Master of Fine Arts - Creative Writing and Publishing

Program Description

The MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing is designed for students who want to work on long-form projects such as a novel, a memoir, or a poetry or story collection during their time at DePaul. Study across genres and develop and revise student's work under the mentorship of acclaimed authors and poets. Flexible admissions and genre guidelines let students design their perfect MFA, culminating in a required master’s thesis of a publishable quality.

While students find their voice as a writer, hone their skills and build their resume in either publishing or teaching through courses in Copyediting, Book Publicity, Book Design, Teaching Creative Writing, or Teaching English. Gain hands-on instruction in editorial work and desktop publishing with Big Shoulders Books, Poetry East, Crook & Folly, or Slag Glass City, including technical instruction in InDesign and the Chicago Manual of Style.

Because the MFA is a terminal degree qualifying graduates to teach at most colleges or universities, students interested in teaching should plan to take pedagogy courses to prepare for working in the classroom. Professional internships in DePaul classrooms offer excellent experience and preparation within the MFA program.

Students will be able to:

• Create original works of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction
• Apply the skills of narration, description, exposition, and research to their own and others’ writing
• Understand the literary history of the various genres they practice
• Evaluate and develop new ideas and experiment with form; for example: the prose poem, the short-story cycle, or the lyric essay
• Apply what they have learned by marketing their work for publication, as well as connecting with the larger literary community as publishing and/or teaching professionals
• Develop and sustain a book-length work of literature