The Program

Our graduate M.F.A. Creative Writing program is a two-year literary immersion. We offer workshops with nationally acclaimed writers and literature classes with a distinguished Department of English faculty. Our community is small and congenial (we admit ten writers a year), and part of a large and lively intellectual community in the larger English department. We have a diverse group of all ages and backgrounds and offer a year-round program of visitors and readings. All students write a thesis-a collection of stories or creative nonfiction, a novel, or a collection of poetry-and work closely with a thesis advisor.

The Notre Dame Review

A nationally distributed literary journal providing editorial training in print and online publishing to all interested MFA students. For a look at our online version, go to The Notre Dame Review.

• Contributors range from Nobel Prize winners (Seamus Heaney, Czeslaw Milosz) to top emerging writers (Virgil Suárez, Sandra Alcosser).
  
• Selections from the Review have appeared in Best American Short Stories and Best American Poetry and have been awarded the Pushcart Prize.
  
• Awarded the silver medal, National Case Competition for Visual and Prize Design.
  
• Nationwide distribution, including Barnes & Noble, amazon.com, Borders, and other regional chains and independent. Presence in prominent university libraries.

Visiting Writers

Recent visitors include: A. Manette Ansay, Ana Castillo, Fred Chappell, Nicholas Delbanco, Beth Ann Fennelly, Tom Franklin, Tim Gautreaux, Gary Gildner, Dana Gioia, Debra Gregor, Robert Hass, Lyn Hejinian, Brenda Hillman, Susan Howe, Suji Kwock Kim, Ruth Kluger, Yusef Komunyakaa, Paul Mariani, Demetria Martinez, Bill Meissner, Steve McCaffrey, Emmanuel Moses, Kathleen Norris, Katherine Vaz, Anthony Walton

Among Our Success Stories...

• Michael Collins ('91) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for The Keepers of Truth.
  
• Mark Behr ('98) published his second novel, Embrace, with Little, Brown.
  Mark's first novel, The Smell of Apples, won awards from the British Society of Authors, the Los Angeles Times, the Central News Agency, and the South African Academy of Arts and Letters.
  
• James Ellis Thomas ('98) published his first short story in The New Yorker and signed a contract with Simon & Schuster for his first novel.
  
• Tony D'Souza ('99) won The Black Warrior Review Fiction Prize and 3rd Prize in Stand's International Fiction Competition.
  
• Tom Coyne ('99) published A Gentleman's Game (Atlantic/Grove) and wrote the screenplay for the motion picture.
  
• Jenny Boully ('02) published The Body (Slope editions) and has poetry forthcoming in the 2002 volume of Best American Poetry, edited by Robert Creeley.
  
• Six poets with Notre Dame MFAs are published (along with the Assistant Director of Creative Writing) in The Possibility of Language: Seven New Poets, from Samizdat Press.
  
• MFA alumni and students have been published in a wide range of literary
  journals from The New Yorker, Esquire, and GQ to New England Review and Puerto del Sol.
• Poets Francisco Aragon and Jenny Bryant received 2002 AWP Intro Journals awards and poet Jenny Boully and Creative Nonfiction essayist Wei Liu received honorable mentions in the 2002 AWP Intro Journals competition
• Kevin Ducey ('04) won the American Poetry Reviews Honickman Award, judged by Yusef Komunyakaa. His book, Rhinoceros, will be out in September and will be distributed by Copper Canyon Press.
• Sean Henry ('96) has published in the journals Obsidian II, Salamancer, and Callaloo.
• Alan Lindsay's ('93) novel, A is forthcoming from Red Hen Press. Another story, "Idling" is forthcoming in a story collection from Red Hen. He's teaching at the New Hampshire Technical Institute in Concord.