MFA Writing Program at Greensboro

Happy Pub Day to UNCG Creative Writing alum Mark Caskie! Field Notes for Extinction launches today from Grayson Books. https://buff.ly/s9NeZi5

Introducing our Keynote Speaker for the 2026 Spring Conference: Crystal Simone Smith! Crystal Simone Smith is an award-winning poet and brilliant writer—we are so excited to welcome her to our Spring Conference faculty!

Make sure to visit our website to learn more about her lecture as well as to register for the Spring Conference! https://buff.ly/K5cokOb

Join us TONIGHT, Thursday, April 2nd, at 6PM in the UNCG Alumni House for a poetry and fiction reading by Diamond Forde and Stephanie Powell Watts. The reading is free and open to the public and will be preceded by a reception and book signing. https://buff.ly/ZsQBbir

DIAMOND FORDE is the author of two poetry collections, Mother Body, a Kate Tufts Discovery award nominee, and The Book of Alice, winner of the Academy of American Poets’ James Laughlin Award. She has received a doctorate in Creative Writing at Florida State University, with a specialization in both African American poetics and fat studies, and an MFA in Creative Writing at The University of Alabama. Forde has received recognition in the Furious Flower Poetry Prize, nomination as a Kate Tufts Discovery award finalist, and has earned a Ruth Lily Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg fellowship. Her work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, Obsidian, Callaloo, and elsewhere. Forde serves as the Interviews Editor for Honey Literary, as an assistant professor at North Carolina University.

STEPHANIE POWELL WATTS won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence for her debut story collection, We Are Taking Only What We Need (2012), also named one of 2013’s Best Summer Reads by O: The Oprah Magazine. Her short fiction has been included in two volumes of the Best New Stories from the South anthology and honored with a Pushcart Prize. Ms. Powell Watts’s stories explore the lives of African Americans in fast food and factory jobs, working door to door as Jehovah’s Witness ministers, and pressing against the boundaries of the small town, post-integration South. Her debut novel, No One Is Coming to Save Us, follows the return of a successful native son to his home in North Carolina and his attempt to join the only family he ever wanted but never had. As Ms. Powell Watts describes it, “Imagine The Great Gatsby set in rural North Carolina, nine decades later, with desperate black people.” Born in the foothills of North Carolina, with a PhD from the University of Missouri and a BA from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, she now lives with her husband and son in Pennsylvania where she is an associate professor at Lehigh University.

Join us in welcoming Travis Mulhauser to our Spring Conference 2026 faculty! An award winning author who received his MFA in Fiction from UNC-Greensboro, Travis Mulhauser has written multiple novels, his most notable being THE TROUBLE UP NORTH and SWEETGIRL. He will be teaching our Fiction Master Class, entitled "True North: Finding Your Fiction's Center." The class will focus on the core elements of each student's piece and how to use craft elements to push their stories forward.

Are you interested? Consider registering on our website and submitting your work for consideration! https://buff.ly/K5cokOb

Join us tomorrow night, Thursday, April 2nd, at 6PM in the UNCG Alumni House for a poetry and fiction reading by Diamond Forde and Stephanie Powell Watts. The reading is free and open to the public and will be preceded by a reception and book signing. https://buff.ly/ZsQBbir

DIAMOND FORDE is the author of two poetry collections, Mother Body, a Kate Tufts Discovery award nominee, and The Book of Alice, winner of the Academy of American Poets’ James Laughlin Award. She has received a doctorate in Creative Writing at Florida State University, with a specialization in both African American poetics and fat studies, and an MFA in Creative Writing at The University of Alabama. Forde has received recognition in the Furious Flower Poetry Prize, nomination as a Kate Tufts Discovery award finalist, and has earned a Ruth Lily Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg fellowship. Her work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, Obsidian, Callaloo, and elsewhere. Forde serves as the Interviews Editor for Honey Literary, as an assistant professor at North Carolina University.

