virginia tech creative writing major

Department of English

English, Creative Writing, Professional and Technical Writing

Whether you plan to write the next great novel, have a passion for reading, or you want to sharpen your professional and technical skills, the Department of English has a program for you.

English Major   Creative Writing Major   Professional and Technical Writing Major

See Minors, M.A., M.F.A., Ph.D. and University Writing Program

In the Department of English, we teach students how to think critically and creatively, and we conduct research to advance knowledge about culture, language, and the written word. Our graduate and undergraduate curricula emphasize deep research skills and unbounded creativity, preparing students for successful careers in academia, business, law, and other professions, as well as nonprofit work, teaching, writing, publishing, and the arts. Courses refine students’ oral and written communication skills, teaching them to be precise, clear, and inventive stylists.

The study of literature and language is at the core of each undergraduate major, providing a common, foundational knowledge about the cultural contexts in which texts and linguistic artifacts are produced, interpreted, and circulated. Individual undergraduate majors ( English ,  creative writing , and  professional and technical writing ) provide specialized approaches to textual and linguistic critique and invention. Students graduate with enhanced capacities to understand both their cultures and the experiences of others, through varied experiences of collaboration and textual border-crossing that are inherent in our curriculum.

Classes in the English department are small. Students spend quality time with our award-winning faculty and have opportunities for individual and team-based research experiences. The department supports a number of internships. We invite visiting writers and scholars to speak every semester, and each spring students share their work at an undergraduate research conference and a student-run literary festival. Our undergraduate students publish in various Virginia Tech magazines, and graduate creative writing students serve as editors for two national journals.

Graduate programs in the Department of English include a general  M.A. in English , an  M.F.A. in Creative Writing , and a  Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Writing . 

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Virginia Tech

Virginia, united states.

Virginia Tech’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program began in the fall of 2005, and graduated our first full class of students in the spring of 2008. In the ten years since the program started, we’ve been consistently ranked among the top 30 programs in the country by Poets & Writers in their MFA rankings.

Our three-year curriculum offers tracks in poetry and fiction, and is based upon the recommendations outlined by AWP for creative writing graduate programs—but our MFA also includes a professional focus, with extensive pedagogical training in both composition and creative writing, courses in literary editing and new media creative writing, and seminars on publishing and ‘Life After your MFA.’

Our program is small—we admit 3-4 students a year in each genre—and we pride ourselves on the diversity and rigor of our program, our respect for our students’ voices, our financial support for our students, the individual attention students receive from faculty, our robust Visiting Writers Series, and the accomplishments of our faculty. Our students and alumni are exceptional; they have published books, received prestigious awards and fellowships for their writing, and gone on to further success as writers, teachers, and professionals.

O U R P R O G R A M A T A G L A N C E:

- All students equally and fully funded through Graduate Teaching Assistantships

- GTA-ships include tuition remission, health insurance, and stipends of more than $20,000 per year for all three years of the program

- Cross-genre work encouraged, with additional workshops in creative nonfiction, new media creative writing, and playwriting

- Emily Morrison Prizes in Fiction and Poetry, and other MFA writing awards offered each year

- Editorial positions and publishing experience via the minnesota review, and The New River

The faculty members in our creative writing program at Virginia Tech are accomplished, prize-winning, innovative, and diverse: Ed Falco, Evan Lavender-Smith, Jeff Mann, Lucinda Roy, and Matthew Vollmer. Janine Joseph is serving as Visiting Associate Professor for the 2022-23 academic year, and Sophia Terazawa is serving as Visiting Assistant Professor.

For more information about the program, please see our sites below.

Website: http://bitly.com/vtCWmfa

Twitter: http://twitter.com/vtcwmfa

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/VirginiaTechMFA

Contact Information

Virginia Tech Dept. of English 323 Shanks Hall (0112), 181 Turner St NW Blacksburg Virginia, United States 24061-0112 Email: [email protected] https://liberalarts.vt.edu/academics/majors-and-minors/creative-writing-major.html

Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing +

Undergraduate program director.

