Creative Writing M.A.

Program type:

Major

Format:

On Campus

Est. time to complete:

2-3 years

Credit Hours:

Write your own future.

The UNT English graduate program is designed for students who wish to build a professional career as creative writers, educators or academics. With distinguished scholars in every major period of American and British literature and nationally renowned writers in every genre, the English Department supports a broad range of graduate research and creative work.

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Why Earn a Creative Writing Master's?

The M.A. program in Creative Writing offers training in the writing of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Each master's student in Creative Writing divides coursework evenly between workshop and literature classes, leading to the writing of an original thesis submitted in fulfillment of the degree plan.

You'll have the opportunity both to work closely with the creative writing and literature faculties and to explore ways in which knowledge of literary traditions develops craft. The concentration in creative writing requires you to take workshops in fiction, poetry and/or creative nonfiction alongside a range of literature courses.

Many recent M.A. students have gone on to further study in elite M.F.A. or Ph.D. programs, including the Ph.D. Program at Stanford and the M.F.A. program at the University of Houston.

Marketable Skills

Construct persuasive, evidence-based arguments
Communicate findings clearly and concisely
Understand historical and cultural perspectives
Evaluate critically sources and narratives
Prepare oral and written presentations

Creative Writing Master's Highlights

Stories, essays, and poems by the faculty also appear in publications such as The Paris Review, The Yale Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The New York Times, Image, Ploughshares, Denver Quarterly, TriQuarterly, The Threepenny Review, Best American Poetry and Best American Spiritual Writing.

Each year the department sponsors a Visiting Writer Series that brings distinguished writers to campus to give readings and meet with students in Q&A sessions.

While at UNT, our students have published work in nationally and internationally recognized journals and magazines, including The New Yorker, Shakespeare and SEL: Studies in English Literature.

You'll work closely with award-winning faculty members whose works have been published in the flagship journals in their fields and subfields (PMLA, College English and Speculum), as well as leading literary journals, including The Paris Review, Best American Poetry and Best American Spiritual Writing.

You'll have opportunities to attend and participate in a variety of speakers' series including American Studies Colloquium, the Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Studies Group, the Medieval and Renaissance Colloquium and the Visiting Writers Series

The creative writing faculty features nationally and internationally recognized writers whose books have been published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Harper Collins; and Oxford University Press, among others.

What Can You Do With a Creative Writing Master's?

Students pursue the degree in order to become better writers, able to create prose and poetry that draw on a full range of the craft. On a more practical level, MFA students become better writers, which prepares them for a variety of careers: an array of jobs in technical and digital fields, marketing, public relations, journalism, arts administration, and editing.

Creative Writing Master's Courses You Could Take

Rhetorical criticism of prose fiction to show how short stories and novels achieve effect.

Workshop devoted to the writing, reading and analysis of creative nonfiction. Emphasis shifts each semester and may encompass the personal essay, memoir, nature writing, travel writing and the nonfiction short story.

Intensive study of selected plays and a consideration of some of the literary problems connected with Shakespeare’s life and work.

Study of the principles of poetic composition in traditional forms as well as free verse. Format includes lecture and workshop.

Study of the principles of prose fiction as exemplified in published and unpublished works. Emphasis on writing for specific subgenres and methods of preparation and submission of work. Workshop format is employed.

Rhetorical criticism of poetry to show how poems achieve identification with the audience; emphasis on student mastery of critical analysis.