猫咪社区

Our Time to Write

Since 2014, writers have found community in the MFA at 猫咪社区, discovering their voices through memoirs, essays, profiles, journalistic pieces, and narrative nonfiction. Creating is the foundation for any writer. Add unwavering support, connection, and an engaged faculty, and you’re on your way. You’re doing it. Writing. Now. With us. Together.

Our MFA Commitment 

We are deeply committed to honoring the wide range of lived experiences reflected in our faculty and students—and in the rich variety of stories that emerge from our writers. Our dynamic student body includes writers who are in their twenties, and writers who will graduate with their MFA in their seventies; writers from a variety of backgrounds living across the country and around the world; writers who are mid-career, and writers who are “finally” ready to create the space to write their stories. In the 猫咪社区 MFA, we all share a passion for writing and literature, and we believe in the integrity and meaning of the bonds that form when we support each other and our creative work.

In our online MFA, ideas and curiosity are encouraged in a nonjudgmental and respectful space. Every writer matters and every student has a voice. 

• Small and intimate classes enable faculty and students to work closely in writing workshops and to connect one-on-one.
• Distinguished MFA faculty are caring mentors and active practitioners, writing, editing, and publishing widely and across genre.
• Guided and insightful feedback from faculty and peers helps writers improve their work.
• Lively online discussions foster creative community and active learning.
• Thoughtful course pacing encourages students to discover their unique writing practice. 

The pinnacle of MFA learning is demonstrated in the capstone project, a 100-120-page thesis that is unique to every writer. Working closely over two semesters with a faculty mentor and a small group of peers, writers move from concept to draft, through revisions and editing, to produce a final project that, for many of our grads, is the cornerstone of their post-MFA writing career.

Our Connected Community

Within our MFA, enduring connections are formed and nourished. We celebrate the achievements of our students and alums, sharing news on our social media channels and through email announcements. Our grads stay connected through writing groups they have formed here, and we invite them to our weekly online writing drop-ins.

• MFA FreeWrite, launched in 2024, offers a supportive writing space for students and alums to meet and write. Participants may write silently with company, or enter a space to brainstorm, share feedback, or just check in with peers to talk about the writing life.
• Our MFA is the home of , a literary magazine founded in 2020, attracting submissions from around the world. The magazine is co-curated by faculty and students in Multiplicity Studio, a dynamic course open to all MFA students. Multiplicity celebrates the variety and range of the human experience in contemporary literature and publishes personal essays, narrative nonfiction, profiles, and flash nonfiction.
• We sponsor an ongoing online literary series with the library’s , drawing audiences of students, faculty, alums, and members of the public. Featured authors include MFA faculty members and visiting writers in lively discussion around topics such as “Poetry as Memoir,” “Jumping Genres,” and “Writing For Young Adult Readers.”

Our MFA Beyond the Classroom

MFA learning offers hands-on experience in publishing, teaching, and narrative medicine. Each of our professional tracks includes classroom learning and real-world practice.  Students in the publishing track learn from visiting publishing professionals, while students in our teaching track develop lesson plans and syllabi for workshops they will teach. Our NarMed track, one of only a handful in the country, allows students to earn a 15-credit Certificate in Narrative Medicine along with their MFA.

Our graduates have been published in literary and commercial magazines, newspapers, and anthologies. Some have authored books that began in our program. Others are teaching creative writing, working in publishing, managing educational, institutional, and corporate communications teams, or supporting caregivers and clinicians through expressive writing workshops. One of our grads just launched a widely distributed podcast. No matter where their career paths take them, all of our MFA grads are changing lives, one true story at a time.