NYU Creative Writing Program

ABOUT

The NYU Creative Writing Program grew out of NYU's English department into one of the most closely watched MFA programs in the country, run out of the Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House on West 10th Street in Greenwich Village. Its faculty roster reads like a syllabus of contemporary American letters — Sharon Olds (a former program director and Pulitzer/T.S. Eliot Prize winner), Ocean Vuong, Claudia Rankine, Jeffrey Eugenides, Hari Kunzru, Terrance Hayes, Katie Kitamura, Darin Strauss, and Jonathan Safran Foer have all taught there. Alumni include Ada Limón (U.S. Poet Laureate), Raven Leilani, Tyehimba Jess, Solmaz Sharif, Gregory Pardlo, Nicole Sealey, Ishion Hutchinson, Aracelis Girmay, and Robin Coste Lewis, and recent graduates regularly turn up on National Book Award, Whiting, and NBCC shortlists. The program also runs the public Lillian Vernon Reading Series (past guests include Anne Carson, Zadie Smith, and Terrance Hayes), publishes the student-edited journal Washington Square Review, and maintains an undergraduate track with workshops, prizes, and a creative writing minor.