Faculty Mentorship
We have over 65 veteran faculty members who actively teach with us, and we continue to add new faculty to the mix. Usually, about half the teaching staff for any given semester are writers with long experience in the Program—a “core” faculty group familiar with the Program format and standards, as well as the evolving work and development of current students. Another third of the staff may be writers who teach with us less regularly, and the remainder are new faculty. All of our faculty are considered “part-time” employees with us, who supervise no more than 5 and no fewer than 1 student project (the average is 3) and are hired a semester at a time. Each semester’s roster is usually announced on our website about three months prior to the residency. While we guarantee no greater than a 5-1 student-faculty ratio, the usual number is 3-1; that figure is not diluted by “guest” writers.
Planning the Semester Ahead
During the residency, students meet at least twice in individual conferences with their faculty supervisors, preparing the Semester Project Study Plan; during these conferences, each student-and-faculty pair set goals and deadlines, determine a preliminary bibliography, and begin to establish their working relationship. Faculty familiarize themselves with the student’s file before the second conference, but students should not expect faculty to read and comment on additional manuscript material during the residency.
Student and Faculty Pairing
Early in the residency, students are asked to submit a Project Preference form describing their goals for the writing they will do in the upcoming semester. These statements are considered, along with the creative work submitted for workshop, when faculty meet as a group to collectively determine supervisor selection. Each faculty member works with no more than five students (the average faculty load is three) during the non-resident portion of the term. The Program’s priority is that every student work with a faculty supervisor who is enthusiastic about his/her/their work and feels able to make a contribution toward the pursuit of that student’s goals and the development of his/her/their talent. Students work with a different faculty member each semester.
Community Dialogue
During the residency, every faculty member offers a lecture, discussion class, or small seminar, which is open to any student in any genre. Except for the concurrent seminars, these are also attended by faculty colleagues, enabling on-going dialogue and exchange. The level of conversation in these presentations is extremely high: you can get a sense of that through downloadable lectures available from our residencies or in our seven anthologies.
Workshops are led by rotating pairs of faculty members, so each workshop group (8-10 students) will hear work discussed by ten faculty members each residency. In addition, a student’s own fiction or poetry is always discussed in a workshop session led by faculty members who have not served as a previous supervisor or workshop leader; as a result, during a student’s tenure in the Program, he/she will have direct critical response from at least 8 faculty members in his/her genre in addition to the supervisor.
Each faculty member also presents a reading—usually from new work—which serves as another sort of introduction and exposure. And students and faculty have the opportunity to meet in informal social gatherings throughout the residency. Our low student-faculty ratio, which almost never exceeds 4-1 during the residency periods, is felt directly.
Current Faculty
Here is the list of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction faculty who are teaching and mentoring students in our current semester before our next MFA Residency takes place
All Active Faculty
Here you will find a full, comprehensive list of our MFA Faculty who teach in the genres of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction in the MFA Program for Writers.
Past Faculty
The MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College is proud to celebrate the large and diverse group of faculty and literary voices who have helped shape and steer our MFA Program.
On this page, you will find a comprehensive list of all of our past MFA Faculty.
