Creative nonfiction
Work with writers of memoir and creative nonfiction, including Lidia Yuknavitch, Krystal Sital, Gayle Brandeis, Steven Church, Suzanne Roberts, Arianne Zwartjes, and Brian Turner.
Our faculty have publications with presses such as W.W. Norton & Co., Graywolf Press, Ecco, Simon & Schuster, Harper Perennial, Tin House Books, Jonathan Cape/Random House (UK), Grove Press, Four Way Books, University of Iowa Press, and the University of Nebraska Press; their work has been published in such magazines as Harper’s, National Geographic and National Geographic Traveller, the New York Times and The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Esquire, The Nation, Salon, The Atlantic, Best American Essays, Virginia Quarterly Review, South American Explorers, and more. They’ve been recognized as Barnes & Noble Great New Writers and been included in their Best American Series. Our faculty has been awarded many grants and fellowships, including from the NEA, Lannan Foundation, and Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selections.
We don’t just teach the finer points of craft. Our students — past and current — have published in publications including Slate, Huffington Post, the Rumpus, and McSweeney’s, and they’ve worked with National Geographic crews in Afghanistan.
Recent guest authors have included Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Kendra Atleework, Claire Vaye Watkins, Carmen Maria Machado, Camille Dungy, Rick Moody, Jennifer Percy, Luis Alberto Urrea, Colin Grant, and Pam Houston.
The MFA program creates a tight literary and global community, writers who are connected to each other through our shared interest in storytelling, but who are also deeply engaged with the world.
Suzanne Roberts, MFA faculty
