other colleges are increasing their tuition, we have frozen tuition rates for the majority of our undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs for the past 9 years – and counting.

All Tuition & Fees

Financial Aid & Scholarships

Financial Aid Forms & Eligibility

Scholarship Opportunities

Admission Information for the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (MFA)

Admission requirements.

• A non-refundable, non-transferable $50 application fee will be posted on the current application upon enrollment (waived for qualifying service members, veterans, and military spouses – documentation verifying military status is required) .
• Unofficial transcripts can be used for acceptance purposes with the submission of a Transcript Request Form .
• Creative Writing Sample – A creative writing sample of one creative writing work of at least 2,500 words or a culmination of creative writing samples totaling 2,500 words.*
• Applicants whose native language is other than English must submit official scores for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or an approved alternative assessment. For information on alternative assessments or TOEFL waivers, please call Admissions or view the official International Admissions policy .

*A sample of one or more poems totaling a minimum of 750 words may also be submitted. Song lyrics are not accepted at this time as writing samples.

Preliminary Acceptance

If you are sending in a preliminary transcript for acceptance, you must:

• Be in your final term and planning to start your master’s degree after the last day of class for your bachelor’s degree.
• Complete a Bachelor’s Self-Certification Form confirming your completion date. You may download the form from the Forms and Downloads page or contact an admissions counselor to submit the form on your behalf.
• Submit an official/unofficial transcript to confirm that you are in your final term. The preliminary transcript must show a minimum of 105 completed credit hours.
• If you are a current Liberty University student completing your undergraduate degree, you will need to submit a Degree/Certificate Completion Application .
• Send in an additional, final official transcript with a conferral date on it by the end of your first semester of enrollment in the new master’s degree.

Dual Enrollment

Please see the Online Dual Enrollment page for information about starting graduate courses while finishing your bachelor’s degree.

Transcript Policies

Unofficial college transcript policy.

Unofficial transcripts combined with a Transcript Request Form can be used for admission. Official transcripts are required within 60 days of the admissions decision or before non-attendance drops for the first set of matriculated classes, whichever comes first, and will prevent enrollment into future terms until all official transcripts have been received.

Before sending unofficial college transcripts, please make sure they include the following:

• Your previous school’s name or logo printed on the document
• Cumulative GPA
• A list of completed courses and earned credit broken down by semester
• Degree and date conferred (if applicable)

Official College Transcript Policy

An acceptable official college transcript is one that has been issued directly from the institution and is in a sealed envelope. If you have one in your possession, it must meet the same requirements. If your previous institution offers electronic official transcript processing, they can send the document directly to [email protected] .

If the student uses unofficial transcripts with a Transcript Request Form to gain acceptance, all official transcripts must be received within 60 days of the admissions decision or before non-attendance drops for the first set of matriculated classes, whichever comes first. Failure to send all official transcripts within the 60-day period will prevent enrollment into future terms until all official transcripts have been received.

Admissions Office Contact Information

(800) 424-9596

(888) 301-3577

Email for Questions

[email protected]

Email for Documents

[email protected]

Liberty University Online Admissions Verification

1971 University Blvd.

Lynchburg, VA 24515

Ready to Apply?

Submit your application online or over the phone.

Apply by phone: (800) 424-9595

Liberty University is dedicated to providing world-class educational experiences to military students across the globe.

Who May Qualify?

• Active Duty
• Reserve/National Guard
• Veterans/Retirees
• Spouses of Service Members and Veterans/Retirees
• Current Department of Defense Employees

Available Benefits:

• Tuition discounts – $275 per credit hour for graduate courses
• Additional discount for veterans who service in a civilian capacity as a First Responder (less than $625 per course) *
• 8-week courses, 8 different start dates each year, and no set login times (may exclude certain courses such as practicums, internships, or field experiences)

*Not applicable to certificates.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an mfa in creative writing.

A Master of Fine Arts degree, or MFA, is a terminal degree in an artistic craft that demonstrates that you have achieved the highest level of training and skill in your discipline. Like a doctorate, an MFA often allows you to teach courses at the graduate level while also providing many opportunities for scholarship and leadership in education. If you want to grow your creative writing skills to become the best writer you can be, then the Master of Fine Arts can help you get there.

How will students work towards developing their writing skills?

With creative writing workshops and a thesis project, you will receive support and guidance to help you become the best writer you can be.

How long will it take to complete the MFA in Creative Writing?

You can complete the MFA in Creative Writing in just 48 credit hours!

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