Creative Nonfiction at Stonecoast

Creative nonfiction is at once one of the most dynamic movements in contemporary letters, and a literary genre with its roots deep in the literature of the past. It is also one of the most exciting and growing areas of the Stonecoast MFA program.

Recently, veteran feature journalist, beloved columnist, and memoir writer Tanya Maria Barrientos has joined the creative nonfiction faculty. Tanya joins founding faculty member Richard Hoffman, author of the award-winning memoir Half the House, and essayist Barbara Hurd, whose Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs, and Human Imagination was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2001.  Visiting faculty in creative nonfiction have included Meredith Hall, Joyce Maynard, and Bill Roorbach. 

In addition, several members of Stonecoast’s faculty augment the nonfiction program, teaching workshops and working with students as mentors: poets Baron Wormser and Ray Gonzalez, along with novelists Suzanne Strempek Shea and Joan Connor, have published celebrated works of nonfiction. Connor’s recent essay collection, The World Before Mirrors, won the prestigious River Teeth Award for nonfiction from the University of Nebraska Press.

Creative nonfiction at Stonecoast comprises a broad range of nonfiction genres, spanning the lyrical, personal, and meditative essay, as well as literary journalism and memoir.

Stonecoast writers of creative nonfiction are a passionate and dedicated group of students; at the recent NonfictioNow! conference at the University of Iowa, Stonecoast was the best-represented MFA program with 12 students in attendance. Recently students Susan Bennett, Sarah Stromyer, and Mary Webster presented a remarkable panel at the 2005 “Writing by Degrees” conference in Binghamton, New York.

Creative nonfiction faculty, students, and alumni regularly publish their work in the country’s leading literary journals. “Relief,” an essay by alumna Kim Dana Kupperman, now managing editor at The Gettysburg Review, was chosen for Best American Essays of 2006.

Students in creative nonfiction are a close community who participate in special elective seminars on"The Ethics of Memoir," "Narrative Strategies of the First Person," "Interviewing Techniques," " The Sentence as a Rhetorical Structure," "James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket," and a great range of other topics.

Please explore the related links in the righthand column to learn more about Creative Nonfiction at Stonecoast.

Related Links:

Creative Nonfiction Faculty

Sample Creative Nonfiction Seminars and Panels

Creative Nonfiction Student Profiles

Creative Nonfiction Alumni Profiles