The MFA in Creative Writing
Our MFA is a flexible, affordable program designed to meet the needs of 21st century writers where they are. Students receive an outstanding education around the workshop table with renowned authors in both of our prime locations. They become part of a community who deeply believes in the importance of translating the human experience.
We believe strong writers need time and space to write. To explore. To take risks. To fail. To take more risks. To succeed. We believe you should take courses across genres.
We believe you shouldn’t need an MBA to afford an MFA.
We provide an affordable, flexible graduate education, full-time or part-time, in Southampton or Manhattan for talented writers searching for a place to advance their craft.
At Stony Brook's MFA in Creative Writing, we welcome writers who seek to create original work primarily in fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction. We offer generous guidance that is friendly, rigorous, and professionally useful.
Unlike most MFA programs, ours encourages students to take workshops in all kinds of writing, rather than being tracked upon acceptance into a single genre. We invite students to explore, in the belief that writing outside their genres informs their primary areas of interest.
Beyond the familiar categories of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction, we offer workshops in other forms of creative expression relevant to understanding and mastering a world constructed out of words and images. Recent course offerings have included speculative, YA novel, and experimental literature. In our Manhattan location, students will find opportunities to explore writing for Television or Film. Our literature courses are taught by working writers, with an eye to how reading informs craft.
While we believe the major focus of your MFA should be on developing your own writing, understanding the larger world of writing is important. We offer practica in publishing, teaching, and arts administration; a course in the business of being a writer; plus query workshops, and agent visits.
Our student body brings together everyone from recent grads, to doctors and lawyers. This diverse group of full-time and part-time students enriches our community with a wide array of perspectives and experiences. Together, they cultivate an atmosphere where learning thrives, and every voice contributes to the collective narrative.To serve this thriving and diverse community, we offer courses year-round. Traditional semester-long courses at both Southampton and Manhattan. We also offer the occasional weekend intensives during fall and spring terms. In addition, many of our students register for the Southampton Writers Conference, our intensive summer session. Other students work on TSR: The Southampton Review our literary magazine.
Full-Time Students
Full-time students are expected to take 12 credits in each of their first two semesters, 9 credits in both the third and fourth semester, and 4 credits in the fifth (final) semester. Full-time students graduate in 2.5 years. Full-time students should expect to take at least one daytime course per semester.
Part-Time Students
Ideal for writers with full-time lives, part-time students can take anywhere from one class per semester up, depending on your schedule. You can study at a slower pace and receive your degree in five years. We are one of the few MFA programs that offers a part-time option.
All our courses, whether in creative writing or literature, are taught by practicing writers who are themselves producing original work. Our full-time core faculty is joined by visiting writers who provide creative breadth to the program or bring expertise in more specialized areas of creative writing.
These distinguished authors rotate into the schedule throughout the year, teaching in the regular term at Southampton or Manhattan, or in the summer at Southampton.
We also welcome visiting writers to both Manhattan and Southampton through our reading series, Writers Speak. In the spring, we bring to campus a series of literary agents, who hold individual conferences with students in thesis.
All our faculty members, full-time and visiting, have joined us because they care about encouraging new voices. Still others visit us in the pages of our distinguished literary journal, The Southampton Review.
Because Stony Brook University is part of the SUNY (State University of New York ) system, New York State residents will find the opportunity to study with us quite affordable.
The cost of the program is about $28,000 for New York State Residents.
If you are not a New York State resident it is about $56,000.
Some of our students, who are not NY State residents, apply for residency once they move here. That allows their second year and thesis credits to shift to in-state and cuts the cost to about $43,000.
Breakdown of a full-time student's tuition & fees by semester
Semester 112 credits NY Resident: $7111.01 Non-Resident: $14,951.01 |
Semester 212 credits NY Resident: $7111.01 Non-Resident: $14,951.01 |
Semester 39 credits NY Resident: $5,533.20 Non-Resident: $11,213.26 |
Semester 49 credits NY Resident: $5,533.20 Non-Resident: $11,213.26 |
Semester 54 credits (thesis) NY Resident: $2,484.20 Non-Resident: $4,983.67 |
This pricing does not include mandatory health insurance or housing.
Teaching Assistantships/Graduate Assistantships
We award a small number of full and partial Graduate and Teaching Assistantships (along with limited prizes and awards) to our incoming students. All applications for full-time study in the Fall term are considered, provided that the application is submitted by the deadline. These GA/TA awards are extremely competitive. In 2025-2026 two students were fully funded and 8 were partially funded.
As of Fall 2026, a full funding line comes with an academic-year stipend of $30,000, a 15-20 hour/week workload, full tuition waiver and subsidized health insurance. A half-line TA/GA offer comes with a 50% tuition scholarship and academic-year stipend of $15,000, as well as subsidized health insurance and an 8-10 hour/week workload.
Students in good standing can expect to have their funding renewed for their second year, when they teach creative writing courses to Stony Brook undergraduates.
Recipients of funding offers who can contribute to the diversity of Stony Brook may be eligible for the Turner Fellowship. Those with outstanding academic promise may be eligible for the Graduate Council Fellowship. These fellowships award an additional $30,000 over the course of three years to their recipients, along with tuition waiver and stipend. We have a high rate of success in identifying candidates for these prestigious awards.
Teaching Assistantships for Unfunded Students
Full-time, unfunded students have the opportunity to take our teaching practicum and apply for a TA position. These are highly coveted spots teaching Introduction to Creative Writing on Stony Brook's Main Campus in Stony Brook, NY. Occasionally students can teach upper-level workshops. Payment is roughly $4400 per course and comes with subsidized health insurance.