Chatham University Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

The information on this page pertains to the on-campus Full-Residency MFA program. If you are looking for information about our online Low-Residency MFA program, please visit the program homepage here.

Chatham University's groundbreaking MFA focusing on nature, environment and travel writing is the premier graduate program for nurturing creative writers interested in the environmental imagination and place-based writing. Chatham also offers a Low-Residency MFA program with the same innovative focus on nature, environment and travel writing that can be completed in two years.

Our alumni have gone on to teach and publish, and many are pioneers and leaders in arts programs that work to foster diversity and social justice. Our program continues to be inspired by the work of Chatham alumna, Rachel Carson, a creative writer whose work demonstrates both lyricism and social conscience. The heart of our program--nature, environmental and travel writing--honors Carson's legacy, but expands the interpretation of environment to include any place-based writing and all genres-poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction-shaped by human relationship with place.

Chatham University is located minutes from the urban heart of Pittsburgh, a city that has transformed from a polluted steel town into a vibrant, thriving major city. Pittsburgh is home to several literary events, including the Drue Heinz Lecture Series, which has recently featured writers such as Jonathan Franzen, Ann Patchett, and Yann Martel. Chatham hosts the Melanie Brown Lecture Series —writers we have or will bring to campus include Stewart O’Nan, Ann Pancake, and Lan Samantha Chang.

Located on a beautiful arboretum that offers rich opportunities for reflection and meditation, Chatham is a fantastic place to write. Filled with beautiful parks, nestled between three rivers, and surrounded by natural and cultural areas as varied as the Appalachian Trail, the Allegheny National Forest, the Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch countryside, and a bit of the coast of Lake Erie, Pittsburgh offers many opportunities for writers.

Chatham also hosts the Bridges Festival , which features speakers, panels, and allows students to participate in small-group workshops with writing professionals. Recent Bridges guests include Philip Lopate, Barbara Hurd, Dinty W. Moore, and literary agent Jenni Ferrari-Adler.

Students are given lots of time to write at Chatham: they take twelve hours of literary craft courses (workshops that focus on style, form and literary traditions) and nine hours of advanced writing workshops in addition to one field seminar, which is a traveling writing workshop.

Each year, our award-winning faculty lead creative writing field seminars that offer students the opportunity to travel to the United States and other parts of the world and generate creative work about the experience. Past and current field seminars include trips to Costa Rica, Israel, New Zealand, Greece, India, Turkey, and Vietnam.

Students also have the opportunity to work on The Fourth River, Chatham's literary journal, under the guidance of experienced publishing professionals. Since 2009, Chatham students have organized and run Word Circus, a monthly MFA reading series held at a gallery in the city’s Penn Arts Corridor.

And finally, we are proud to announce funding and teaching opportunities, including teaching fellowships, the Rachel Carson Fellowship, the Margaret Lehr Whitford Fellowship, and The Fourth River Fellowship.

For a more in-depth look at our faculty, students, and opportunities that make our program special, please download our annual newsletter.

Chatham MFA Program named One of "4 TOP Schools You Should Consider"

The January 2012 issue of The Writer magazine noted the program's focus on nature and travel writing, and its flexibility (writers may move between the full residency and low residency programs).