Article Archive: Special Section

Having witnessed firsthand the merits of one student’s MFA education, author and creative writing teacher Gregory Spatz considers the well-worn debate on whether creative writing can be taught, and what he himself learned from his mentorship role.

Organizers of writing contests are, perhaps not suprisingly, wary of publicizing details of their budgets, but the organizers of three contest programs offered to share the numbers behind their 2011 contests as part of contributing editor Michael Bourne's “The Economics of Competition,” which serves as the centerpiece of the current issue’s special section on the risks and rewards of writing contests.

Attorney, poet, editor, and freelance journalist Seth Abramson explains the methodology used to compile the Poets & Writers Magazine 2012 rankings of postgraduate creative writing programs.

The top ten low-residency MFA programs in the United States, from Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina, to Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont.

An additional twenty-five MFA programs in our annual rankings, from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, to San Diego State University in California.

The nation’s top fifty MFA programs based on popularity, funding, selectivity, fellowship-placement statistics, job-placement statistics, and student-faculty ratios, plus a look at other important program features, such as size, duration, cost of living, and foreign-language requirements.

The top ten low-residency MFA programs in the United States, plus a ranking of the additional thirty-six low residencies in the United States and beyond. 

A combination of hard data from programs that release funding and admissions figures to the public and a vital survey of what the individuals comprising the next generation of U.S. poets and writers have to say about their own priorities in choosing a postgraduate program, here is a ranking of the nation's top fifty MFA programs.

Author-artists Michael Kimball, Michelle Wildgen, Jesse Ball, Abha Dawesar, and Jen Bervin talk about their "other" creative pursuits—cooking, photography, bookmaking, painting, and drawing—in relation to their writing.

In this excerpted version of his article from the November/December 2009 issue, contributor Seth Abramson reveals the methodology behind his ranking of the top fifty MFA programs in the United States, plus a ranking of the additional eighty-eight full-residency programs. For the full article and additional data for each program, including size, duration, cost of living, teaching load, and curriculum focus, see the November/December 2009 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.