Low-Residency MFA in Fiction and Nonfiction New England campus experience
Program Overview Why choose a low-residency MFA in Creative Writing?
Write a manuscript that shines in the low-residency Mountainview Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program at Southern New Hampshire University. In this cohort-based creative writing program, you'll have mentorship from award-winning, nationally recognized faculty and grow alongside peers in a vibrant, supportive creative writing community. And with minimal residency requirements, you can earn your MFA in fiction or nonfiction without putting your life on hold.
Skills you'll learn:
- Writing a publishable manuscript
- Crafting a compelling critical essay
- Navigating the publishing process
- Concepts for teaching writing and composition
Courses & Curriculum Finish your manuscript in our low-residency MFA
The Mountainview MFA is a 2-year, low-residency creative writing program designed to allow you to write from home most of the year while also finding support and community during in-person residencies. Throughout the program, you’ll work on a novel, memoir, short stories, or essays, with one-on-one guidance from our faculty mentors. You’ll also read and analyze books from an individualized reading list, curated by your faculty member just for you.
How to Apply
SNHU requires an undergraduate grade point average (GPA) of 2.75 (or equivalent) for admission. Here's what we need prospective students to submit:
- The Mountainview Low-Residency MFA application.
- An official transcript from the college or university that conferred your bachelor's degree. We can help you request your college transcripts – just fill out the Transcript Request Form.
- An 800- to 1,000-word personal statement describing your writing experience and the nature of your commitment to writing. Include your assessment of why you're a good candidate for the program. We're always interested in learning about a candidate's academic, personal and professional experiences.
- A 20- to 30-page, double-spaced writing sample, using 12-point font, in fiction or nonfiction. Your writing sample may consist of a novel excerpt, a story or multiple stories, if fiction – or a memoir excerpt, a creative essay or multiple creative essays, if nonfiction.
- Two letters of recommendation from people capable of assessing your ability to work independently and your preparation to succeed in an MFA program.
Note: The personal statement, writing sample and letters of recommendation may be emailed to mfa@snhu.edu.
Residency Requirements
A low-residency MFA program offers you the best of both worlds: you can attend the program you want from the comfort of your home, while also going on location with your peers for an in-depth residency several times throughout your studies. Residencies are weeklong, twice-yearly periods of intense study, in which all students and faculty gather in person in New Hampshire.
The summer residency takes place on campus. The winter residency is held at a local hotel, with classes at the university’s historic nineteenth-century mill building. Students arrive on a Sunday and leave the following Sunday for all four of their residencies.
During these residencies, you'll participate in activities including:
- Faculty seminars
- One-on-one meetings with faculty mentors to plan the upcoming semester
- Peer workshops, to discuss each other's writing
- Readings from students and faculty
- Talks and readings by visiting authors, editors and agents
Included in your residencies are breakfast and dinner buffets. You'll find plenty of inexpensive lunch options locally, as well.
Campus major courses
You’ll take major courses that provide you with a solid foundation in your area of study – in some cases featuring experiential or project-based learning opportunities, labs, simulations and internships. These courses will allow you to learn a wide variety of topics and help prepare you for a role in your desired field.
Details about the major courses for this program will be available soon.
Visit the course catalog to view the full Fiction (MFA) curriculum.
Campus major courses
You’ll take major courses that provide you with a solid foundation in your area of study – in some cases featuring experiential or project-based learning opportunities, labs, simulations and internships. These courses will allow you to learn a wide variety of topics and help prepare you for a role in your desired field.
Details about the major courses for this program will be available soon.
Visit the course catalog to view the full Non-fiction (MFA) curriculum.
Required Texts
These texts are the only required texts for the MFA program. Other assigned reading will be determined on an individualized basis, as each MFA student designs a reading list with their mentor for each semester they are enrolled. Students typically read two books per month, including required texts.
1st Semester
- "The Elements of Style," Strunk & White
- "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell
- "Reading Like a Writer," Francine Prose
2nd Semester
- "How Fiction Works," James Wood (fiction only)
- "The Art of Memoir," Amy Karr (nonfiction only)
- “The Nature of the Fun,” David Foster Wallace
3rd Semester (Nonfiction only)
- "The Situation and the Story," Vivian Gornick
Learn from instructors with industry experience
Our full-time faculty members have won numerous awards, published books with major publishing houses and received international acclaim in every literary category from young adult to lyric essay to crime. Their work appears in such forums as The New Yorker, Harper's, The New York Times Magazine and Best American Short Stories.
Marcus Burke, Fiction
Marcus Burke grew up in Milton, Massachusetts and graduated from Susquehanna University where he played four years of varsity basketball. Burke went on to receive his MFA at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop where he was awarded a Maytag Fellowship, an Iowa Arts Fellowship and upon graduation, a competitive grant in honor of James Alan McPherson from the University of Iowa MacArthur Foundation Fund.