The 39-hour Creative Writing (CW) major is aimed at those students who want to pursue a career as a writer of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or drama, or those who wish to enter the fields of publishing, editing, or any career that requires established and multidimensional writing skill.

Students in the CW program can take courses in poetry, fiction, playwriting, writing for young people, and creative nonfiction. Additionally, students are urged to take a wide range of courses in literature reflective of your chosen genre, such as fiction or poetry, in order to familiarize yourself with major writer and literary traditions. By the end of this program, under the tutelage of a published writer, you will have developed a portfolio of potentially publishable material.

The CW Program also offers an 18-hour minor.

Minor / Concentration in Creative Writing +

Master of fine arts in creative writing +, graduate program director.

The graduate curriculum includes a professional focus so that students who graduate from our program will have expertise in areas such as pedagogy and new media creative writing. You may download the Graduate Policies and Procedures: MFA in Creative Writing for more information.

     * All students fully funded through Graduate Teaching Assistantships with annual stipends of $15,000

     * Three-year program; funding package includes full tuition remission and health insurance

     * No teaching first semester; teach creative writing in the third year

     * Opportunities for creative nonfiction, new media writing, and playwriting

     * Opportunities for editorial work on The Minnesota Review and The New River

Ed Falco's latest book is Toughs, a novel based in part on historical events in the life of gangster Vince Coll. His previous novel was The Family Corleone, which was developed from a screenplay by Mario Puzo. His most recent short story collection is Burning Man (SMU, 2011). His previous short story collections are Sabbath Night in the Church of the Piranha: New and Selected Stories (Unbridled Books, 2005), Acid (University of Notre Dame Press, 1996), and Plato at Scratch Daniel's and Other Stories (University of Arkansas Press, 1990). He is also the author of four novels: Saint John of the Five Boroughs (Unbridled Books, 2009), Wolf Point (Unbridled Books, 2005), A Dream with Demons (Eastgate Systems, 1997), and Winter in Florida (Soho, 1990), as well as a collection of literary and experimental short fictions, In the Park of Culture (University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), and a collection of hypertext short fictions, Sea Island (Eastgate Systems, 1995). Ed's plays--The Center, Possum Dreams, Sabbath Night in the Church of the Piranha, and others--have mostly been produced and read in and around Blacksburg, Virginia, where he teaches in Virginia Tech's MFA program, and he edits The New River, an online journal of new media writing.

http://www.edfalco.us/

Jeff Mann grew up in Covington, Virginia, and Hinton, West Virginia, receiving degrees in English and forestry from West Virginia University. His poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in many publications, including Arts and Letters, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Willow Springs, The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, Crab Orchard Review, and Appalachian Heritage. He has published three award-winning poetry chapbooks, Bliss, Mountain Fireflies, and Flint Shards from Sussex; five full-length books of poetry, Bones Washed with Wine, On the Tongue, Ash: Poems from Norse Mythology, A Romantic Mann, and Rebels; two collections of personal essays, Edge: Travels of an Appalachian Leather Bear and Binding the God: Ursine Essays from the Mountain South; three novellas, Devoured, included in Masters of Midnight: Erotic Tales of the Vampire,Camp Allegheny, included in History’s Passion: Stories of Sex Before Stonewall, and The Saga of Einar and Gisli, included in On the Run: Tales of Gay Pursuit and Passion; four novels, Fog: A Novel of Desire and Reprisal, which won the Pauline Réage Novel Award, Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War, which won a Rainbow Award, Cub, and Salvation: A Novel of the Civil War; a book of poetry and memoir, Loving Mountains, Loving Men; and two volumes of short fiction, Desire and Devour: Stories of Blood and Sweat and A History of Barbed Wire, which won a Lambda Literary Award. In 2013, he was inducted into the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival Hall of Fame. He teaches creative writing at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.

