Who Wrote Me About the MFA Program, First of all, please forgive this form letter, but I'm sure you understand that there are a great many enquiries and this is the quickest and most efficient way of getting back to everyone who writes. So let me tell you a bit about the Writing Program, McNeese, and Lake Charles. The MFA here is a sixty hour studio-academic degree. We do not believe that workshops and writing courses alone train or prepare a person to write unless coupled with extensive reading in the history of literature and a sound knowledge of the tradition. This is a good place to come and write.
Workshops here are small, and the student-teacher relationship is close.
And, of course, there are always parties and other opportunities for visiting with the writers. In Fiction Workshop two of the guests will usually be major editors or agents. Among writers visiting here in the last few years have been Richard Wilbur, W. D. Snodgrass, Ann Beattie, X. J. Kennedy, William Trowbridge, Dana Gioia, Scott Ely, Dave Smith, Paul Zimmer, Oscar Hijuelos, Susan Ludvigson, Frederick Turner, James Dickey, David Baker, Andrei Codrescu, and many others. You will get an excellent graduate education here. The success of our past students proves that.