Undergraduate Creative Writing
Beginning in the fall of 2018, undergraduate students at Boise State University can major in Creative Writing for the very first time.
Come study with our award-winning MFA faculty. New classes include The Writer’s Life, Reading as a Writer, The Writer’s Studio, Fundamentals of Narrative, and The Art of the Sentence. Recent form and theory classes have focused on poetics, graphic novels, speculative fiction, screenwriting, and novel writing. We also offer classes in publishing and editing, where students work on The Idaho Review.
MFA in Creative Writing
The MFA Program in Creative Writing offers degree tracks in fiction and poetry, emphasizing the art and craft of literary writing and concentrating on the student’s written work. Close work with faculty and visiting writers is encouraged through seminars, conferences, and classroom interaction during the three-year course, the third year of which is normally devoted to thesis preparation.
Students who intend to pursue a career in teaching literature and writing at the college level have the opportunity to study the pedagogy of creative writing. Also offered are classes in the craft of literary publishing, with coursework in both the production of a literary annual The Idaho Review and of books for a small press Ahsahta Press; internships and graduate assistantships are also available with these publishers. The program also publishes Free Poetry, featuring essays and poetry from today’s leading poets.

Joy Williams, our MFA program’s 2017 Visiting Distinguished Writer, in Ketchum, Idaho, outside Ernest Hemingway’s house. Photo Credit: Natalie Disney.