The American University of Paris Offers an MFA in Creative Writing With a Global Focus

Combining the American liberal arts tradition with the cross-cultural nature of The American University of Paris (AUP), the MFA in Creative Writing program brings students to meet, read, and gain inspiration from writers, translators, and artists from across the globe to think and write creatively across disciplines.

In pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at AUP, students are joining the rich literary community already present at the university and in the city of Paris, home to thriving networks of writers and translators, publishing houses, cultural events, and a myriad of archives, libraries, exhibition spaces, and bookstores.

The American University of Paris’s research centers, such as the Center for Writers and Translators, which publishes the Cahier Series; and other platforms for publishing, such as the student-run Paris/Atlantic, the university’s annual literary and creative arts journal; allow scholars, writers, translators, and artists to think collectively through pertinent issues and topics of our time and develop unique projects to respond to them creatively.

The program aims to broaden students’ perspectives on literature through the study of translated works, the practice of translation, eco-politics, and intermedial approaches to cultural exchange. Taught in English, the program also offers workshops in fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction, all the while challenging the divisions between these categories. As Program Co-Director Biswamit Dwibedy puts it, “The focus is on storytelling — you will be trained in any genre your story needs to be told in.”

Beyond Paris, the program takes students on a three-day writers’ retreat to the renowned Royaumont Abbey and offers study trips; faculty in the Department of English and Comparative Literature have recently taken students to Iceland, London, Bordeaux, Crete, and Cairo. The India Literary Practicum, crafted specifically for this program, offers the chance to discover the country’s multilingual and multicultural thriving literary scene and meet with collaborators and students from some of the nation’s best design schools, NGOs, museums, and archives.

There is no doubt that the wealth of creativity and the depth of culture in Paris are immense, but the AUP experience will take you on a journey well beyond the city limits, through personal exploration and the challenges raised by confrontation with difference. In pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at AUP, you will not only discover the literary heritage of Paris and its intersections with the rest of the world, but you will also become part of it.

To learn more, visit the program page at graduate.aup.edu.