MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN STUDIO

WRITINGsaic.edu/mfaw

Graduate Admissions36 South Wabash Avenue, suite 1201Chicago, IL 60603Phone 312.629.6100 / 800.232.7242 Fax 312.629.6101 gradmiss@saic.edu

Writers at SAIC embrace the tensions within, between, and beyond the genres of writing to provoke passionate content and electrify form.Modeled on studio art training, SAIC’s two-year Master of Fine Arts in Writing (MFAW) program celebrates writing as art, and offers a fresh alternative to other workshop-driven programs. One-on-one graduate projects with stellar faculty are the heart of our curriculum, leaving room to imagine longer, wilder and more ambitious work.

Students tap the unique potential of transdisciplinary writing in an art school, connected with a world-class art museum. They cross freely between poetry, fiction, playwriting, screenwriting, comics, non-fiction and electives from across the school into painting, performance, film, sculpture, fashion, photography, sound, etc. They get excited about flash fiction, epic verse, commercial novels, ekphrastic songs, poetic theater, comic books, printmaking…and they design their own track of interests.

MFAW faculty are highly regarded as leaders in their disciplines with award-winning expertise. They maintain vibrant local, national, and international profiles, and teach to their passions. Equally extraordinary in the art of advising intuition, they fold and unfold what is possible.

Application Deadline: January 10

For application requirements, visit saic.edu/mfaw

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DEPARTMENTAL HIGHLIGHTS � Professor Sally Alatalo’s book, An Arranged Affair, has been published by Printed Matter,

Inc. (New York) in conjunction with her exhibition, Sally Alatalo: Narrative in Revision.

� Professor Jesse Ball was named a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow and a 2016 Creative Capital Fellow. His story, The Gentlest Village, was chosen for Best American Non-Required Reading 2016. Ball was selected as one of the Best Young American Novelists, an honor awarded every 10 years by the British literary magazine Granta.

� Associate Professor Mark Booth’s two-person collaborative site-specific installation and concert, Michael Graeve and Mark Booth (MGMB) – New Work, opened at Blindside gallery, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia in July 2017.

� Professor Calvin Forbes’ poem, Momma Said (Branford Marsalis Quartet with Special Guest Kurt Elling CD, Upward Spiral), was nominated for a Best Jazz Vocal Grammy Award.

� Professor Ruth Margraff’s play, Fantasy Island for Dummies (lowcut daydream too near, too near), premiered Sept 29-Nov 5, 2016 at Trap Door Theater, Chicago. Flight: Torn Like A Rose, a libretto commissioned by choreographer Peggy Choy, premiered January 27-28, 2017 at Kumble Theater (NYC).

� Professor Jim McManus wrote essays on Bloomberg.com and for Same Dream Another Time, a book of photographs by Jay Wolke (Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg). He published poems in New American Writing, Salmagundi, and Not My President, and a story in the Simon & Schuster (London) anthology, He Played for His Wife: Short Stories of Long Nights at the Poker Table.

� Daniel Borzutzky (MFAW 2000) won the 2016 National Book Award in Poetry for The Performance of Being Human (Brooklyn Arts Press).

� Vida Cross’ (MFAW 1995) book, Bronzeville at Night: 1949, an ‘interplay between poetry, music, humor and culture,’ has been published by Awst Press (Austin, TX).

� Patty Yumi Cottrell’s (MFAW 2012) novel, Sorry to Disrupt the Peace (McSweeny’s, San Francisco), has been named the winner of the Independent Publisher Book Award’s Gold Medal for First Fiction.

� Danielle Dutton’s (MFAW 2002) novel, Margaret the First, has been published by Catapult (New York).

� Emil Ferris’ (MFAW 2010) graphic novel, My Favorite Thing is Monsters, has been published by Fantagraphics (Seattle).

� Tsehaye Hebert’s (MFAW 2014) play and MFAW thesis project, Elegy for Miss Lucy, was selected for the Cultural DC 2017 Source Festival.

� Deepak Unnikrishnan’s (MFAW 2014) book, Temporary People (Restless Books, Brooklyn), is the winner of the publisher’s inaugural Immigrant Writing Prize.

FULL-TIME FACULTYSALLY ALATALO

JESSE BALL

MARK BOOTH

JANET DESAULNIERS

CALVIN FORBES

SARA LEVINE

RUTH MARGRAFF

JAMES MCMANUS

BETH NUGENT

VISITING POET 2017–18MAI DER VANG

For complete faculty listing visit: saic.edu/mfaw

CURRICULUM REQUIREMENTSWRIT 5001 Writing Workshop 12

WRIT 5500 Topics in Writing Seminar 12

MFA 6009 Graduate Projects (minimum of 12 credits with writing advisors)

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Electives 12

� Courses at the 3000 level or above. Art History courses must be at the 4000 level or above

� Participation in four graduate critiques

� Inclusion in graduate publication or participation in the Graduate Exhibition or equivalent

� Completion of the thesis

TOTAL CREDIT HOURS 60

Students may elect internships to satisfy up to 6 hours of elective credit.

PROFESSIONAL PREPARATIONThough we emphasize process, our writers also prepare to sustain robust careers with a diversity of professional techniques and skills from immersive workshops, interdisciplinary seminars and intimate critique panels. Our alumni not only exceed boundaries, they become leaders of new scenes and movements in the writing trade. They exhibit breathtaking innovation, independence and a generosity for the larger public good.

Our trustee merit scholarships are awarded based on exceptional promise by the Admissions Committee. We offer a limited number of writing fellowships, teaching assistantships, incentive awards and small project grants. Our two MFAW fellowship awards for graduating writers are juried by such writers as Bhanu Kapil, Daniel Alexander (Jomama) Jones, Thalia Field, Eula Bliss, Ben Marcus and Fanny Howe. We also launched a one-year teaching fellowship award for one distinguished alumni.

Writing students who demonstrate a studio practice can apply for studio space and exhibit in the Sullivan Galleries’ MFA Spring Show. All graduating writing students are featured in our artisan publication Collected and many gain editorial and performance experience with the award-winning F Newsmagazine, student-curated lectures, Ballroom readings, and other presses, theaters, bookstores, salons and galleries in the greater Chicago area.

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