Longtime faculty member Maud Casey spoke to the Winter 2016 graduating class of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Here are her remarks:

Welcome to my colleagues, guests of the college, and, most of all, this year’s graduates and their beloveds who have traveled here today. A relative newbie on this esteemed faculty, I’m honored, humbled, and slightly terrified to be delivering today’s graduation remarks to an audience filled with people—students and faculty both—who have over the years, and over the last ten days, been my fairy god-people of wisdom.

What I’d like to talk about today is solidarity and that sacred attic space called solitude, both essential to the making of art. As our tireless, inspiring leader, Debra Allbery, noted in her opening remarks on the first day of this semester’s residency, “an artist’s life is a negotiation between life and the upper room.” Let me begin by offering a story of solidarity to the loved ones of the graduates, loved ones who have provided that essential feeling of home as the graduates wandered in the wilderness of the imagination. I, too, am familiar with the mysteries of living with someone embroiled in that strange, amorphous, inscrutable endeavor called writing. You see, I was raised by those fascinating wolves otherwise known as writers. Read more

Applications are now being accepted for the 2016/2017 Joan Beebe Graduate Teaching Fellowship. The Beebe Fellowship is available to all alumni of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, including those who received the degree during the years the program was at Goddard College. Some teaching experience is required. This year’s Beebe Fellow will have a concentration in fiction, though a facility with multiple genres is most beneficial for the program. The Fellow will teach the equivalent of five four-credit undergraduate courses in composition and creative writing, including the mixed-genre advanced MFA Residency/Workshop course, which is tied to the MFA Program’s winter residency. He or she will also supervise the undergraduate literary journal. The fellow will work under the supervision of the Director of the Creative Writing Program and will receive a stipend of $34,500 and full faculty benefits. On-campus housing for the fellow is available at a modest rental rate. Relocation assistance is also available.

An applicant should submit the following:

  • a letter of application which discusses:
    • teaching philosophy, especially in relation to a work college’s undergraduates
    • relevant teaching experience
    • areas of expertise, including experience and confidence teaching in multiple genres
    • the relationship the applicant sees between his or her creative work and teaching
    • current writing projects
  • a current CV
  • a writing sample of no more than 25 pages

An applicant must also have three letters of recommendation addressing his or her experience/ potential as a teacher sent directly to the Program office. Letters of recommendation may not be submitted by members of the MFA Program’s Academic Board, which includes Debra Allbery, Marianne Boruch, Liam Callanan, Christopher Castellani, Jennifer Grotz, Brooks Haxton, David Haynes, C.J. Hribal, Kevin McIlvoy, Debra Spark, Daniel Tobin, Peter Turchi, Ellen Bryant Voigt, and C. Dale Young.

While the fellowship may be received only once, previous applicants are encouraged to apply. Applications will be reviewed and finalists chosen by the Academic Board; advancing candidates will be interviewed by phone and/or brought to campus for interviews and a teaching demonstration. The final decision will be made by a committee of the Undergraduate Writing Program, with the approval of the Dean of the College.

Applications for the 2016/2017 academic year must be received by February 1, 2016. All application materials should sent to Debra Allbery, via email to [email protected], indicating Beebe Fellowship Application in the subject line—or via US mail to Beebe Graduate Teaching Fellowship;  c/o Debra Allbery, Director;  MFA Program for Writers; PO Box 9000; Warren Wilson College; Asheville, NC 28815-9000.  Electronic submissions are preferred.

Friends of Writers congratulates the Winter 2016 graduating class from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College:

Amelia Boulware

Joseph J. Capista

Lara Hermina Egger

Chantal Aida Gordon

Kim Hamilton

Sue Mell

Ashley McIwain Nissler

Eric James Rampson

Jennifer Stern

David S. Mills

Kate Murr

 

Applications are now being accepted for the 2016/2017 Joan Beebe Graduate Teaching Fellowship. The Beebe Fellowship is available to all alumni of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, including those who received the degree during the years the program was at Goddard College. Some teaching experience is required. This year’s Beebe Fellow will have a concentration in fiction, though a facility with multiple genres is most beneficial for the program. The Fellow will teach the equivalent of five four-credit undergraduate courses in composition and creative writing, including the mixed-genre advanced MFA Residency/Workshop course, which is tied to the MFA Program’s winter residency. He or she will also supervise the undergraduate literary journal. The fellow will work under the supervision of the Director of the Creative Writing Program and will receive a stipend of $34,500 and full faculty benefits. On-campus housing for the fellow is available at a modest rental rate. Relocation assistance is also available.

