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• BENNINGTON WRITING SEMINARS MA/MFA PROGRAM IN WRITING AND LITERATURE THE COURSEOF STUDY The Bennington Writing Seminars at Bennington College offer a low-residency Master of Arts (M.A.) or Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) degree in Writing and Literature. This two-year graduate program involves intense ten-day residency periods at Bennington College during Januaryand August of each year. To complete the program, four semesters and five residencies are required. Between residencies, students spend the six-month semesters corresponding directly with faculty who teach as part of the program's core staff. Additionalfaculty participate as associate staff during the 10-day residency periods, teaching literature from a writer's point of view. The five residencies feature workshops, readings, lectures and discussions of literature, and an ongoing investigation of what constitutes the world of letters. In keeping '0.ith Bennington's progressive tradition, the course of study in the Seminars is largely self-structured by the student. Students, in consort with the core staff, form their own reading lists, and submit interpretive and original work-fiction, nonfiction, and poetry-forcritique at regular intervals throughout the semester. The tutorial and development of individual work is at the heartof the program, as it is at the heart of Bennington College and its other graduate programs in dance, music, and the visual arts. Students are expected to devote at least twenty-five hours each week to their writingand reading, and a successfully completed semester's work is granted sixteen hours of graduate credit. To receive the M.F.A., each student will create and submit a manuscript of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry at the end of the program. The M.A. degree will be awarded to those who elect to concentrate on interpretive andcritical work. In all cases, students will be expected to explore both arenas and to complete a major independent written project. During each residency, workshops will be conducted in fiction, nonfiction. and poetry by the core staff. Associate staff will visit to conduct five-day residencies, teaching literature in three lecture/ discussion sessions. Whatever the genre in which a student is working, all students are expected to attend the sessions of associate faculty in at least three lecture/discussions. During the ten-day residency, students willdesign their course of study for the coming semester-readings and writings-in consultation with the core faculty member with whom the student will be corresponding. All faculty will give readings of their work, and associate faculty will consult informally with students about student reading lists. Students will also give readings of their work. Workshops are small-never more than twelve people­ and an intimate student/teacher ratio will be maintained throughout the program. The first two semesters aredevoted to original and interpretive work, with a minimum ten-page critical paper. based on one's reading list. to be submitted to the core staff member and the students in one's genre at the end of each semester. The third semester requires, in addition to original work, that each student complete a minimum twenty-page critical work which will then be revised and presented to the faculty and students in a lecture which will take place during the fourthresidency period. During the course of the program each student concentrates on the genre in which their applicationwas accepted. However. since the Writing Seminars look to encourage writing as a broad person of letters, students are allowed to spend on semester outside the area of their focus, with the permissionof the corresponding teacher. Many of our writers write between the genre distinctions of fiction,poetry, and nonfiction,and ample opportunityto study all three genres is constituted in the core and associate faculty. No writing program-nor government, for that matter-can call great writing into being. The Writing Seminars offers to aid those who have heard the call and are working to answer it. The emphasis at the WritingSeminars will not be towards training nor credentializing those who wish to teach, though our M.F.A. degree will be regarded as an "appropriate terminaldegree in the arts" for those who might someday look to teach on the college level. Our emphasis will remain on the merits of the work at hand, augmented by becoming able to participate and contribute to the larger world of letters. Students must be in residence each day of the January and August residencies. arriving the day before the residency and leaving no sooner than the day after. ADMISSIONS The Bennington Writing Seminars began in January of 1994. Students may begin the program during either of the ten-day residency Januaryor August. Admission is limited and competitive. sessions in Students are admitted to the program primarily on the strength of the original manuscript submitted with the application, which will be judged according its literary