Alumni

Our alumni remain vitally connected to this program and to each other decades into their writing lives. They reconnect and continue to support one another through enduring friendships, local workshops, and thriving regional alumni groups and reading series in cities across the country. They gather at the annual alumni conference, as well as at AWP and other conferences and workshops. They also volunteer their talents and time at the AWP Bookfair, on the Board of Directors of Friends of Writers, and in various service projects for the program.

Our alumni have published nearly 1500 books and have received national recognition–NEA, Guggenheim, Fulbright, Lilly, and Stegner fellowships; multiple Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards, book prizes from the Academy of American Poets, PEN America, NAACP, NBCC, and numerous presses, among many other accolades. They carry this program’s ethos, passion, and its creative and analytical gifts into the classroom, lab, courtroom, boardroom, and their daily lives. Our graduates truly are our best advertisement.

Alumni, News

Tommye Blount (poetry, 2013) receives 2023 Whiting Award

Alumni

Alumni Bibliography

Alumni

Q & A With Adrienne Perry

Alumni

Interview with Tiana Nobile

Alumni

An Interview With Poet Nathan McClain

The MFA Program for Writers’ unique rigor and emphasis on craft endow its students with a strength both rare and deeply necessary. Fine writing often seems magical, but when you examine it through a craft lens, it gives you x-ray vision to be able to see how the author did what they did. From there it’s only one short step to trying the same moves in your own writing. It creates a fluency. I applied to Warren Wilson’s MFA program to understand how the best fiction writing is built, and I emerged with my degree, a walking stick, dozens of lifelong friends, and those craft-discerning tools. I use them as a writer, of course, but I also use them as a teacher, a thinker, a conference talk proposer, a conversationalist, and a first-year PhD grad student.

Candace Walsh (fiction, 2019)

I wanted to be challenged. I wanted community. I wanted, very simply, to become a better writer. Warren Wilson’s MFA Program for Writers provided me all of that, and much more. If I say it changed my life it might sound cliché, but it’s the whole, wonderful truth of it all. The MFA Program for Writers gave me the gift of friendships that will last a lifetime, and instilled in me a deepened commitment to the craft of writing – now devotion to writing is my unwavering guiding compass.

Sarah Audsley (poetry, 2019)

Perhaps the greatest gift the program offers is commitment, an awareness of the writer’s evolving creativity and confidence—and the practice, tools and techniques that are vital to clarify each writer’s unique vision. Leaving Warren Wilson’s MFA program, I carry with me that commitment to this work, this life as an artist, and my own unique voice.

Evanthia Bromiley (fiction, 2019)

Warren Wilson’s MFA Program for Writers is more than a place where writers congregate with other like-minded people, equally passionate about writing. It is a family. It provides endless support and resources, both emotional and technical, the how-to of craft. The faculty and staff are intelligent, generous, wise, and awe-inspiring. You will make lifelong friendships at Warren Wilson; the people there shepherd you towards and through the writer’s journey.

Kelsy Yates (fiction, 2019)

My experience as a student in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson was truly transformative, both for my work and for my life as a writer. The caliber of one-on-one instruction I received was revelatory. But perhaps even more valuable was my induction into a community of welcoming, hard- working and incredibly generous writers and teachers.

Alex McWalters (fiction, 2019)

Writers, in general, need to develop poetic trust, cultivating this idea of sharing ourselves and our work with one another, in a continued encouraging conversation, in an atmosphere without fear, and with constant support. Writers are made on this mountain in North Carolina; humble and generous human beings are made here. I love this program, love what it teaches us—a universal, profound generosity toward the known and the unknown.

Daniel Jenkins (poetry, 2017)

I barely recognize the person I was before my MFA experience at Warren Wilson. The Program not only transformed my writing and thinking, but also afforded me the discovery of my best self. I will always be humbled by, and grateful for, the community that has changed my life. The Program is intellectually rigorous but with that rigor comes a generosity of spirit you’d be hard pressed to find elsewhere. Warren Wilson taught me that no matter where we are in our writing lives, there is always more work to be done; such work is a gift, and the Program gave me the tools to honor it.

Lara Egger (poetry, 2016)

I leave this program with confidence and community, neither of which I could lay claim to before. But I also leave with a sense of calling.

Emilie Beck (fiction, 2017)

The MFA Program for Writers is one of unimpeachable exactitude and unwavering compassion. These were the years that put the stones in my hands which allowed me to build a path into my writing life. As the glorious and dear and inimitable Ellen Bryant Voigt once offered, amidst my anxiety-ridden qualms that I was, “taking too long to figure this out”: “My dear, this is lifework.” In this program I have learned that discovery is not a performance and revelation is a right; progress is a hard-fought endeavor that one feels gloriously thankful to have discovered. Future students, I wish you the blessing of ecstatic lack of satisfaction. May you know how much you do not have and may you revel in all the questions you’ve yet to unearth, let alone answer.

Jennifer Funk (poetry, 2016)

Courage, equanimity, the ability to seize and savor the slivers of joy writing so sparingly doles
out. These are the gifts of this program. I am grateful for them.

Abby Cahill (fiction, 2017)

The exchange of ideas—through writing and reading, through the give-and-take with a vibrant
and supportive community—has helped me grow deeply as a writer and as a person. At Warren
Wilson, the rigor of study was matched by the amazing dedication of the faculty. The focus on
craft gave me an appreciation for—and love of—nuance that has allowed me to see more in
literature as well as in day-to-day life.

Jennifer Stern (poetry, 2015)

Friends of Writers is a 501(c)(3) organization founded by alumni and faculty members from the MFA Program for writers. Their mission is to enrich American poetry and fiction by cultivating new and vital literary voices.

In addition to providing grants and scholarships to students seeking an MFA in creative writing, Friends of Writers also serves the alumni of the MFA program by hosting an annual summer conference for Program alums, supporting the completion of a manuscript through the Larry Levis Post-Graduate Stipend, and by offering opportunities to alums to volunteer to serve the MFA Community.

Visit the Friends of Writers website for more information.

Alumni

The MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College