UMASS-Boston Creative Writing MFA

Coming Next Week: Fiction Faculty member, Askold Melnyczuk, will speak on the topic of poetry in response to war at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy during a three-day conference. Sign up to watch on Zoom: https://tinyurl.com/mrykz6u2

The MFA Thesis Readings Continue: Join us on Monday, April 22, at 11 AM-1 PM in University Hall, 4th Floor, Room 4130. Let’s celebrate our fiction and poetry students’ hard work completing their theses! 🥳

MFA Creative Writing Thesis Readings: Join us tomorrow (4/2) at 10 AM-12 PM in the Campus Center, 3rd Floor, Room 3545. Let’s celebrate our graduating students’ hard work completing their fiction and poetry collections! 🥳

Celebration of Recent Books and Major Grants/Fellowships of UMB English Department Faculty!

Congratulations to Lauren Bowen, Patrick Barron, Dan Remein, Matt Davis, Susan Tan, Betsy Klimasmith, Libby Fay, John Fulton, Alex Mueller, and to Linda Dittmar (emeritus) and Jill McDonough who were unable to make the event.

📣 COMING SOON! 📣 The UMass Boston MFA Program is delighted to welcome Sandra Lim to campus to read some of her poems and answer audience questions. Join us on Tuesday, March 5, from 2:30-3:30. More info about Sandra Lim: https://sandralimpoet.com

“There’s a music and lyricism to his poetry and he has something to say.” —acclaimed poet Joy Harjo in an interview with The Boston Globe. In the interview, Joy Harjo recommended our very own Shangyang Fang's poetry collection, Burying the Mountain.

Joy Harjo on making her students memorize poetry to carry with them - The Boston Globe The former poet laureate takes a special interest in young poets.

Coming soon! Save the date for these upcoming UMass Boston Creative Writing MFA events.

Save the Date! Porter Square Books will host National Book Award Finalist Laird Hunt for the release of his latest collection of stories, Float Up, Sing Down! Author and UMass Boston Creative Writing MFA Program Director John Fulton will join Hunt in conversation. Come celebrate this exciting new collection next Wednesday (2/7) at 7pm at Porter Square Books (25 White St. Cambridge, MA 02140). RSVP directly on Porter Square Books’ website: https://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/laird-hunt-author-float-sing-down-conversation-john-fulton

Did you know the MFA program in Creative Writing at UMass Boston has its own newsletter, published once a semester? Check out our inaugural issue on Substack to see what MFA faculty, students, and increasingly accomplished alumni are up to! https://substack.com/

If you're an alum who has news you'd like to share in the next newsletter, DM us your news here!

Congratulations to Professor John Fulton, awarded a 2024 NEA Fellowship in Creative Writing!

Meet the Creative Writing Fellows Browse bios, artist statements, and writing excerpts from a sample of Literature Fellows in Creative Writing (2001 – present) for a snapshot of where they were in their writing careers when they received their awards.

Check out Professor Elizabeth Fay's new book! https://sunypress.edu/Books/R/Romantic-Immanence

Please join us tomorrow night at Brookline Booksmith in a tribute to the life, work, and indomitable spirit of Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina, friend and collaborator of Arrowsmith Press.

Memorial for Victoria Amelina Please join us for a public memorial reading celebrating the literary and activist work of Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina. Victoria Amelina was the author of The Fall Syndrome (Синдром листопаду, або H...

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/09/21/arts/arrowsmith-press-organizes-memorial-reading-ukrainian-novelist-killed-bombing-annual-provincetown-book-festival-opens-sept-29-celebrating-art-indie-comics-graphic-novels/

Professor Askold Melnyczuk and Arrowsmith Press organize a memorial reading for Victoria Amelina.

Arrowsmith Press organizes memorial reading for Ukrainian novelist killed in bombing; annual Provincetown Book Festival opens Sept. 29; celebrating the art of indie comics and graphic novels - The Boston Globe The latest news on authors and books from around the region.

Read a piece by Professor John Fulton about the form of the novella:

Nine Novellas For Our Current Age of Distraction I’ve always loved the novella, which Henry James called “the beautiful and blessed nouvelle” and which Joyce Carol Oates deemed “the most difficult, at least for me” of “all the literary prose form…

Professor John Fulton on reading Virginia Woolf's diaries in Poets & Writers...

John Fulton In the early 1990s, I moved to Berlin, Germany, fresh out of a failed marriage, heartbroken and friendless.

We reflect on the work of Milan Kundera today.

https://www.awpwriter.org/magazine_media/writers_chronicle_view/1518/too_vivid_for_philosophy_reflections_on_milan_kundera_orhan_pamuk_and_the_path_of_fiction

Association of Writers & Writing Programs AWP provides community, opportunities, ideas, news, and advocacy for writers and teachers of writing.

