InPrint

Traditional or Low-Res MFA Programs: What’s Right for You?

Wednesday, January 27, 7 p.m. at Richard Hugo House

Traditional MFA programs immerse students in a campus-based learning experience for several years, often offering teaching assistantships, fellowships and internships. Low-residency programs combine distance learning and limited on-campus meetings with colleagues and professors, so that students can honor their obligations to work, family and other commitments. Beyond the basic model, how do the programs differ? Ryan Boudinot, Rebecca Hoogs, Laura Hirschfield and Peter Mountford will discuss their experiences with traditional and low-residency programs. Moderated by Angela Jane Fountas.

Admission to the panel is $5.

About the panelists

Ryan Boudinot is the author of “Misconception” (Grove Atlantic/Black Cat, 2009) and “The Littlest Hitler” (Counterpoint, 2006). His work has appeared in McSweeney's, Monkeybicycle, BlackBook, “The Best American Nonrequired Reading,” and other journals and anthologies. He teaches at Goddard College's MFA program in Port Townsend and Plainfield, Vermont.

Angela Jane Fountas was a 2008-2009 writer-in-residence at Richard Hugo House and a 2006 Jack Straw Writer. Her work has appeared in Fairy Tale Review, Quick Fiction, Diagram, Sentence, and elsewhere. She was awarded a 2009 Artist Trust Fellowship and her work has been supported by grants from the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs and 4Culture. She earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of Alabama, and she runs two websites in support of writers, WriteHabit.org and Quoterly.net.

Laura Hirschfield is a student in the low-residency MFA program at Pacific University in Oregon. A 2009 Jack Straw writer, she has worked as a freelance writer and editor, and at Parenting magazine, Microsoft, Elliott Bay Book Company, Hugo House, and The Wright Group/McGraw-Hill.

Rebecca Hoogs is the author of a chapbook, "Grenade" (2005) and her poems have appeared in journals such as Poetry, AGNI, Crazyhorse, Zyzzyva, The Journal, Poetry Northwest, The Florida Review, Cincinnati Review, and others. She is the recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony (2004) and Artist Trust of Washington State (2005). She is the Director of Education Programs and the curator and host for the Poetry Series for Seattle Arts & Lectures. In 2009, she was the co-director of the summer Creative Writing in Rome program for the University of Washington.

In 2006, Peter Mountford earned an MFA from the University of Washington, where he won the David Guterson Prize for a creative thesis. Since then, his short fiction has appeared in "Best New American Voices 2008," Conjunctions, Boston Review, and Michigan Quarterly Review, among other places. A two-time fellow of Yaddo, Peter is the winner of the 2010 Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, and a 2010 Seattle CityArtist Grant. In 2009, he was a fellow of the Film Independent Screenwriters' Lab, and he won a scholarship to Bread Loaf. His first novel, "A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism," is forthcoming from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

InPrint is a quarterly forum on the business of writing. Presentations are open to the public and cover publication, education and other topics pertaining to the writing life.