Discover Your Story

Accepting Applications for the May 2019 Semester

Bay Path's no-residency MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing is designed to help aspiring writers turn their personal story into publishable prose. Created for women and men at all stages of their writing careers, the program allows students to study online with faculty mentors in a way that bends to the shape of their lives.

Our award-winning MFA faculty are accomplished memoirists, journalists, food and travel writers, editors, and publishers with a wealth of real-world expertise. Work with a New York Times bestselling memoirist on the memoir you’ve always wanted to write. Discover your inner journalist with renowned magazine editors and newspaper columnists. Write about the life of the spirit with a recent winner of the Best American Spiritual Writing Award. Explore the world of travel and food writing with an author of numerous travel books. Learn the art of writing family histories with a literary anthology editor.

About the Degree

• Classes start every January, May, and August
• Convenient schedule, take courses full or part-time (39 credits)
• Specialized training with tracks available in publishing and teaching
• Flexible 100% online format, no residency requirement
• Three-semester seminars with award-winning faculty mentors who provide close attention and guidance to help you perfect your craft
• Workshop with small peer groups for intensive writing practice, feedback, and support
• Summer creative writing seminar option in Ireland
• Students learn in a small, intimate, highly dynamic and interactive online community 
• Access to mentoring, tutoring, library resources, academic resources, and career services assists students in becoming independent and successful learners
• Financial aid is available
• No GMAT or GRE required

We’re so delighted that bestselling authors Andre Dubus III and Ann Hood will be part of our Bay Path University MFA's Summer Writing Seminar faculty in Dingle, Ireland, Aug. 3 to 10, 2019.

Andre will be working with both fiction and nonfiction writers, discussing how to "ignite your story into writing itself."

Ann's nonfiction workshop will focus on stand-alone essays or short excerpts from longer work that can stand on their own, "with the goal of finding their narrative arc, their beginning and end, and their heartbeat."

Program Director, Leanna James Blackwell's longform essay, "Lethe," has been published by Creative Nonfiction Magazine's True Story. Leanna's Pushcart Prize-nominated essay is described thus: 

"In Greek mythology, a sip from the River Lethe offers oblivion to newly-perished souls. Braiding together the story of her parents’ whirlwind romance and memories from her troubled childhood, Leanna James Blackwell considers the lure of denial and the costs of remembering."

MFA faculty member Shahnaz Habib has won the JCB Prize for Literature for her translation of the novel Jasmine Days. She discusses what translating Benyamin’s Jasmine Days involved and what it means after winning the prize. Read the full interview here.

BAY PATH UNIVERSITY has been RECOGNIZED BY onlineu.org AS being #5 of the TOP 15 most affordable ONLINE mfa PROGRAMS IN THE COUNTRY!