An applicant should submit the following:

  • a letter of application which discusses:
    • teaching philosophy, especially in relation to a work college’s undergraduates
    • relevant teaching experience
    • areas of expertise, including experience and confidence teaching in multiple genres
    • the relationship the applicant sees between his or her creative work and teaching
    • current writing projects
  • a current CV
  • a writing sample of no more than 25 pages

An applicant must also have three letters of recommendation addressing his or her experience/ potential as a teacher sent directly to the Program office. Letters of recommendation may not be submitted by members of the MFA Program’s Academic Board, which includes Debra Allbery, Marianne Boruch, Liam Callanan, Christopher Castellani, Jennifer Grotz, Brooks Haxton, David Haynes, C.J. Hribal, Kevin McIlvoy, Debra Spark, Daniel Tobin, Peter Turchi, Ellen Bryant Voigt, and C. Dale Young.

While the fellowship may be received only once, previous applicants are encouraged to apply. Applications will be reviewed and finalists chosen by the Academic Board; advancing candidates will be interviewed by phone and/or brought to campus for interviews and a teaching demonstration. The final decision will be made by a committee of the Undergraduate Writing Program, with the approval of the Dean of the College.

Applications for the 2016/2017 academic year must be received by February 1, 2016. All application materials should sent to Debra Allbery, via email to [email protected], indicating Beebe Fellowship Application in the subject line—or via US mail to Beebe Graduate Teaching Fellowship;  c/o Debra Allbery, Director;  MFA Program for Writers; PO Box 9000; Warren Wilson College; Asheville, NC 28815-9000.  Electronic submissions are preferred.

We’re delighted to announce the January 2016 faculty of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College:

Debra Allbery (Director)
Dean Bakopoulos
Karen Brennan
Liam Callanan
Gabrielle Calvocoressi
Maud Casey
Stacey D’Erasmo
Jeremy Gavron
C.J. Hribal
A. Van Jordan
Dana Levin
Sandra Lim
James Longenbach
Heather McHugh
Nina McConigley
Peter Orner
Michael Parker
Martha Rhodes
Robin Romm
Daniel Tobin
Kirstin Valdez Quade
Laura van den Berg
Ellen Bryant Voigt
Connie Voisine
Alan Williamson

Applications are now being accepted for the 2016/2017 Joan Beebe Graduate Teaching Fellowship. The Beebe Fellowship is available to all alumni of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, including those who received the degree during the years the program was at Goddard College. Some teaching experience is required. This year’s Beebe Fellow will have a concentration in fiction, though a facility with multiple genres is most beneficial for the program. The Fellow will teach the equivalent of five four-credit undergraduate courses in composition and creative writing, including the mixed-genre advanced MFA Residency/Workshop course, which is tied to the MFA Program’s winter residency. He or she will also supervise the undergraduate literary journal. The fellow will work under the supervision of the Director of the Creative Writing Program and will receive a stipend of $34,500 and full faculty benefits. On-campus housing for the fellow is available at a modest rental rate. Relocation assistance is also available.

An applicant should submit the following:

  • a letter of application which discusses:
    • teaching philosophy, especially in relation to a work college’s undergraduates
    • relevant teaching experience
    • areas of expertise, including experience and confidence teaching in multiple genres
    • the relationship the applicant sees between his or her creative work and teaching
    • current writing projects
  • a current CV
  • a writing sample of no more than 25 pages

An applicant must also have three letters of recommendation addressing his or her experience/ potential as a teacher sent directly to the Program office. Letters of recommendation may not be submitted by members of the MFA Program’s Academic Board, which includes Debra Allbery, Marianne Boruch, Liam Callanan, Christopher Castellani, Jennifer Grotz, Brooks Haxton, David Haynes, C.J. Hribal, Kevin McIlvoy, Debra Spark, Daniel Tobin, Peter Turchi, Ellen Bryant Voigt, and C. Dale Young.

While the fellowship may be received only once, previous applicants are encouraged to apply. Applications will be reviewed and finalists chosen by the Academic Board; advancing candidates will be interviewed by phone and/or brought to campus for interviews and a teaching demonstration. The final decision will be made by a committee of the Undergraduate Writing Program, with the approval of the Dean of the College.

Applications for the 2016/2017 academic year must be received by February 1, 2016. All application materials should sent to Debra Allbery, via email to [email protected], indicating Beebe Fellowship Application in the subject line—or via US mail to Beebe Graduate Teaching Fellowship;  c/o Debra Allbery, Director;  MFA Program for Writers; PO Box 9000; Warren Wilson College; Asheville, NC 28815-9000.  Electronic submissions are preferred.

