Iowa State University

MFA Program

See writers who attended this program
Program Established: 
2006
Location: 
Ames, IA
Genre: 
Poetry, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction
Residency: 
Full
Duration: 
3 Years
Incoming Class Size: 
9
Application Deadline: 
January 5, 2024
Application Fee: 
$60
Contact E-mail: 
Contact Name: 
K. L. Cook
Core Faculty Includes: 

Poetry: Debra Marquart, Charissa Menefee, Romeo Oriogun, K. L. Cook
Fiction: K. L. Cook, Barbara Haas, Christiana Langenberg, Debra Marquart
Nonfiction: Barbara Haas, Debra Marquart, K. L. Cook
Playwriting: Charissa Menefee
Screenwriting: Charissa Menefee

Funding/Employment Opportunities: 

The program offers full funding. Prospective students may apply for full teaching assistantships (including stipend, full tuition waiver, and health insurance coverage), and Pearl Hogrefe Fellowships in Creative Writing (including stipend, full tuition waiver, payment of fees, and health insurance) which have no teaching responsibilities during the first year.

Affiliated Publications/Publishers: 
Other Features: 

In addition to poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction writing tracks, the program also offers drama as another genre option.

The MFA Program in Creative Writing & Environment is the first MFA program in the country to combine the intensive study of creative writing with inquiry into interdisciplinary courses in environment, tailored to each writer’s research interests. The environmental mission is broadly defined to encourage creative projects that incorporate ideas of place, landscape, ecology, social and environmental justice, and the environmental imagination.

The MFA program is also home to the Pearl Hogrefe Visiting Writer Series, which invites visiting writers of international and national prominence to visit campus and deliver public readings of their work, the Everett Casey Nature Reserve, a 76-acre land reserve, the EcoTheatre Lab, and Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment.