IndieMFA in Creative Writing
The IndieMFA program at WritingWorkshops.com combines the best elements of a low-residency MFA with a strong focus on the art and craft of writing. This unique structure prepares advanced writers to meet the demands of the publishing marketplace while providing the flexibility needed to balance their writing education with other commitments.
Unlike traditional MFA programs, which can be challenging to complete while working full-time, our IndieMFA program allows you to complete your coursework online. This remote learning format provides the convenience and flexibility you need to integrate your studies into your busy life while also being a fraction of the tuition for most traditional and low-res MFA programs.
Our IndieMFA Faculty
Our IndieMFA roster of part-time faculty members for both online and destination retreats includes award-winning poets, novelists, and essayists who work across and between genres. Current and past faculty includes Ramona Ausubel, Marie-Helene Bertino, Kelly Luce, Chloe Caldwell, Christine Pride, Brandon Hobson, Morgan Talty, Ethan Joella, Alyssa Songsiridej, Isaac Fitzgerald, Chloé Cooper Jones, Stewart O'Nan, Diana Spechler, Karen E. Bender, James Tate Hill, Robert Anthony Siegel, Sandra Lim, Elissa Bassist, Amber Sparks, Yara Zgheib, Mark Gottlieb, Virginia Reeves, Kyle Minor, Jill Talbot, Michelle Kicherer, Sarah Herrington, and more.
Our rigorous curriculum and expert faculty ensures that you receive top-tier instruction in writing and literature, equipping you with the skills and knowledge to succeed in the competitive publishing industry. The IndieMFA program at WritingWorkshops.com is designed to help you develop your writing to its fullest potential and prepare you for a successful career as a published author.
Official Education Partner of Electric Literature
IndieMFA in Creative Writing at WritingWorkshops.com is an official education partner of Electric Literature, and we are the home for writers who want to strengthen their voice, develop a greater understanding of craft, and forge a path to publication along the way.
Student Success
Since our founding in 2016, our students have signed with agents, published books, gone on to funded MFA programs such as The Iowa Writers' Workshop, The Michener Center for Writers,Syracuse, Michigan, NYU, Columbia, Brooklyn College, UC-Irvine, and have been awarded fellowships from the Tin House Workshop, The Vermont Studio Center and The Elizabeth George Foundation, among others, and have won literary awards for their writing.
IndieMFA Destination Retreats
Our IndieMFA program incorporates in-person residencies with our line-up of destination writing retreats around the world. Our retreats gather an intimate group of serious-minded writers for an intensive week of workshops, craft seminars, one-on-one conferences, and in-depth discussions on the craft and business of writing with a full schedule of afternoon and evening activities that bring each location to life. We travel to incredible locations including Iceland, Ireland, Tuscany, Paris, Dublin, New York City, Hawaii, Vermont, Santa Fe, New Orleans, and more.
IndieMFA Faculty & Upcoming Programs
Alyssa Songsiridej is the author of Little Rabbit, a Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and PEN/Hemingway Finalist, and a National Book Foundation 5 under 35, and a former editor at Electric Literature. The first story Alyssa acquired and edited for the magazine, “It is What It Is” by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, was selected by Min Jin Lee for the 2022 Best American Short Stories Anthology. Alyssa is also the author of more than one failed “drawer novel” and, in the course of drafting and failing and then eventually publishing a book, learned a great about what it takes to complete a solid project.
Award-winning novelist Kelly Luce is the author of Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail (A Strange Object), winner of Foreword Review’s Editor’s Choice Prize for Fiction, and the novel Pull Me Under (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), a Book of the Month Club selection and one of Elle’s Best Books. Her work has been recognized by fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Tennessee Arts Commission, Sewanee Writers' Conference, Ucross Foundation, Art Omi, Ragdale Foundation, the Kerouac Project, and Jentel Arts, and has appeared in New York Magazine, Chicago Tribune, The Sun, Salon, O, the Oprah Magazine, The Southern Review, and other publications; her digital short story "Between the Lines" went viral in 2022. She received an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at UT Austin, where she was editor-in-chief of Bat City Review and editorial assistant for the O. Henry Prize Anthology. She is the editor of the Electric Literature’s Commuter and was a 2016-17 fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. In 2023, she was awarded the Wachtmeister Prize from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
In January 2025, immerse yourself in the art of storytelling amidst the vibrant, historic streets of New Orleans. Our New Orleans Writing Workshop Retreat gathers an intimate group of fiction and nonfiction writers for an intensive four-night experience of creativity, craft seminars, one-on-one conferences, and in-depth discussions on the craft and business of writing.
Led by National Book Award-finalist Karen E. Bender and award-winning memoirist Robert Anthony Siegel, our program is designed to be intentionally small, ensuring personalized attention and a close-knit community atmosphere.