http://www.jeffmannauthor.com/

Lucinda Roy

Lucinda Roy is Alumni Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at Virginia Tech where she teaches creative writing in the graduate and undergraduate programs. A 2005 recipient of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Outstanding Faculty Award, Professor Roy’s publications include the poetry collections Wailing the Dead to Sleep and The Humming Birds (winner of the Eighth Mountain Poetry Prize); and the novels Lady Moses (a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection), and The Hotel Alleluia. Her memoir-critique entitled No Right to Remain Silent: What We’ve Learned from the Tragedy at Virginia Tech, was published by Three Rivers/Random House. Professor Roy was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Richmond in 2000, and she was selected by the Virginia Press Women’s Association as Newsmaker of the Year in 2009. At Virginia Tech, she has served as Chair of English, Director/Co-Director of Creative Writing, and Associate Dean for Curriculum, Outreach, and Diversity. She has been a guest on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, The Today Show, Sunday Morning, Oprah, NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show, Sky News, Al Jazeera, and many TV and radio shows. She has also been a featured guest on PBS and BBC documentaries. Her poetry, fiction, and commentaries have appeared in numerous publications including North American Review, American Poetry Review, Rattle, Prairie Schooner, the New York Times, Newsweek’s College Guide, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Guardian, Inside Higher Education, and USA Today. Professor Roy is currently at work on another poetry collection, articles and commentaries on school safety and gun violence, a young adult novel series, and a series of oil paintings depicting the Middle Passage.

http://www.lucindaroy.net/

Matthew Vollmer

Matthew Vollmer is the author of Future Missionaries of America (published by MacAdam Cage and Salt Modern Fiction), a collection of stories, and inscriptions for headstones, a collection of essays. A second story collection, titled Gateway to Paradise, was published by Persea Books in 2015. With David Shields, he is the co-editor of Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, “Found” Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts (forthcoming from W. W. Norton). To read samples from this work, and to browse a collection of literary artifacts, visit literaryartifacts.tumblr.com. His work has appeared in Paris Review, Glimmer Train, The Sun, Virginia Quarterly Review, Epoch, Tin House, The Oxford American, Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, Ecotone, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Antioch Review, Willow Springs, DIAGRAM, Portland Review, Tampa Review, Passages North, PANK, New England Review, The Normal School, Confrontation, Salt Hill, Fugue, PRISM International, and New Letters. Vollmer is the recipient of a 2010 National Endowment for the Arts grant, as well as the Sturm Award for Creative Arts at Virginia Tech. His work has been short-listed three times for the Best American Short Stories series, and appears in Best American Essays 2013. He also edits the 21st Century Prose Series for the University of Michigan Press.Vollmer holds a B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina, an M.A. in English from North Carolina State University, and an M.F.A. in fiction writing from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. As an Assistant Professor, he is a member of the MFA Faculty in the English Department at Virginia Tech, where he directs the undergraduate creative writing program.

http://matthewvollmer.com/

Evan Lavender-Smith

Evan Lavender-Smith is the author of a hybrid-genre work, From Old Notebooks, which was a NewPages Noteworthy Book, a Small Press Distribution Recommended Book, a finalist for the Fence Modern Poets Series, and named a best book of the year by Biblioklept, HTMLGiant, Dzanc Books, 32 Poems and others. He is also the author of Avatar, a short novel, which was a Small Press Distribution Bestseller. His writing has been published by Arts & Letters, BOMB, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Fence, Glimmer Train, Harvard Review and many other magazines. His co-translation of Chilean poet Pablo de Rokha’s “Canto del macho anciano” was recently included in Pinholes from the Night: Essential Poems from Latin America. He is the founding editor of Noemi Press, the former editor-in-chief of Puerto del Sol, and a contributor at HTMLGiant. Recently he was named a finalist for the Creative Capital Award and he served as an ArtWorks grant panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts.

http://el-s.net/

Sophia Terazawa

Sophia Terazawa is the author of Winter Phoenix (Deep Vellum, 2021) and Anon (Deep Vellum, 2023), along with two chapbooks, I AM NOT A WAR (Essay Press), a winner of the 2015 Essay Press Digital Chapbook Contest, and Correspondent Medley (Factory Hollow Press), winner of the 2018 Tomaž Šalamun Prize.

