Master of Fine Arts in Writing

An exceptional low-residency writing program
in the Pacific Northwest

Pacific’s Master of Fine Arts in Writing program celebrates writing as an art that has the potential to make a difference in the world.

In a rigorous course of study and with an emphasis on the creative process, award-winning writers work closely with students to support and inspire emerging craft and voice. Students create a quality portfolio of fiction, nonfiction or poetry, reflecting their unique styles and forms of expression.

Each semester in the program begins with a 10-day residency where the students and faculty gather for workshops, craft talks, classes, panels, and readings. The residencies initiate a literary conversation that extends throughout the correspondence semester when the student and faculty advisor exchange packets about the student’s writing and reading, and anything else that attends them. At the same time, the MFA faculty advisor is hard at work on his or her own writing, and every exchange with a student is touched by mutual goals.

Our program offers a high level of craft and conversation along with the good humor and community of individuals who share a passion for art. We believe in inspiration but also in revision. We believe there is no one way to write and no right way to write. Above all, we believe in quality and originality in any guise.

Pacific’s Master of Fine Arts in Writing program presents learning in its truest sense, meaning, simply, that we are all in this together.

Claire Davis’ first novel Winter Range was listed among the best books of 2000 by the Washington Post, Chicago Sun Times, Denver Post, Seattle Post, The Oregonian and The Christian Science Monitor, and was the first book to receive both the PNBA and MPBA awards for best fiction. Her second novel Season of the Snake, and her short story collection Labors of the Heart were both released to wide critical acclaim. She is co-editor of the anthology Kiss Tomorrow Hello: Notes from the Midlife Underground by Twenty-five Women over Forty. Her stories and essays have appeared in numerous literary magazines such as The Gettysburg Review, Shenandoah, Southern Review, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and Best American Short Stories. ...More »

More Information

Now accepting applications for the spring semester which begins with a residency in Seaside, Oregon, from January 9-19, 2014.

If you have any questions about the MFA program or the application process, please email the MFA assistant director, Colleen Sump, at colleensump@pacificu.edu or call (503) 352-1533.

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Rated one of

the top 5

low-residency

programs

in the nation

Atlantic Monthly

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What Students Are Saying

Deborah Reed

(Fiction, 2012)

Author of the novel Carry Yourself Back to Me, A Best Book of 2011 Amazon Editors' Pick, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (reprint edition 2012), and a thriller series written under the pseudonym Audrey Braun

"I arrived at Pacific University with an instinct for writing and not much else. I graduated with a refined and complex knowledge that helped me understand and define my true writing style."

Matthew Terhune

(Poetry, 2012)

Winner of the Coal Hill Review Chapbook Contest, Autumn House Press, 2011

"It's amazing what can happen when a developing writer is surrounded by generous poet-teachers and talented peers. I came to Pacific looking for a mentor. What I found was a genuinely supportive community of writers who gave me the strength to chart my own path. I found my voice here."