Tracks and Concentrations

Genre

The MFA program offers tracks in:

• Fiction
• Creative Nonfiction
• Poetry
• Screenwriting.
• Playwriting begins in 2014.

Concentrations

Beginning in 2014, students may enroll in concentrations concurrently with the two-year MFA or may extend the MFA to complete the concentration. Descriptions of the concentrations are not yet final.

Translation and Issues of Global Writing

The Concentration in Translation and Issues of a Global Writing Community is a one-semester experience in reading, translating, adapting, and creating work in the environment of a global community of writers. Working with a published literary translator, students focus on topics such as methods of reading literatures; methods of translation; textual, visual, genre-and-gender-specific approaches to translation and adaptation; impact of place on writers and their work; art and activism; narrative voice and culture; indigenous storytelling; marginality, canonical power and the 21st century writer; spoken and written words; and folklore and oral traditions. Prerequisite seminars in translation and adaptation topics must be completed during summer residencies.

Teaching Practice and Theory

The Concentration in Teaching is a one-semester program combining practical and theoretical models of pedagogy to better prepare students who intend to teach. Students will work with accomplished writing faculty as they consider curriculum and syllabi development, the generation of student writing, the revision process, workshop techniques, questions of evaluation, and the use of new media technologies in the classroom. During the term, they will also gain teaching experience by completing an internship in the teaching of writing. Prerequisite seminars in teaching practice and theory must be completed during summer residencies.

Publishing with College Press

The Concentration in Publishing is a 2- semester experience in book publishing. Students enrolled in the publishing terms will work with faculty experienced in book publishing, serving as the editorial staff of a small press engaged in the annual publication of a work selected as the winner of the Augsburg MFA Book Prize, a competition that awards publication, in alternating years, to one book of prose or poetry. The Augsburg Book Prize is open to national submission and the cadre of MFA publishing students will practice book publishing from acquisition through editing, design, printing and distribution.