Additional honors include the Bill Waller Award for Creative Nonfiction, LaVerne Harrell Clark Fiction Award, Monique Wittig Writer's Scholarship, along with nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and CLMP's 2022 Firecracker Award. Terazawa's work appears widely in journals and magazines, such as, The Offing, New Delta Review, The Iowa Review, and The Rumpus. She's a graduate of the University of Arizona's MFA program, where she also served as Poetry Editor of Sonora Review. Her favorite color is purple.

http://www.sophiaterazawa.com

Khadijah Queen

Khadijah Queen is a multidisciplinary writer and visual artist. Queen is the author of six books, most recently Anodyne (Tin House 2020), a finalist for the Colorado Book Award and winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. Her fifth book, I'm So Fine: A List of Famous Men & What I Had On (YesYes Books 2017), was praised in O Magazine, The New Yorker, Rain Taxi, and elsewhere as “quietly devastating” and “a portrait of defiance that turns the male gaze inside out.” Her verse play Non-Sequitur (Litmus Press 2015) won the Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women's Performance Writing. The award included a full production at Theaterlab in New York City, directed by Fiona Templeton and performed by The Relationship theater company. A hybrid essay about the pandemic, “False Dawn,” appeared in Harper’s Magazine, was named a Notable Essay of 2020 in Best American Essays (HarperCollins 2021), and reprinted in the anthology Bigger Than Bravery (2023). Individual poems, interviews, and essays appear in Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Georgia Review, The Believer, Orion, Fence, Poetry, Gulf Coast, The Offing, The Poetry Review (UK), and widely elsewhere. In 2022, she was awarded a Disability Futures fellowship from United States Artists. A Cave Canem alum, she holds a PhD in English and Literary Arts from University of Denver and teaches creative writing, literature and poetics. A book of criticism is forthcoming in 2024.

http://www.khadijahqueen.com

Publications & Presses +

The New River

The Minnesota Review

Visiting Writers Program +

For 2023-2024 our visiting writers are Monica Son, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Natasha Trethewey.

For 2022-2023 our visiting writers are Jon Lindsey (Soniat Series), Brooks Sterritt, Douglas Kearney, and Viet Thanh Ngyuen.

For 2019-20 our visiting writers so far are Brian Blanchfield, Kyle Dargan, Renee Gladman, Alyson Hagy, Paige Lewis (Soniat Series), and Jesmyn Ward.

For 2018-19 our visiting writers were Zadie Smith, Stephanie Burt, Steve Tomasula, sam sax (Soniat Series), Terry Tempest Williams, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Brian Evenson, Jamaal May, Anjali Sachdeva, and Cathy Hankla.

For 2017-18 our visiting writers were Cheryl Strayed, Tim Seibles, Chris Bachelder, Natalie Diaz, Rachel B. Glaser (Soniat Series), Ruth Ellen Kocher, Tommy Mira y Lopez, Tess Taylor, Carrie Meadows, Dan Albergotti, Vanessa Anjelica Villareal, Kiki Petrosino & Nic Brown (Glossolalia Festival)

For 2016-17 our visiting writers were Ocean Vuong (Soniat Series), Lynda Barry, Stuart Dybek, Tom Franklin, Beth Ann Fennelly, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Justin Cronin, Katherine Soniat, Matt Hart, David Shields, Jason Schneiderman, Wayne Miller, Chinaka Hodge & Scott McClanahan (Glossolalia Festival)

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Creative Technologies (BFA)

Creative technologies.

The Creative Technologies program mission is to create a supportive and rigorous learning environment that encourages the development of critically engaged, technically agile change agents who leverage their curiosity and passions for video games, animation, computer graphics, video, and sound into meaningful cultural contributions.

By affirming the inherent power and dignity of all human stories and how those experiences are communicated through new technologies, we help our students build resilient, culturally-informed communities prepared to thrive and lead in an era of rapid ecological, economic, and technological change. Our faculty and students vocally support and embrace diverse perspectives and backgrounds as being critically important to our emotional and artistic growth.

