Creative Writing and Environment: MFA

An innovative MFA program at Iowa State University that fuses creative writing workshops, interdisciplinary coursework, and intensive field experience to help writers cultivate an understanding of the imprint of place, the natural world, and the environmental imagination on the poems, stories, and essays we create.

The MFA in Creative Writing and Environment requires a total of 54 credits of coursework.

The links below provide additional information about specific requirements mentioned above.

• MFA Guidelines for Completion of ENGL 5600
• MFA Environmental Field Experience (ENGL 5600) Proposal Form
• MFA Environmental Courses Outside English Petition
• List of Suggested Environmental Courses Outside English
• MFA Thesis FAQs
• MFA Thesis Embargo Form

Curricular policies and guidelines

Environmental field experience

Students are required to engage in an environmentally based internship or field work experience during the program. This work is to be somehow related to the content of their thesis. They will design, propose, and complete a field experience relevant to their writing interests.

Environmental courses in disciplines outside the Department of English

Students design, in consultation with their assigned program advisor or major professor, a self-tailored core of interdisciplinary courses that allow them to pursue fields of knowledge relevant to their writing project. Selections can be made from any ISU courses outside the English department with an environmental focus. These courses may be at the graduate level; they may also be 3000- or 4000-level undergraduate courses that are used in accordance with English department and Graduate College policy. Students provide an overview and rationale for their selection of outside courses as well as an argument for how each course contributes to their understanding of environment and thus is relevant to their plan of study.

MFA thesis

Students write theses that are composed of their own imaginative writing.They make a proposal for a book-length thesis to be approved by their major professor by the end of their third semester in the program. Thesis work produces one document—the thesis itself, which  is considered a work of publishable quality.

Program and student learning outcomes

Program outcomes

• Train writers in the process, craft, aesthetic, and professional demands of creative writing, including grounding in all major literary genres: poetry, fiction, literary nonfiction, and scriptwriting.
• Encourage writers to identify and explore the influences of place, the natural world, and the environmental imagination in their stories and lyric expressions.
• Ground students in the literary traditions and techniques of the genres in which they will write and the literature and theory of the environmental imagination.
• Offer writers access to the educational resources of a Research I institution and the nation’s first land grant university to broaden and deepen their understanding of a complex and rapidly-changing cultural and natural environment and the application of that understanding to their works of imaginative and critical writing.
• Mentor students through the process of designing, researching, writing, and refining original, publishable- and performance-quality imaginative literature, including a full-length manuscript of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and/or scriptwriting that is grounded in a firm grasp of craft, technique, and literary tradition, as well as an understanding of the environmental imagination.
• Provide training and opportunities in other elements of a professional literary life, including teaching, literary journal editing, reading series and arts administration, land stewardship, and outreach.

Student learning outcomes

• Demonstrate understanding of craft and professional practice through coursework, workshops, and completion of refined imaginative literary manuscripts in multiple genres.
• Identify, research, and examine—through coursework, fieldwork, and literary practice—the natural world and the environmental imagination.
• Broaden and deepen understanding of literary and theoretical traditions of the major genres and the methodologies of craft analysis and practice.
• Broaden and deepen understanding of the cultural and natural environment through significant coursework in environmental courses available at Iowa State University both within and beyond the MFA program and English department.
• Design, write, workshop, refine, and defend a significant body of publishable- or production-quality imaginative writing, including a full-length thesis manuscript, which demonstrates professional understanding and application of craft and technique, literary tradition, and the environmental imagination.
• Gain practical training and experience in creating and fostering a healthy literary community and sustaining a professional life in letters through teaching and research assistantships and internships, literary journal editorial internships and positions, as well as land stewardship, reading series, and other outreach opportunities.

How to apply

Thank you for your interest in applying to the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State University.  Below you will find basic information about required application materials along with some tips about how to prepare your writing samples.  We hope this information is helpful, and we look forward to reading your application.

Complete Application Guidelines: Please visit the following page for links to relevant application upload websites and for complete application guidelines: How to Apply.

MFA teaching assistantship support

We make every effort to offer assistantship support to all the students admitted to the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment.  At present, starting half-time 20 hours per week teaching assistantships for MFA students total $20,264 paid out over 10 months from Aug 16 through May 15).  Teaching assistants with half-time assistantships also receive a full tuition waiver scholarship (approximate value $11,492 Fall 2024) and single health insurance coverage.

The teaching load for teaching assistants is four classes a year (2 classes per semester), teaching in the ISUComm Foundation Courses or Speech Communication programs. Teaching assistants receive excellent preparatory training to support their teaching from the directors of these teaching programs. They are carefully mentored during their first year of teaching.

Other Support: The MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment is home to the Pearl Hogrefe Fellowship in Creative Writing.

Application deadline

January 5 is the single application deadline for admission consideration for entry the following academic year (beginning fall term).

What you will need to apply

Application Requirements and Instructions
All of the following materials are required for your application to be complete and must be uploaded electronically via the Iowa State University Office of Admissions online application system:

• Online Graduate Application (and application fee)
• Statement of Purpose
• Curriculum Vitae/Resume
• Writing Portfolio, which should be a single PDF containing the following items in the specified order (see below for additional instructions concerning content and length):
  • Creative Writing Sample
  • Expository Writing Sample
• Three Letters of Recommendation
• Scanned Official Transcripts and degree statements
• Hogrefe Fellowship Application Form if applicable
• Teaching Assistantship Application if applying for a teaching assistantship (see additional instructions on the English department’s How To Apply website)
• Nonnative speakers of English requirements, if applicable (see additional instructions below):
  1. English proficiency official examination scores sent directly to ISU by the testing agency for TOEFL/IELTS/PTE/Duolingo (upload unofficial scores to your application account)
  2. Audio or video file to demonstrate competence in spoken English

Additional information regarding the above requirements

Statement of purpose

In 750-1000 words, discuss how the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment would further your academic, artistic, and professional goals (leave the actual admission application form blank where it requests a 500-word statement of purpose). Consider addressing some of the following in your Statement of Purpose:

• Fieldwork experiences in natural or urban landscapes that have influenced your practice and/or aesthetic as a writer;
• Writers or currents of environmental thought that have influenced your work;
• Issues of place, landscape, the natural world, or environment with which your work engages;
• Organizations you’ve worked with or activities you’ve completed that are related to ecological or environmental issues;
• Creative projects with an environmental dimension that you have started or anticipate writing while in the program.

CV/Resume

Be sure to include education (academic degrees, programs of study, educational institutions), work history (including teaching and editing experience, if applicable), and publications, productions, exhibits, honors, and awards for your creative work.

Creative writing sample

Include a sample—of no more than 25 pages of prose (double-spaced), 15 pages of poetry (may be single-spaced), or 25 pages of a script for stage or screen (in professional manuscript format)—that demonstrates exemplary ability in one genre. Samples should be in a standard 12-point serif font, such as Times New Roman. We ask that you declare a primary genre (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or drama) at the time of application. Once admitted, students are allowed—and encouraged—to work in multiple genres.

Expository prose writing sample

Include a sample of no more than 10 pages (double-spaced, standard 12-point serif font). Your expository writing sample allows you to demonstrate your command of scholarly research and critical writing skills, as well as accepted grammatical rules for written English. Applicants usually submit a scholarly research essay written for an undergraduate or graduate course in literature, rhetoric, advanced composition, or other humanities field of study.

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