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Master of Fine Arts Degree

Master of Fine Arts Degree

Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing

Indiana University’s graduate program in Creative Writing offers three years of fully-funded study leading to a Master of Fine Arts degree.

Our award-winning faculty works hands-on with candidates throughout a three-year program focused on the learning, application, and integration of craft concepts and the generation and workshopping of original student poetry and fiction. Your thesis is a book-length manuscript in the genre of your choice.

Our graduate program is relatively small, currently enrolling fewer than thirty students. We normally accept eight new students each year (four in fiction, four in poetry), and work to recruit a strong and diverse class.

View M.F.A. requirements in our Student Portal Apply to our M.F.A. program

Why is our M.F.A. in Creative Writing three years long?

We believe that while it usually takes only two years for writers to do the requisite course work for the M.F.A., support of your work shouldn’t end there. Our program offers a third funded year to allow for more time to write your graduate thesis, which we hope will be a strong step toward your first published book. Writers need time, ideally funded time, and we offer it. In fact, many of our graduates in poetry and fiction have gone on to publish books that began as thesis projects written largely during their three years in Bloomington.

Support for your studies

Each student in our program receives a Student Academic Appointment (SAA) in the form of a teaching assistantship that offers a tuition remission for up to 12 credit hours per semester and 6 in the summer in the College of Arts and Sciences, student health insurance, and a partial fee waiver. Each SAA also includes a stipend of at least $19,000 which we are able to enhance with $2,000 IU Creative Writing fellowships to help cover fees.

The SAA normally involves teaching 2 to 3 courses per year, in a mix of composition, creative writing, and rhetoric courses, depending on undergraduate enrollments. Because continued funding after the first year is based on teaching and merit, this guarantee is contingent upon demonstration of satisfactory progress toward your degree (including passing required pedagogy courses), continuous enrollment, and maintenance of a cumulative GPA of at least 3.0 throughout your graduate career.

Learn more about our teaching package View Creative Writing fellowships + awards

Ready to take the next step?

Apply to our M.F.A. program

Department of English

Master of Fine Arts Degree