Creative Writing (MFACW)

Funding Opportunities

A number of research, special project, and teaching assistantships are available to full-residency students that help defray the cost of the tuition while also earning valuable, hands-on experience. These assistantships include a full tuition award, as well as fellowships working with Words Without Walls and The Fourth River literary magazine.

Summer Community of Writers

We have a vibrant, supportive community of students and faculty. A hallmark of Chatham's program is its Summer Community of Writers (SCW), a ten-day, six-credit course that brings together low- and full-residency MFA students, community members, and acclaimed national writers for an intense and exciting learning experience. SCW takes place on our beautiful Eden Hall Campus with daily workshops, dynamic craft lectures, faculty and student readings, and ample time to write that many mention as one of the highlights of their Chatham MFA degree. See you at The Summer Community of Writers 2022!

Words Without Walls

The Words Without Walls program, in which full-residency students have the opportunity to teach creative writing at the Allegheny County Jail and Sojourner House, is a social outreach program developed and run by Chatham MFACW students that offers transformative experiences for both students and  underserved populations.

Emerging Black Writers-in-Residence Program

The MFACW program hosts the Emerging Black Writers-in-Residence program, which aims to support and feature the art and teaching of young Black writers. MFACW alumni Caitlyn Hunter and Cedric Rudolph are the writers in residence for the 2020-2021 academic year. 

The Fourth River

The Fourth River is a journal of nature- and place-based writing published by the Chatham MFA program. The journal takes its name from a subterranean river beneath Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a city famously sited at the confluence of three rivers: Monongahela, Allegheny, and Ohio. The Fourth River literary journal grew up from the idea that between and beneath the visible framework of the human world and the built environment, there exist deeper currents of force and meaning supporting the very structure of that world.

Best Writing Conference in Pennsylvania

Recently named by The Writer magazine as the best conference in Pennsylvania, Conversations and Connections is a one-day writer's conference at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, PA that brings together writers, editors, and publishers in a friendly, supportive environment.

Travel Opportunities

As part of our innovative creative writing field seminars, MFA students travel with faculty abroad. Recent trips have included Indonesia, Ireland, Chile, and South Africa, as well as continental trips to New Orleans and Canada. Program tuition goes toward these trips, making them affordable for most students. More importantly, the trips are transformative for our students, whose writing becomes sharper and more nuanced when in an unfamiliar environment.

Travel Writing Certificate

Immerse yourself in a community of creative writers with Chatham’s new post-baccalaureate Certificate of Completion in Travel Writing. This certificate requires 12 credit hours and can be completed in two semesters plus one summer, in full- or low-residency format.

Nature and Environment

Rachel Carson ’29 is Chatham's most distinguished alumna, and in her honor we have built a concentration in Nature Writing. Students may choose from a variety of literature courses focusing on the natural world, including Ecofeminism, Wildness and Literature, Nature and Culture, and Writing about Food, as well as a course in Environmental Imagination. The Fourth River, our national literary journal, focuses on nature and place-based writing.

Publishing

Students interested in a concentration in publishing can take The Fourth River practicum, where they have the opportunity to work as an assistant editor for our national literary journal, or our Independent Literary Publishing course, where students create and run their own literary press. There are also many opportunities for publishing internships in the Pittsburgh area, with a number of our students earning internships for Autumn House Press, Creative Nonfiction, and Pittsburgh Quarterly.

Low-residency option

Our low-residency students work closely during their distance terms with faculty mentors who are seasoned educators and award-winning writers from all over the country. Chatham low-residency mentors have included Dilruba Ahmed, Derek Green, Paul Hertneky, Kathy Ayres, Karen Bender, Rachel Mennies, Abby Mendelsohn, Robert Yune, Melanie Fox, Sherrie Flick, Katherine Miles, and BK Loren.

Annual Reading Series

Our MFA program offers the opportunity to meet and learn from established authors of all genres. The Melanie Brown Lecturer Series is presented each year through the generosity of The Melanie and Fred R. Brown Endowed Fund, and the selection of each year's Lecturer is guided by the desire to highlight fiction writers with a strong sense of place in her or his writing. Similarly, our annual Dialogues Reading Series invites authors of international renown to visit our campus and host readings and lectures on craft.

• Past lecturers have included: Cristina Garcia, Shaka Senghor, Renée Watson, Kaveh Akbar, Jaquira Diaz, Martha Southgate, Safia Elhillo, M. Evelina Galang, Margot Livesey, Amy Bloom, Karen Bender, Sam Chang, Stewart O’Nan, Alix Ohlin, Wiley Cash, Brad Kessler, Ann Pancake, Michael Byers, and Debra Marquart.

Stuart H. Hunt Memorial Award & Into the Light Writing Contest

Judged by members of The Fourth River editorial team, the Chatham University MFA in Creative Writing is pleased to announce the winners of the Into the Light Writing Contest/Stuart H. Hunt Memorial Award. You can read their work by downloading the PDF below.

• 1st Place: Janette Schafer, for "Bubblegum Ice Cream"
• 2nd Place: Dmitra Gideon, for "Murder/Suicide"
• 3rd Place: Lake Angela, for "Ghetto"

Contact Us

For basic inquiries, please email Joseph Bisciotti, Humanities Program Assistant.