Carlow University MFA in Creative Writing Program

04/11/2014

An exciting update about the upcoming June 2014 residency at Trinity College Dublin:

Mentors will be Carlo Gebler for creative nonfiction; Evelyn Conlon and Sean Hardie for fiction; Mary O'Donnell for poetry.

Guest workshops will be led by Hugo Hamilton, cnf, author of the classic THE SPECKLED PEOPLE; Claire Keegan, fiction, Davy Byrnes Award, 2010; Mark Roper, winner of the Michael Hartnett Poetry Award, 2014

Speakers will include the following:

ANNE ENRIGHT (Man Booker Prize, 2007)

SELINA GUINNESS author of The Crocodile By the Door: The Story of a House, a Farm and a Family (nominated for the Costa Book Award)

JAMES HEANEY, Ph.D. will lead the Bloomsday tour

CHRIS MORASH, Ph.D. Inaugural Seamus Heaney Professor of Irish Writing, Trinity College Dublin

SINEAD MORRISEY named T.S. Eliot Prize, 2014

MARK ROPER winner of the Michael Hartnett Poetry Award, 2014

DONAL RYAN author of The Spinning Heart (longlisted for the Booker Prize, 2013)

SPECIAL EVENTS will include the Welcome and Farewell Dinners; Bloomsday in Dublin; an archeological tour of Wicklow

OTHER WRITERS/SPEAKERS and SPECIAL EVENTS WILL BE ANNOUNCED WITHIN A SHORT TIME.

04/02/2014

Here is the wonderful interview of Edna O'Brien by PG writer Marylynne Pitz. Thanks to her and the Post-Gazette for helping to spread the word about our event. We can't wait to welcome Ms. O'Brien to Pittsburgh!

As a child, Edna O'Brien wrote "jottings" about the people and pastoral landscape of Western Ireland, a place where three dogs, horses and cattle dotted the lawn in front of her family's County Clare home. As a young woman during the late 1940s, she was living in Dublin, bicycling to work in a chemi...

04/02/2014

We're famous! Check out this great coverage we got in today's Pittsburgh Post Gazette! And it's not just this one article, but two: a piece about our "Evening With Edna O'Brien" event (this coming Sat., 7:30) landed us another spot, as well.

This year, Carlow University celebrates the 10th anniversary of founding its master of fine arts in creative writing program. The late Patricia Dobler, a poet and English professor who spent eight years developing it, died in 2004 about six months before the school welcomed its first students, said…

03/20/2014

We are very proud to announce that our own James Heaney has placed in the top ten winners in the prestigious Fish Short Story Contest for "Whenever I Close My Eyes." Ten/10 has been a great year for Carlow winners. Heartiest congratulations to James!

03/03/2014

She’s been hailed as one of the greatest chroniclers of the female experience in the 20th century.

On Saturday, April 5, internationally renowned and award-winning Irish author Edna O'Brien will be on campus for a special event to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Carlow University MFA in Creative Writing Program.

Learn more and reserve your spot for “An Evening with Edna O’Brien: A Life of Writing” today: http://bit.ly/1gHL7bW.

02/18/2014

It is with extreme delight that we announce the publication of alumna Beth Peyton's ('12) MFA manuscript _Clear Skies, Deep Water_ by Excelsior Editions, an imprint of SUNY Press! While we have other alumni with forthcoming full-lenght publications, Beth's is the first to hit shelves. So proud and excited for her.

And look at the press she is getting!

We're very proud and excited to announce that Beth Peyton '12 wrote "Clear Skies, Deep Water" to fulfill the manuscript requirement for her MFA; it's now published and for sale nationwide!

You never know how far your Carlow homework will take you!

01/21/2014

So very excited for our mentor and dear friend Joseph Bathanti. As all of Joseph's students can attest, he is well-deserving of this honor.

How does a boy from East Liberty end up as poet laureate of North Carolina? Interesting story that, according to Joseph Bathanti, who is back in Pittsburgh this month as the first scholar-in-residence at the Heinz History Center. Mr. Bathanti, professor of creative writing at Appalachian State Unive...

01/17/2014

'Regionalism was more on my mind than gender—I didn’t want a book that held up stock conceits about Nevada as being hostile, barren, hard. ' — Claire Vaye Watkins answers questions and recommends stories.

01/06/2014

Welcome students and mentors to the January 2014 residency. Let the fun begin!

01/03/2014

This week's haunting Split This Rock: Poem of the Week is by Natalie Diaz, who will join us on Jan. 13 for a reading. Check out http://www.carlow.edu/MFA_Residencies.aspx for a complete list of the January residency speakers.

12/20/2013

Even more exciting news for our poetry mentor Jan Beatty, who was named by Best American Poetry judge Denise Duhamel as one of the top "ten female poets you NEED to read" in a Huffington Post article this week. Well-earned congratulations, Jan!

As the guest editor of The Best American Poetry 2013, I had a unique opportunity to examine where we are as a culture in terms of verse.

12/12/2013

Have you seen this great spotlight on poetry mentor Jan Beatty?

http://www.carlow.edu/10327.aspx

"I believe there are open doors in everybody," she said in her recent Prairie Schooner interview. "If the teacher, if the class, if the student next to them finds a way to tap on that door and that door opens, everything's possible. I really believe that. People have unlimited possibilities."