The MFA Program in Writing at California College of the Arts is a two-year course of study. Our program offers workshops in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, cross-genre writing, playwriting, and screenwriting. Rather than require you to declare a specific genre, we instead leave open the option to take workshops in various genres.

Unique Curriculum

The program affirms both innovative and traditional practice, offering a flexible and rigorous course of study to support each writer's unique path. Graduate writers benefit from the dynamic and varied cultures of writing inherent in the Bay Area, just as they do studying writing at an art school where many modes of artistic expression converge and flourish.

While earning their MFA Writing degree, students take graduate seminars and undergraduate studios in painting/drawing, film/video, photography, printmaking, book arts, visual criticism, and architecture. We welcome student work that combines or crosses genres or art practices.

We are a diverse, supportive, and lively community of faculty and student writers situated in a beautiful collective work space that offers a capacious, light-filled studio and serene garden.

Faculty & Special Events

CCA offers a remarkable faculty of accomplished writers, Mentored Study (one-to-one assistance with a faculty writer every semester); distinguished writers in residence, small workshops and seminars; the opportunity to work on our national literary journal, Eleven Eleven; and the Writers Series (aka Friday Seminar) at which authors, editors, performers, and others read their work and engage in discussion with MFA candidates and faculty in an intimate setting.

Writers Series

Join us each Friday for the Writers Series, featuring industry-renowned poets and novelists who visit the Writers' Studio for readings and Q&A sessions.

Small Press Traffic

Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center is housed at CCA and brings together independent readers and writers through publications, conferences, and a weekly reading series.