About Master’s Program,
Iowa State University’s three-year MFA program in Creative Writing and Environment emphasizes study in creative writing—poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama—that encourages writers to identify and explore in their stories and lyric impressions the complex influences of place, the natural world, and the environmental imagination.
The human story finds its structure in geology and geography, in biology and chemistry—both natural and constructed—and in the complex and rapidly changing cultural and natural landscape. With more people sharing our planet’s finite space, and with our planet and its systems imperiled, an educated attention to place in the broadest sense of the term is vital.
From Homer’s Odyssey to Melville’s Moby Dick, from Black Elk to Black Boy, from Virginia Woolf to Tobias Wolff, the literary arts acknowledge an inherent connection between the imprint of place and environment on the stories and images that shape the work of literary writers.
Through a program of study that includes a rigorous combination of creative writing workshops, literature coursework, environmental fieldwork experience, interdisciplinary study in courses other than English, and intensive one-on-one work with a mentor (major professor), our MFA program offers gifted writers an original and intensive opportunity to document, meditate on, mourn, and celebrate the complexities of our transforming natural world.
Learn more about our program by meeting our faculty and current MFA students; exploring our unique program assets, such as our Hogrefe Fellowships, Flyway Literary Journal, Everett Casey Nature Reserve, and Pearl Hogrefe Writer Series; and learning about our alumni.
Master’s Program Degree Eligibility with GPA,
Admission requirements are determined by both the Graduate College and the individual graduate programs. Below are the general criteria for graduate admission at Iowa State University:
Applicants must hold a bachelor’s or higher degree from a regionally accredited college or university before beginning graduate studies. This is a fundamental requirement, and appeals to waive it are not considered.
A minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale (equivalent to a B grade) is required for admission.
While Iowa State University does not have a university-wide requirement for the GRE or GMAT, most graduate programs require one of these tests. Applicants should review the specific requirements of their intended program.
These criteria help ensure that all admitted students are prepared for success in their graduate studies.
Master’s Funding Coverage,
We make every effort to offer assistantship support to all the students admitted to the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment. At present, starting half-time 20 hours per week teaching assistantships for MFA students total $20,264 paid out over 10 months from Aug 16 through May 15). Teaching assistants with half-time assistantships also receive a full tuition waiver scholarship (approximate value $11,492 Fall 2024) and single health insurance coverage.
The teaching load for teaching assistants is four classes a year (2 classes per semester), teaching in the ISUComm Foundation Courses or Speech Communication programs. Teaching assistants receive excellent preparatory training to support their teaching from the directors of these teaching programs. They are carefully mentored during their first year of teaching.
Other Support: The MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment is home to the Pearl Hogrefe Fellowship in Creative Writing.
Application Requirement,
- Online Graduate Application(and application fee)
- Statement of Purpose
- Curriculum Vitae/Resume
- Writing Portfolio,which should be a single PDF containing the following items in the specified order (see below for additional instructions concerning content and length):
- Creative Writing Sample
- Expository Writing Sample
- Three Letters of Recommendation
- Scanned Official Transcriptsand degree statements
- Hogrefe Fellowship Application Form if applicable
- Teaching Assistantship Applicationif applying for a teaching assistantship (see additional instructions on the English department’s How To Apply website)
- Nonnative speakers of English requirements, if applicable (see additional instructions below):
- English proficiency official examination scores sent directly to ISU by the testing agency for TOEFL/IELTS/PTE/Duolingo (upload unofficial scores to your application account)
- Audio or video file to demonstrate competence in spoken English
Application Deadline,
Oct 15, 2025
Application Fee,
- Domestic applicants (U.S. citizens, permanent residents, refugees, asylees, DACA, or undocumented individuals): $60 (nonrefundable).
- International applicants: $100 (nonrefundable).
