Lesley MFA Interdisciplinary Studies

"A primary strength of the Lesley MFA in Creative Writing program is its interdisciplinary nature. Everybody learns from one another."

Real world experience, multi-genre work, and the option to be as independently creative as you like are the hallmarks of the Lesley MFA interdisciplinary component.

A few examples of hundreds:

• A student listens passionately to jazz vocalists, takes voice lessons and dashes out new poems with the new vibrations and rhythms.
• Another interviews local Vietnam vets and learns about Agent Orange for a memoir she is writing about her father.
• Another is a teaching assistant with a professor at Lesley, learning how to run writing groups in class and lead class discussions of literature to undergraduates.
• A poet works on a YA novel with the intent to produce a dual genre thesis.

"The Art of the Author Interview project has given me another practical way to earn a living as a writer in conjunction with editing, writing, and teaching."

As a rule, students' Interdisciplinary Studies (IS) projects in the MFA take four shapes:

• Designing an individualized independent study
• Taking an Interdisciplinary Studies group online course offered by the MFA program's stable of writers, artists, scholars, and consultants
• Doing an internship or Teaching Assistantship
• Enrolling in a graduate course at Lesley or another institution

Our online courses include the following offerings:

• Creative Writing Pedagogy—create a syllabus under the guidance of an experienced Lesley faculty
• Editing: An Overview—work with an experienced editor to learn how to edit a fellow student's manuscript from submission to publication
• Word & Image—Using photographic images (digital or film), students explore the relationship between words and images.
• Art of the English Sentence—Students focus on the craft of writing sentences, including finding writers whose sentences they like, figuring out what they are doing, and imitating those sentences with feedback and guidelines
• Art of the Author Interview—Participants receive the resources and tools they need in order to successfully secure, conduct, and publish an author interview.  
• Book Reviewing—students practice writing reviews, culminating in a longer project of trying to get a book review placed in a publication.

Students also work with Lesley faculty in the divisions of Expressive Therapies, Creative Arts and Learning, Humanities, Education, Ecological Teaching and Learning, and the Art Institute of Boston. Travel study to London, Ireland, Navajo country, Mexico, and other locations is also popular.

"The 3-credit IS component enables MFA candidates to cross genres each semester, an absolutely forward-thinking benefit in today's culture where print/film/web and other media often mix and merge, and none of us knows for sure where it will all lead."

Topics of students' independent studies have included:

Schizophrenia and women; the apocalypse in literature and film; ecological fieldwork; colonial America; the Vietnam War; Victorian technology; vocal jazz and poetry; Spanish poetry translation; documentary production; acting; the graphic novel; illustration; ballet; research on Haitian students in the Boston Public Schools; picture books; TV and film pilots; animation; the one-act play; sword fighting; music & writing; puppy mills; sea narratives; literary criticism & stylistics; songwriting; tragedy; culture and place; designing poetry chapbooks; photography; the lyric essay; adaptation; collage; and more...

Examples of IS projects that lead to practical, hands-on, "street smarts" include:

• Being a teaching assistant in courses in literature, composition, or creative writing in the Lesley College division of Humanities or another college or university
• Interning at a literary magazine or publishing house, including Harvard Review, Adirondack Review, Perseus Books, and others
• Working for a literary nonprofit organization such as PEN-New England, the Association of Literary Scholars, or a literary agency, such as the Fairbank Literary Agency
• Our students have also taught and led writing groups in their communities at such places as WriteBoston, local 826 chapters, and others. They have taught writing in the prisons, led writing groups at mental hospitals and community centers, and led reading study groups in local libraries and schools.

Many long-standing Interdisciplinary Advisors are tops in their fields of study, including:

• Barbara Baig—author of the forthcoming, How to Be a Writer: Building Your Creative Skills through Practice and Play
• Gregory Evans—writer for BBC radio, television and stage
• Daniel Gewertz—top Boston-based freelance journalist, published in The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, The New York Times, Musician Magazine and others
• Kara LaReau—award-winning author, editor, and creative literary consultant
• Lesléa Newman—author of 57 books, including Heather Has Two Mommies
• Pamela Petro—author of three travel books and contributor to The Sunday New York Times, Granta, and The Daily Telegraph and others
• David Rachlin—MFA, MA, adjunct faculty, Lesley School of Education
• Sinan Ünel—award-winning playwright and screenwriter
• Jonathon Weinert—MFA, poet, author of In the Mode of Disappearance
• Amy Yelin—freelance writer and alumna cited in Best American Essays 2007

"In my first semester IS on screenwriting, I finally 'got' what a story is. I completed a full-length screenplay from start to finish under the tutelage of an able mentor. This milestone directly carries over to my fiction writing."

WHAT I.S. POSSIBLE?

At residencies we hold an Interdisciplinary Fair where students can present their I.S. work in poster sessions or informal presentations, play readings, musical performance, or a reading of their inter-genre work. Click here for to see the Fair schedule and program!