USF's Master of Fine Arts in Writing Program offers graduate students an intimate personalized learning experience, while taking advantage of San Francisco's position as a vital center of literary expression. The program offers workshops and courses that combine theory with practice, and writing with reading literature. MFA students work in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, or a combination of these genres. The program emphasizes issues in craft not only in its workshops, where the student's work is the focus, but also in the courses in literature and style, where the question is not so much how to judge works of literature, but essentially how to learn from them about the art of writing. The tone is intimate throughout.
Students work in community with one another, but they also work independently with mentors.
Creativity is fostered by small classes, and so is the detail to craft needed to bring projects to fruition. A weekly newsletter alerts students to ongoing literary events, readings, colloquia, publishing opportunities, and awards and prizes. Special alumni courses are offered to writers who have graduated from the program. Readings at Lone Mountain, the Program's series of readings and talks, brings internationally acclaimed writers to campus to share their work with students and discuss contemporary issues in writing. Students may, but need not, focus on a single genre.