DeSales MFA

May your Christmas be blessed with peace and the laughter and love of your family and friends!

Join the MFA and Humanities Department for the first of their speaker series featuring critically acclaimed author, historian, and human rights lawyer, Michel Paradis. Check out his most recent book, The Light of Battle: Eisenhower, D-Day and the Birth of the American Superpower and join us for a discussion of the book, the extensive research he conducted, and his publishing journey. Desserts and coffee/tea will be served.

Join us Wednesday, September 25th at noon in Trexler library!

NYT bestselling author Claire Keegan is one of the 2024 visting writers for the MFA Summer Residency in Kilkenny, Ireland. Keegan spent time signing books for our very own VP of Mission, Fr. Kevin Nadolski and President of the university, Fr. Jim Greenfield, along with other MFA students, and sitting for a group photo after delivering her phenomenal lecture on story structure.

Spent the morning with the second ever printed version of Joyce’s Ulysses at the Museum of Literature Ireland in Dublin. All part of the 2024 MFA Residency in Ireland this summer.

Congratulations to our 2024 graduates, both those that were able to attend the ceremony and those that weren’t! You did it!!

Pictured below L to R, Assistant Director of the MFA & mentor Dr. Steve Myers, graduates Dr. Katherine Grasso, Morgan Simpson, Lynn Kim, Emily Bielski, and Mary Kate Nealis, and Director of the MFA, Dr. Patrick Crerand

Dr. Steve Myers (Professor of English and Assistant Director of the MFA), Isabella Lee (sophomore Communication Studies major), Sophia Manidis (freshman Theology major), Helen Behe (MFA student), and Dr. Patrick Crerand (Director of the MFA) celebrated National Poetry Month DeSales Trexler this afternoon with poetry readings and discussions.

Our Winter Residency is right around the corner! We can't wait to welcome our visiting writers in January: Marjorie Maddox, Phil Brady, Jane Friedman, David Amadio, BJ Ward, Curtis Smith, Brother Mickey McGrath, Hananah Zaheer, and Stephen Marche.

The 2023 MFA Cohort and Faculty at the Summer Residency in Halifax, Nova Scotia with award winning writer Alexander MacLeod, author of Animal Person. Each summer the MFA visits amazing destinations in the Celtic World: Ireland, Scotland, Canada and beyond.

Join us and the Office of Veterans and Military Services at the Labuda Center at DeSales University on Friday, November 10th at 11 am as we honor all who have served. Our guest speaker is Ben Busch, a Marine Corps veteran who served two tours in Iraq. He is a writer, filmmaker, photographer, actor, and illustrator. He has appeared on HBO's The Wire, playing Officer Colicchio for three seasons, and the HBO miniseries Generation Kill playing Major Eckloff. He’s the writer/director of the films Sympathetic Details and BRIGHT, and has been involved as an actor, writer, or Producer on over 30 film and television projects. He’s the author of the memoir Dust to Dust, and his essays have been published in Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, Guernica, NPR, Best American Travel Writing, and numerous literary journals. Winner of the James Dickey Prize and five-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, his poetry has appeared in North American Review, Prairie Schooner, Five Points, Epiphany, and Ni**od among others. He has just returned to his farm in Michigan from his third trip to Ukraine since the Russian invasion, and comes to us from the set of a new film shooting in Minnesota.