About the MFA Program

The Creative Writing MFA at Boise State University is a fully funded three-year program dedicated to poetry and fiction staffed by award-winning MFA faculty.

Students will take at least four workshops in their chosen genre, but they can also take workshops in creative nonfiction, screenwriting, and translation.

Every semester, we offer varied and often unique form and theory classes. Courses might be in novel writing or poetry, but they might also be a semester-long dive into the works of William Blake or a class examining the history of love poetry.

Close work with faculty and visiting writers is encouraged through workshops, seminars, and conferences. Students spend much of their third year working on a book-length fiction or poetry manuscript in consultation with their thesis director.

Every Fall we offer a class in literary publishing, with coursework in the production of The Idaho Review, an award-winning literary journal. In the course, students function as the editorial staff for the journal, reading and voting on submissions, soliciting writers, editing manuscripts, and promoting the journal. Students who work on the journal have the opportunity to attend the AWP Conference in the spring. A third-year fiction student is selected to serve as the Associate Editor for The Idaho Review as their graduate assistantship.

Likewise, a third-year poetry student is given the opportunity to work as a Graduate Assistant to Free Poetry, contacting nationally and internationally renowned poets and helping see their books through the whole publishing process. This GA also works as the assistant to the MFA Reading Series.

All students receive three years of funding which includes a tuition waiver, health insurance, and a Teaching Assistantship with a stipend of $11,450 per year. Generally, students teach one introductory course in their genre (CW 202: Introduction to Poetry or CW 203: Introduction to Fiction) per semester, with opportunities to teach creative nonfiction, Writing Studio, and to be a discussion leader for University Foundation lectures. Students have previously taught sections of our undergraduate Form and Theory class, a special topics seminar in their genre.