The highly ranked Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program, directed by noted author Jayne Anne Phillips, continues to bring honor to Rutgers University, Newark. The program has hosted a long list of prize-winning authors and poets through its Writers at Newark Reading Series, including Toni Morrison and Joyce Carol Oates, since its inception in 2007.  In addition, the program’s MFA students regularly receive major literary accolades; here are the most recent.

FULBRIGHT SCHOLARS: The Rutgers-Newark MFA Program has graduated three Fulbright Scholars in the past two years (Fulbright awards enable students to teach or do research abroad): 

Ephen Glenn, MFA fiction student, a 2011 Fulbright Fellowship in Creative Writing (Brazil).

Mariann VanDevere, MFA fiction student, a 2011 Fulbright Teaching Fellowship (South Africa).

Rimas Uzgiris, MFA poetry student, a 2012 Fulbright Fellowship in Translation (Lithuania).

 

BOOKS AND HONORS: Several MFA graduates are publishing their first books or have won prestigious fellowships or awards:

Vincent Toro, MFA poetry student, won the 2011 Metlife Nuestras Voces Playwriting Award, which includes a prize of $3,000 and a full production of his play at Repertorio Espanol.

Christa Parravani, MFA fiction alumna, will publish her memoir, Her, with Henry Holt (February 2013). She is also an internationally exhibited photographer and two-time MacDowell Fellow who has taught at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Dartmouth College and the State University of New York’s Purchase College. She is represented by Foley Gallery in NYC. 

Ryan McIlvain, MFA fiction alumnus, is publishing his first novel, Elders (Hogarth Press, Random House).  He also received a Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University in 2009.  McIlvain’s work has appeared in the Paris Review, the Chattahoochee Review and the Potomac Review, and he has received honorable mentions in the Best American Short Stories and the Best American Non-required Reading.  

Kevin Catalano, MFA fiction alumnus, is publishing his first story collection, The Word Made Flesh, with firthFORTH Books (August 2012).  His stories have appeared most recently in PANK, Pear Noir!, Emprise Review, and Atticus Review.

Saeed Jones, MFA poetry alumnus, published his first book, When the Only Light Is Fire, with Sibling Rivalry Press (October 2011).

Jaime Karnes, MFA fiction alumna, is the recipient of residency fellowships from The Corporation of Yaddo, The MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for the Arts, and the Millay Colony; she is completing her first novel.

Nancy Mendez Booth, MFA fiction alumna, is the recipient of a 2012 Charles E. & Edna T. Brundage Foundation Fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center.

Bryanna Tidmarsh and Michael VanCalbergh, MFA poets, will be participating in the West Chester University Poetry Conference in June in Pennsylvania.

 

For more information about the MFA program, please go to http://www.ncas.rutgers.edu/mfa or contact rnmfa@andromeda.rutgers.edu