NEOMFA : Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

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NEOMFA : Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

The nation’s only consortial MFA creative writing program. Three gateway campuses: The University of Akron, Cleveland State University, & Kent State University.

Four genres: fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, & playwriting. < neomfa.org > The only consortial MFA program in the country, NEOMFA is a collaboration between Cleveland State University, Kent State University, The University of Akron, & Youngstown State University:
| One Program | Four Universities | Unlimited Opportunities |

09/22/2026

Congrats to alum Lisa Langford, who was named the 2026 Dominic Orlando Playwriting Award Recipient in July! Provided by the Dominic Orlando Fund, with support from the Venturous Theater Fund, the award comes with a $12,000 unrestricted cash prize. Lisa’s winning play Netta & Ru will receive its world premiere at Dobama Theatre in Cleveland Heights.

More info on the 2026 Dominic Orlando Playwriting Award can be found at https://www.broadwayworld.com/industry/article/Lisa-Langford-Named-2026-Dominic-Orlando-Playwriting-Award-Recipient-20260708.

More info on Lisa’s new play Netta & Ru running April 22 through May 16, 2027 at Dobama Theatre can be found at
https://www.dobama.org/netta.

In other great news, Netta & Ru also was among the winners of the 2026 Ashland New Plays Festival contest! Netta & Ru will have two readings in Ashland, Oregon on Wednesday, October 14 and Saturday, October 17. More info on those presentations can be found at https://ashlandnewplays.org/.

09/21/2026

Save the Date! On Monday, October 26, catch author Nathalie Quintane in conversation with NEOMFA faculty member Hilary Plum! 6:30 pm at Let's Ride Skateboards, 1810 Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights. This free event is presented by Mac's Backs-Books On Coventry in collaboration with Case Western Reserve University, NEOMFA, and Winter Editions. More info at Mac's Backs-Books on Coventry:
http://macsbacks.com/event/2026-10-26/nathalie-quintane-and-jonathan-larson Info on The Cavalier at Winter Editions: https://www.wintereditions.net/home/the-cavalier

09/18/2026

Our friends at the Wick Poetry Center will be bringing back KSU and NEOMFA alum Sony Q. Ton-Aime for a reading on Wednesday, October 14 at 7:00 pm! Presented at Murphy Auditorium in Rockwell Hall on the campus of Kent State University. Free and open to the public. Book signing and reception to follow!

https://www.kent.edu/wick/reading-series

Sony Ton-Aime is a Haitian poet, essayist, and translator, and is the executive director of Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures. Previously, he served as the Michael I. Rudell Director of Literary Arts at Chautauqua Institution. His debut poetry collection, Konbit, was published in 2026 by Carnegie Mellon University Press. He is also the author of the chapbook LaWomann, the Haitian Creole translation of Olympic Hero: The Lennox Kilgour’s Story, and co-founding editor of ID13. His work has appeared in Artful Dodge, Consequence Forum, Poets.org, Idaho Review, Hunger Mountain Review, and Cleveland Review of Books, among others.

09/16/2026

Student Julianne Metzger Taylor will be the featured reader in the CrayfishMag #3 launch event at 6:00 pm on Friday 9/25 at Bell Tower Brewing in Kent. Seating is limited, so RSVP through the link below asap!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/crayfishmag-number-three-launch-party-tickets-1998490995365?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio&fbclid=PAcGRvZgJleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA85MzY2MTk3NDMzOTI0NTkAAacFvz7YX1Sazqu9nwd-AaD_0urFnmEOnLq1KjagE1c1tUI5_zvODE0jxB2Ljg_aem_oLLM2euhxDtfXNUcA33FzQ

09/15/2026

Alum Mitchell Monahan will be reading this Friday, September 18 at Last Exit Books and Coffeehouse at 124 East Main Street in Kent!

Check it out starting at 8:00 pm!

https://www.instagram.com/lastexitbooks/?hl=en

09/10/2026

Join us at the annual Literary Cleveland Inkubator conference this week! https://inkubator.litcleveland.org/. Check out the NEOMFA table in the bookfair at Cleveland Public Library on Friday, September 11 and Saturday, September 12!

Catch NEOMFA alum Virginia Konchan in a session with Aubrey Hirsch on Sat 9/12 at 11:00 am:

“On Genre, Gender & More: Aubrey Hirsch & Virginia Konchan in Conversation”

The Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library presents a conversation on genre and gender featuring Cleveland natives Aubrey Hirsch, author of the collection of graphic essays Graphic Rage: Comics on Gender, Justice, and Life as a Woman in America, and Virginia Konchan, whose latest book of poems, Requiem, considers grief in the literary and religious contexts.

