Welcome to the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Penn State
Our program is more than 20 years old, housed within a major English Department with special strengths in rhetoric and American literary study.
We offer MFA degrees in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Students complete a 42-credit course of study in two years. Some then choose to pursue careers in editing, writing, education, and elsewhere. Others are welcome to apply to the PhD program in our department.
Our faculty is composed of committed teachers who are also award-winning authors. We’re very selective, accepting about one in ten applicants; and small, averaging about two students to each professor. Every student accepted into our program receives full tuition, stipend, and health insurance.
We are set in the gorgeous ridge and valley region of central Pennsylvania, 3 or 4 hours from Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore or New York. It’s a great place to work. And we recognize the importance of bringing well-known and emerging authors to campus each year through our various reading series and visiting writers program.
We take enormous pleasure in watching students thrive here, sustained as much by their own community as the faculty’s efforts to nurture and challenge. Almost all of our current students publish work before they graduate. After they leave our program, they typically succeed, as measured by the list of alumni publications and awards.
The Penn State MFA program trains writers who combine the best elements of this place: East Coast moxy and a Mid-western work ethic.
We appreciate your interest in our program and invite you to apply.
William J. Cobb
MFA Director
Professor of English
Sheila Squillante
Associate Director of the MFA Program
Senior Lecturer in English
