Mfa Program in Creative Writing

MFA PROGRAM IN CREATIVE WRITING

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

Graduate Student Handbook

1. IMPORTANT CONTACTS

Most of the administrative details of your program will be coordinated through the Creative Writing Office, located in 2116ETawes Hall.

Lindsay Bernal is the Academic Coordinator for the MFA Program. She provides stamps for graduate courses; oversees advising; keeps track of the various forms you will need and all deadlines. She is also able to sign off on most paperwork that needs to be approved by the Director of Creative Writing. (2116E Tawes; ; 301-405-3820)

Michael Collier is the Director of Creative Writing and your DGS, Director of Graduate Studies. He is the final arbitrator on academic questions and is available for questions and guidance. If you need his approval on administrative paperwork, please consult Lindsay first. (3103 Tawes; ; 301-405-3819)

Rebecca Sommer is the Business Manager for English. Her office coordinates payroll, fellowship disbursement, tuition remission, and benefits. Visit the Department’s Business Office in 2119E & 2119FTawes for paperwork regarding payroll, benefits and travel compensation. (2119F Tawes;; ; 301-405-3804)

Scott Eklund is the Academic Writing Office’s administrative coordinator. He is in charge of office and desk assignments for all graduate students with funding. Scott is available for any concerns related to teaching ENGL 101. He will also explain proper use of the copy machines in 2106 Tawes, the graduate student copy and mail room. (1116 Tawes; ; 301-405-3771)

2. Academic Advising Course Registration

Academic Advising. All MFA students are advised by Lindsay. During the first year of your program, you will meet withher at the beginning of each semester to discuss course registration for the next term as well as your program of study. Students are thereafter required to meet with the coordinator at least once per academic year (but are highly encouraged to meet every semester). Michael and other faculty members are also available for advising, but Lindsay is your official advisor during the course of your program.

Faculty Mentor. Each MFA student will be assigned a faculty mentor every semester with whom you should meet at least once during the semester. The purpose of these meetings will be to discuss your intellectual experience and progress in the program relevant to concentration (poetry or fiction), your participation in the department's intellectual life, and your professional plans for the remainder of the program and beyond.

Registration Process. University Directory IDs and passwords are required to access most online university services (registration, parking permits, email accounts, library databases, etc.) Accounts can be created following your acceptance to the University using the following link and instructions:

Following creation of an ID and password, you will be able to activate your accounts. Accounts can take a few days to be activated and you will need an account to register for classes.As soon as you register for your UMD account, your default email address for all university-related business will become your . If you’d like to use a different email address, please make sure to forward your mail from your UMD account to that other, preferred email address or officially change your email address on Testudo:

If the email address that you check regularly is not properly registered, you will miss important correspondence about administrative deadlines and from your professors, since that email address will be associated with course reflector lists, ELMS, etc.

Course descriptions are located on the English Department website:

The schedule for a given semester (including day/times and waitlists) is found on Testudo:

Lindsay is responsible for helping you with the registration process. Once you have chosen your classes, you will need to email her () to obtain “stamps” (essentially a lifting of a registration block) before you register for classes. After you have received stamps, you can register for classes via Testudo (this site also maintains the waitlists for courses that are full).

If you have not taken ENGL 601/2, you’ll need instructor’s permission to register for a 700-level literature course that is not taught by the MFA faculty before Lindsay can stamp you. Please email the instructor directly for permission and cc Lindsay.

All graduate students must register for courses and pay associated tuition and fees each semester (excluding summer and winter sessions) until the degree is awarded—you need to remain continuously enrolled, that is, through the semester in which you will graduate. Please contactLindsay with any questions about the continuous enrollment regulation.

As per the terms of your TA contract, you must be registered full-time (at least six credit hours) every semester of your TAship. However, we strongly recommend that you use the full tuition remission associated with your TAshipand enroll in 9-10 credit hours per semester of your two-year TA contract.

