The MFA Program at
the University of Oregon
The central emphasis of our program is the act of writing, undertaken here in the context of a community of committed practitioners.
Established in the 1960s by James B. Hall, the University of Oregon's MFA Program in Creative Writing is one of the longest standing in the country. Originally, Hall designed the program so that the writing workshop would be complemented with graduate courses in literature and other artistic disciplines. Under subsequent directors Ralph Salisbury and John Haislip, the program grew to emphasize more individual attention in conference hours and moved away from the complementary classes in other fields. On his arrival in 1989, former director Garrett Hongo examined the curriculum and graduate requirements, then redesigned the program along studio lines, emphasizing workshop hours and writing time. At present, the curriculum continues to stress the writing workshop, integrating it with seminars and individualized research on craft, theory, and related topics.
The program structure privileges the writing workshop itself, recognizing the need for students to spend a majority of their time writing. The structure emphasizes performance and productivity as the student's primary responsibilities: Half the required 72 credit hours accrued in this two-year MFA program are in the writing workshop. Conference and thesis work accounts for another quarter of total credit hours, and the remainder consists of seminars. Program faculty have developed a group of literary craft seminars in fiction and poetry that focus on style, form, and literary tradition. Together, the workshops and craft seminars make for a program that combines a strong and exciting component of literary study with a primary focus on the act of writing poetry and fiction. Students take six graduate workshops (in a single genre) in six consecutive academic quarters of residence.
A distinctive feature of the Oregon MFA program is a guarantee of individualized study with each of the faculty members in fiction or poetry. CRWR 605, Writing and Conference, is an individual tutorial, in which a first-year student works one-on-one with a designated faculty member to address specific issues of craft and literary preparation. The particular course of study is developed through a conversation between each student and the relevant faculty member.
We've managed to keep our workshops small, and they have achieved a history of accomplishment, innovation, and quality. In addition, many applicants are attracted to the Pacific Northwest because of the great natural beauties of the region (the Oregon coast, the Cascades, and wild rivers are all close at hand) and because of Eugene's reputation for social tolerance and support of the arts.
Our list of graduates includes PEN-Hemingway Award winner Chang-rae Lee, Yale Younger Poet winner Brigit Pegeen Kelly, National Poetry Prize winner Eugene Gloria, screenwriter Kenny Moore, and Bilingual Review Poetry Prize winner Andrés Montoya. Recent guests of the program include Barry Lopez , C.K. Williams, Edward Hirsch, Charles Wright, Carolyn Kizer, Philip Levine, Sharon Olds, Frederick Busch, Eavan Boland, B.H. Fairchild, and Tobias Wolff. Writers such as Robert Wrigley, Elizabeth McCracken, Reetika Vazirani, David Mura, Li-young Lee, James Houston, Lynn Freed, and Cai Emmons have served as visiting faculty.
Essentially, we offer the opportunity for developing writers to spend two years writing in a stimulating intellectual environment, a supportive community, and a beautiful natural setting.