Course of Study

Residencies

During each residency Stonecoast students participate in the following:

• Eight intensive workshops (each with a maximum of 10-12 students) that engage students in critical, supportive discussions of their own work and issues of craft, literature, and aesthetics.
  
• Classes and panels on various writing-related topics.
  
• One-on-one conferences with faculty mentors to establish a study plan and sequence of readings for the coming semester.
  
• Social and literary gatherings that promote a sense of community among writers.
  
• Student, alumni, and faculty readings.
  

Workshop Descriptions
(Workshops are held during residencies)

• Creative Nonfiction Workshop: An advanced course in memoir, personal essay, and literary journalism. This workshop will explore the boundaries between fiction and creative nonfiction.
  
• Fiction Workshop: An advanced course that focuses on the development of subject matter, technique, plot, and characterization. This workshop will explore the development of the contemporary short story and novel as well as the narrative strategies in student stories and novel excerpts.
  
• Poetry Workshop: An advanced workshop that focuses on issues of poetic craft, development of subject matter, and approaches to revision. Class discussion deals with technical strategies that realize and preserve the force and complexity of a poem's initial impulse and inspiration.
  
• Popular Fiction Workshop: An advanced course that accommodates various genres, including mystery, thriller, historical fiction, horror, romance, science fiction, and fantasy. This workshop will focus on fiction in which character is revealed through events of mortal consequence.

• Elective Workshops:  In addition to regular workshops in their genre, students are regularly offered the option of half-residency focused elective workshops, often on student-suggested topics.  Elective workshops are possible in virtually any area of writing that interests a group of students, and have included cross-genre writing, prose poem, meter, screenwriting, column writing, the sonnet, travel writing, experimental fiction, flash fiction, an ongoing novel workshop, and humor writing.
  

Semester Projects

• Semester I: Each student exchanges five packets of creative writing and reading annotations with a faculty mentor. One packet is due approximately every four weeks. The faculty mentor responds within one to two weeks via mail or e-mail and offers constructive critiques for revision, additional reading suggestions, and relevant observations on craft and theory.
  
• Semester II: Each student exchanges five packets of creative writing and reading annotations with a mentor, approximately one packet every four weeks.
  
• Semester III: Each student researches and pursues a project (either a full-length researched essay or a briefer essay plus documentation of an internship or activity) in one of the six areas of emphasis: craft of writing, creative collaboration, literary theory. pedagogy, social/community action, or teaching.
  
• Semester IV: Each student completes a creative thesis of publishable quality. In addition, each student prepares to offer a reading from their work, and a class or panel presentation, to the community during the fifth and final graduation residency.

MFA Degree Requirements: 60 hours of graduate study plus attendance at and participation in a final graduation residency. Each successfully completed six-month semester will be the equivalent of 15 hours of graduate credit.

Students are expected to devote a minimum of 25 hours per week to their graduate work.

^top

Related Links:

Meet the Stonecoast faculty:

Creative Nonfiction Faculty

Fiction Faculty

Poetry Faculty

Popular Fiction Faculty

Read sample faculty presentations from our recent residency

Find more detailed information about the creative thesis and other academic guidelines in our Student Center section.