Tech Ranks High Among Writing Programs

Poets & Writers Magazine picked Tech 35th among 527 MFA programs.^

Well, sonofagun, who'd-a thunk it? Virginia Tech a college for writers? Seems to be going that way. Get a load of this press release from Tech:

The Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program in creative writing in the Department of English at Virginia Tech is relatively young, admitting its first full class in the fall of 2005. The fledgling program is flexing its poetic muscles, however, swiftly and steadily climbing the national rankings.

Poets & Writers Magazine recently recognized Virginia Tech as 35th among 527 MFA
programs nationally, positioning it in the top seven percent. In addition, the Virginia
Tech program is ranked No. 10 in poetry, and its trend in ranking is “up.”
“All of the programs that rated higher in either case have been established for a
longer time,” noted Carolyn Rude, professor and chair of the Department of
English.

The rankings are based on 16 categories, including poetry, fiction, and nonfiction
ranks as well as annual and total funding, selectivity, teaching loads, cost of
living, and postgraduate placement. All Virginia Tech MFA students in creative
writing are fully funded through graduate teaching assistant-ships with annual
stipends averaging $15,000. The three-year program includes full tuition remission
and subsidized health insurance.

The list of faculty members in the Virginia Tech program reads like a who’s who of
the literary world.

• Ed Falco, a novelist and short story writer who has won a National Endowmen for the Arts (NEA) Fellowship, directs the MFA program.
• Bob Hicok, who has published several poems in The New Yorker in the last year is the 2007 winner of the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress, and has also been recognized with Guggenheim and NEA Fellowships.
• Fred D’Aguiar, the Gloria D. Smith Professor of African Studies, is contemporary Caribbean writer of international renown.

The list also includes University Distinguished Professor Nikki Giovanni; Alumni
Distinguished Professor Lucinda Roy; Erica Meitner, whose second book of poetry,
Ideal Cities, a National Poetry Series winner, was just published by HarperCollins;
and Jeff Mann, who has won awards in multiple genres, including fiction, poetry, and
creative nonfiction.