Spirit of the Program |
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Ashland University offers the only two-genre low-residency MFA Program in the country, with a cross-genre option and separate degree tracks in poetry and creative nonfiction. The program is characterized both by an insistence on high aesthetic standards for the creation of new literature and by an emphasis on a supportive community of writers. The Ashland MFA Program embraces a Whitmanesque sense of the writer's radical good cheer and the skeptic's insistence to confront realities. While accepting no easy assumptions--not even assuming the ability of language to embody the full range and richness of the most simple, human moment--we are interested in what poets and nonfiction writers can learn from one another. What, for example, does it mean to write within an orientation to "the truth," as poets often do and nonfiction writers must? What might it mean for a nonfiction writer to emphasize the imagination as fully as a poet? How might an associational movement of thought, imagery, emotion, and sound offer an entry into the multi-layered nature of the radically real? We invite accomplished poets and nonfiction writers who are drawn by the interplay between poetry and nonfiction to apply to our program. Come join the celebration! The 2009 Summer Residency will be held July 26 through August 8. The 2009 Summer Residency is now open to non-degree seeking students. See How to Apply for more information. The 2009 Summer Residency Preference Sheet is now available for download from the Forms page. Download the 2009 Summer Residency Packet. Congratulations to our MFA students who have won awards or have had pieces selected for publication recently! Thesis and Graduation Guidelines (PDF) 2008-2009 Program Handbook is available to download. (PDF) Why Should I Get a Master's Degree? from the Council of Graduate Schools |
Where the horseshoe meets the highway... |
| Dates & Deadlines | |
Summer Residency July 26-August 8 June 29 - Writing Packets for Residency Due Summer Residency Schedule of Events (PDF) Application Deadlines: Summer 2009 - accepting applications through June 15 as long as there is still space in the program January 2010 - October 1 Summer 2010 - Priority Deadline: February Rolling Admissions through June 15, 2010 |
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"This was an enjoyable, exhausting, excellent whirlwind of a two-week residency. The visiting authors covered a wonderful range of style, technique, and wit. Both the readings and craft seminars were stimulating and enlightening: Marilyn Chin’s energy and stage presence, Kittredge’s lyricism and accumulated understanding of the work of writing, Debra Marquart’s wit and joy, Michael Salinger’s incredible way of teaching another level of understanding overall structure, line, and word through examining the work as an oral performance, Kevin Young giving us another way to see our own worlds as worthy of reproduction in art, Eric and Jennifer passing on years’ worth of knowledge so graciously in just an hour and a half’s time, Floyd Skloot – I am a writer and words fail me – I am awed by this man, Robert Fogarty who I could have listened to for hours! And I haven’t even mentioned the superb faculty, Sarah Wells (thank you!), and Steve Haven… at this point, I should probably write an ode to the summer residency." - Maureen Flora, Second-Year Student, Summer 2008