• The NYU Creative Writing Program

    is among the most distinguished programs in the country and is a leading national center for the study of writing and literature.

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  • Graduate Program

    The graduate Creative Writing Program at NYU consists of a community of writers working together in a setting that is both challenging and supportive.

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  • Low Residency MFA Workshop in Paris

    The low-residency MFA Writers Workshop offers students the opportunity to develop their craft in one of the world's most inspiring literary capitals.

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  • Undergraduate Program

    The undergraduate program offers workshops, readings, internships, writing prizes, and events designed to cultivate and inspire.

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  • Spring 2022 Reading Series

    The lively public Reading Series hosts a wide array of writers, translators, and editors, and connects our program to the local community.

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Creative Writing Program

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE MFA COMMUNITY

• Alum Bruna Dantas Lobato won the 2023 National Book Award in translation

• Faculty member Sharon Olds received the Joan Margarit International Poetry Prize from King Felipe VI in July 2023

• Alumni Tess Gunty and John Keene each won a 2022 National Book Award in fiction and poetry, respectively

• Books by faculty members Sharon Olds and Meghan O'Rourke; and alums Tess Gunty, John Keene, and Jenny Xie were named finalists for the 2022 National Book Awards; books by alum Rio Cortez and faculty member Leigh Newman were also longlisted

• Alum Ada Limón has been named the nation's 24th Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress

• Alum Amanda Larson's debut poetry collection GUT was selected by Mark Bibbins as the winner of the Poetry Society of America Norma Farber Book Award

• Alum Sasha Burshteyn was named a 2022 winner of the 92Y Discovery Prize. Alums Jenna Lanzaro and JinJin Xu were also named semi-finalists for the prize.

• Alum Clare Sestanovich was selected as a 2022 5 under 35 Honoree by the National Book Foundation

• Alum Maaza Mengiste was awarded a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship

• Visiting graduate faculty member Brandon Taylor's collection Filthy Animals was named a 2021/22 finalist for The Story Prize and was shortlisted for the 2022 Dylan Thomas Prize

• Alum Raven Leilani won the 2021 Clark Fiction Prize, Dylan Thomas prize, the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Fiction and the Center for Fiction 2020 First Novel Prize for her debut novel Luster, and was named a finalist for the 2021 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, the Gotham Book Prize, the 2021 PEN/Hemmingway Award for Debut Novel, the 2021 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award

• Alum Desiree C. Bailey's debut poetry collection What Noise Against the Cane was longlisted for the 2022 Dylan Thomas Prize and was also named a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award in Poetry and the 2022 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and was published as the winner of the 2020 Yale Series of Younger Poets

• Senior faculty member Sharon Olds was named the 2022 recipient of the Poetry Society of America's Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry


You can read more MFA Community news here and find a list of forthcoming and recently published books by alumni here. NYU CWP alumni include Aria Aber, Amir Ahmadi Arian, Julie Buntin, Nick Flynn, Nell Freudenberger, Aracelis Girmay, Isabella Hammad, Ishion Hutchinson, Mitchell S. Jackson, Tyehimba Jess, John Keene, Raven Leilani, Robin Coste Lewis, Ada Limón, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, Maaza Mengiste, John Murillo, Gregory Pardlo, Morgan Parker, Nicole Sealey, Solmaz Sharif, Peng Shepherd, Ocean Vuong, Jenny Xie, and Javier Zamora. 

Faculty Spotlight

Sharon Olds
Sharon Olds

Sharon Olds is a previous director of the Creative Writing Program. Her 2012 collection Stags Leap was awarded the T.S. Eliot Prize and a Pulitzer.

Hari Kunzru
Hari Kunzru

Hari Kunzru is the author of six novels, including the most recent Red Pill, and White Tears, a finalist for the PEN Jean Stein Award.

Katie Kitamura
Katie Kitamura

Katie Kitamura’s most recent novel Intimacies was longlisted for the National Book Award and named a Best Book of 2021 by numerous publications.

Darin Strauss by Linda Rosier
Darin Strauss

Darin Strauss is the author of several acclaimed novels, including the most recent The Queen of Tuesday: A Lucille Ball Story.

Terrance Hayes
Terrance Hayes

Terrance Hayes’s most recent publications include American Sonnets for My Past And Future Assassin and To Float In The Space Between.

Ocean Vuong by Adrian Pope for The Guardian
Ocean Vuong

Ocean Vuong is the author of the bestselling novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and the poetry collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer

Foer was listed in Rolling Stone's "People of the Year," Esquire's "Best and Brightest," and The New Yorker's "20 Under 40" list.

Jeffrey Eugenides
Jeffrey Eugenides

Jeffrey Eugenides is the author of acclaimed novels The Virgin Suicides, Middlesex, and The Marriage Plot. His latest collection is Fresh Complaint. 

Claudia Rankine by Andrew Zuckerman/The Slowdown
Claudia Rankine

Claudia Rankine is a recipient of the 2016 MacArthur Fellowship, and the author of six collections including Citizen and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely.

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