Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

“I continue to be grateful for everything I learned at Queens–I find I appreciate it and value it more and more. The faculty is wonderful–I’m still processing all that they taught me, four very different perspectives on my work and on fiction-writing in general–but I really think the size of the small groups is the program’s biggest strength. ​I feel that I really got to know every person I was in small group with, and several of those friendships continue to flourish, so many years out of the program.”

– Susan Woodring ’03, Author of the novel Goliath, St. Martins, 2012

Meet Our Program: Workshops and Tutorials, Acclaimed Faculty, Post-Graduation Support

The Queens University Master of Fine Arts (MFA) is a low-residency studio arts program that provides an immersion in the discipline of writing. We designed it to help you write what you most want to write, to bring your work to its highest artistic levels, and to hone your craft without uprooting your life.

Workshops & Tutorials. Our program operates in two distinct ways: Our workshop model allows you to receive feedback from your fellow writers, to advance your critical skills, and to build a writing community that extends well beyond your degree. In addition to the workshop aspect of our program, our students always get access to an individual, personalized tutorial. Each term, our students choose between the workshop model or the 1-on-1 tutorial model. You decide what’s best for you.

Acclaimed Faculty. In our program, you will benefit from an experienced and accomplished faculty that includes more than 30 highly acclaimed writers, including Ada Limón, the Poet Laureate of the United States. Get personalized attention with our 4:1 student-to-faculty ratio.

Networking & Post-Graduation Support. You can continue to benefit from the Queens community long after you graduate as we host annual professional development opportunities. Meet with agents and editors from New York and California at the Annual Professional Development Weekend for Writers. Our staff will also help you access jobs in teaching and writing if that’s something you’re interested in exploring.

Flexible Program. The program is built to fit your schedule, with two weeks of in-person residency each year and distance learning across all terms, and our students have the option to accelerate or extend their programs to suit their unique needs.

Strengthen Your Skills. You’ll have plenty of ways to expand your writing and editorial skills including with our literary magazine, Qu, or with the Southern Review of Books. You can also take advantage of our Book Development Program and work one-on-one with a top New York editor.

Program Highlights

• Duration: 2 years, with options to accelerate or lengthen
• Credit hours: 52
• Cost per credit: $815
• Total tuition: $42,380
• Modalities: Low residency, with distance learning throughout the year
• Concentrations: Fiction, including Young Adult; Creative Nonfiction; Poetry; Writing for Stage & Screen
• Flexible program: Low residency with two week-long residences in Charlotte each year (or one two-week residency in Latin America).
• Immersive travel experiences, including annual trips to Buenos Aires, Argentina; Santiago, Chile; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
• Post-Master’s Certificate is available

Your Degree in Action

The Queens MFA in Creative Writing sets you up for success in a variety of different fields:

• Our alumni have published 125 books in the last five years.
• 70% of alumni have been published in magazines or journals.
• 64% of alumni have gone on to teach.
• 48% of alumni have gone on to hold MFA-relevant professional positions.

Notable works by recent alumni include:

• Maria, Maria (W.W. Norton 2022), by Marytza Rubio ’16. Long-listed for the 2022 National Book Award. 
• Perpetual West (Algonquin 2022), by Mesha Maren ’14. Made the 2022 “most anticipated book” lists of at least 6 publications including Oprah Daily, LitHub, and The Millions. Her debut novel, Sugar Run, was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. She joined the Creative Writing faculty at Duke in 2019. 
• Ghost in a Black Girl’s Throat (Red Hen Press 2021) by Khalisa Rae ’16, featured in Publisher’s Weekly, Book Riot, and The Root. 

Selected Courses

• Gateway I, Reading as a Writer
• Gateway II, Literary Reviewing
• Gateway III, Shaping the Whole Work
• Gateway IV, Teaching Creative Writing
• Craft Seminars in Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction and Writing for Stage and Screen
• Critical Theory for Creative Writers
• Questioning the Literary Canon

Program Contact

Meet Your Professors

Our program has more than 30 highly acclaimed writers as instructors, including Ada Limón, the Poet Laureate of the United States.

Message from the Director

At Queens, you will find dedicated professionals committed to helping you take your work to the next level. This is a program designed to help you to pursue your passion, write what you most want to write, and bring your work to its highest artistic achievement.

A benefit of the Queens workshop model is you have more writers looking at your work during your time with us, you have more opportunity to advance your own critical skills, and you have every chance to build a writing community for yourself that extends well beyond your degree.

But Queens is not only a workshop program; it’s also full of individual, personalized mentoring. Students choose between the workshop model or a one-to-one tutorial model each and every term. All students, regardless of their choice, will have time to discuss with their instructor (a different one each semester) their literary development and aspirations. Join us on campus or travel with us internationally. Or both! Get real editorial experience working on our literary magazine and contributing to the Southern Review of Books. 

Beyond graduation, we bring editors and agents from New York and California to meet with our alumni in five-person groups. Our staff will help you access jobs in teaching and writing, should that be something you’re interested in exploring.

Consider what makes Queens so distinctive: our low student-to-faculty ratio, our pioneering model that utilizes mentoring and workshop approaches, our alumni curriculum, and more than fifty wonderful and illustrious instructors who teach in our program.

We look forward to hearing from you!

All the best,

Fred Leebron
MFA Program Director

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