Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing is a low residency graduate program, which requires two weeks of residency every summer in Eastern Oregon and completing online courses and individualized study with MFA faculty the rest of the two-year curriculum.

In addition, the Wilderness, Ecology, and Community track connects students to the Pacific Northwest’s rich tradition of writers and thinkers with a deep and abiding connection to the land. In cooperation with EOU’s Outdoor Program and our partners at the Summer Fishtrap gathering, writing residencies and wilderness retreats will include visits and guest lectures by biologists, native plants specialists, staff from the Greater Hell’s Canyon Council, Signal Fire, Tamastlisk Institute of the Confederated tribes of the Umatilla Reservation, Wallowology, and other local individuals and organizations.

The program provides students with meaningful, hands-on learning opportunities such as practica in professional editing and publishing with our award-winning literary magazines, basalt, and Oregon East and our affiliated presses Lynx House and Lost Horse. In doing so, our graduates develop creative skills that allow them to live more meaningful, productive lives in more prosperous, resilient communities.

Eastern Oregon University (EOU) was founded as a teacher's college and today serves as a centre for education, culture, and scholarship in Oregon's rural areas. At EOU, students receive personal attention from their professors while building strong relationships with peers and mentors.

Eastern Oregon University serves our students, our nation, and our world by being a place where the higher levels of learning are practised and lived daily. Education is a process of changing oneself, an enterprise fraught with conflict between old values and new, old ideas, and new. Students come to a university to be challenged and to become, through that process, larger, more capable, and wiser. Eastern Oregon University is committed to being a place where learning, inquiry, examination, debate, and reasoning are modelled, practised, and learned – skills that our graduates will incorporate into their sense of themselves and build on and develop throughout the rest of their lives.

Eastern Oregon University guides student inquiry through integrated, high-quality liberal arts and professional programs that lead to responsible and reflective action in a diverse and interconnected world.

As an educational, cultural, and scholarly centre, Eastern Oregon University connects Oregon's rural regions to a wider world. Our beautiful setting and small size enhance the personal attention our students receive. At the same time, partnerships with colleges, universities, agencies, and communities add to our region and state's educational possibilities.

Academic programs at Eastern Oregon University offer the opportunity to learn in a small classroom setting in beautiful rural Oregon. Students can choose from more than 30 academic programs with four colleges, including sciences, humanities, teaching, and business! Eastern Oregon University has small class sizes with dedicated faculty, whose focus is on student success.