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Whidbey Writers Workshop
Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing
A program of the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 639
Physical Address: 5577 Vanbarr Place
Freeland, WA 98249
Hours of Operation: 9-12 am M-T-Th-F Pacific Time
The Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA Program is the first in the country - and perhaps in the world - to be offered not by a college or university but by an organization of writers. In this, it resembles many free-standing arts institutions offering degrees in music, art, dance and theater. Authorized by the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board, WWW MFA classes began in August of 2005. In August of 2007 the Workshop celebrated its first graduation. It is nationally accredited by the Distance Education and Training Council.
The Whidbey Writers Workshop Master of Fine Arts program has three major objectives:
- To produce productive, publishing writers who are prepared for a life of writing;
- To prepare graduates to articulate their understanding of the process of writing, whether in essays, informal or formal teaching or otherwise;
- To prepare graduates to participate in the local, regional and national community of writers.
The Workshop recognizes that all students who enroll in a Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing seek to become published writers. We expect our students to also become members of the community of writers and to be able to articulate their understanding of the writing process.
Those last two expectations are not universal among creative writing degree programs. Nor are they goals shared by every writer. Some are not interested in participating in the larger community of writers. Others believe it is neither desirable nor even possible to articulate clearly their understanding of the writing process; rather, they believe the process is and should remain largely unexplored. Those are legitimate perspectives, but they aren't the perspectives of this program.
Students who find our objectives compatible with their own may focus on any of four areas: fiction, poetry, nonfiction or writing for children/young adults. The program requires three workshops, one of which may be in a second genre. Students also take at least two craft courses, one of which must be in a second (or third) genre. Two directed reading courses in the core genre are required. A third directed reading or a third craft course may be taken in another genre. The program is capped by a book-length creative work of publishable quality. For details, use the Program Catalog link at the top of this page.
As a low-residency (also known as brief residency) program, the WWW MFA requires students to attend intensive ten-day residencies on Whidbey Island each August and January. Residencies are followed by sixteen-week online semesters. For current and recent residency schedules, use the Residency link at the top of this page. Residencies are available on a continuing education basis to those who don't wish to study for an MFA. See the Residency-only link on the Residency page.
The Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA Program is one of the most flexible low-residency MFAs around. Many other brief residency programs require fifteen-credit blocks each term and must be completed in two years. Ours will offer five-credit individual courses so that students may work at their own pace, taking from two to six years to complete the program.
The WWW MFA has a limited number of scholarships available. For application forms including scholarship application forms use the Admission and Registration Forms link at the top of this page.
Recent Student and Alumni Publications and Acceptances
We're proud of the publications by our students and alumni. Take a look at recent student and alumni publications on our student website, whidbeystudents.com!
Achievements in Periodicals by Alumni and Students
Society of Professional Journalists Award
Frances Wood was honored recently by the Society of Professional Journalism in their 2009 NW Excellence in Journalism Contest. Wood was awarded first place for her column "Whidbey Birding" which appears monthly in the South Whidbey Record. In her columns featuring local wild birds, Wood strives to help readers connect more closely to nature through the joys of bird watching. Wood has been writing for the South Whidbey Record for over a decade. This August, she'll receive a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Whidbey Island's Northwest Institute of Literary Arts.
According to the Society of Professional Journalists web site: "This year the 2009 NW Excellence in Journalism Contest brought in 2,500 entries from Region 10, including entries from Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana. "
Washington State Historical Society's COLUMBIAKids Wins 2010 MUSE Award
The Media and Technology Committee of the American Association of Museums recently honored COLUMBIAKids with a SILVER award in the category of Community. This category recognizes "Web sites, moderated and hosted by a museum, that offer a virtual space for people to gather around a common experience, exhibit or interest, the way a bricks and mortar museum does." Second only to the National Museum of American History's "O Say Can You Sing? National Anthem Singing Contest" site and leading the National Constitution Center's "Address America: Six Words to Inspire a Nation," COLUMBIAKids, now in its second year, is in truly esteemed company.
The MUSE judges had this to say about COLUMBIAKids: It is a very attractive website which functions like an on-line magazine. The site should be commended for involving children's authors and illustrators to work on the content which makes the site more appealing to young readers. It is a useful resource for teachers. The site has many interesting sections to engage the readers - the jurors especially liked the "CollectionConundrum," which teaches children how to look at objects, and the "podPuzzle," which presents real mysteries from the past in listener's theater style. Managing Editor Stephanie Lile, who graduates this August from Whidbey Island's Northwest Institute of Litearry Arts with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, explains that, "COLUMBIAKids is a free online magazine. It features exciting, interesting, and informative articles and stories based in Pacific Northwest history. Our target readers are children up to age 14 who live in the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska, but we are also happy to find that our readers come to us from all over the world."
The MUSE Award competition, now in its 21st year, recognizes excellence in media produced by or for museums. Categories of media include audio and video tours, games, interactive kiosks, interpretive interactive installations, multimedia installations, podcasts, web sites, and video with a new category added just for students. This year MUSE recruited Jury Chairs, who coordinate panels of museum media professionals to judge the entries, from around the world, giving the Media and Technology Standing Professional Committee a truly international reach. The Community category's Jury Chair was Ms. Tan Huism, Deputy Director (Curation and Collections) Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore.
