Overview
The Sewanee School of Letters Offers Summer Courses for Various Fine Arts Graduate Degrees
The Sewanee School of Letters is a residential master's degree program in English and creative writing. It operates for six weeks each summer on the mountaintop campus of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, also home of the Sewanee Review and the Sewanee Writers' Conference. Candidates for both the MFA in Creative Writing and the MA in English attend for at least four summer terms, taking two classes per summer. For their final two credits, MFA students write an original thesis, either in Sewanee or elsewhere. MA students may write a thesis as well, or may return for a fifth summer of coursework.
Both Sewanee professors and visitors from such institutions as Northwestern, Syracuse, Ohio State, and CUNY are part of the faculty in the program. The students come from many professional backgrounds and nearly all sections of the country; they range in age from their twenties to their eighties. Total enrollment in the program is less than 100, and classes are rarely larger than ten, ensuring plenty of personal attention and a relaxed, friendly atmosphere.
The town of Sewanee is a village of about 2,000 residents located in southeastern Tennessee. The atmosphere is rural and secluded, although Chattanooga, Nashville, and even Atlanta are easy drives. The university's 13,000-acre domain, dotted with caves, streams, scenic overlooks, and miles of hiking trails, offers recreation for students, faculty, and their families.
The Sewanee School of Letters Boasts Distinguished Authors among its Faculty and Guests
The master of fine arts program in creative writing offers workshops in fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Students in this program enroll in four writing workshops and four classes in British and American literature, typically one of each for four summers. They complete the degree by writing an original creative thesis under the supervision of a faculty member.
The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing can be completed in five years. The creative writing faculty in the master of fine arts program has included poets Andrew Hudgins and Charles Martin, fiction writers Erin McGraw, Michael Griffith, and Ellen Slezak, and nonfiction writer John Jeremiah Sullivan.
Their efforts have been supplemented by visits from such writers as A. Manette Ansay, Franklin Burroughs, Christopher Camuto, John Hollander, John Irwin, Claire Messud, Stewart O'Nan, Sam Pickering, Wyatt Prunty, Jason Sommer, and Patricia Smith.
The Pursuit of a Graduate Degree in Literature from Sewanee School is an Enriching Life Experience
The master of arts program in literature offers courses in British and American literature as well as non-English literatures taught in translation. Courses such as The Bible as Literature, Dante, Shakespeare, Romantic Poetry, American Poetry and the Environment, Faulkner, African American Literature, and Literature of the American South, have been offered by a faculty that included Ann Jennalie Cook, John Ernest, Angus Fletcher, John Gatta, Anne Goodwyn Jones, and Lawrence Lipking. They have been joined by such visitors as William L. Andrews, Marjorie Garber, Eric Sundquist, and James Wood.
With such a robust and rich history in literature, the Sewanee School of Letters brings its students the opportunity to truly immerse themselves in the written word and explore the depths of their literary creativity. The master of arts program in literature is certain to enrich the knowledge and literary appreciation that students will carry with them throughout their personal and professional lives. Regardless of career or creative aspirations, the Sewanee experience is one that will touch students forever.
