What is a low- or brief-residency program?

Our four-semester, brief-residency MFA in Writing combines superb instruction with unparalleled flexibility. Each semester of the program begins with a ten-day residency, in which students and faculty gather for an intensive workshopping and learning experience. At the conclusion of the residency, students return home to correspond, one on one, with a faculty mentor for the rest of the semester. During the semester, each instructor supervises a small number of students, and each student's program is highly individualized.

Students may customize the location, season, and pace of their studies. The same amount of writing is required in each option:

• Spring (May) and fall (November) residencies in Louisville, each followed by a 6-month semester
• Summer (June or July) residency abroad (2009: Barcelona), followed by a 9-month semester
• Spring "stretch" option, combining the spring Louisville residency with the 9-month summer semester schedule
• A combination of spring, summer, and fall semesters

Meet Our MFA Staff. Program Director Sena Jeter Naslund, author of the bestselling, Ahab's Wife, Four Spirits, and Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette, has taught more than thirty years in regular and low-residency programs. She says, "Brief-residency master of fine arts programs generally result in excellent writing by mature and highly motivated graduate students who find a high degree of satisfaction in the experience." The Spalding MFA in Writing Program is designed to be intellectually stimulating and emotionally supportive. Because of her many years of experience, Sena has seen, firsthand, the advantages of the brief-residency format for students who desire to write.

During the program, when writing habits are established, the student works within a natural home setting, not removed to an isolated, solely academic environment. The process of writing is not continually interrupted by attending classes. For many, the brief-residency format offers an opportunity not otherwise available. Because the student is at home during the semester, jobs and domestic activities need not be interrupted.

The brief-residency approach often appeals to the mature individual who is settled into a living routine that is not easily interrupted by having to move to a college campus. Adjustments of time may be needed as students are expected to commit about twenty-five hours a week to the program in the fall and spring semesters and about fifteen hours a week to the program in the summer semester; however, for a person whose desire is to write and to improve writing skills, the brief-residency program provides a solution to the search for further education.

While the MFA is the degree most commonly held by writers who teach creative writing at the college level, many brief-residency students simply cherish the experience for its intrinsic value. The program is well suited for people who wish to become better writers and desire the experience of graduate-level instruction.

Our featured guests have included novelists Ernest Gaines, Susan Vreeland, and Michael Ondaatje; poet and essayist Yusef Komunyakaa; children’s writers Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket), Donna Jo Napoli, and Nancy Willard; poet W. S. Merwin; essayists Terry Tempest Williams, Pico Iyer, and Scott Russell Sanders; poet and children’s writer Naomi Shihab Nye; screenwriter Robert Moresco (Crash); and playwright Heather Raffo. Upcoming guests include Ann Patchett for fall 2008 and Pulitzer prize winner Claudia Emerson for spring 2009.

Since founded in 2001, Spalding MFA’s 378 students and alumni have published or produced more than 100 books, films, and plays with the more than 70 presses and production companies, including: Random House, HarperCollins, St. Martin’s, Algonquin, HarperOne, MacAdam/Cage Publishing, University of Georgia Press, University of Alabama Press, Chronicle Books, Perseus, CBS Entertainment Production, University of Nebraska Press, Scholastic, Toby Press, University of Georgia Press, University of Alabama Press, University Press of Kentucky, The Dial Press, SkyLight Paths, Nightboat Books, Trout Lily Press, Transaction Press, Seattle Turn Press, Conari Press, Cinemawalla Films, Pay Films, Bell Pond Books, Destino, Chronicle Books, Turtleback Books, Cinco Puntos Press, New Womens Voices Series, The Feminist Press, University of Nebraska Press, Press, Lee and Low Books, Spinsters Ink, Southeast Missouri State University . . .