Michelle Kicherer is a book critic and arts journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle, Willamette Week, Portland Monthly and others. Michelle’s writing has been published in The Masters Review, The Berkeley Fiction Review, The Sierra Nevada Review, 580 Split, The Deli, The Bay Bridged, Forbes, SF Station, The Cutaway, Into The Void, Portland Monthly and many others. She occasionally co-writes books, has ghostwritten several memoirs and nonfiction books, and a novel. Her novella Sexy Life, Hello will be released in audiobook Fall ‘24 and in print Winter ‘25.
This program will feature guest appearances from writers like Kimberly King Parsons, (We Were the Universe) Tessa Fontaine, (The Red Grove, Electric Woman), Susan Ito (I Would Meet You Anywhere), Diane Goettel (publisher of Black Lawrence Press), the Books editor at Portland Monthly and more! Past guests have included Pulitzer-nominated writer and McSweeney’s editor Andrew Leland (Country of the Blind) and Diana Goetsch, amongst many others. More featured guests to be announced, including industry professionals from the publishing world (small presses, publicists, media outlets, etc!).
This book proposal boot camp, limited to just 15 students, is designedfor folks ready to prioritize writing a book proposal. Tawny Lara, Quirkand Penguin Random House author of Dry Humping: A Guide to Dating Relating, and Hooking Up Without the Booze, and the forthcoming card deck, The Sobriety Deck, designedthis intensive as the book proposal boot camp she needed in the earlystages of her publishing career. Tawny also has a Business degree, andshe's the CMO of a drink brand. Sheapproaches book proposals the same way she approaches business. Shesees book proposals as business and marketing plans for your book.
Meredith Alloway is a Texas native who currently resides in Manhattan as a writer, filmmaker, and producer. She has screened her films internationally at festivals like SXSW, AFI Fest, Overlook, and Bucheon, and her film 'Deep Tissue' played at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Her feature film ‘High Priestess’ is currently in development at David S. Goyer’s ('The Dark Knight') company Phantom Four with Eliza Scanlen and Justice Smith attached to star. She co-wrote the feature 'Forbidden Fruits' and it was chosen for 2023’s Black List. Diablo Cody and Mason Novick are producing and Meredith is attached to direct. She is a proud member of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA, having written features for Sony and Universal Studios. Meredith partnered with Hulu, Sundance Institute, and 20th Century Digital Studios on her last two short films ‘Ride’ and ‘First Date,’ and was thrilled to direct Paris Jackson’s debut gothic music video ‘Let Down’ with Eli Roth EPing. As a journalist for over 12 years, she's written interviews and feature pieces for publications such as Vanity Fair, Playboy, Filmmaker Magazine, Nylon, and Indiewire. Meredith has worked as a producer and creative consultant for IFP, And/Or Studio, Juniper Jones, Gretel and We Are Social. She is repped by Echo Lake Entertainment and WME.
Meg Eden Kuyatt is the author of the 2021 Towson Prize for Literature winning poetry collection “Drowning in the Floating World” (Press 53, 2020) and children’s novels, including the young adult novel “Post-High School Reality Quest” and the middle grade novel in verse “Good Different,” a JLG Gold Standard selection (Scholastic, 2023). She is a 2020 Pitch Wars mentee, and her work is published or forthcoming in magazines including Writer’s Digest, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, Poetry Northwest, Crab Orchard Review, RHINO and CV2. She received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Maryland College Park, and has taught creative writing at a range of places, including Anne Arundel Community College, Southern New Hampshire University online, University of Maryland College Park, MTSU Write, Eckleburg Workshops, and The Writer's Center in Bethesda since 2013.
Peter Malone Elliott is a critically acclaimed horror/thriller novelist and screenwriter, as well as a vastly experienced publishing professional. Most recently, Peter was the author of Blue Ridge, released in January 2024 from Level Best Books. Before that, he was a “Best Screenwriting, Motion Picture” nominee at the 2022 Leo Awards and the Grand Prize Winner of the highly prestigious Script Pipeline Screenwriting Competition in 2018. Peter also ran Book Pipeline, a highly successful author-discovery platform, from 2019-2023. Through his meticulous editing and experienced industry knowhow, he has helped writers achieve literary representation, publishing contracts, and long-lasting careers of which they can be proud.
Victoria Costello is an Emmy Award-winning writer, teacher, and the author of six published non-fiction books, including her memoir, A Lethal Inheritance, and her debut novel of autobiographical fiction, Orchid Child (June 2023).
IndieMFA Destination Retreats
IndieMFA: We Take Your Writing Seriously.
At WritingWorkshops.com, we take your writing seriously. We place the highest importance on teaching the craft of writing so that students can produce meaningful and memorable work that has the opportunity to find a readership beyond the workshop. Essential to our mission, we want writers to be part of a literary community that they can take with them when the class ends. For many writers, finding a community is an essential step that leads them to take their work and craft more seriously. If you're looking for an excellent creative writing workshop, you've come to the right place! We hope you’ll take your next step with us and enroll in one of our many creative writing courses. Thank you for letting us be part of your writing journey. We'll do our part to walk along side you so that you can stay focused on the work that is most meaningful to you. We also want to keep you connected to the literary community.
-Blake Kimzey, Founder & Executive Director