The Stonecoast Curriculum: Overview

Stonecoast stands out among low-residency M.F.A. programs because of our deep commitment to academic excellence combined with an innovative, flexible and wide-ranging curriculum; our unusually warm and student-centered community with an active focus on diversity; and of course, our gorgeous location on the coast of Maine.  More details about what makes us different from the other leading creative writing M.F.A. programs in the country may be found here.

OVERVIEW OF THE STONECOAST PROGRAM

The University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing, directed by poet Annie Finch, combines the energy of a forward-thinking low-residency program with the solid educational excellence of the very best creative writing programs in the nation. Stonecoast is one of the nation’s leading low-residency M.F.A. programs, known for providing a superb, open-minded, and progressive education in the art of writing.

Stonecoast offers a two-year program with emphases in creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry, or popular fiction, as well as elective work in Cross-genre, Scriptwriting, Translation, Performance, and an exciting new focus in Writing Nature. The low-residency format offers students the advantage of maintaining their present occupations and living arrangements while participating in a full-time graduate program. Students may enter the program twice a year, matriculating in summer or winter. Each semester begins and ends with an intensive ten-day residency including readings, social events, and workshops and classes / presentations.The program takes its unique identity from the inspiring setting for the twice-yearly residencies: the University’s historic coastal Stone House on the breathtakingly beautiful coast of Casco Bay, Maine, about a half hour north of Portland. The Stonecoast in Ireland residencies located in Dingle (summer) and Howth (winter), provide students the opportunity to write and learn at another magnificent coastal location.

After the residency, students return home to write under the guidance of mentors chosen from among our faculty of nationally-renowned writers. Since each Stonecoast faculty member mentors only three to five students at a time, the quality of individualized attention is high indeed. Stonecoast faculty have earned dozens of major literary awards, including the American Book Award, the Latino Heritage Award in Literature, a Lannan Foundation Grant, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the Astraea Award, Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, National Book Award finalist, the Whiting Writer’s Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. In addition to such critical acclaim, many of our faculty’s books have found a wide general readership, winning such recognition as the Hugo Award from the World Science Fiction Society, a film contract with DreamWorks Productions, national best-seller lists, the Nebula Award, and selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club.

We value our faculty not only for their talent and success as writers, but also because of their brilliance as teachers. As Stonecoast Director Annie Finch wrote in a recent interview for The Low-Residency MFA Guidebook, "In the Stonecoast MFA faculty, I look for a diverse gathering of truly rare individuals: talented, skillful, productive, and well-recognized writers who are also generous, patient, erudite, and challenging teachers and stimulating, open-minded, energetic, inspiring members of the Stonecoast creative community. A lot of adjectives—and all of them are true!"  Stonecoast students and faculty alike are part of a culturally and aesthetically diverse community that nurtures a deeply rooted creative life. At Stonecoast, we take pride in putting students’ needs first and design our program with ongoing student input. Student evaluations routinely comment on the helpfulness and warmth of faculty and staff, and on the spirit of mutual respect, trust, and friendship that cuts across differences. Our award-winning faculty tend to stay on at Stonecoast, providing long-term connections and mentorship between students and faculty.

Every semester at Stonecoast is slightly different, as students progress through the arc of their writing experience, yet there is continuity as well. First- and second-semester students exchange five packets of writing with their mentors through mail or email; these include original work, revisions, and commentary on readings. Third-semester students enrich their writing and prepare for their post-MFA literary lives by working with a mentor to complete an enhancement projects chosen from among six concentrations: literary craft (including close readings and analysis of literary issues in works in the student’s own genre); critical theory (including a variety of critical approaches and problems); community service (including literary administration and literacy work); creative collaboration (including film, theater, dance, music or visual arts); pedagogy (including teaching writing in a variety of settings from elementary school to college, prison or hospital); and publishing (including editing or publishing projects or internships). Fourth-semester students work with their final faculty mentors to assemble and polish a substantial creative thesis in their genre. Graduating students return to the Stone House for a final residency during which they participate in special classes and tutorials, give a reading of their work and present a class or panel presentation.

Stonecoast's is a truly remarkable community, at once supportive and challenging, farflung and closeknit, linked by a shared devotion to the highest literary standards and by Stonecoast’s holistic commitment to nourishing the whole writer. The rigor and excitement of the program, and the many shared events during the residencies, link faculty and student writers together. After graduation, the vibrant Stonecoast Alumni Association organizes readings, peer writing groups, and other events, at conferences such as AWP (Assoication of Writers and Writing Programs) and in every region of the country, with the help of listservs, discussion fora, the Stonecoast LIVE JOURNAL, online and print newsletters, Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter.

Additional Information:

Tuition and Student Aid

Program Facts

Informational Packet