February 15, 2025 is the deadline for graduate applications for those wishing to enter the PhD Fall 2025. We do not admit new PhD students in spring.

GSU is no longer accepting applications for the MFA in Creative Writing.

Georgia State University Creative Writing Program students enjoy the benefits of working with our award-winning faculty while living and writing in Atlanta, an international city with vibrant literary, art, music, and food cultures.

We award the PhD in English, Concentration in Creative Writing (one of the top 15 in the US, as ranked by Poets & Writers) and the BA in English, Concentration in Creative Writing. You can explore the details of these degree programs in the Graduate Catalog and the Undergraduate Catalog.

We offer a number of financial aid opportunities for graduate students, including the Paul Bowles Fellowship in Fiction, the Virginia Spencer Carr Fellowship in Prose, teaching assistantships, and editorial assistantships at the literary magazine Five Points.

Our students come from all over—Idaho, Ohio, Nigeria, California, Texas, New York, Illinois, and even Georgia. Those students publish with Catapult, Atria Books, Amistad/HarperCollins, University of Georgia Press, Random House, Texas Review Press, Seagull Press,  Algonquin Books, Jacar Press, Kelsay Books, St. Martin’s, University of North Texas Press, Alice James Books, Bloomsbury, Big Lucks, Anhinga Press, Scribner, Louisiana State University Press, 7.13 Books, Unbridled Books, Press 53, C&R Press, Woodhall Press, and elsewhere, and in Poetry, One Story, Conjunctions, Missouri Review, DIAGRAM, AGNI, American Short Fiction, Hobart, Gettysburg Review, Georgia Review, McSweeney’s, Gulf Coast, Carolina Quarterly, and many others. They win important prizes, fellowships, and contests, including the National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, the AWP Award Series for Creative Nonfiction, the Colorado Book Award, the Vassar Miller Prize, the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry, the Clay Reynolds Novella Prize, the Poets & Writers Writers Exchange Contest, the Hurston/Wright Award, the Walter E. Dakin Fellowship from The Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship, the Georgia Author of the Year Award, and The World’s Best Short Short Story Contest. Recently a story collection by an alum was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner.

Our graduate faculty includes Danielle Cadena Deulen (poetry & creative nonfiction), Beth Gylys (poetry), John Holman (fiction), Sheri Joseph (fiction), and Josh Russell (fiction & creative nonfiction). Our undergraduate faculty includes Andrea Jurjevic (poetry & translation) and Megan Sexton (poetry & literary publishing). Every member of the Creative Writing Program faculty has published with top commercial, independent, or university presses a book or books that have received significant critical attention, and each faculty member has received major awards, honors, or fellowships, including the Whiting Writer’s Award, The Grub Street National Book Prize, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.

The Creative Writing Program’s Events Series brings to campus nationally and internationally known writers who give public readings and lectures and meet with students for workshops and Q&A sessions. Recent visitors have included Ander Monson, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, Lauren Groff, David Shields, Natasha Trethewey, Lydia Davis, Dana Spiota, Sindiwe Magona, and Edward Hirsch.

Information about how to apply to the PhD can be found here. (Go ahead and click “Apply Now” over on the left, even if you’re not ready to apply when you click the button. That click leads to the College of Arts & Science’s Graduate Admissions page, which has links to several other useful pages.) For more details, consult also the Graduate Catalog, which can be found here.

Information about the BA in English, Concentration in Creative Writing, can be found here. For more details, consult also the Undergraduate Catalog, which can be found here.

If you’re interested in the PhD, note that applicants to the PhD program are generally expected to have completed a MFA in creative writing, or a master’s degree in English, creative writing, or a closely related discipline in the arts or humanities (history, philosophy, art, theater, art history, modern or classical languages, folklore, etc.) from an accredited college or university.

If you have any other questions about the Georgia State University Creative Writing Program’s degree programs, courses, or events, please contact Professor Josh Russell, Director of Creative Writing.

More information about the GSU Creative Writing Program and Department of English can be found at the Department of English website.