California College of the Arts' MFA Program in Writing is a two-year course of study. Our program offers workshops in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, cross-genre writing, and playwriting or screenwriting. Rather than require you to declare a specific genre, we instead leave open the option to take workshops in various genres.
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.
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; a Writers Series (a.k.a. The 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.
CCA offers merit-based scholarships in addition to diversity scholarships, as well as opportunities to work as teaching assistants.
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Upcoming Event
The MFA Program in Writing welcomes Jonathan Franzen, author of the best-selling The Corrections (winner of the 2001 National Book Award for fiction) on Friday, January 16 at 6 p.m. in Timken Lecture Hall.
Writers' Series
Join us each Friday for the Writer's Series, featuring industry reknowned poets and novelists who visit the Writers' Studio for readings and Q&A sessions.
News
OMG!Lit's Online Journal
OMG!Lit is a student-run small press literary journal committed to publishing the finest poetry and prose from MFA Writing students. Visit now.
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.