| What is the pedagogical philosophy of the Ashland MFA? What makes this program unique?
The Ashland MFA Program is distinct from any other MFA program in the country in that it offers degree tracks in two genres only—poetry and creative nonfiction. Though poetry students study in workshops exclusively with other poetry students, and creative nonfiction students with other nonfiction writers, the influence of both genres is always present in the program. During summer residencies, following morning workshops segregated by genre, all students and faculty attend afternoon craft seminars and evening readings. All craft seminars and many readings are designed to celebrate both genres, and often bring the two into dialogue with one another. What, for example, we have asked in past craft seminars, does it mean to write through an orientation to the idea of truth? What is the necessary role of the imagination for an author who realizes that any representation of truth in language necessarily falls short of the entire range of emotions, ideas and sensory experiences present in even the most ordinary moment? What is the role, for poets and nonfiction writers, of facts, research, and the accuracy of detail in interacting with the imagination to craft language into an embodiment of the radically real? The Ashland MFA Program also offers a cross-genre option, for students who are active in both genres. The exclusive two-genre focus—and the emphasis on what poets can learn from CNF writers and what CNF writers can learn from poets—distinguishes the Ashland MFA Program from all other low-residency and traditional MFA programs.
The Ashland MFA Program is also one of the few low-residency programs to work on the single annual residency model. There are three 14-day intensive residencies during the process of completing the two-year degree—one gateway residency, one mid-program residency (after the first year), and one exit (post-thesis) residency. Again, this format accommodates very well students with regular work lives. Our students can devote each year a single two-week leave from work (or vacation time) to the single, annual Ashland MFA summer residency. This residency format also creates more of a full-immersion experience, as it is longer than the 10-day residencies typically found in other low-residency MFA programs. In the Ashland Program, students sustain for a full two weeks a non-stop focus on their own writing and on the writing of others. (We keep a 12-hour daily schedule on residency weekdays and a half-day schedule on weekends).
The Midwestern location—on the north-eastern edge of the Midwest—is yet another distinctive quality of the Ashland MFA Program. While our student body has a foundation in Ohio, there are students in the program from most regions of the United States. Our students currently come from 19 different states. We have drawn 43% of current and past students from Ohio and 57% from Michigan, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia, Florida, California, Texas, New Mexico, Washington, Colorado, North Carolina, Montana, Nevada, Georgia, Virginia, New Jersey, Idaho, Iowa, Illinois, Utah, Tennessee, and Louisiana. The Ashland MFA Program probably has as rich a geographic distribution of students as any other low-residency program in the country. Ashland MFA faculty mentors also come from many different states—Indiana, Alabama, California, Ohio, New York, Colorado, Georgia, and Wisconsin.
Finally there is one other distinctive quality in the Ashland MFA Program that is hard to define and that may not readily be found in many other MFA programs. The Ashland MFA Program is built on the idea of creating a supportive, literary community that maintains only the highest expectation for new writing. The program embraces the idea that accomplished writers often developed their craft through an association with an audience of other writers who are both supportive and insist on high aesthetic standards. The pedagogical philosophy behind the Ashland Program supports the creation of a literary community that extends well beyond degree completion. Alumni, current students, faculty, staff, visiting writers and editors, are all members of the extended Ashland community. Without any sort of demographic distinction whatsoever, we welcome all talented writers who love and celebrate literature and believe in the possibility of adding a book to the canon. We look to draw to the program students and faculty who celebrate the successes of others and feed off that energy to work toward successes of their own.
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