Top 5 low residency programs in creative writing

The Top 5 low-residency programs offering MFA degrees in creative writing in the U.S., according to The Atlantic Monthly:

1. Antioch University (Los Angeles, California). Offers an MFA in creative writing. At two 10-day residencies each year, students gather at the site of the world’s only MFA program specifically devoted to literature and the pursuit of social justice. Rather than focusing exclusively on the completion of a single book-length manuscript, the program educates students in “the various roles of the Writer in Society, how to make a difference on the page and in the diverse communities where writers work and live.”

2. Bennington College (Bennington, Vermont). The two-year program puts as much emphasis on reading as on writing and involves 10-day residency periods in January and June of each year. Between residencies, students spend the six-month terms in individual study with a faculty member, sending packets of new writing through the mail and receiving regular critiques.

3. Pacific University (Forest Grove, Oregon). Offers a low-residency MFA in Creative Writing. The program guides students in creating a quality portfolio of fiction, nonfiction or poetry. In twice-yearly residency sessions, students and writer advisors participate in workshops, develop study plans, and form relationships that facilitate the work that continues during the correspondence semester.

4. Vermont College of Fine Arts (Montpelier, Vermont). Offers MFA degrees in writing, writing for children and young adults, and in visual arts. Requirements include four six-month semesters of intensive one-on-one work under the guidance of a faculty mentor and five ten-day on-campus residencies, as well as an individualized program of study with a faculty mentor via written correspondence, online communication, oral tapes, and/or telephone conferences during the semester from home.

5. Warren Wilson College (Swannanoa, North Carolina). Located outside of Asheville in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, this four-semester MFA in creative writing program is carried out by alternating on-campus residency sessions and six-month semesters of independent study under close faculty supervision.

Other low-residency MFA programs in creative writing:

• Pacific Lutheran University (Tacoma, Washington). The Rainier Writing Workshop offers an MFA in creative writing in the fields of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Participants attend an intensive 10-day summer residency (which includes workshops, readings, short classes or lectures), then work one-on-one with a faculty mentor throughout the year.

• Lesley University (Cambridge, Massachusetts). Offers a low-residency MFA program in creative writing with concentrations in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, writing for stage and screen, or writing for young people. A ten-day residency begins each semester, then students work independently for the rest of the semester under the guidance of their faculty mentor. No courses on the Lesley campus are required, so students may work from wherever they live.

• Chatham University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). The low residency MFA in creative writing program consists of 39 hours that can be completed in two years with two summer residencies of 10 days each, consisting of intensive workshops, craft lectures, panels and readings with well-known creative writers. In lieu of writing workshops, students take mentorships with a publishing writer. Literature and content courses are taught in an electronic classroom environment.

• University of Nebraska (Omaha, Nebraska). Offers an MFA in creative writing. The low residency program is composed of four 16-week semesters and five 10-day conference-style residencies. A minimum of 25 hours per week is required within a flexible structure of writing, guided readings, and critical response. Over the course of the program, students earn 60 credit hours toward an MFA degree in fiction, poetry, or literary nonfiction.

• Spalding University (Louisville, Kentucky). Offers an MFA in writing with focus areas in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, playwriting, and screenwriting. Each semester of the program begins with a ten-day residency. Then students return home to correspond, one-on-one, with a faculty mentor for the rest of the semester as part of a highly individualized program.

• Goddard College (Plainfield, Vermont). Offers an MFA in creative writing, with options to focus on poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, memoir, playwriting, screenwriting or cross-genre. Students commune with visiting writers and faculty for eight days at the start of each residency, with one-on-one mentoring via written packets throughout the four semesters.

• University of New Orleans (New Orleans, Louisiana). UNO’s program offers MFA degrees in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, playwriting, and screenwriting. It combines summer study abroad with fall and spring semesters online. Residencies are held in the summer semester each year, usually in the month of July, at one of several summer programs in Europe (Madrid, Montpellier, Brunnenberg and Venice).