Virtual Open House on April 16

Learn more about the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing at OSU-Cascades.

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Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program Philosophy

What’s unique about OSU-Cascades' ecological approach to the craft of writing is its investment in the whole writer. The geographies — social, spiritual, physical, aesthetic, political — each writer negotiates to get to the page are as various as the texts that give each one of us a purchase on this art. Together in the MFA in Creative Writing program we teach ourselves to work — at least some of the time — outside our comfort zones. By cultivating a passion for what’s difficult about this art, as well the courage to celebrate our own and each other's adventures in self-expression, we tend the practical skills and whimsical experiments that grow writers with healthy writing lives.

Application Information

"Anxious Attachments" by core faculty member Beth Alvarado has been long-listed for a Pen America Literary Award for the Art of the Essay and is also a 2020 Oregon Book Award Finalist.

We are #4 on the Best College Reviews list of Top 20 Master's in Creative Writing Online for 2020.

Our instructors create an individualized program of study for each student mentee.

Program Details

This two-year program is divided between intensive ten-day residencies at OSU-Cascades in Bend, and term-length individual mentorships you complete long distance from home. Supported by faculty mentors, you will master the techniques of craft in your genre, develop a sustainable writing praxis, practice what it means to be a literary citizen, and learn about what's really exciting in contemporary literature. You conclude the program with a thesis, a creative piece of publishable quality and literary merit.

Genres

MFA students select a genre, but write and study across genres to deepen their craft and understanding. Students may also write cross- or hybrid-genre theses.

  • Fiction
  • Poetry
  • Creative Non-Fiction

Questions

Have questions about the application and admission process? Contact Jordon Zardinejad, our graduate recruitment and program support coordinator.

OSU Corvallis Partnership

The MFA in Creative Writing at OSU in Corvallis has a long tradition of excellence. Recognizing the need to bring an outstanding education to students with different life stories, faculty on both campuses partnered to bring a low-residency MFA in Creative Writing to Central Oregon in 2013. Here in the OSU-Cascades low-residency MFA, we continue that tradition of excellence, growing creative writers with exemplary publication records, and a passion for loving this world, through art.