Burke’s debut novel, Team Seven, was published in 2014 by Doubleday Books. Team Seven received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews, was longlisted for the 2015 PEN Open Book Award and was named one of the “10 Titles to Pick Up Now” in O, The Oprah Magazine.
Halle Butler, Fiction
Halle Butler is a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists. Her most recent, novel, Banal Nightmare, was published by Random House in 2024. Zadie Smith, writing for The Guardian, called it “utterly vicious” and “brilliant.” Her first novel, Jillian, was called the "feel bad book of the year" by the Chicago Tribune, and The New Yorker called her second novel, The New Me, a "definitive work of millennial literature."
Darrah Cloud, Fiction and Playwriting
Darrah Cloud’s most recent plays are Turning, which premiered in April of 2021 at Centenary Stage, and Sabina, the musical, which premiered in April 2022 at Portland Stage. She is currently working on McQueen, the Imaginary Life of Alexander McQueen, for Ark/Live Nation Productions. Her first play, The House Across the Street, premiered at Ensemble Studio Theatre. She has written numerous movies of the week for CBS, Fox and NBC. Alum of New Dramatists, co-directs Howl Playwrights in Rhinebeck, and the reading series Local Produce in Pine Plains, NY. Graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Former Town Supervisor of Pine Plains.
Rachel B. Glaser, Fiction and Poetry
Rachel B. Glaser is the author of the story collection Pee On Water, the novel Paulina & Fran, and the poetry books Moods and Hairdo. In 2017, she was on Granta’s list of Best of Young American Novelists. Her fiction has been published in The Paris Review and anthologized in 30 Under 30 and New American Stories. She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Jo Knowles, Fiction
Jo Knowles is an award-winning young adult and middle-grade novelist. Her young adult books include Living with Jackie Chan, Pearl, Jumping Off Swings, Lessons from a Dead Girl and Read Between the Lines. Her middle grade/tween novels include See You at Harry's, Still a Work in Progress, Where the Heart is, and Meant to Be.
Her works have earned the following awards and titles: New York Times Editor's Choice and Notable Book, American Library Association Notable Book, IndieBound Summer Top 10, Bank Street College's "Best Book" list, Amazon's Best Middle Grades, International Reading Association Favorite, New England Children's Booksellers Advisory Top Title, two SCBWI Crystal Kite Awards, Kirkus's Best Teen Books, the PEN New England Children's Book Discovery Award and YALSA's Best Fiction for Young Adults. Her books have appeared on numerous state book award lists for schools and libraries.
Andrew Martin, Fiction and Nonfiction
Andrew Martin, who lives in New York, earned his MFA from the University of Montana and his BA in English from Columbia University. He’s Editor-at-Large at The Paris Review. He is the author of the novel Early Work, a New York Times Notable Book of 2018 and a finalist for the Cabell First Novelist Award. He is also the author of the story collection Cool For America, which was longlisted for the 2020 Story Prize. Martin’s fiction has been published in The Paris Review, The Atlantic, The Yale Review, ZYZZYVA and The Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly. His criticism and essays have appeared in The New York Review of Books, Harper's, The New York Times Book Review, T: The New York Times Style Magazine and VICE. He has received fellowships from MacDowell and the UCross Foundation.
David Moloney, Fiction
David Moloney’s debut novel, Barker House (Bloomsbury, 2020), was informed by his years working as a corrections officer in New Hampshire. His fiction has been published in Guernica, The Yale Review, and other magazines. A Mountainview alumnus, he’s Coordinator of Campus undergraduate creative writing at SNHU, where he’s Assistant Professor of English.
Benjamin Nugent, Fiction and Nonfiction
Benjamin Nugent is the author of Fraternity: Stories (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020) and the essay collection American Nerd (Scribner, 2008) among other works. His fiction has been published in The Atlantic, The Paris Review, Tin House, Best American Short Stories, and Best American Nonrequired Reading, and has been awarded the Paris Review’s Terry Southern Prize. His nonfiction has been published in Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, and other venues. He holds an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is Director of the Mountainview MFA.
Tracy O’Neill, Fiction and Nonfiction
Tracy O'Neill’s memoir Woman of Interest was published by HarperCollins in June 2024. She is the author of The Hopeful, one of Electric Literature's Best Novels of 2015, and Quotients, a New York Times New & Noteworthy Book, TOR Editor's Choice, & Literary Hub Favorite Book of 2020. In 2015, she was named a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. In 2012, she was awarded the Center for Fiction's Emerging Writers Fellowship. Her writing has appeared in Granta, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, LitHub, BOMB, and elsewhere.
