MFA Program in Creative Writing at Chatham University

Chatham MFA and The Fourth River Literary Journal will be at AWP in Baltimore today through Saturday! Visit us at Booth #218 in the Bookfair, and check out our feature in AWP's Writers Notebook celebrating the re-launch of our beloved low-res program!

Relaunching Chatham University’s Low-Residency MFA Program Chatham University in Pittsburgh, whose low-residency MFA program, established in 2009 and deactivated in the fall of 2023, is once again open for applications.

We're looking forward to welcoming prospective students to campus on March 13! Please share with anyone you think might love a chance to learn more about our program, students and faculty!

Have you heard the news? Our low-residency program is taking applications for the fall '26 cohort! Let us introduce you to some core FICTION faculty members: Josh Bellin, Derek Green, Alison Stine, Ira Sukrungruang and Dave Housley. What a great bunch of inventors of worlds, human and non-human beings! For more information and to apply, see the link in the first comment below.

Spotlight: Chatham MFA + The Fallingwater Residency! Littsburgh is coming back in 2026 and making plans for the new year, so watch this space… but in the meantime, we wanted to take a minute to spotlight our friends at Chatham MFA, which is currently accepting applications for fall 2026. Their Fallingwater Residency in Nature & Place-Based Writing.....

We are excited to share that Chatham's Low-residency MFA is re-launching after a 2-year hiatus!

Our new program will offer a dynamic, flexible curriculum that combines one-on-one creative writing mentorships, online courses in areas like Travel Writing, Nature Writing, Appalachian literature and publishing with The Fourth River literary journal, and onsite residencies at our Shadyside and Eden Hall campuses, as well as at Fallingwater. (We are the first and ONLY MFA program in the country to be able to offer this exclusive experience!)

We are busy building out a core faculty of some of the best writers of nature, place, and human identity in the country to work with our students. Watch this space for highlight posts for each of them.

Finally, we have a new tuition model that keeps the program much more affordable in this challenging economy.

Please check out the link in the comments to learn more and share with anyone you think might want to study with us. Applications for Fall 26 are OPEN!

Look who's on the AWP homepage today!

AWP Homepage Posted on 7/1/2025 Each July, AWP recognizes Disability Pride Month to highlight the importance of actively working toward a more inclusive and accessible world. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the first official celebration of Disability Pride Month.

Fallingwater re-cap at AWP!

Writing Nature and Place at Fallingwater with Chatham MFA Chatham University’s MFA program has launched an exciting new partnership with one of the world’s most famous and photogenic houses: Fallingwater.

A cautionary tale and some helpful advice from our program director at the Brevity Blog.

Dear Writer, Don’t Bite Dear Writer/Artist/Creative Person of Some Type— We have been admiring your writing/painting/non-specific creative thing for a while/some time/the length of time it takes to do a Google search now …

Chatham MFA spent 5 days writing at Fallingwater! It was indescribably wonderful.

Today our participants had incredible private access to write for 2 hours inside Fallingwater! Our guide suggested we take shoes off in the house so as to ground ourselves in the place and experience. Yes, you read that right: we got to go barefoot inside a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece! We wandered the house and the balconies and found rooms and nooks to write inside. We are writers and honestly, words fail. As someone said, “this was a bucket list experience.” Just wow. #fallingwater #mfaresidency #fallingwaterresidency #naturewriting #placewriting #franklloydwright