As a Creative Technologies (CT) major you will take 120 credit hours for a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree, including Virginia Tech's Pathways General Education. During the first year, all CT students complete a series of Foundations Studio courses alongside the studio art BFA majors; foundations classes teach students the principles of drawing and 2D, 3D and 4D design. Students begin their required introductory Creative Technologies courses in their second semester and continue throughout year two; these introduce video, sound, 3D modeling, creative coding, media theory, and creative techniques and collaboration. Students plot out their junior and senior years, in collaboration with their advisors, by selecting a sequence of upper level program electives; possibilities include advanced 3D and 2D digital animation and rendering (character design and world building) stop motion animation, virtual and augmented reality, visual programming, game design and development, sound design, and laser scanning.

During their final year, our majors take Senior Studio, a two-course capstone experience in which students prepare a coherent body of studio work under faculty supervision, culminating in a professional public exhibition. Our students all take a minimum of 12 credits in art history, as well as a course in professional practice. Students also take 24 credits in SOVA electives (including art history and studio art), and 9 credits in open electives that can be any courses offered at Virginia Tech.

Our award-winning faculty are artists with ongoing professional practices. Faculty artworks, including projection-mapping, installations, animation, and virtual and augmented reality experiences are regularly exhibited at galleries and film festivals around the world and their creative research is presented at a range of academic symposia and conferences internationally. Faculty are committed to developing our students’ technical, creative, and collaborative skills both in the classroom and through experiential learning opportunities.

What are your labs, studios, and workspaces like?

Facilities where BFA students may work are located in several different buildings on the Virginia Tech Blacksburg Campus. The spaces that support BFA courses and student work include the following:

The Armory Building (203 Draper Rd. NW) is home to the school's main office, exhibition venue, and classrooms utilized for undergraduate programs. Located downtown, the Armory provides a lively intersection of the town and campus, and also holds some SOVA faculty offices. 

The Armory Art Gallery, located in the Armory Building, is operated as an educational and outreach service of the University. Its exhibition calendar includes work by visiting artists, faculty, BFA senior exhibitions. 

The Media Annex, adjacent to the Armory Building downtown, offers pop-up art installation space upon request.

The Media Building, located centrally downtown, is occasionally utilized for School of Visual Arts classrooms, as well as some SOVA faculty offices.   

The Creativity and Innovation District LLC Building is centrally located and adjacent to numerous other School of Visual Arts spaces. This building offers state-of-the-art seminar and studio classrooms for studio art courses (such as painting, drawing, and sculpture) as well as graduate critique events, and unique opportunities for performances and screenings in its large venues. 

The Digital Arts and Animation Lab (DAAS) is located on the first floor of the Newman Library. The lab contains 21 Mac computers configured with professional software (including Autodesk Maya, ZBrush, Adobe Suite) to facilitate creative production across digital arts and media technologies. 

ICAT Box, (CTBOX) located immediately adjacent to DAAS on the first floor of the Newman Library, contains 18 PC computers and software (such as Unity and Unreal Engine) as well as VR headsets and tracking systems, and other equipment for immersive and interactive media development. 

Henderson Hall houses the offices of numerous SOVA faculty, classrooms for the Graphic Design program (undergraduate), Art History (serving undergraduate and graduate students), as well as classrooms utilized by the Creative Technologies program. Our equipment check-out storage space is additionally located in this building.

Render System can be accessed remotely by our students 24 hours a day; the system allows students to render complex 3D digital animations using one of the high performance computing clusters within the university’s Advanced Research Computing center.

Senior Studio Space is a shared space for BFA students in their senior year

Our students additionally have access to fantastic public digital laboratories facilitated by the University Libraries, including the various Media Design Studios, which are spaces for all members of the Virginia Tech campus community to create various types of media, including video, audio, and other multimedia, and access or check out high-end technology. This suite of options includes:

The Prototyping Studio (3D printing, laser cutting, and more)

The Virtual Environments Studio (VR production)

The 3D Scanning Studio (digitization of real world objects)

The Media Recording Studio (recording videos, audio, and music)

Students can also request access to immersive video and audio environments such as the Cube , an immersive video and audio black box theater, and the Perform Studio .

