MFA in Writing: Related Content

Author Eula Biss delivered the 50th Bennington Writing Seminars Commencement address at the program's first-ever virtual residency.

Faculty member J Blackwell ’95, Bennington Writing Seminars faculty member Jenny Boully, past BWS commencement speaker Garth Greenwell, and Helen Mirra '91 are recipients of the prestigious 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship.

The Bennington Writing Seminars is pleased to announce that Jessica R. Fischoff is the recipient of the Donald Hall Scholarship for Poets. She will begin her studies in June 2020. 

In 2019, undergraduate and Bennington Writing Seminars alumni and faculty published over 65 books.

Poet Jericho Brown delivered the 49th Bennington Writing Seminars Commencement address.

Jericho Brown, finalist for the 2019 National Book Award in Poetry, will be the Commencement speaker for the Bennington Writing Seminars in January 2020.

Puloma Ghosh, a rising fourth-term MFA candidate in fiction, has been selected as the fourth Residential Teaching Fellow at the Bennington Writing Seminars, working in the classroom for a full term beginning in Spring 2020

Bennington Writing Seminars faculty member Carmen Giménez Smith is a finalist for the 2019 National Book Awards in Poetry.

PEN America interviewed Davin Malasarn MFA '20 and Monica Carter MFA '20, both past recipients of the Bennington/PEN America Emerging Voices Fellowship, for The PEN Ten weekly interview series.

Jeanie Riess, a rising second-term MFA student in fiction, has been selected to be the third Residential Teaching Fellow at the Bennington Writing Seminars. The fellowship is the first of its kind in the country to offer full-time undergraduate teaching experience in a low-residency MFA format. Benefits include full tuition remission for one term, housing and board, and enrollment in an on-campus class.

Sarai Walker MFA '03, author of the bestselling novel and critically-acclaimed AMC series Dietland, will be the Commencement speaker for the Bennington Writing Seminars in June 2019. Walker is a graduate of the fiction program and will deliver the Commencement address on Saturday, June 22 at 7:30 pm in Bennington’s Usdan Gallery.

The Bennington Writing Seminars, in partnership with PEN America, has announced that Natalie Mislang Mann is the recipient of the $10,000 Bennington/PEN America Emerging Voices scholarship. She’ll begin her studies in June 2019, on the 25th Anniversary of the Bennington Writing Seminars' founding.

Novelist, poet, and literary critic Garth Greenwell delivered the Bennington Writing Seminars 47th Commencement address.

A dystopian metropolis plagued by dragons. A disillusioned detective back on the beat. An exploration of what it means to be black, feminist, and female in America. A deep dive into the new science of psychedelics. Across millions of words and myriad perspectives, one constant is clear: 2018 was a big year for Bennington writers.

Matthew Groner, a rising third-term MFA candidate in fiction, has been selected as the second Residential Teaching Fellow at the Bennington Writing Seminars, working in the classroom for a full term beginning in Spring 2019.

We All Love the Beautiful Girls, the second novel by Joanne Proulx MFA ’14, garnered praise from Harper’s Bazaar, New York Post, and Good Morning America.

"Bees," a poem by Maya Ribault MFA '18, is featured in the September 3, 2018 issue of The New Yorker.

Lisa Brennan-Jobs MFA '09 writes about her childhood navigating between her struggling single mom and her famous father.

Bennington Writing Seminars alum Katy Simpson Smith MFA '13 has been appointed Eudora Welty Chair for Southern Literature at Millsaps College.

The Bennington Writing Seminars, in partnership with PEN Center USA, has announced that during the September 2018 admissions period, it will once again be offering a scholarship of $10,000 to an alumni of PEN's Emerging Voices Fellowship program.

Lisa Ann Cockrel, a third-term MFA candidate in nonfiction, has been selected as the first Residential Teaching Fellow at the Bennington Writing Seminars.

Thanks to a generous and sustaining gift from an anonymous donor, the Bennington Writing Seminars is pleased to announce it will begin offering the Donald Hall Scholarship for Poets.

Dietland, a novel by Sarai Walker MFA '03, premiered in June as a TV series on AMC.

When asked why they love to write, the high school students at the Governor’s Institutes of Vermont (GIV) Young Writers Institute are quick to reply.

Donald Hall, former United States poet laureate, longtime Bennington Writing Seminars writer-in-residence, and dear friend of the College, has died at age 89.

Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid's Tale) and Michael Stuhlbarg (Call Me By Your Name) have been cast in the feature film Shirley, adapted from the novel by Susan Scarf Merrell MFA '09.

When Morgan Jerkins MFA ’16 graduated from Princeton, she expected to get a job as an editorial assistant in New York City, be serendipitously discovered, and be launched into literary stardom.

Amber Wheeler Bacon MFA '18 is an honoree of Epiphany Lit Mag's inaugural Breakout 8 award for emerging writers. 

Poet and Bennington Writing Seminars alum Amy Gerstler MFA '00 has been awarded a prestigious 2018 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship.

How do we move forward when the past looms unreasonably large?