3. Degree Requirements (to be completed during the first two years)

• Four graduate writing workshops (12 credits).
• ENGL 611: Approaches to College Composition (3 credits) during the first semester.
• Three graduate English literature courses (9 credits). Literature courses are divided into 600-level courses and 700-level seminars. Readings (600-level) courses are designed to introduce you to a broad range of readings in the area. Seminars usually focus on a specific theme, period or group of authors, and they have no more than twelve students in the class. Seminars, also, usually require a long essay (approximately 20 pages). Note: Before taking a 700-level course other than ENGL 788/9, students should take ENGL 601/2 or a 600-level readings course in the general area of the 700-level course that interests them. If you’re unsure about prerequisites, contact the instructor or Lindsay.
• ENGL 788 or 789, Studies in Narrative or Poetic Form (3 credits). A class in poetic or narrative form designed specifically for MFA students and taught by MFA faculty. MFA students take ENGL 788/9 in their concentration (poetry or fiction) during the spring semester of the first year, but they can take ENGL 788/9 a second or third time for elective credit. Also, for elective credit, poets can take ENGL 789 in the second or third year for elective credit and fiction writers can take ENGL 788 in the second or third year for elective credit.ENGL 788/9 with a suffix (A-Z)counts towards the 9 credit hours of literature coursework—not towards the Forms requirement.
• Humanities elective (3 credits)—at the graduate level. As an alternative to the humanities elective, MFA students can take an “extra” graduate-level English literature course, ENGL 788/9 a second time or outside of their genre (see previous bullet point), or a 400-level ENGL course.

The remaining six+ credits are devoted to the thesis. Students register for at least six hours of English 799 (Master’s Thesis Research) and, under the direction of a member of the creative writing faculty, write as a thesis a manuscript of fiction or poetry during years two and/or three of the degree.

4. The MFA Thesis (to be completed during years two and/or three)

Under the direction of a member of the creative writing faculty, every MFA student is expected to write a manuscript of poetry or fiction to be presented at the thesis defense, and made available to the thesis committee no later than two weeks prior to the thesis defense date.At least six credit hours of thesis research (English 799) are required for graduation. Most students start taking English 799 their second year, signing up for 3 credit hours of thesis research in both the fall and spring semesters. Please note that students must be signed up for at least one credit hour of English 799 during the semester in which they plan to graduate.

A poetry thesis should be a minimum of 40 pages in length. For a fiction thesis, the student and thesis advisor will agree upon the page requirement, with 100 pages being the minimum and 125 pages generally the maximum. Combinatory theses are not permitted: the fiction thesis should be a novel excerpt OR a collection of stories. The standard for the thesis is what one would expect of an advanced draft toward publication--not necessarily a finished publishable work, but one well on the way towards meeting that objective.

At the end of the semester prior to the semester of graduation, each graduating student will consult with the respective thesis advisor about the shape and length of the manuscript, and the expectations set at this meeting must be fulfilled. By the start of the semester in which the student will graduate, s/he should choose the other two or three members of the thesis committee and should plan to submit the thesis to all members of that committee a minimum of two weeks before the defense. Each semester, the Program Office will post the date by which the final draft must be electronically submitted to the Registrar's office, along with the deadlines for the forms that must be submitted prior to the thesis defense.

This thesis defense, scheduled by the Program Office, is an hour-long meeting with the student, the thesis director (a member of the MFA Program faculty), and at least two other committee members, usually MFA Program faculty and English Department faculty. The thesis committee will have read and commented on the thesis prior to the defense. The defense is a rigorous, exploratory conversation about the student's work, the direction the thesis is taking as a manuscript, and what the student has learned about his or her craft in the process of writing it.

During the fall semester of the second year, Lindsay and Michael will hold a meeting about thesis-planning, the defense, and graduation.

5. Satisfactory Progress

Minimum Grade Point Average. According to university policy, every graduate student must maintain a cumulative grade point average (GPA) of at least 3.0 for all courses taken at the University.

Time to Degree. The anticipated period for completion is two years of full-time study. Frequently MFA students take a third year to work on the MFA thesis. The degree must be completed in five years.

6. Funding, Travel Support Student Prizes

Funding. MFA students are fully funded by TAships during the first two years of the degree.

More often than not, our MFA students take a third year to complete the thesis and apply for lectureships in the English Department if they are interested in continuing to teach (and receiving tuition remission and other employee benefits.) The Associate Chair of the English Department reviews all lectureship applications every spring. As a lecturer in the third year, you would teach a 2/2 load (the equivalent of two courses per semester) and you would receive four credit hours of tuition remission (as opposed to the 10 credit hours of tuition remission that you receive as a TA) per semester. Further, lecturers are paid by the course and sign a lecturer contract. For more details about the financials, please contact Rebecca Sommer ().

