About the Program
The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics’ Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing is a two-year correspondence program running in Fall-Spring-Summer semesters over each of the two years of the program and conducted primarily through written exchange of work and response between student and instructor. Faculty in the MFA in Creative Writing program are active, published writers accomplished at mentoring students individually.
Weekend (Friday-Saturday-Sunday) residencies will take place in the fall and spring semesters, while the summer residency is a full week in June, integrated within the Jack Kerouac School’s renowned Summer Writing Program. Here students attend workshops, lectures, panels, and readings by numerous visiting writers. Each spring and fall residency will feature an accomplished guest writer in addition to workshops and events with the semester’s faculty Instructor.
Highlights of the Low-Residency MFA Creative Writing Program
Two-year degree with 14 days of residency per year in Boulder CO
Open-genre curriculum reflecting Jack Kerouac School history and our ongoing commitment to innovative writing
One-on-one mentorship with accomplished faculty
Emphasis on development of contemplative attention and writing practices
Participation in the Summer Writing Program as summer semester residency
Faculty mentorship in preparing the final creative thesis and critical thesis
Cohort model developing a sense of community among MFA students
Highlights of the Low-Residency MFA Creative Writing Program
Immerse yourself in the environment of exploratory poetics that is the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics’ Summer Writing Program. An integral part of your graduate experience, this three-week-long colloquium brings more than 50 outrider artists, writers, and thinkers to Naropa to offer workshops, lectures, panels, classes, performances, and meditation sessions. Recent summer faculty include Samuel R. Delany, Claudia Rankine, Cecilia Vicuña, Charles Bernstein, Mei-mei Bersenbrugge, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Clark Coolidge, and Anne Carson.
Questions? Contact us at jks@naropa.edu or admissions@naropa.edu.
Naropa University is a member of the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA)
WP Graduate Instructor
The graduate instructor position offers graduate students an opportunity to design and teach a writing workshop. Due to the fluctuating weekly populations of undergraduate students during the Summer Writing Program, graduate instructors have the unique challenge of creating a weekly workshop that can accommodate both students taking the program for one week or for all four weeks. There are 2 positions available, depending on the number of BA students who enroll.
Faculty Liaison
This position involves assisting Summer Writing Program faculty members. This is a unique opportunity to work closely with visiting writers throughout the summer.
MFA Lecturer
MFA students are eligible to be a lecturer during the Summer Writing Program on topics about which they are knowledgeable and passionate and on subjects that complement the SWP programming.
SWP Panelists
The Summer Writing Program allows students to present as part of a panel discussion and gain teaching experience.
Bombay Gin, the student run literary journal of the Kerouac School, publishes poetry, prose, hybrid writing, translations, reviews, interviews, and visual art. It’s published annually and distributed nationally through Small Press Distribution.
Something on Paper is an online poetics journal of scholarly utterance and conversation, archiving the critical work of the Jack Kerouac School as well as engaging with a broader community of writers, critics, and pedagogues. Each issue hosts cutting-edge literary/multimedia discourse and performs the liminal space between critical and creative texts.
Jack Kerouac School blog celebrates students, alumni, faculty, and staff by announcing news on publications, projects, and events. The Jack Kerouac School welcomes articles and news from students.
The Harry Smith Print Shop and Kavyayantra Press (from Sanskrit: Kavya: poetry; Yantra: device, amulet) are resources for learning about fine craft letterpress printing. It features a Chandler and Price platen press and a Vandercook SP-15 proof press.
Naropa Audio Archive Collection: The audio archive is a growing and dynamic database that is a significant resource for students and represents several generations of writers, philosophers, and artists. Each issue of Bombay Gin highlights a transcribed selection.
Summer Writing Program Folio for Bombay Gin: The student editors of the magazine have the unique opportunity to oversee all aspects of call for submissions, selected works, and layout of the folio, published in the upcoming issue of Bombay Gin. All students, faculty, and staff attending the SWP may contribute work.
Student Magazines: Students and alumni have started their own presses such as Monkey Puzzle, Fact-Simile, Belladonna, Bootstrap, Hot Whiskey, Farfalla, con/crescent, Linchpin, Smokeproof, Semi-colon, BEATS periodical, and more. The Kerouac School encourages and resources students to start their own presses.
Summer Writing Program Scholarships
- Zora Neale Hurston Scholarship
- Leslie Scalapino Scholarship
- kari edwards Scholarship
Non Program-Specific Awards
- W.E.B DuBois Scholarship
- Charles B. Edison Jinpa Scholarship
- Monastic Scholarship
- Gerald Red Elk Scholarship
- Honor Scholarships
Graduate Assistantships
*for local students only*- Naropa Writing Center
- Teaching Assistant (for JKS must have taken WRI700)
- Library Archive & Special Collections
- Academic Coaching
Students demonstrate skill in writing as a creative art.
Students critically analyze literary works.
Students engage writing as a contemplative mode of inquiry.
Students demonstrate the role of intersectionality in the literary arts.
Students generate a professional dossier.