The Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA) MFA in Writing Program offers degree tracks in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, as well as a secondary concentration in translation.  Established in 1981, the program was one of the first low-residency programs to offer writers the opportunity to earn an MFA degree through study with accomplished authors and teachers without leaving their communities, families, or jobs.  Unlike traditional residential programs, which require you to live elsewhere for two years, ours brings you together with other writers twice each year for intensive 10-day residencies. Because your classmates come from every corner of the United States, the diversity of perspectives, attitudes, and voices is exceptional. After each residency, you return home to complete your semester of self-designed study while working independently under the guidance of a faculty member.

The MFA in Writing Program is housed on the historic Vermont College campus in Montpelier, Vermont. The campus is a five-minute walk from downtown Montpelier, the quaint and architecturally beautiful capital of Vermont.

The Ruth Stone Prize in Poetry, sponsored by Hunger Mountain, The Vermont College Journal of Arts & Letters, is accepting entries through December 10. Please see www.hungermtn.org for details and submission guidelines. $1,000 prize and publication. This year’s judge is Major Jackson, noted poet and author of Hoops and Leaving Saturn.

MFA in Writing Program Alumnae receive distinguished honors:

Nancy Lord has recently been named the new Alaska writer laureate. Nancy is the author of three short fiction collections (most recently The Man Who Swam with Beavers) and three books of literary nonfiction (most recently Beluga Days.)  Nancy teaches part-time at the Kachemak Bay Branch of Kenai Peninsula College, University of Alaska Anchorage, and has also taught in the M.F.A. programs at the University of Alaska Anchorage and Bowling Green State University in Ohio.  She has won numerous other honors and fellowships, including grants from the Alaska State Council on the Arts and the Rasmuson Foundation, as well as a Pushcart Prize.

Margarite (Howe) Landry is the winner of the 2008 James Jones First Novel Fellowship with her manuscript Blue Moon. The award is intended to honor the spirit of unblinking honesty, determination, and insight into modern culture exemplified by the late James Jones, author of From Here to Eternity and other prose narratives of distinction. The award is given by the James Jones Literary Society. An excerpt from Blue Moon will appear in Provincetown Arts (July 2010).