Our MFA Program Director John Fulton talks with the Missouri Review about his new story collection THE FLOUNDER.

https://themissourireview.substack.com/p/novels-and-short-stories-marriages?r=9btag&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Novels and Short Stories, Marriages and Affairs TMR Contest Editor AnnElise Hatjakes interviews fiction writer John Fulton on the publication of his new short story collection, The Flounder.

Dear UMB MFA Students: A reminder about the residency (applications due in a month), created in honor of Professor Lois Rudnick. Please consider applying for this if you might like a 2-week residency in Taos this coming January!

Lois was a long-time cultural historian of Southwestern literature, art, and modernism. Her greatest passion was mentoring young scholars and educators. Preference will be given to applications that in some way reflect these ideas and ideals.

For more details please contact [email protected]

MFA Program Director John Fulton's new book THE FLOUNDER is featured in this Sunday's Boston Globe. Congratulations, John!

Dr. Steven Thrasher will give the 2023 Sexuality Studies keynote address on Thursday, April 20th at the Campus Center. Dr. Thrasher is the inaugural Daniel H. Renberg Chair of social justice in reporting (with an emphasis on issues relevant to the LGBTQ community) and an assistant professor of journalism at Northwestern University. His new book, The Viral Underclass, will be out August 2nd. “An irresistibly readable and humane exploration of the barbarities of class… readers are gifted that most precious of things in these muddled times: a clear lens through which to see the world,” New York Times bestselling author Naomi Klein says in advanced praise.

Thursday, April 20th, 3:30 PM (Campus Center, Ballroom A): Please join us!

Please mark your calendars & join us on Tuesday, 4/4 for a poetry reading and conversation with Destiny Hemphill as part of our Global Voices Series. Destiny is the author of Motherworld: A Devotional for the Alter-Life, as well as The Poetry Chapbook Oracle: A Cosmology. She currently serves as the Visiting Writer in Poetry at UNC Chapel Hill. We look forward to welcoming her & seeing you! 4/4, 2:30-3:30 PM, Wheatley Building, Room 47.

Please join us on campus tomorrow, Wednesday 3/22, for TWO important & illuminating events:

11 AM, "Writing with Disruption: Agency, Identity, & The Lifespan" with Lauren Bowen

4 PM, "When Will It Be Over? Enduring Colonial Legacies & Working for Climate Justice in the U.S.'s Largest Poor City" with Bethany Wiggin.

Interesting piece by UMass Boston Creative Writing Professor Askold Melnyczuk:

https://michaeljudge.substack.com/p/askold-melnyczuk-i-was-a-pacificistand?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=688774&post_id=97556216&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

Askold Melnyczuk: I Was a Pacificist—And Then They Came to Kill My Family I've finally come to understand some of the evils my parents lived through.

UMass Boston creative writing professor Askold Melnyczuk, supporting the literary community in Ukraine, joins forces with HUBB (Helping Ukranian Books & Booksellers)!

Get your MFA in Creative Writing at UMass Boston and study with faculty publishing interesting new work! Application deadline for Fall 2023 enrollment is January 15th. Submit yours now through GradCAS!
https://www.umb.edu/academics/cla/english/grad/mfa
https://www.umb.edu/academics/cla/english/grad/mfa/mfa_faculty_book_publications
https://gradcas2022.liaisoncas.com/applicant-ux/ #/login

Liaison International, Centralized Application Service {{pageDescriptionText}}

Happy 50th anniversary to Askold Melnyczuk's literary magazine, AGNI

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/10/27/arts/literary-magazine-marks-anniversary-mass-book-award-winners-announced/?event=event12

Literary magazine marks anniversary, Mass. Book Award winners announced - The Boston Globe All the news of a bookish bent from around the region, plus three upcoming releases and a bookseller recommendation.

The MFA Program is delighted to have John Murillo join us virtually next week! Feel free to tune in!

We're excited to have author Allegra Hyde on campus next week! Event details below:

Check out Askold Melnyczuk's review of a book of poetry in translation in the TLS!

https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.the-tls.co.uk%2Farticles%2Fvoices-from-babyn-yar-marianna-kiyanovska-book-review-askold-melnyczuk%2F%3Futm_medium%3DSocial%26utm_source%3DTwitter%23Echobox%3D1664381282&data=05%7C01%7CTerence.OBrien001%40umb.edu%7C6c4212964e58421da3a908daa561fa25%7Cb97188711ee94425953c1ace1373eb38%7C0%7C0%7C638004137467361962%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=A5XKeM%2F29kEEyJr1Ij8%2BKT9ipTttZvbvCgmJ%2F6oOGbM%3D&reserved=0

Reimagining in poetry the victims of the Babyn Yar massacre In late September 1941, the German occupying forces posted the following orders in Russian, Ukrainian and German all around the city of Kyiv: All Yids of

Come to our Grant Writing Workshop this Wednesday!