merit, and on demonstratedabilit y to study writing and literature onto a graduate level. The application should include two manuscript copies. Although we encourage students to write broadly in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, students will initially be accepted to work in one primary genre. The manuscript submitted should be in the genre in which the student intends to concentrate. Manuscripts cannot be returned. The application should otherwise provide a two- to three-page essay on how a student intends to use the program to shape the student's work. and what in the student's background prepares the student for work in the Seminars. Normally a Bachelor's degree is required to gain admission, but this requirement canbe waived if the quality of the work submitted warrants such an exception. Students who are applying to the program will often have completed some graduate work or attained graduate degrees in various fields; no credits taken beforehand can be applied to the Bennington Writing Seminars. The low-residency format has its own internal logic and requirements. and in order to receive a degree a student must have completed the entire course of study. In addition the original manuscript and the essay on how a student intends to use the program,to in admitting students we will give weight to previous education and life experience. We will look see that a prospective student has both the ability work independently, to successfullyto utilize the low-residency format, and to benefitto from direct criticism within the collaborative nature of the residency periods. Our aim is to provide a vortex for the person of letters and to be part ,of the lifelong continuum within the world of letters. Transcripts from previous schools attended must also be submitted, along with recommendations from two persons familiar with the student's writing and capacity to function independently and collaboratively. A $40 application fee is required in order that an application be processed, and this fee cannot be waived nor refunded. Financial aid is available, in the form of student loans. and these funds must be applied for within the deadlines outlined on the application form. We invite interestedapplicants call the program and discuss matters in detail. to Refunds in the program are scheduled in accordance with the Bennington Business Office. Ask for details. BENNINGTON WRITING SEMINARS BENNINGTON COLLEGE CORE FACULTY To teach workshops during the two ten-day residencies in January and August, to correspond with students during the six-month semesters between residencies, to give readings of their work, andto advise students in setting up their course of study. Fiction DOUGLAS BAUER: Mr. Bauer's novels are (Morrow, 1993) and The Verv Air y (Simon and Schuster, 1989), which was also published in Germany and England.Dexterit He has written a book of nonfiction, (G.P. Putnams, 1979). Mr. Bauer has received a fellowship in Prairiefiction fromCity, Iowathe National Endowment for the Arts and received awards in teaching at the Harvard-Danforth Center. He has published essays and criticism in the andThe elsewhere. Atlantic, He holdsNew Yorka Doctor ofTimes Arts Book from Review, the State Harper's, University Esquire, of New Playboy, York at Albany and a B.A. in journalism from Drake University; and has taught at Drake, Harvard, the University of New Mexico, Ohio State University, and elsewhere. He has worked as an editor, and he lives in Boston, Massachusetts. SUSAN DODD: Ms. Dodd's novels are (Viking, 1988) and (Viking, 1986). She has also publishedMamaw two books of short stories,No Earthly Nod.on (Viking, 1990) and (University of Iowa,Hell-Bent i'vlen1984). and In Their 1992 Citiesshe received a fellowshipOld in fiction Wives' from Tales the NEA andshe has received two Distinguished Teaching Awards from Harvard University. She has taught at Harvard, Vermont College, and at the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa. She has also worked as a speechwriter and as a legislative aide. Her stories, essays, and reviews have been published in and Yankee,in other The periodicals. New Yorker, Ms. DoddRedbook, holds Lear's, an M.F.A. Newsday, from thethe Washingtonlow-residency Post, writing program at Vermont College and a B.S. in InternationalAffairs from Georgetown University. She currently makes her home in Ocracoke. North Carolina, an island whichis part of the Outer Banks. MARIA FLOOK: Ms. Flook's first novel, (Pantheon, 1993), received a PEN/ErnestHemingway Foundation Special Family Citation. Night Her new novel, is forthcoming in January of 1995 fromPantheon, who will thereafter publishOpen Water, a collectionof her stories, A limited edition of short stories, Human Shores. with appeared from Ampersand Press in 1987. She has alsoDancing published My two Sister volumes Jane, of poems, (Wesleyan, 1990) and (Houghton Mifflin, 1982), whichSea Roomreceived the Great Lakes CollegeReckless AssociationWedding new writer's award. Her work has appeared in and otherThe magazines.

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