The New School's renowned graduate writing program is now offering students a new concentration: Arts Writing. This two-year program of writing workshops and seminars reflects the university’s belief that discursive and critical writing about the arts is a vital form of literature.
In 1931, New York critic Gorham Munson initiated a workshop in creative writing at The New School. One of the first college courses of its kind anywhere, the workshop established the university as a vibrant center of American Literature and the teaching of creative writing. Since 1996, The New School has offered the Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing, originally with four concentrations—Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Writing for Children—and now a fifth, Arts Writing.
Career Pathways
The new Arts Writing concentration prepares writers for careers as professional critics and public educators in print and online media; as writers for museums, art dealerships, publishers, promoters, and cultural foundations; and as visual and performing artists and teachers who can communicate effectively about their own work and that of other artists.
In the MFA Creative Writing program, students develop the writing skills and experience to
- Practice all the major forms of critical journalism, including, introductions, reviews, feature articles, profiles, interviews, and essays
- Conduct research online and in archives
- Expand an article or an essay into a book, an enhanced digital media piece, or an interactive mobile app
- Advance public understanding and appreciation of the arts as an authors, teachers, or artists
Program Features
- A writing faculty of distinguished authors and critics
- Two years of writing workshops that culminating in a thesis project
- Two years of seminars devoted to focused study of work by acclaimed arts commentators and essayists and examples of contemporary arts writing from around the world, published in print and online
- Exposure to the best of the contemporary arts (visual, performing, and literature) and the cultural institutions here and abroad that support them
- The Writers Life in New York: an ongoing colloquium featuring guest
lectures, panel discussions, readings, performances, and exhibitions.
Visit the Creative Writing MFA website for application information and degree requirements.
