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Home IAIA’s MFA in Creative Writing Program Partners with Fine Arts Work Center

IAIA’s MFA in Creative Writing Program Partners with Fine Arts Work Center

Feb 17, 2023

The Institute of American Indian Arts’ (IAIA) MFA in Creative Writing program partnered with Fine Arts Work Center (FAWC) to create and fund two scholarships for IAIA Indigenous writers. The scholarships will allow the writers to attend FAWC’s 2023 Summer Workshop program.
“While students at IAIA benefit from working in an Indigenous community, all writers must eventually become comfortable publishing their stories for a broader audience. I’m excited about our new partnership with the Fine Arts Works Center because it will encourage our students to travel to Provincetown, MA, to attend workshops in a diverse community. Receiving feedback from new cultural perspectives, they will refine their voices and see their work anew. They will meet the larger literary community, gain greater visibility, and move closer to their dreams of publication.”
Deborah Jackson Taffa (Quechan and Laguna Pueblo)

Director, IAIA MFA in Creative Writing

The Fine Arts Work Center makes the Summer Workshop Program accessible by providing a wide range of scholarship opportunities. FAWC aims to nurture creative connections that span artistic disciplines, skill levels, backgrounds, generations, abilities, and locations. FAWC Scholars Awards Program aims to increase participation by low-income artists from other systematically marginalized communities.

FAWC’s 2023 Summer Workshop Program offers over 60 week-long workshops in visual arts and creative writing to hundreds of students over nine weeks each summer. FAWC invites nationally recognized artists and writers to Provincetown, MA, to teach open-enrollment workshops. A week at FAWC offers a variety of readings, artist talks, and special events that are free and open to the public.

For more information on FAWC’s scholarship program and to apply for an IAIA scholarship, visit the FAWC Scholars Awards page.

IAIA MFA in Creative Writing

The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (MFACW) is designed as a two-year program with two intensive week-long residencies per year (summer and winter) at IAIA. Students and faculty mentors gather for a week of workshops, lectures, and readings. At the end of the residency week, each student is matched with a faculty mentor, who then works one-on-one with the student for the semester. IAIA’s program is unique in that we emphasize the importance of Indigenous writers speaking to the Indigenous experience. The literature we read carries a distinct Native American and First Nations emphasis. The MAFCW offers four areas of emphasis: poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and screenwriting.