An online home for the American University Creative Writing MFA community
By: Jessica Sullivan There are times when a book reminds you of another book. Maybe it’s the plot, or the characters, or some déjà vu moment that leaves you questioning if you’ve already read it. Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir, In the Dreamhouse, is not one …
By: Zoe Aslop As a graduate student in New York, Rachel Coonce was reading from her memoir in front of a crowd for the first time when she heard a sound coming from the audience that surprised her. “I was speaking from my heart and …
From Left to Right: Emily Holland, Cassie Osvatics, Emily Smith, Bailey Blumenstock, Dara Feldman, Ben Truax, Tim Englehart By: Emily Smith In December, the Literature Department held one of its most beloved traditions – the Literary Desserts Party. The MA and MFA faculty and graduate …
By: Zoe Aslop One afternoon this fall, Café MFA caught up with Christa Parravani to talk about moving on from photography and poetry, writing her first memoir in fiction workshops, and the challenges of an ambitious second memoir on abortion in West Virginia, to be …
By Yohanca Delgado In September, AU’s Center for Israel Studies brought Etgar Keret to campus for a reading and conversation. Before the event, I was delighted to sit in on a casual, roundtable conversation with Melissa Scholes Young and her students in the MFA lit …
By: Emily Smith Emily Smith: Hi Will, thanks for doing this! Let’s start off with an easy one. You entered the MFA with a fiction concentration. Is that still the genre you find yourself most drawn to? Will Schick: The short answer is no. I’m …
By: Zoe Aslop Christa Parravani, a memoirist who gets to the messy heart of being a woman under duress, will speak at AU on Wednesday, October 23rd, as part of the Visiting Writers Series. As an accomplished photographer and an acclaimed writer, Parravani makes art …
By Brahidaliz Martinez As the semester rolls over to the halfway mark, it’s a good time to make sure that you’re on top of your assignments and workshops. Besides attending office hours, critiquing your peers’ work, and revising your stories, it might be helpful to …
By: Bailey Blumenstock For the past year, in addition to the various hats I wear at AU, I’ve also had the pleasure of working in the Box Office at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre. While best known for its theatre productions, the Folger hosts a number …
by: Lingyue Zheng When a book pierces through a benign aura of an unfamiliar continent and storms in political thunders, rains of questionings and lightning of acute observations, it yearns to speak to readers about the fear and love for a country that runs so …