We’re delighted to welcome Amanda Lowery as our new MFA Project Manager for Administration, Finance, and Web Communications. Amanda recently moved to Asheville from Baltimore where she worked as a project manager, event planner, and executive assistant for seven years with two nonprofits, Maryland Works, Inc. and the Maryland Disabilities Forum. She holds a BA in English from Salisbury University and an MA in Liberal Studies from Loyola University. Her first day was August 24. Welcome, Amanda! And we all send our best wishes and gratitude to Jessica Lane, whose last day with us was August 28.

 

New staff 1L-R: Amanda Lowery, Jessica Lane, and Elana Roseberry

Apply now for the Post-Graduate Semester!

PGL-R: Post-graduate student Lara Tupper (fiction, 2001)
with current students Margaret Draft, Emilie Beck, and Sarah Halper

“I became braver and more honest, packet by packet. Guided by my supervisor, I walked through doors I’d previously avoided in my memoir draft. My post-graduate term reinvigorated my need for writing community and my appreciation for the Program as a whole.”

Lara Tupper, post-graduate student in nonfiction
January-June 2014 semester

Graduates of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College now have an opportunity to return for a supervised semester toward a project in poetry, fiction, or nonfiction. 

Applicants must have received the MFA degree at least one year prior to application. Appropriate projects might include the completion of a book-length manuscript, new work that represents a radical departure in one’s prior aesthetic, the undertaking of a new form, or the exploration of another genre (poetry, fiction, or non-fiction).

Candidates should apply by September 15 for the January semester, or March 15 for the July semester. The application should be submitted through the Submittable link on our website at http://www.wwcmfa.org/alumni/post-graduate-semester/ and will require:

  • application form
  • a processing fee of $75
  • a writing sample (10 pages of poetry, or 25 pages of prose, in the proposed genre);
  • a personal essay describing the project, its goals and challenges, as well as how the student hopes to use faculty resources to address them in the creative and analytical work;
  • a short analytical essay (now familiar to the applicant as an “annotation”) focusing on an issue of craft pertinent to his/her own work;
  • one recommendation from a former Program supervisor.

No transcript is necessary.  Applications will be reviewed by the Director and the faculty members of the Admissions Team for the relevant semester.  Full information is available at http://www.wwcmfa.org/alumni/post-graduate-semester/.

ElanaThe MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College is delighted to introduce Elana Roseberry as our new MFA Project Manager: Academic Affairs. Elana holds a BA in Sociology and Communications from Hollins and a Master of Divinity from Union Presbyterian Seminary. She has served as an Assistant Director of Admissions at Hollins and as Director of College Placement at Christchurch School. Her first day will be August 3. Welcome, Elana!

Public Event Schedule
10:00 AM
Ransom Fellowship Hall
Daisy Fried: “…ice/Is also great/And would suffice”*: On Flatness
Last July, I lectured on “Heat”: the uses of urgent, angry and upset tones in (mostly) poetry. This July, my subject is flatness, by which I mean dispassion, non- or anti-heroic tones, coolness, even coldness. To allege flatness in a workshop is generally to level a criticism, but when is flatness an engine rather than an error? What’s exciting about lack of excitement? What are the ethical and expressive ramifications of flatness? How is it achieved? Candidates for discussion include Roy Fisher, Karen Solie, Thylias Moss, Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost, Claudia Rankine, Joy Katz, Jennifer Moxley, Rae Armantrout, Louise Gluck and others. Handouts will be provided.
*Robert Frost, “Fire and Ice”

 

11:00 AM
Ransom Fellowship Hall
Robert Boswell: Take Me to the River: Stories that Invent and Manipulate Rituals
No reading is required for the lecture; however, ambitious students may wish to read the following: “Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time,” Peter Taylor; “The Wide Net,” Eudora Welty; “Naked Ladies,” Antonya Nelson; “Royal Beatings,” Alice Munro; “Talk Show,” Charles Baxter; “The Behavior of the Hawkweeds,” Andrea Barrett; “Graveyard Day,” Bobbie Ann Mason; “Barn Burning,” William Faulkner; “In the Gloaming,” Alice Elliott Dark; “Access to the Children,” William Trevor; and “The Day the Pig Fell in the Well” and “The Swimmer,” John Cheever. I’m still writing the lecture and I may not refer to all of these but they are in the mix.

 

Then join us at 4:30pm in Ransom Fellowship Hall for a reading featuring graduating students:
Rose Auslander
Cynthia Gunadi
Sarah Strong
Heather Muller
The Graduation Ceremony will follow these readings.
For more information, including a full schedule of public events, please visit the program website at http://wwcmfa.org/.