University of Alaska, Fairbanks
MFA Program
Poetry, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction
Fairbanks, AK
Application Deadline:
Thu, 01/15/2026
Application Fee:
$75
Affiliated Publications/Publishers:
Permafrost, which administers an annual book prize.
Genre: Creative Nonfiction
Six-Word Memoir
As the old story goes, Ernest Hemingway was once asked to write a six-word story about himself. This is how he responded: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Write a six-word memoir about yourself. For inspiration, check out Smith Magazine's Six-Word Memoir Project.
Green-Haired Gumshoes or Hidebound Hacks? Creative Nonfiction vs. Journalism
My confusion came from a curious warning. Awash in a sea of writers and would-be writers in a drab-walled meeting room at the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference a few years ago in Vancouver, B.C., I was listening to author Dinty W. Moore extol the virtues of creative nonfiction writing when suddenly he straightened his stout body and leaned across the podium. "Look out," he cautioned, his tone dire, "the journalists are coming!"
The Written Image: The Beats
Trying to capitalize on the popularity of graphic novels, Hill and Wang, an imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, has begun publishing graphic nonfiction titles. Their latest release, The Beats: A Graphic History, covers all the major writers of the generation.
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The World Over: A Profile of Rolf Potts
Getting there may be half the fun, but for Rolf Potts, author of Marco Polo Didn’t Go There, the art of traveling—and travel writing—raises more important questions than how to go from point A to point B.
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The New Creative Nonfiction Writers
Citizen journalists, often blogging in real time, have forced an expansion of creative nonfiction by influencing public opinion on important issues such as the presidential campaign.
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Laura Albert's Collaborator to Publish JT LeRoy Memoir
The woman Laura Albert enlisted to publicly impersonate JT LeRoy, the fictional author created by Albert whose non-identity was exposed in 2005, will publish her own account of the hoax, the New York Post reported today. Twenty-seven-year-old Savannah Knoop, the half sister of Albert's former partner Geoffrey Knoop, has written Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT LeRoy, her memoir of socializing with celebrities while posing, complete with sunglasses and blond wig, as the author of Sarah and The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, works purportedly based on the author's experiences as a twelve-year-old homeless, abused, and drug-addicted son of a prostitute. Seven Stories Press will publish Knoop's book in October.
An Interview With Creative Nonfiction Writer Phillip Lopate
Phillip Lopate, considered by many to be one of the most important essayists of our time, discusses the controversies surrounding creative nonfiction, his own essay-writing process, and the ultimate quality he looks for in nonfiction—an interesting mind at work on the page.
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Obama’s “Bitter” and the Creative Nonfiction Writer: Postcard From the Campaign Trail
The origin and form of Mayhill Fowler’s Huffington Post report on Barack Obama’s use of the word “bitter” suggest her work is neither blogging nor journalism, but creative nonfiction. That its effect was out of proportion with its intention begs the question: What can the creative nonfiction writer expect in the Information Age?
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