The 2010 MUSE Awards competition received over 200 applications from museums world-wide. Forty-two winners were named. Seventy-three judges - museum and media professionals from across the world - selected the winners.
A (little) sister publication to the Washington State Historical Society's print journal COLUMBIA: the Magazine of Northwest History, COLUMBIAKids is entirely sponsor-supported. It does not have any advertising and funds are spent on top-notch writers and illustrators instead of printing and postage. Here at COLUMBIAKids, we think "outside of the book."
Student Website
Want to see what our students are up to? Visit our student site at http://www.whidbeystudents.com - student publications, student blogs, interviews with writers, agents and editors, and lots more besides.
Faculty Honors
As working writers, our faculty continue to publish and to earn honors. Recent faculty books and honors.
MFA Program Graduate Stefanie Freele's Feeding Strays
A woman hides from her husband in a fish tank and another absently
bakes sponges inside her tarts. Appliances drop from the sky, men grapple
with chainsaws, women struggle with hormonal violence, and abandoned
boys beg on doorsteps. Enter into the territory of broken people and the
folks that love them. Sensitive and unruly, sincere and absurd, Stefanie
Freele's Feeding Strays is a collection of fifty short stories, both slipstream
and modern, about children, family, relationships, and oysters.
Stefanie Freele was born and raised in Wisconsin and currently lives in the Northwest. Recent and forthcoming work can be found in Glimmer Train, American Literary Review, Night Train, Literary Mama, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Pedestal Magazine, Dogplotz, and Hobart. Stefanie has an MFA from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts: Whidbey Writers Workshop. After serving as the 2008 Writer In Residence for SmokeLong Quarterly, she joined their editorial staff. Stefanie is also the Fiction Editor for the Los Angeles Review.
Stefanie Freele Named Healdsburg's Next Literary Laureate
At a specially-staged and programmed Third Sunday Salon event on October 18, Stefanie Freele of Healdsburg was selected to be Healdsburg's next, and sixth, Literary Laureate. After a short traditional induction ceremony to be held at City Hall in December, her two-year term will begin on January 1st. It is expected that there will be a public reception to celebrate the honor with her; look for announcement of this special event to be held probably in January.
The laureatship has no official job description, but is an honor that has been bestowed upon an outstanding writer every two years by the Healdsburg Literary Guild. Honorees have always, however, been writers who have not only been well-thought of by their literary colleagues, but have been visible to the greater community in various ways that have encouraged participation in, and appreciation for, the literary arts.
Whidbey Writers Workshop Graduate's Novel Launched on Teen Literature Day
Seattle resident Ann Gonzalez, 2007 graduate of the Whidbey Writers Workshop Master of Fine Arts program, celebrated Teen Literature Day, April 16, with the launch of her first book, Running for My Life.
Gonzalez's young adult novel was sold to WestSide Books before her graduation from the Workshop's unique graduate degree program and she has been anxiously awaiting this day.
Although all the hard work of writing the novel was Gonzalez's, she gives credit to the program for her success.
"My book would not have been written well enough to secure an agent, and most definitely would not have been revised well enough to land a book contract, were it not for the willingness of the innovators in the Whidbey Island Writers Association to create the best writers' workshop in the west," says Gonzalez.
"The other day, I was filling out a form, and in the Occupation field, I entered 'Writer.' The Whidbey Writers Workshop has shown me that it is possible to be a writer first, and an employee second."
Whidbey Writers Workshop a distinctive program says Poets & Writers magazine
Whidbey Writers Workshop has been named by the respected magazinePoets & Writers as one of nine distinctive Master of Fine Arts programs in the nation.
The magazine's annual MFA issue (November/December) publishes articles on master's programs and lists noteworthy schools. This year the Whidbey Writers Workshop is the only low-residency MFA program included and one of the youngest in the group.
A program of the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, the WWW masters in creative writing is the first in the United States to be offered by a nonprofit organization rather than through a university. The Whidbey Writers Association is the nonprofit that founded the program in the fall of 2004 and continues to manage it through the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts.
"To be included in this list with well-established university departments is a genuine milestone for our young program," said MFA Program Director Wayne Ude. "This distinction reflects well on our independent status operating outside the university system. Ude said that courses addressing the profession of writing, which bring editors, agents and successful writers to discuss the business as well as the creative side of the writing life, are part of what set WWW apart from purely academic programs.
"In a country with 300 graduate writing programs and only 100 teaching positions opening each year, we feel it's essential to prepare writers to make a life outside the university," said Ude. "In fact, our entire program has its life outside the university and rooted in the craft and practice of writing."
In addition to core writing, literature and workshop classes taught by instructors who are all professional writers, twice yearly intensive residencies include varied workshops by noted authors and publishing professionals.
Whidbey Writers Workshop is a low-residency Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing that meets twice yearly on Whidbey Island in Washington state. The semester continues in an online classroom, allowing students to work together regardless of geographic location. For more information about WWW, see www.writeonwhidbey.com or contact mfa@writeonwhidbey.com.
CLOCK HOURS
Teachers: Intensive residency Clock Hours are now available in cooperation with Heritage Institute of Clinton, Washington. Details and application procedures
FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE NOW AVAILABLE
Try Us Out at a Residency
Interested in our MFA program but would like to give it a trial run? Why not experience one of our residencies as a residency-only, non-credit participant and see for yourself what we're really like? See the Residency-Only Page for further information.