Philosophy of the Writing Seminars

Generating original work is the focus of the program. In the Writing Seminars, the conventional divide between reading and writing disappears. More than most writing programs, we place a special emphasis upon reading, as we see writing and reading, for the strong writer, to be part of the same process.

Our aim is to educate and provide a vortex for persons of letters—in the words of Ezra Pound, “a radiant node or cluster…from which, and through which, and into which, ideas are constantly flowing.” The residencies, and the program itself, draw to their center an assemblage of writers who vary strikingly in sensibility and style, but share an engagement with words and ideas that propels an energetic and ongoing conversation about literature. In this way, students discover the literary traditions and innovations that inspire, animate, inform, and propel original work. We examine contributions made as essayists, reviewers, commentators, editors, and other roles that together constitute a life in letters.

The Seminars offer an ongoing community of kindred spirits and constructive counsel, honoring the solitary nature of writing and reading and the collaborative voices of education. The student-faculty ratio of five to one assures close attention to each student’s work and progress. The residencies offer an utterly immersive retreat from the rest of the world, a retreat in which workshops and symposia are conducted, batteries are charged, and we then return to an essential solitude.

We have had frequent visitors discussing freedom of speech and freedom of expression, considering the basic freedoms to read and write to be part of the fundamental circulatory system of any livable situation.

However one chooses to use the MFA degree—teaching, further graduate work, or in the many ways a graduate degree concentrates and deepens a life—our emphasis is on the broader and more fundamental concerns of the merits of the work at hand, as well as a participation in the life of letters.