Institutional News

Writing Seminars Ranked Among Best Low-Residency MFA Programs in the World

Bennington's low-residency MFA in writing program is among the top three in the world, according to Poets & Writers Magazine.

The Bennington Writing Seminars

In its current issue, the magazine published its annual guide to MFA programs, ranking the Bennington Writing Seminars third overall out of 46 low-residency programs in the world.

The Writing Seminars, which began more than a decade ago, has attracted some of America's most prolific writers, including Amy HempelJill McCorkleSven Birkerts, and longtime writer-in-residence, US Poet Laureate, Donald Hall, among others.

The program continues Bennington's long literary history that has included such faculty as Mary Oliver, W.H. Auden, Bernard Malamud, Stanley Kunitz, and Howard Nemerov, as well as alumni writers like Kiran Desai '93, Jonathan Lethem '86, Bret Easton Ellis '86, Donna Tart '86, and Michael Pollan '76.

In 2007, The Atlantic named the Writing Seminars one of the top five low-residency MFA programs in the nation.

For more on the Writing Seminars, click here