Why Butler for my MFA?
Butler University is a top-tier liberal arts university located
in one of the largest cities in the country, a city with a fabled
literary tradition - birthplace or hometown to Kurt Vonnegut, Booth
Tarkington, James Whitcomb Riley, and many others. And the MFA
Program reflects the storied tradition of the Butler English
Department: the first English Department in the nation to
create an endowed chair for a woman professor.
We have been home for the last 20 years to one of the most
dynamic visiting writers series in the country: the Vivian S.
Delbrook Series. MFAs enjoy opportunities to interact with our
visiting writers, both through the Series and our
writer-in-residence program. Visiting writers for 2012-2013
include: Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Jennifer Egan; acclaimed
novelist Maragaret Atwood; former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky; poet
and spoken word artist Patricia Smith; music and sports writer
Chuck Klosterman; celebrated prose writers Peter Steinhart &
Yiyun Li; poet and novelist Julianna Baggot; and celebrated poets
Major Jackson, Laura Kasischke, Albert Goldbarth and Eduardo
Corral.
Courtesy of the Efroymson Family Fund, a fund of the Central
Indiana Community Foundation, we are also excited to introduce the
new Efroymson Center for Creative Writing, newly opened in spring
2012. The Efroymson Center is a home for the MFA and for many of
its publishing and service enterprises, contains an apartment for
visiting writers, and hosts its own series of innovative creative
writing programs.
We offer top-flight full-time faculty, and an eclectic and
exciting variety of courses, ranging from electives in
screenwriting, young adult fiction, and poetic form, to literary
editing and publishing and teaching creative writing. Our literary
magazine Booth is
MFA-operated, and in 2012 we began a creative partnership with the
new micro press Pressgang.
Additionally, 2012 we introduced our Writing in the Schools
program, offering dynamic and fulfilling service opportunities in
the Indianapolis Public School system.
And lastly, our program is flexible: we design a
specialized curriculum for every student, based on your artistic
interests, full- or part-time status, and your long-term goals as a
writer. Our tuition is a spectacular value, and we offer a
variety of partial scholarships for out-of-state students, awards
and mentorship opportunities designed to enhance your development
as a publishing writer, teacher and literary professional.