MFA Program for Poets & Writers

The MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is a graduate creative writing program.

The MFA Program for Poets & Writers was founded in the 1960s by poet Joseph Langland and is part of the English Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The program sponsors regular readings by creative writers and poets through its Visiting Writers Series. Recent visitors to the MFA Program for Poets & Writers include Russell Edson, George Saunders, Tomaž Šalamun, Eleni Sikelianos, Thomas Sayers Ellis, William H. Gass and David Ohle. MFA students in the graduate creative writing program have the opportunity to participate in both the Mohawk Trail Writers in the Schools program and the Literary Arts and Outreach Internship Program.

The faculty at this graduate creative writing program have received many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Pushcart Prize, and the Lavan Younger Poet Award from the Academy of American Poets. MFA faculty have also received many fellowships from organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts and The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.