Equipment and Tools accessible to MFAs who have received permission and requisite training include items such as the following: 

Digital Production

VR Headsets and Tracking Systems 

VR-Ready Computers

Plasma, HD and 4K Monitors 

Wacom Tablets

Capturing and Recording

3D Laser Scanner

Flatbed Scanners

Azure Kinect depth-sensor cameras

DSLR and Digital Video Cameras

Multiplane Camera

Digital Audio Recorders

Microphones

6mm Cameras, 16mm editing 

Tripods, Lighting Kits, Projector Stands 

Multimedia Installation

Benq Projectors, Short Throw, 4K and HD 

Media Players 

PA System and other audio equipment

Water Vapor Fog Machine

Arduino boards, Raspberry Pi’s, sensors

Fabrication

3D Printers 

Plasma Cutters

Laser Cutters

Vinyl Cutters

Soldering Stations

HAAS 6 Axis Milling Machine

ABB 6 Axis Robotic Arms

Metal Cutters and Curling Rollers

Metal Lathe Machine

Laser and Inkjet Printers

Comprehensive woodshop tools

Ceramic 3D printer 

Pottery Wheels 

Soldering supplies

Outside of the School of Visual Arts, all of our students are welcome to use tech studios in the University Library such as the motion capture system and the prototyping studio. And they also have access to an incredible array of media equipment through the Library’s lending desk . 

How long does the major take?

Typically 4 years.

Do I need a portfolio to apply?

Applicants do not need a portfolio to apply directly to the school of Visual Arts, but do have to be accepted into the University. 

What kind of recruiting events are there?

Professional Career Services

What software programs will I be using?

Adobe Creative Suite, Autodesk Maya, Unreal Engine, Unity, ZBrush, Substance Painter, Blender, Processing

What kind of computer should I buy?

While the Creative Technologies program is operating system agnostic, it is recommended that students meet SOVA’s minimum technology recommendations .

Are there scholarships available?

Scholarships

Will I get to work with other students in and outside my program?

Yes, our students work across disciplines with students and faculty in the performing arts (music, theatre, cinema), computer science, architecture, creative writing, and more.

Will I be able to work on faculty-led research projects?

Yes, many of our students work on faculty research projects. They are hired directly by the School of Visual Arts or through other University entities such as ICAT (Institute for Creativity, Arts and Technology), ARIES (Applied Research in Immersive Experiences), or as part of unique grant-based initiatives such as a program scanning the University Library’s extensive insect collection.

What kind of minors can I do?

Our students are allowed and encouraged to minor in a wide variety of disciplines across the University. Past students have completed minors in Cinema, Creative Writing, Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Geographic Information Systems, Math, Art History, Communications, Sustainability, etc.

Are there opportunities to study abroad?

The School of Visual Arts offers several study abroad opportunities that are open to all of our majors. There are also study abroad opportunities open to all Virginia Tech students.

What experiential learning opportunities are available?

Students have the opportunity to attend the New Orleans Film Festival and network with film, animation, and TV professionals. Creative Technologies participates in the Accelerate Creativity and Innovation Festival held at the Smithsonian. Professors and students co-organize regional and national pop up art exhibitions. The SOVA Study abroad in Iceland offers an interdisciplinary approach to creative practice by immersing students in a themed residency program bridging the arts to other areas of inquiry. Past programs interfaced with biotechnology and food science, culminating in an exhibition at the end.

What is the typical time commitment for a Creative Technologies Major?

Most 3 credit hour Studio Art classes meet for 4 contact hours each week. For each of these courses, there is the expectation of at least an equal amount of time spent in the studio outside of designated class time.

Can I change my major to Creative Technologies?

Yes, but Creative Technologies is a restricted major. For more information, start here .

Where are our alumni?

Creative Technologies BFA alumni hold a range of positions including Virtual Environment Designer at Keywords Studios; Motion Capture Pipeline Specialist for Bungie; Quality Assurance at Epic; Art Director at Schell Games; GIS Specialist at FEMA; Animator at Serenity Forge; 3D Modeler for various government agencies; Motion Graphics Artist for a range of creative agencies. Some alumni pursue professional lives as independent artists, filmmakers and producers. Others pursue graduate degrees in art, game design, animation, computer science, interdisciplinary studies, human computer interaction, and other fields.

