New MA at UB: Innovative Writing

I received the following email, which I pass along to NU students who may be interested:

I would like to invite your students to apply to the University at Buffalo's new graduate degree in creative writing. We're launching our new MA in Innovative Writing program this Fall 2014. Our application period opens February 1.

The curriculum of the new writing program has been designed by UB poets and fiction writers--Myung Mi Kim, Judith Goldman, Dimitri Anastasopoulos, and Christina Milletti--who are hoping to round out our internationally renowned department with a new workshop-based curriculum, and to make it a launch pad for young writers. In Fall 2014, novelist Nnedi Okorafor also joins our faculty.

Our MA Certificate in Innovative Writing presents a unique form of graduate study in creative writing, closely intertwining the practice of writing with literary and aesthetic inquiries. Our goal is to create a collaborative environment for our students, in which new forms of writing can flourish alongside familiar genres. Poetry. Fiction. Hybrid forms. Digital media. However innovation takes place.

Students in the program can expect to be immersed in a mentorship community activated by conversations about writing--above all, to be invited to view their work as an investigative, exploratory process: a mode of inquiry that, at its best, can articulate diverse experiences of 21^st century culture, and unearth, perhaps even overturn, our most foundational thoughts, freeing them for profound imaginative work. 

UB's English Department is a haven for writing events of all kinds due to our two distinctive reading series--the Poetics Plus and Exhibit X Fiction Series--which regularly brings award-winning writers to Buffalo. In Spring 2014, alone, our guests already include (among others) Rodrigo Toscano (Feb 11), Jerome Rothenberg (April 17), Alice Notley (April 24), Amanda Michalopoulou (April 10) and Victor LaValle (March 6).

Graduate students who enroll in our writing program will earn an MA in English with a Certificate in Innovative Writing--a unique degree they can then position in a number of effective ways. It's particularly ideal degree for students who are interested in enhancing their writing portfolios and their literary backgrounds before applying to writing-related jobs, or MFA and PhD programs.

The deadline for applications is Feb 1, though this year, we intend to accept applications on a rolling basis since it's our first year at work. Please feel free to contact me with questions. For more information about the program, please visit: http://www.buffalo.edu/content/cas/english/graduate/ma-certificate-in-innovative-writing.html

Sincerely,

Christina Milletti

Associate Professor of English

Director: Creative Writing Certificate Programs

milletti@buffalo.edu