09/09/2026

The annual Literary Cleveland Inkubator conference is this week! https://inkubator.litcleveland.org/. Check out the NEOMFA table in the bookfair at Cleveland Public Library on Friday, September 11 and Saturday, September 12!

Catch NEOMFA alum Matthew Breit and faculty member Hilary Plum in a session on Sat 9/12 at 9:00 am:

“Writing in the Age of GenAI”

Listen. Are you tired of arguing with your uncle about AI? For a technology so new, it feels like we’ve been recycling the same arguments for ages. In this session, three writers will cut though the noise, unpack the implications of Generative AI, discuss its ever-evolving effects on writers, and offer advice for the uncertain future. We will touch on the theft of authors’ intellectual property, the flood of AI output sent to literary journals, the proliferation of GenAI’s prose style, the elimination of job opportunities for writers, and more. How do writers think about GenAI as a research tool? Are there ethical uses of this technology in creative writing? What happens when GenAI shows up in a workshop? What can we learn from authors like Vauhini Vara or Sheila Heti who are venturing out into new aesthetic territory? What—in this techno feudalist moment—oh what is a writer to do?

Registration for Inkubator is free, and open through Wed. Sept. 9 at 6:30 pm: 6:30pmhttps://www.eventbrite.com/e/2026-inkubator-writing-conference-tickets-1996896766985

09/08/2026

The annual Literary Cleveland Inkubator conference is this week! https://inkubator.litcleveland.org/. Check out the NEOMFA table in the bookfair at Cleveland Public Library on Friday, September 11 and Saturday, September 12!

Catch NEOMFA student Julianne Metzger Taylor with faculty member Mary Biddinger in a session on Friday 9/11 at 3:30pm:

“Many Paths, One Craft: Navigating a Career With or Without an MFA”

There's more than one way to build a career in creative writing. This panel brings together Ohio MFA program faculty and directors alongside accomplished local writers who've built their careers without a graduate degree, for a candid conversation about different paths to the same goal: a sustainable writing life. Panelists will speak honestly about program structure and funding, relationships and community, publication and career-building, and what they wish they'd known—helping attendees weigh what's right for their own path and artistic vision for their writing lives. This panel won't tell you which path to choose, but it will give you a roadmap for your options.

Registration for Inkubator is free! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2026-inkubator-writing-conference-tickets-1996896766985

09/04/2026

Continuing our countdown to the annual Literary Cleveland Inkubator conference next week! https://inkubator.litcleveland.org/.

Check out the NEOMFA table in the bookfair at Cleveland Public Library on Friday, September 11 and Saturday, September 12!

Catch NEOMFA alum Jon Conley in a session hosted with Semyon Khokhlov on Friday 9/11 at 3:30pm:

“Non-Protagonist-Centered Writing: Beyond the Individual”

Though much of western literature is concerned with centering a single protagonist, there are other possibilities. Semyon Khokhlov, founder of LEAN magazine, will introduce non-protagonist-centered writing, showing how it works and what it can do. Authors Jon Conley and Semyon Khoklov will present examples and discuss their work. The workshop will culminate in a writing exercise where participants will be given a canonical, protagonist-driven short story (there are many to choose from!). We’ll then try our hand at our own radical revisions, using key techniques of non-protagonism that may complicate the status of the individual in storytelling.

Registration for Inkubator is free! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2026-inkubator-writing-conference-tickets-1996896766985

09/03/2026

Counting down to the annual Literary Cleveland conference, coming up next week! https://inkubator.litcleveland.org/. Check out the NEOMFA table in the bookfair at Cleveland Public Library on Friday, September 11 and Saturday, September 12.

Among the many NEOMFA faces at this year’s Inkubator are students Willow Campbell and Benvolio Nichols, whose session “Trans-ing the Narrative’: Trans Fiction Then & Now” is Fri 9/11 at 11am.

“A conceptual, forward-thinking celebration of trans identity in conversation with fiction. This panel will discuss trans fiction’s past and present—including issues of visibility and representation, dysphoria and euphoria, trans pain and trans joy—and offer a future-focused take on ‘trans-ing the narrative’. This dialogue grows out of the urgency to examine ‘trans fiction’ as a question of both social change and craft.”

Registration for Inkubator is free! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2026-inkubator-writing-conference-tickets-1996896766985

Address

Cleveland, OH

Telephone

+12166873957

Website

http://www.neomfa.org/

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