“I was in the MFA program at Bama from 2003-2007. I entered as a fiction writer but my first writing love had always been poetry and I wanted to do both. At Alabama, I didn’t have to choose. I took workshops in both genres, literature classes in both genres, wrote two thesis and defended them both. Along the way, I learned how to break down the barriers I had put in place between the two and write a kind of fiction that […]
Category: Alumni
Jessica Lee Richardson
“I attended UA from 2009-2013. My time there was marked by extreme events, both personal and local, including the tornado on April 27th 2011. I’m only leading with disaster because I think it tightened the bond between students and faculty and community beyond what may be normal for an MFA program. Our ego boundaries kind of dropped and we became almost a larger body for a while. Our egos snapped back into place eventually, but the love (and dance parties) […]
Luke Percy
Why did you choose Alabama for your MFA? What were you doing before you came here? I think the most honest answer here would be: Alabama chose me. As an international student who decided very late in the application season to pursue an MFA, I scattered my applications all over the board. Not only was UA the first school to get back to me (with an incredibly personal, welcoming email I might add), they offered the best deal. The funding […]
Shelley Feller
Why did you choose Alabama for your MFA? What were you doing before you came here? To be perfectly honest, I didn’t know much about Alabama when I decided to apply. Five years ago, one of my favorite poets told me that all you really need from an MFA is money and time. In this regard, she added, “Alabama is the hidden gem of the MFA world.” Remembering her words three years later, I applied to The University of Alabama […]
Shaelyn Smith
Why did you choose Alabama for your MFA? What were you doing before you came here? I chose to apply to Alabama because at the time I was beginning to consider applying for MFA programs, I was in fairly regular contact with XFA Ander Monson (I had interviewed him for the lit mag I was editing in undergrad and I had taken a summer creative writing class with him years before in between my 8th grade year and freshman year […]
Diamond Forde
Why did you choose Alabama for your MFA? What were you doing before you came here? Let’s be honest—there was some degree of hesitation. Here I am, heavy-set black girl smack dab in the heart of the South, surrounded by a sea of very similar, very unfamiliar faces. Community was a key factor in my MFA decision, and I wasn’t sure I was going to find that at UA (and I was pretty upfront about that hesitation). But I think […]