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! While our admissions period closes May 1, we will consider applications from exceptional students interested in enrolling for this summer through June 1. Attention: The Ashland University MFA Program announces its new faculty mentors for 2008-2009. Visit the Faculty page to read more. Congratulations to our MFA students who have won awards or have had pieces selected for publication recently! 2008-2009 Program Handbook is available to download. (PDF) The 2008 Summer Residency Packet and Residency Preference Sheet are available to download. (PDF) |
Where the horseshoe meets the highway... |
| Dates & Deadlines | |
Summer & Fall Registration April 1 - May 15 Summer Residency Preference Sheet due May 15 (New students: June 15) Application Deadlines: Summer 2008 Semester - extended to June 1 Spring 2009 Semester - December 1 Summer Residency - July 13-26 |
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"The total immersion was exhausting, but wonderful. The published guest writers who came were excellent. I felt very honored to have been able to attend readings and workshops with them. Invaluable. The faculty have been 100% supportive and positive with their praise and their criticisms. They have taken what feels like an overwhelming task, this writing, and made us believe we can be successful. Even as many of us are starting from the ground up. I’m glad the summer residency is completed, but I don’t want to leave either." - Quote From Program Evaluations, Summer 2007 |