More on the third, thesis year. MFA students should complete all degree requirements by the end of the second year. The third year provides our students with the opportunity to work on the thesis. Third-year MFAs register for at least 1 credit hour of Master’s Thesis Research(ENGL 799) with their thesis director in the fall and spring. Third-year MFA lecturers often take a graduate-level English course (not ENGL 688 or 689) or an elective outside of English along with one credit hour of ENGL799 if they do not want to waste the 4 credit hours of tuition remission awarded to them as lecturers. Because you will have completed all of the coursework for the MFA by the end of the second year, all coursework completed in the third year (beyond ENGL 799) will be considered elective coursework. Please contact Lindsay if you have any questions about the logistics of the third year.

Alternatively, some third-year TAs elect not to teach during the third year and simply enroll in—and pay out of pocket for—one credit hour of ENGL 799 in both the fall and spring.

Student Prizes in Creative Writing.

• AWP Intro Journals Project is a literary competition for the discovery and publication of the best new works by students currently enrolled in AWP member programs. Program directors are invited to nominate students' works, which are selected for publication in participating literary journals, includingColorado Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Mid-American Review, Puerto del Sol, Quarterly West, Tahoma Literary Review,andTampa Review.Submissions are due to Lindsay every October (more details forthcoming in early October); our faculty nominations are announced and sent to AWP in early December; AWP chooses the winners in the spring.
• Academy of American Poets Poetry Prize and Katherine Anne Porter Fiction Prize. Winners of the AAP and KAP prizes receive $100. Submissions are due to Lindsay every March (more details forthcoming in the spring); an outside judge makes his/her selections for prizewinner and honorable mention in mid- to late April.
• Stanley Plumly Thesis Prize in Poetry and Jack Salamanca Thesis Prize in Fiction. Every year the faculty select the best MFA thesis per genre. The winners of our thesis awards each receive $100.

Travel Support. The English Department will provide financial assistance to graduate students traveling to academic and professional conferences that take place between July 1st and June 30th of any academic year (AY). In order to receive departmental travel funding, students must be participating at a regional, national, or international conference, including no more than one graduate student conference.

The department offers funding of up to $400 for MFA students for the AY. MFA students are eligible for the travel allowance two times during their master’s work. However, at least one of the two departmental travel grants must be used as a match for external travel awards, such as the ARHU Travel Award or the Graduate School's Goldhaber Travel Award. For more details, visit

7. Teaching Professionalization

Our funding packages are structured so that MFA students will not have to teach during the first semester in the program. MFA students must take (and earn a grade of B or higher in) ENGL 611: Approaches to College Composition during that first semester to meet the demands of the TA contract. Failure to take and earn a B in ENGL 611 will result in the loss of the TAship. In the spring semester of the second year, MFA students teach the equivalent of one course, usually one section of ENGL 101, Academic Writing.

The best option for finding your way through the Academic Writing curriculum and preparing for your first semester of teaching is by talking to fellow graduate students. Many of them will be happy to meet with you several times before and during the semester to discuss teaching. The Academic Writing Office also assigns you a mentor for the semester, and she or he observes your class twice during the term, providing at the end an assessment of your work and progress for your record. During your first semester as a 101 instructor, the Academic Writing Program will require that you attend weekly discussion sessions in which program mentors address teaching strategies and questions, as well provide guidelines for ensuring your adherence to the established curriculum.

In the second year, MFA students will become Step II TAs, which means your bi-weekly stipend will increase, and you will teach the equivalent of two courses in the fall semester and the equivalent of one course in the spring semester. During the second year, MFA TAs are given the opportunity to teach at least one introductory Creative Writing workshop (ENGL 271/2/3). The MFA faculty oversee the pedagogical mentoring of all instructors of 200-level Creative Writing workshops.

The University’s Teaching and Learning Transformation Center in 1117 Edward St. John ( also organizes workshops, round tables, and lectures, as well offers several programs for enrichment.

The Graduate English Organization, together with the Graduate Placement Committee, organizes enrichment activities that support graduate students in their professionalization.

Lindsay and Michael are working together to plan professionalization events specifically geared toward MFA students for this upcoming academic year, including an Alumni Book Talk with Anna Leahy: Life after the MFA and PhD, which will take place on October 11, 2017 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. in 2115 Tawes.

8. Certificates, Symposia & Other Opportunities for Intellectual Community

Graduate students are eligible to complete interdisciplinary certificates in Critical Theory, Digital Studies in the Arts and Humanities, Jewish Studies, and Women’s Studies. Every semester, the English Department offers a one-credit Critical Theory Colloquium as part of the Critical Theory Certificate Program. For more information on these certificates, please see