Ashland University MFA Program

The May 15th deadline to apply for the July residency as a new student is approaching! If you are planning to apply, please contact Paige Webb, the Administrative Director ( pwebb2@ashland.edu ), or Christian Kiefer, the Program Director ( ckiefer2@ashland.edu ), if you have questions. The 2019 Summer Residency is July 22 - August 2, 2019. Visiting Editors For the summer residency, five visiting editors will come to Ashland to share their expertise in a publishing panel, as well as meet individually with graduating students about their manuscripts. Publishing panel: Saturday, July 27 at 1:30 p.m. in Ronk Lecture Hall Participating editors: Mary Biddinger, Kelly Caldwell, Cassie Donish, Eric Obenauf, Hilary Plum Mary Biddinger, Visiting Editor in Poetry Mary Biddinger is the author of five full-length poetry collections, including Small Enterprise and The Czar . Her sixth book, Partial Genius , will be published by Black Lawrence Press in August 2019. She teaches

When classes are online for fall and spring, the times that we can all get together become that much more special. AWP this year was a space to reconnect as writers and colleagues and friends in beautiful ways. Below are some photos from our booth and party. Students: remember that you can get free tickets to AWP in the future! Hope to see everyone in San Antonio in 2020. Crew at the Party: Meet. Greet. Eat. Katherine Standefer (creative nonfiction faculty), Chris Feliciano Arnold (creative nonfiction faculty), Naomi Williams (fiction faculty), Kirstin Chen (fiction faculty), Kate Hopper (creative nonfiction faculty), Nayomi Munaweera (fiction faculty), and Paige Webb (Administrative Director) Marcelo Hernandez Castillo (poetry faculty), Paige Webb, and Jeff Knorr (MFA student in poetry) Naomi Williams (fiction faculty) Booth of Fame Katherine Standefer, Nayomi Munaweera, and Kirstin Chen

The warmth of spring is on its way, and AWP soon after, but it's the heat of the summer residency that we're most excited about. We are honored to have two new knock-out visiting writers that are coming to Ashland to spread their brilliance. Each visiting writer gives a reading, a craft seminar, and meets with the graduating cohort of MFA students. Poetry Visiting Writer: Justin Phillip Reed  Justin Phillip Reed is an American poet living in St. Louis. He is the author of Indecency (Coffee House Press), winner of the 2018 National Book Award in Poetry and a finalist for the 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, as well as the chapbook A History of Flamboyance (YesYes Books, 2016). His work appears in African American Review , Best American Essays , Callaloo , The Kenyon Review , Obsidian , and elsewhere. A three-time high school expellee and an ex-college dropout, he received his BA in creative writing at Tusculum College and his MFA in poetry at Washington University in S

It's a chilly February day, but our minds are on summer. The 2019 Summer Residency will take place July 22nd to August 2nd this year. Readings and craft seminars by our visiting writers and faculty; panel talks by publishers; writing workshops in poetry, creative nonfiction, fiction, science fiction, and fantasy -- you won't want to miss this! Check out our last post for photos of last year's residency. Creative Nonfiction Visiting Writer, Hanif Abdurraqib  We're thrilled that one of our visiting writers will be the amazing Hanif Abdurraqib ! Hanif is a Columbus-based poet, essayist, and cultural critic. His most recent book is Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Quest (University of Texas Press, 2019), which is already a New York Times Bestseller. His essay collection They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us (Two Dollar Radio Press, 2017) was named book of the year by NPR, The Los Angeles Review, Buzzfeed, Paste, Esquire, Oprah Magazine, The Chicago

This year's summer residency brought plenty of unfamiliar faces to our Ashland University campus, so while our students and faculty were able to grow familiar and bond over the course of those two weeks, anyone unable to come to campus this summer might still be yearning for a glimpse. As such, please enjoy these gorgeous photos our campus photographer provided. Even for those that came, here's a dose of nostalgia and hopefully warm fuzzy feelings. Captions detail faculty members versus students versus panelists.  Faculty member, Lauren Markham, with her workshop class.  Creative nonfiction students during their workshop.    Faculty members (from left to right) Lily Hoang, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Nayomi Munaweera, and Katherine Standefer Featured panelists Eric Obenauf (founder of Two Dollar Radio) and NJ Campbell (author of Found Audio ) Stunning picture of our faculty.  (left to right, top): Kate Hopper, Kate Gale, Dexter B

Happy Summer! Campus is blooming, workshop packets are coming in, thesis manuscripts are going out to readers. And it's high time we started sharing some of the exciting things brewing for our 2018 Summer Residency.   This year's residency begins Monday, July 23, ending with our graduation celebration on Thursday, August 2. In between we'll be welcoming more than 40 talented writers and editors to the microphone and classroom (including 21 of our own graduating students).   As in past years, alumni and writers or readers in the community are very welcome to join us for evening readings, weekend events, and afternoon craft classes. But we're also planning a few events out in the community this year.   * We'll also have several events at the Ashland Public Library, including a high school creative writing workshop, a presentation on getting published, and readings from our faculty and students.   * MFA Fiction Faculty Kirstin Chen will give a book talk at

The 2018 AWP Conference & Bookfair will be in Tampa, Florida, March 7-10. According to their website, the conference features over 2,000 presenters and 550 readings, panels, and craft lectures. The bookfair has more than 800 presses, journals, and literary organizations from around the world.  If you're heading to this year's AWP conference be sure to stop by  booth # 1416  and say hello. And please join us for a social event on Friday evening in the Marriott. Stop in for a drink and appetizers before heading out for off-site readings and after-hours fun.  Many of our MFA instructors will be presenting at this year's panels. Here's a listing below!  For more information on the conference and a full schedule of events, visit the AWP website . Thursday, March 8, 2018 12:00 pm to 1:15 pm Florida Salon 5, Marriott Waterside, Second Floor R174. In Search of Our Essays’ Mother(s): Women and the History of the Essay. (Jenny Spinner, Kyoko Mori,