Nadia Owusu, Nonfiction
Nadia Owusu’s debut memoir, Aftershocks, originally written as a thesis at Mountainview, and published by Simon and Schuster, was selected as a best book of 2021 by Time, Vogue, Esquire, The Guardian, NPR, the BBC, and others. It was one of President Barack Obama’s favorite books of the year, a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, and a 2021 Goodreads Choice Award nominee. It was selected by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai for her Literati book club. She received a 2019 Whiting Award for nonfiction.
Mark Jude Poirier, Fiction and Screenwriting
Mark Jude Poirier is the author of two collections of short stories, two novels, and with Owen King and Nancy Ahn, a graphic novel. His books have been New York Times notable books of the year, as well as Barnes and Noble Discover and Waterstone’s UK picks. He has published nearly thirty short stories which have appeared in Tin House, The Iowa Review, Conjunctions, BOMB, The Southern Review, The American Scholar, Epoch, The Georgia Review, Subtropics, and many other journals and anthologies. He has won an O’Henry Award and a Pushcart Prize, and his story “This Is Not How Good People Die” was long-listed for the Sunday Times Short Story Award in 2021.
In addition, the films he has written, Smart People, Goats, and Hateship Loveship, have played at Sundance, The Toronto International Film Festival, MoMA, The American Film Festival in Deauville, and in theaters all over the world. They stream often.
Adrienne Raphel, Nonfiction and Poetry
Adrienne Raphel is the author of Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can't Live Without Them (Penguin Press), a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice; Our Dark Academia (Rescue Press); and What Was It For (Rescue Press), winner of the Black Box Poetry Prize. Her writing appears in publications such as the New York Times Book Review, the New Yorker, and the Paris Review, and she has been awarded fellowships at American Library in Paris and the James Merrill House. She holds a PhD from Harvard, an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and an AB from Princeton. Raphel is a Lecturer in the English faculty at CUNY Baruch, where she teaches First-Year Writing and Great Works; and a faculty member at the Writers Foundry MFA program at St. Joseph's University, where she teaches poetry. She is also on faculty with the Berlin Writers' Workshop and serves as a mentor with the Periplus Collective.
Gemma Sieff, Fiction and Nonfiction
Gemma Sieff has worked on the editorial staff of The New York Review of Books, Harper’s Magazine, Town & Country and Bookforum. Her essays and criticism have been published in Bookforum, Frieze, Harper’s, n+1, The New Republic, The New York Times, The Paris Review and VICE. She holds an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Justin Taylor is the author of the novel Reboot, the memoir Riding with the Ghost, the novel The Gospel of Anarchy, and two collections of short fiction: Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever and Flings. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Bomb, and Bookforum, among other publications. He has taught writing at the graduate and undergraduate level in programs all over the country, including Columbia University, N.Y.U., the University of Southern Mississippi, and the University of Montana. He is a contributing writer to the Washington Post’s Book World, and the Director of the Sewanee School of Letters. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
To learn more about SNHU faculty, visit our campus faculty page.
Accomplished Alumni
Many of our Mountainview graduates have gone on to success in the publishing world.
Notable alumni include:
- 2019 Whiting Award winner Nadia Owusu '17
- 2020 Edgar Award finalist John Vercher '16
- 2019 Pulitzer finalist Elizabeth Rush '11
- Raymond Carver Short Story Contest Morgan Green '21
- LA Times Book Prize for First Novel finalist Kevin Keating '18
- Alumni published by Simon & Schuster, FSG, Bloomsbury, and other major publishers
Learn more about Mountainview graduates and what they've accomplished:
After working as a boilermaker in the steel mills in Ohio, Kevin P. Keating became a professor of English and began teaching at Baldwin Wallace University and John Carroll University. His first novel, "The Natural Order of Things" (Vintage Contemporaries), was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and his second novel, "The Captive Condition" (Pantheon), was launched at the 2015 San Diego Comic Con International.
Since starting the Mountainview Low-Residency MFA, Keating has been awarded the Creative Workforce Fellowship, one of the most substantive awards for writers in the United States, and the Cleveland Arts Prize, the oldest award of its kind in America and a testament to the standard of excellence and quality of artists in Northeast Ohio. He has also been a featured speaker at the Miami Book Fair International.
David Moloney worked as a correctional officer for 5 years before returning to school. He received a BA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where he won the UMass Lowell Creative Writing Award in 2015.
He earned his MFA from SNHU’s Mountainview Low-Residency program, where he won Assignment Magazine’s student writing contest. He was also awarded the Lynn Safford Memorial Prize.
His debut novel, "Barker House," was published by Bloomsbury in 2020. His work can be found in The Yale Review, Guernica, Lithub, Electriclit, The Common, Salamander, CrimeReads and GEN. He currently teaches writing at SNHU.