Best Creative Writing colleges in Virginia 2024

Best creative writing colleges in virginia for 2024.

University of Virginia-Main Campus offers 1 Creative Writing degree programs. It's a very large, public, four-year university in a small suburb. In 2022, 6 Creative Writing students graduated with students earning 6 Master's degrees.

George Mason University offers 2 Creative Writing degree programs. It's a very large, public, four-year university in a large suburb. In 2022, 47 Creative Writing students graduated with students earning 26 Master's degrees, and 21 Bachelor's degrees.

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University offers 1 Creative Writing degree programs. It's a very large, public, four-year university in a small city. In 2022, 8 Creative Writing students graduated with students earning 8 Master's degrees.

Old Dominion University offers 1 Creative Writing degree programs. It's a very large, public, four-year university in a midsize city. In 2022, 12 Creative Writing students graduated with students earning 12 Master's degrees.

Virginia Commonwealth University offers 1 Creative Writing degree programs. It's a very large, public, four-year university in a midsize city. In 2022, 9 Creative Writing students graduated with students earning 9 Master's degrees.

Hollins University offers 2 Creative Writing degree programs. It's a very small, private not-for-profit, four-year university in a midsize suburb. In 2022, 28 Creative Writing students graduated with students earning 16 Bachelor's degrees, and 12 Master's degrees.

Liberty University offers 6 Creative Writing degree programs. It's a very large, private not-for-profit, four-year university in a small city. In 2022, 139 Creative Writing students graduated with students earning 105 Bachelor's degrees, 19 Associate's degrees, and 15 Master's degrees.

Roanoke College offers 1 Creative Writing degree programs. It's a small, private not-for-profit, four-year university in a midsize suburb. In 2022, 7 Creative Writing students graduated with students earning 7 Bachelor's degrees.

Sweet Briar College offers 1 Creative Writing degree programs. It's a very small, private not-for-profit, four-year university in a midsize suburb. In 2022, 3 Creative Writing students graduated with students earning 3 Bachelor's degrees.

Randolph College offers 2 Creative Writing degree programs. It's a very small, private not-for-profit, four-year university in a small city. In 2022, 9 Creative Writing students graduated with students earning 7 Master's degrees, and 2 Bachelor's degrees.

Find local colleges with Creative Writing majors in Virginia

List of all creative writing colleges in virginia.

• Creative Technologies

Creative Technologies is a program that prepares students to become future leaders of many new artistic fields and industries. Students who graduate with a Creative Technologies BFA will go on to pursue careers spanning gaming, film, animation, motion graphics, video production, and fine arts. Some students will also pursue graduate programs in these fields.

Multidisciplinary learning and practice in Creative Technologies provides students with the ability to flourish at the ever-changing intersections of technology, media, art, and innovation. We take a dualistic approach of teaching critical thinking and conceptual development alongside the important technical underpinnings.

Creative Technologies classrooms are rigorous and focused. Students are provided with dedicated mentorship and guidance to develop their ideas, and our program has facilitated many ongoing collaborations between students and Virginia Tech faculty. Many Creative Technologies undergraduate students get paid to work on funded research projects.

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Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

Program overview.

Named one of the “Five Innovative/Unique Programs” creative writing programs by The Atlantic , the master of fine arts in creative writing is one of two programs offered by UNLV’s Creative Writing International Program with genre concentrations in fiction, literary nonfiction, and poetry. By providing an innovative curriculum and fostering an educational environment where students can perfect their art, our graduates become globally-engaged writers that demonstrate socially-engaged and active writing practices.

Program Outcomes

Students receive a strong theoretical foundation in their selected genre concentration, as well as an appreciation for the art and theory across various genres, thereby expanding their creative abilities. Moreover, they develop a nuanced understanding of canonical contexts and the historical evolution of literature, which provides valuable insights into new writing. Through exposure to international writing and literary translation, students cultivate a practical appreciation for diverse linguistic traditions beyond English, enriching their creative perspectives. 

