BA/MA Graduate Program in Creative Writing

Since 2013, the English Department has offered an integrated undergraduate/graduate degree in English with a creative writing concentration. Designed for highly motivated students to hone their skills in poetry or prose (fiction and creative nonfiction), this full-residency program is open to all Penn State students. Both degrees are completed in two years on the University Park campus: the student’s fourth year and the additional MA year.

All students complete 30 credits of course work at the 400 and 500 level in creative writing or literary study (up to 12 credits can be counted from the BA degree). During the fifth year, under the supervision of a creative writing faculty member, students take graduate-level workshops and complete a substantial creative project, due at the end of the MA year.

The fifth year is especially useful for writers who are polishing portfolios for eventual application to outside MFA programs, or for those who wish to gain experience in an internship or to learn how to teach writing.

Admission Requirements

The integrated BA/MA program is limited, and admission is highly selective. (Students may apply in more than one genre, provided they submit a full writing sample in each.)

Successful applicants:

Must be enrolled in the English BA program.
Must have completed 60 credits (typically 5 semesters).
Should have a recommended overall GPA of at least 3.2 (on a 4.0 scale) in undergraduate coursework and a minimum GPA of 3.5 in all coursework completed for the English major. (Provisional admits are made on rare occasion, but the student must meet the minimum GPA within one semester.)
Must submit a statement of purpose, a writing sample (10 pages of poetry and no more than 25 pages of prose), an academic transcript, and a resume in the on-line application form.
Must be recommended by two faculty members familiar with the student’s writing and course work.

Tuition and Charges

Undergraduate tuition rates apply in the fourth year. Fifth-year students receive teaching assistantships that provide pedagogical training and college teaching experience in exchange for tuition remission, a stipend, and health insurance.

Application Deadline: The application deadline for the BA/MA Program is March 15.

Resources and Opportunities

In addition to teaching composition, students in the MA year may compete for special writing awards and apply for additional funding for travel and study abroad. BA/MA students have completed internships in the Digital English Studio, scholarly publications produced by the University Libraries, and other sites on campus and off.

BA/MA students attend special meetings with distinguished writers who visit campus through the Mary Rolling Reading Series and The Emily Dickinson Lectureship in American Poetry (sponsored by George Kelly ’59 and Barbara Martino Kelly (’59). They have the additional opportunity of working privately with the Fisher Family Writer-in-Residence sponsored by Steven L. Fisher (’70) and family.

More than anything else, BA/MA students repeatedly praise the small size of the program, individualized attention, and most of all the sense of community that emerges as students work hard together in a supportive

Students Nakul Grover, Nate Ricketts, Andrew Weller, and Elaine Wang

Visiting poet Terrance Hayes, with student Nate Ricketts

Students Ellen Parkinson, Barbara Kutz, Isabella Luciani, and Grace Miller

BA/MA Class of 2022: Georgia MacZura, Anushka Shah, Rachel Hynds, Nathan Ousey, Jaden Parker, Ryan Crossman, Hannah Singletary, and Leigha Montes

Laura Nejako (2019 BA/MA graduate) reads from her final project.

Visiting writer Grace Talusan with students from Filipino Student Association

Core Creative Writing Faculty

Our faculty writers have earned some of the most prestigious writing awards and honors, and they actively publish with both literary and popular journals and presses.

Current graduate faculty include prose writers Elizabeth Kadetsky, Samuel Kọ́láwọlé, and Toby Thompson, and poets Julia Spicher Kasdorf and Shara McCallum.

Meet our Core Creative Writing Faculty:

Julia Spicher Kasdorf has published four collections in the Pitt Poetry Series and Shale Play: Poems and Photographs from the Fracking Fields, a documentary project in collaboration with photographer Stephen Rubin. Among other awards, her poems have garnered a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and Pushcart Prizes. She has also published a volume of essays, a biography, and several edited books. Students in her courses will read widely and write together and revise in a collaborative spirit. She has a commitment to involving students in local cultural work.

From Jamaica and born to a Jamaican father and Venezuelan mother, Shara McCallum has published six books in the US & UK, most recently No Ruined Stone, winner of the 2022 Hurston Wright Foundation Legacy Award for Poetry. McCallum’s poems and essays have appeared in journals, anthologies, and textbooks throughout the US, Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. In her workshops, students can expect to be challenged to read a lot, draft a good deal of new work, and engage in conversations and exercises to expand their understanding of poetic traditions and to increase their facility with craft and radical revision.

A three-time Fulbright fellow to India and nonfiction co-editor at New England Review, Elizabeth Kadetsky‘s most recent book is the Juniper Prize-winning lyric memoir The Memory Eaters. Her four books and published fiction and nonfiction span forms including literary journalism, lyric essay, memoir, comics, the short story, and the novella. Her interest in storytelling and sensory, body-driven writing informs her work across genres. Students can expect close reading of contemporary and award-winning texts in her classes, and generative workshops that strive to create a supportive and collaborative atmosphere.

Toby Thompson has published six books of nonfiction, including his classic biography of Bob Dylan, Positively Main Street, as well as books on the 1960s, saloons in America, and western American art. He has published in most major magazines, including Vanity Fair, The New York Times, and Esquire. His courses are workshops that concentrate on creative nonfiction and how we, as nonfiction writers, create. Techniques for mining memory, as well as for creating memorable stories, are taught. The line between nonfiction and fiction in creative nonfiction is discussed.

Born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria, Samuel Kọ́láwọlé is an award-winning short story writer with a novel forthcoming from Amistad/Harper Collins titled The Road to Salt Sea. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in many literary journals and gained the support of fellowships and residencies. As a student in Samuel's workshop, students will engage with multicultural works of literature, and learn about the craft of fiction while generating daring, new writing.

BA/MA Futures

BA/MA graduates have gone on to study in fully funded MFA or PhD programs. Other students opt to work as editors, business writers, journalists, social media and content creators, and teachers.

Notable Graduates

Writers who studied at Penn State include Diane Ackerman, Agha Shahid Ali, Sarah Blake, Kayleb Rae Candrilli, Jillian Cantor, Geffrey Davis, Katie Fallon, Cary Holladay, Ruth Ellen Kocher, Rachel Mennies, Cathleen Miller, Chinelo Okparanta, Carter Sickles, Rebecca Rasmussen, Sheila Squillante, Lyrae Van Clief Stefanon, Sunil Yapa, and William Kelley Woolfitt.

For more information, please contact: