Residency | MFA Program for Writers

The Warren Wilson Low-Residency Experience

Held bi-annually, the intensive and stimulating 10-day residency period serves as a principal component of the Program and as the foundation of a supportive, committed community of writers. Each student attends the residency as a prerequisite to the semester’s study. Through a vital combination of lectures, classes, workshops, seminars, conferences, and readings, the 10-day residency initiates and informs the five-month non-resident period of the semester while providing an opportunity to form vital and sustaining relationships with faculty and fellow students. Summer residencies are held at Warren Wilson College; the winter residencies take place about 9 miles from campus, at Blue Ridge Assembly, the original site of the famed Black Mountain College.

The way the residency is organized to support learning is quite exceptional. This isn’t just about the schedule and the offerings, but also the culture of support and welcoming of new students that has been established and is enacted by both faculty and students.

This is a remarkable community of people who go out of their way to be welcoming and supportive. I was also so deeply moved by the sheer beauty of the careful yet invisible choreography and curating of every event, lecture, activity—the order and pacing–so clearly created and edited and shaped by writers.

“You must change your life.” So says the Rilke poem, so says the residency—rather it did that, altered me, unsettled me. There’s a line in Emerson’s essay, “Circles,” in which he says, “People wish to be settled but only so far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.” I have never been among such humane, intelligent, driven people before in my life. I am humbled by the knowledge of my peers as well as my teachers and feel such gratitude for being invited to be a part of this. I loved the intensity of the lectures and workshops and bookshops—the fact that this is not a ‘low-res’ program but a ‘high-res’ program in the sense Heather McHugh’s lecture used the term. I had my eyes put out and will spend the next five months learning to build them again. The most affirming ten days of my life.

Lectures and Workshop

A typical day begins with lectures on literature and craft; attended by all faculty and students, these serve as the common texts of the residency. Through the genre-focused discussion classes presented by faculty and students about to graduate and through Bookshop (a four-hour seminar on a single text) students develop their analytical skills and add to their literary frames of reference.

Workshop provides a practicum in criticism as well as a means of a broad range of feedback for works in progress. Each workshop group of 8-10 includes students from each stage of progress throughout the Program. Faculty members rotate among the standing groups in pairs–no single aesthetic can dominate, and any individual student has a chance to work with most of the faculty. Each student is assigned one hour of workshop discussion for his/her worksheet material, which has been submitted and distributed to workshop members in advance of the residency for careful preparation of the texts.

Each day ends with the evening readings, initially by faculty and, during the second half of the residency, by the students about to graduate.

Throughout the residency, each student prepares a written narrative accounts responding to everything he/she/they attend. This first evaluative occasion helps the student summarize and articulate useful ideas for their own writing and reading. The Residency Evaluation (familiarly known as “the Green Sheets”) enters into the student’s record work done in literary and contemporary letters, practical criticism and creative writing.

Mentorship for Graduate Students

New students gather as a cohort for orientation with the director and Academic Board Chair on arrival day, for a lunch discussion two days later, for an instruction session on the annotation (the brief craft-based analysis students will write throughout their enrollment), and, near the end of the residency, for a session focused on the semester ahead.

Throughout the residency, the Director and Board members meet with each semester cohort to discuss expectations for the term: deadlines, guidelines for preparing the essay and thesis manuscript, instructions for completing evaluation forms, and details about the exchange with the supervisor. In addition, the Director meets individually with each student entering the essay or final semesters, to review and approve his/her/their Semester Project plan.

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A Generous and Supportive Community

Our intensive residency also includes social and informal opportunities for faculty and students. Receptions, the new student reading and dinner, our ice cream social, our dances, yoga sessions, the legendary Tom Lux Summer Classic Softball Game between the genres, and a variety of cohort activities all encourage the building of sustaining friendships and the opportunity to converse with our faculty members.

Holden Residency Scholarship

Supported by the Holden Fund for Diversity, this residency-only, fully funded opportunity is intended for a writer of color who is contemplating pursuing an MFA degree and wishes a deeper introduction to what our program offers and entails before applying for full admission. Deadlines are the same as for full-program entry.