STEPHANIE POWELL WATTS won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence for her debut story collection, We Are Taking Only What We Need (2012), also named one of 2013’s Best Summer Reads by O: The Oprah Magazine. Her short fiction has been included in two volumes of the Best New Stories from the South anthology and honored with a Pushcart Prize. Ms. Powell Watts’s stories explore the lives of African Americans in fast food and factory jobs, working door to door as Jehovah’s Witness ministers, and pressing against the boundaries of the small town, post-integration South. Her debut novel, No One Is Coming to Save Us, follows the return of a successful native son to his home in North Carolina and his attempt to join the only family he ever wanted but never had. As Ms. Powell Watts describes it, “Imagine The Great Gatsby set in rural North Carolina, nine decades later, with desperate black people.” Born in the foothills of North Carolina, with a PhD from the University of Missouri and a BA from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, she now lives with her husband and son in Pennsylvania where she is an associate professor at Lehigh University.

Join us in welcoming Sarah Rose Nordgren to our Spring Conference 2026 faculty! An award winning poet that has collections of her own (FEATHERS and DARWIN'S MOTHER) and has published poems and essays in the American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, and more, Sarah Rose Nordgren will be teaching our Master Class in Poetry, titled "Thresholds." In this class, you will focus on poetry that meets the bewildered world with both bravery and softness, equally prepared to accept and to transform.

Interested in taking this class? Register for the Conference on our website and submit your work for a chance to be invited to take the class!

https://buff.ly/K5cokOb

Need some help getting to our Spring Conference? Consider applying for a scholarship! A limited amount of aid is available to deserving writers who would not be able to attend our Spring Conference otherwise. The deadline for application is Friday, March 27th.

Learn more about this opportunity on our website!

https://buff.ly/K5cokOb

Join us this Thursday, April 2nd, at 6PM in the UNCG Alumni House for a poetry and fiction reading by Diamond Forde and Stephanie Powell Watts. The reading is free and open to the public and will be preceded by a reception and book signing. https://buff.ly/ZsQBbir

DIAMOND FORDE is the author of two poetry collections, Mother Body, a Kate Tufts Discovery award nominee, and The Book of Alice, winner of the Academy of American Poets’ James Laughlin Award. She has received a doctorate in Creative Writing at Florida State University, with a specialization in both African American poetics and fat studies, and an MFA in Creative Writing at The University of Alabama. Forde has received recognition in the Furious Flower Poetry Prize, nomination as a Kate Tufts Discovery award finalist, and has earned a Ruth Lily Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg fellowship. Her work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, Obsidian, Callaloo, and elsewhere. Forde serves as the Interviews Editor for Honey Literary, as an assistant professor at North Carolina University.

STEPHANIE POWELL WATTS won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence for her debut story collection, We Are Taking Only What We Need (2012), also named one of 2013’s Best Summer Reads by O: The Oprah Magazine. Her short fiction has been included in two volumes of the Best New Stories from the South anthology and honored with a Pushcart Prize. Ms. Powell Watts’s stories explore the lives of African Americans in fast food and factory jobs, working door to door as Jehovah’s Witness ministers, and pressing against the boundaries of the small town, post-integration South. Her debut novel, No One Is Coming to Save Us, follows the return of a successful native son to his home in North Carolina and his attempt to join the only family he ever wanted but never had. As Ms. Powell Watts describes it, “Imagine The Great Gatsby set in rural North Carolina, nine decades later, with desperate black people.” Born in the foothills of North Carolina, with a PhD from the University of Missouri and a BA from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, she now lives with her husband and son in Pennsylvania where she is an associate professor at Lehigh University.

Join us in welcoming Drew Perry to our Spring Conference 2026 faculty! Author of the novels THIS IS JUST EXACTLY LIKE US and KIDS THESE DAYS, and a professor at Elon University, Drew Perry will be teaching our fiction class "The Shape of Story." In this class, you will explore what we consider the "container" of a story to be and how you can expand your use of time in a narrative to explore your story!

Interested in taking this class? Register for this class and the rest of our Spring Conference to get access to more classes and other fun opportunities that will happen during that day!

https://buff.ly/K5cokOb

Join us in welcoming Ashley Lumpkin to our Spring 2026 faculty! A Georgia-raised, Carolina-based writer, editor, performance artist, and educator, Ashley Lumpkin is the author of five poetry collections including AT FIRST SIGHT. She will be leading our class on the Poetics of Heart and Body, called Beyond Recollection. In this class, writers will move beyond the retelling of events towards the knowledge held by the body, imagination, and emotions themselves through poetry.

Interested in taking this class? Register for this class and the rest of our Spring Conference to get access to more classes and other fun opportunities that will happen during that day!

https://buff.ly/K5cokOb