Elizabeth Rush is the author of "Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore," a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction, and "Still Lifes from a Vanishing City: Essays and Photographs from Yangon, Myanmar."
Her work explores how humans adapt to changes enacted upon them by forces seemingly beyond their control, from ecological transformation to political revolution.
Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the New York Times, National Geographic, the Guardian, the Atlantic, Harpers, Guernica, Granta, Orion, Creative Nonfiction, The Washington Post, Le Monde Diplomatique and the New Republic, among others.
John Vercher is a writer currently living in the Philadelphia area with his wife and two sons. He holds a Bachelor’s in English from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA in Creative Writing from SNHU's Mountainview Master of Fine Arts program, and served as an adjunct faculty member at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia.
John’s 2019 debut novel, "Three-Fifths" (Agora Books) has received praise from Kirkus and starred reviews from the Library Journal and Booklist. "Three-Fifths" was named one of the best books of 2019 by the Chicago Tribune and a book of the year by The Sunday Times, The Financial Times and The Guardian.
"Three-Fifths" has been nominated for:
- The Crime Writers’ Association’s (UK) John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger (Shortlisted, 2021)
- The Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award for Best First Novel
- Best Debut Novel (2019) for The Strand Magazine’s Critics’ Awards
- The Anthony Award for Best First Novel
Vercher's subsequent novels, "After the Lights Go Out" (Soho Press, Pushkin Press) and "Devil is Fine" (Celadon Books) have also received praise.
Can't wait? You don't have to!
Whether you’re looking to continue your education locally or traveling across the world to experience SNHU, you can apply now. We can’t wait to meet you!
Career Outlook What can I do with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing?
The Mountainview MFA program was designed to help you gain the literary chops, industry insights and 1:1 support you need to actualize your dream of becoming a published writer. Our alumni include a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Whiting Award winner and numerous other authors whose work has been published by major publishing houses.
Beyond the invaluable skills and knowledge you'll gain throughout the curriculum, you'll also earn a terminal degree that qualifies you for post-secondary educator roles. So if teaching at the college level and adding the title of professor to your bio interests you, earning your Master of Fine Arts is a great decision.
Career paths include:
- Author
- Editor
- Journalist
- Professor
Median annual salary for writers and authors as of May 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).1
Median annual salary for post-secondary teachers as of May 2023, according to BLS.1
Understanding the numbers
When reviewing job growth and salary information, it’s important to remember that actual numbers can vary due to many different factors—like years of experience in the role, industry of employment, geographic location, worker skill and economic conditions. Cited projections do not guarantee actual salary or job growth.
Mountainview MFA Experience So, what's the low-residency program like?
With around 16 students per cohort, the Mountainview MFA program offers you the unique opportunity to develop close and sustaining relationships. You'll connect in person with faculty and peers during intensive weeklong residencies in the summer and winter. And during the rest of the year, you'll get to work with faculty one-on-one, receiving thorough, regular editorial letters supplemented with video calls.
School of Arts, Sciences and Education Learn about the School of Arts, Sciences and Education
From understanding why people behave the way they do, to studying and tackling today's environmental issues, the School of Arts, Sciences and Education serves as an academic hub for creativity, collaboration and learning. Here, you'll have the chance to gain real-world experience through internships, student teaching, lab work and community-based projects. From studying cells under a microscope or analyzing crime scenes to leading a student-teaching session in an elementary classroom, you’ll learn how the world works so you can help make it a better place.
Student teaching opportunities
Inkwell game design studio
State-of-the-art labs
How SNHU makes college affordable
At Southern New Hampshire University, we're on a mission to make high-quality education more accessible with more affordable tuition. With 70+ career-focused majors, state-of-the-art facilities, D2 sports and over 70 student clubs and organizations, you can get the campus experience you've always dreamed of at a more affordable price.
Fill out the FAFSA to see if you’re eligible for grants or work-study. (You could also be offered loans, though you’ll have to pay those back later.)
Transfer credits toward your master's degree program at SNHU. If you’ve taken one course or many, we’ll evaluate them for you.
Getting free money for college – from SNHU or an outside organization – could help you save hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
Hear from us
The low-residency MFA faculty are all accomplished authors and, by emphasizing one-on-one mentorship, we’ve been able to teach our students the craft they need to become successful writers and teachers of creative writing.
Benjamin Nugent, Director of MFA, Professor - English
Accreditations
SNHU is accredited by the regional accreditor the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE). The university also carries specialized accreditations for some programs.
Sources & Citations
1Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, on the internet, at:
- https://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/writers-and-authors.htm (viewed Oct. 29, 2024)
- https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/postsecondary-teachers.htm (viewed Oct. 29, 2024)
Cited projections may not reflect local and/or short-term economic or job conditions and do not guarantee actual job growth.
Your dream school is waiting
Apply now or schedule a visit today.