A high percentage of our graduates have widely published fiction, literary nonfiction, journalism, and poetry with mainstream presses, indie presses, and nationally esteemed venues such as:

• W. W. Norton & Company
• Grove Press
• The Best American Poetry
• McSweeney’s
• The New York Times
• The Los Angeles Times

Program Structure

Our students follow a three-year course of study that includes writing workshops, genre forms courses, literature classes, a residency abroad, completion of a literary translation, and completion of a book-length manuscript that meets the standard of publishable works. Students also have the opportunity for teacher training and practical experience in literary publishing.

Additionally, our department, in partnership with the Black Mountain Institute, offers the Doctorate of Philosophy in English with a Creative Dissertation, supported by a graduate assistantship combined with the Black Mountain Institute fellowship.

Program Funding

All MFA students are fully funded by UNLV and the Black Mountain Institute (BMI) for three years of study towards their degrees. 

• Graduate Assistantships of $21,000/year 
• Opportunities for additional funding from BMI
• In-state tuition 
• Student health insurance.

Duties for the Graduate Assistantship are 20 hours per week, usually fulfilled through a combination of teaching, tutoring in the Writing Center, and working for English Department or Black Mountain Institute publications.

Our Faculty

Maile chapman, ph.d..

Wendy Chen, Ph.D.

Claudia Keelan

Roberto Lovato

David Morris, MFA

Douglas A. Unger

The MFA Student Experience

The UNLV creative writing program offers a supportive and immersive experience to its students. From day one, students become part of a vibrant community of writers where creativity thrives and collaboration flourishes. Whether students aspire to publish their writing, pursue further study, or embark on diverse career paths within the literary world, UNLV provides the resources, support, and community they need to thrive and succeed.

Activities and Events With the Black Mountain Institute

The UNLV Department of English has a longstanding relationship with the Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute (BMI). This allows our students to receive opportunities to engage in creative and literary activities with visiting BMI fellows in socially meaningful literary events for the city of Las Vegas and its greater community. Recent BMI fellows and national and international award-winning visitors include:

• Percival Everett
• Melissa Febos
• Layli Long Soldier
• Jaquira Díaz
• Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

See the Black Mountain Institute's website for more information.

Academic and Literary Journals

The creative writing concentration helps students develop their writing craft and critical thinking skills through a workshop setting and literature courses. It equips them with professional skills for various industries and prepares them for graduate studies in English and creative writing.

Founded by M.F.A. alumna Kat Kruse in 2010, Neon Lit is a completely student-run reading series featuring writing of students currently in the Creative Writing programs at UNLV. Events are held on the last Friday of each month usually at the Writer’s Block, an independent bookstore and community center in downtown Las Vegas. See Neon Lit’s website and YouTube Channel for more information.

Writing Series

Breakout writers series.

The “Breakout Writers Series” or Emerging Writers Series features writers just emerging on the literary scene. Writers who visit and read for this series are chosen entirely by the students in the M.F.A. and Ph.D. programs.

Alumni Reading Series

The yearly Alumni Reading Series celebrates the literary successes of graduates of the program. Recent alumni readers include Marianne Chan, Jean Chen Ho, Clancy McGilligan, Alissa Nutting, Juan Martínez, Sasha Steensen, and Mani Rao.

Admission Requirements

• Fiction: 20-30 pages
• Literary nonfiction: 20-30 pages
• Poetry: 10-15 pages
• A letter of application to the Graduate Committee detailing a statement of purpose and reasons for choosing UNLV
• Official transcripts from all previously attended colleges or universities 
• Two letters of recommendation

Applicants must choose the International Focus subplan, unless they have already been accepted to the Peace Corps Master's International Partnership program.

International Applicants

Each year, our program admits several international writers with high competency in writing in English that immensely contribute to our literary community. Our diverse student body fosters a rich exchange of ideas and perspectives, creating a dynamic learning environment that prepares graduates for success in the global literary landscape. Furthermore, UNLV's creative writing program values inclusivity and encourages applicants from diverse backgrounds and life experiences to contribute to the vibrant tapestry of voices within our community.

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Department of English 323 Shanks Hall, 181 Turner Street NW, Blacksburg, VA 24061, Phone: 540-231-6501