An online home for the American University Creative Writing MFA community
Café MFA is thrilled to welcome first-year MFA candidate Nick Chhoeun to our editorial staff. Nick is a first-year MFA candidate. His focus is fiction but he is also fascinated by poetry. He primarily writes short stories and wants to begin working on a novel. His other…
By Nick Chhoeun The annual Art of Losing event took place on April 24, 2019. For those unfamiliar with this event, its mission was celebration. Every year, we lose writers and artists that impacted in our lives for the better. This event gave people the…
By Nick Chhoeun Although my posts about music on Café MFA have focused on rap, my favorite genre has always been pop punk. Bands like Blink-182, Paramore, and Green Day stick out as some of the most well known of the genre. The songs are…
By Nick Chhoeun Earlier this month, Allison Wright of VQR hosted the spring boot camp. She had much to say about the literary journal including useful tips for submissions. Here’s a brief recap of the event. About VQR: VQR receives 11,000-12,000 submissions a year, the…
By Nick Chhoeun Dungeons and Dragons was created in the 1970s and I’ve always been familiar with the name but I have never given much thought to playing it. It sounded tedious and boring. I thought it was an outdated dice rolling game. However, in…
Nick Chhoeun A few weeks ago, DC Scores had their annual poetry performance night. The “Our Words Our City” event began with a reception of parents, teachers, coaches, friends, and students. The mission statement of DC Scores is that it “creates neighborhood teams that give kids…
By Nick Chhoeun There is one thing people can talk about across generations: superheroes. From Spiderman to—my favorite—Wolverine these superheroes inspire and amuse the minds of the young and old alike. Stan Lee, the creative leader/writer of Marvel comics, is the man behind these superheroes.…
By Nick Chhoeun In the life of a commuter, the many hours of idle time require something to keep one’s mind entertained. It takes me about a half hour to get to work every day, and another forty minutes to drive to AU (unless I…
By Nick Chhoeun This past summer I had the opportunity to teach Creative Writing for two months to students from fifth grade to freshmen in high school. As a whole, the experience was a mixture of “why am I doing this” and “I’m doing this…
By Nick Chhoeun Teju Cole was our second Visiting Writer this year, for two sold-out events on October 3rd and October 4th. His extensive and groundbreaking work as an author and as a photographer for the New York Times make the large crowds unsurprising. I recently read parts of his…