University of Texas at El Paso Department of Creative Writing

The only one of its kind in the U.S., the MFA at UTEP offers a fully bilingual course of study in fiction, poetry, playwriting, screenwriting, and non-fiction. The MFA is 48 hours, normally requiring three years to complete. Our students may also study literary translation, libretto writing, novella, and prose poem. Our close ties with Theater, English and Languages give our students access to literature courses in these areas. Our bilingual literary magazine, Rio Grande Review, is entirely MFA-edited. We offer assistantships to many of our students.

We are an international program situated in the Chihuahuan Desert, where two nations meet. The MFA experience is one of close mentoring, with an emphasis on placement in careers in teaching, editing, and writing. The MFA students come from all over Latin America and the United States. Graduates have won major prizes: the highly prestigious 2006 Premio Clarín de Novela, the 2005 Premio Nacional de Cuento de Colombia, the 2005 Chicano-Latino Literary Award given by UC Irvine, the 2004 Concurso Nacional de Novela Joven de Mexico (National Mexican Prize for Young Novelists), the 2004 Premio Nacional de Poesía Joven “Elias Nandino” (National Prize for Young Poets), the Premio Bienal Copé de Poesía (Perú 2002) and the 2004 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize.