cornell mfa creative writing alumni

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Alumni authors recall their Cornell years in writing program

By laura janka.

Aspiring authors and fiction fans gathered in Goldwin Smith Hall's Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium Feb. 20 to hear Creative Writing Program alumni Melissa Bank '88, Junot Díaz '95 and Julie Schumacher '86 discuss the M.F.A. program, its influences on their craft and their literary careers following their years at Cornell.

"These writers once sat where you're sitting, in the audience, wondering how to end up sitting here talking about their successful lives as writers," moderator J. Robert Lennon, assistant professor of creative writing, told students during his introduction to the novelists' panel discussion, "Flash Forward: Cornell Writers Return."

Following her father's advice to be a secretary, Schumacher said she worked as a typist for a gynecological journal in New York City before coming to Cornell for graduate school.

"It was like the hand of God reached down and took me out of that life I was leading and brought me here," she said.

Schumacher's work -- including the novels "The Body Is Water" and "Black Box" -- has been translated into multiple languages, and her short fiction has appeared in "The Best American Short Stories 1983" and "The O. Henry Awards."

Schumacher revealed that her early writing was an outlet -- her family "didn't talk about emotions, we didn't talk about our inner selves, and so that's what I do on paper." The focus and support of the writing program changed her life, she said, by fortifying her passion and instilling a sense of discipline.

Díaz agreed, referring to his time on campus as a "three-year holiday" and a "get out of jail free card." Cornell offered him a refuge from his mind-numbing jobs. "At that time, it was two to four years basically writing, being around a bunch of writer nerds," he said.

Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey, Díaz has made the cultures of both locations prominent in his work. He wrote most of the short stories in his first collection, "Drown," while at Cornell.

He emphasized that the M.F.A. program was "a stupendous, bold-lined privilege" -- but he joked that "it's almost a passport to grouse. … We complained about what we didn't have as a way to obscure the enormous privilege of what we did have."

Bank, author of the best-selling "The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing," said her writing "started like any compulsion -- smoking, drinking, eating; then it's hard to stop."

As she became comfortable and perfected her craft, she described feeling empowered to create and destroy with her pen. "Once you start seeing what you could do, you feel like you could be smarter, funnier and better on paper than you could ever be in life," she said.

When she was at Cornell, she admitted, "I didn't really understand how huge a gift it is to be able to think about nothing except your own writing and the other writers you admire."

Bank has published stories in periodicals ranging from Cosmopolitan to Epoch, the Cornell literary journal. She is teaching at Cornell this semester as a visiting writer.

Díaz said being in a writing program provided valuable lessons in other authors' stylistic and narrative strategies, gleaned from their own years of reading. "Your peers' successful strategies as an artist are things always, always to emulate," he advised students.

He also urged student writers to look beyond present accolades and to focus on continual growth and learning.

The afternoon panel and an evening reading by the three writers were the first events in a yearlong celebration of 105 years of creative writing at Cornell.

Laura Janka '09 is a writer intern at the Cornell Chronicle.

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MFA Reading Series kicks off this month

Creative writing

By | Yvette Lisa Ndlovu , A&S Communications

The first installment of the Creative Writing MFA program’s four-part tradition in which new writers read selections from their poetry and fiction kicks off this month

MFA student Sasha Smith read selections from her poetry and Remy Barnes read fiction during the first readings Oct. 5 from 6-7 p.m. at Buffalo Street Books, 215 N. Cayuga St.  

Smith read two poems, “Leaving”’and “slavecatchers.” “Both are poems about generational trauma related to the African diaspora,” Smith said. “At the heart of these poems is a feeling of displacement and lack of origin. They are responses to the daily assault on black bodies, and to be specific, I drew inspiration from Toni Morrison novels and July 2016.”

Smith received her bachelor’s in literature and creative writing from New York University and is the co-founder of The Bronx Blaqlist, an organization that promotes and hosts events that cater to the Bronx art scene. The Bronx Blaqlist highlights talent, as well as local and emerging Bronx businesses. Her work has appeared in Poet’s Country, NYU’s Dovetail and CUNY’S Thesis.

“MFA Reading series are curious things. On the one hand, people expect us writers to be reclusive weirdos,” Barnes said. “But also, there is this inherent (maybe unfortunate) desire to pull back the curtain, see what we look like in all our disheveled lumpishness and hear us read our disjointed tunes aloud. This is good for us! We need to be ushered into public spaces despite our thrashings.”

Barnes received his bachelor’s from the University of Texas at Austin. From Tallahassee by way of Texas, his work lives in the shadow of the American South. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Redivider, The Southampton Review and Smokelong Quarterly. He is currently at work on a novel.

“Reading series are important,” Smith said. “If you can lure writers out of their dens and throw them on a stage or in a room with the rest of their peers or simply the rest of their community, then you'd have achieved a worthy life goal. We teeter from isolation (in which we plunge into our caves that reek of coffee and tea) and a desire to be read or heard.”

Notable alumni of the creative writing MFA program who have read their work at Cornell in the past include Junot Diaz ‘95, Melissa Bank ‘88, and Julie Schumacher ‘86.

“I think series like the MFA Reading Series are vital to any community, academic or creative,” Smith said.

The next readings will be on Oct. 20 by France Revel (poetry) and Nneoma Ike-Njoku (fiction); Thursday, Oct. 26 by Christopher Hewitt (poetry) and Charlotte Pattison (fiction); and Friday, Nov.10 by Alice Turski (poetry) and Alice Mercier (fiction). They all take place from 6-7 p.m. at Buffalo Street Books.

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• Creative Writing

The Creative Writing Program offers workshop courses in fiction and poetry writing, and sponsors the  Barbara & David Zalaznick Reading Series  during the academic year. Readings and receptions are free and open to the public.

More than 500 undergraduates enroll in the program’s courses annually, many from schools outside the College of Arts & Sciences. English majors may concentrate in creative writing; other majors may pursue a  minor  in creative writing. Classes open to undergraduates throughout the university are Creative Writing, Narrative Writing and Poetry Writing, and Advanced Narrative Writing & Advanced Poetry Writing.

The program also offers an  MFA degree . MFA graduate students organize the  First-Year MFA Reading Series,  and graduating MFA students hold a reading of their works in the spring. 

For more information, contact:  [email protected] .

The award-winning national literary journal  EPOCH  is published by the Department of Literatures in English and the Creative Writing Program. EPOCH publishes fiction, poetry, essays, comics, and graphic art. In continuous publication since 1947, the magazine is edited by students and faculty of the MFA Program.

Submission guidelines, advertising rates, an archive of past issues, and featured poetry and prose from the most recent issue are available at the magazine’s full site,  www.epochliterary.com . The past ten years of EPOCH are also available to buy as individual issues in the EPOCH shop, along with subscriptions.

Creative Writing Links

Creative writing faculty.

NoViolet Bulawayo

Assistant Professor

Academic Interests:

Emily Fridlund

Associate Professor

Ishion Hutchinson

W.E.B. Du Bois Professor in the Humanities

• Postcolonial and Anglophone

J. Robert Lennon

Ann S. Bowers Professor of English Editor, EPOCH Literary Magazine

Valzhyna Mort

Ernesto Quiñonez

Nafissa Thompson-Spires

Richards Family Assistant Professor

Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon

• African American

Helena María Viramontes

Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences in English Director of Creative Writing

Rebecca Morgan Frank

Visiting Assistant Professor

Creative Writing Program Events

The ammons reading (spring 2024), mfa in creative writing graduation reading.

A journey to Cornell for creative writing

Creative Writing Program

By | Molly Karr , Cornell Research

This Cornell Research story focuses on Nneoma Ike-Njoku , a first-year MFA student in creative writing, who hails from Lagos, Nigeria.

Ike-Njoku, who is a fiction writer, said the workshop atmosphere of Cornell's program has been one of its most surprising aspects.

“Before coming here, I had done a few workshop classes that were somewhat helpful. But this program, due to its size, is great because my peers are very careful readers. Everyone wants everyone to do their best work, so we support each other,” Ike-Njoku said.

First-year students in the program become familiar with public readings by having a showcase at a local bookshop in Ithaca. Second-year students can travel to New York City for the David L. Picket & Cornell Creative Writing Program Literary Reading in NYC , where literary agents might be in the audience. Those readings are thanks to the generosity of David Picket ’84.

Read the entire Cornell Research story .

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Search Cornell AAP

The Master of Fine Arts in Image Text is a low-residency program that brings together critically, culturally, and politically engaged practices in creative writing, visual media, and design for print and digital publication.

The Image Text M.F.A. is a unique 25-month program that prepares artists to make substantial contributions to the contemporary literary and visual arts. Three five-week summer sessions offer intensive in-person classes with faculty and visiting artists as well as access to Cornell AAP's exceptional resources and facilities. During fall and spring semesters, students participate in immersive international field courses and work closely with faculty advisors while pursuing independent study. 

Substantial partial tuition scholarships are available on a competitive basis.

[email protected]

Related pages.

AAP Department of Art Announces Unique New Image Text M.F.A. Admissions and Application Information M.F.A. in Image Text Instagram

Alumni of Moscow Psychological and Social Institute (MPSI) Russian Federation

Elena Crawford

Clearwater, Florida Perform!! Staffing and Recruiting Education Moscow Psychological and Social Institute (MPSI)     2000 — 2004 Master's degree, GPA 3.47 Experience Diversified Sourcing Solutions     RecruiterDiversified Sourcing SolutionsJuly 2015 - Present

Elena Ghionis

Spartanburg, South Carolina Lead Autism Specialist Education Management Education Grand Canyon University     2015 — 2018 Doctor of Education (Ed.D.), Organizational Leadership with an Emphasis in K-12 Leadership Converse College Master's Degree, Special Education, K-12 Moscow Psychological and Social Institute (MPSI) Master's Degree, Early Childhood, Elementary Education, Educational Psychology Moscow Psychological and Social Institute (MPSI) Bachelor's Degree, Educational Psychology, Early Childhood Education Experience Spartanburg District 7     1993 - Present International Institute of Educational Standards in Special Education     2015 - April 2015

Elena Yakunina

Poolesville, Maryland Psychologist Mental Health Care Education Moscow Psychological and Social Institute (MPSI)     1998 — 2001 Social Psychology

Nadezhda Agladze

Washington D.C. Metro Area Biotechnology Professional Biotechnology Education Moscow Psychological and Social Institute (MPSI)     1995 — 2000 Master, Neuropsychology Kazan State University     1967 — 1972 Master, Physics, Biophysics, Bionics

Natalia Stepanov

Washington D.C. Metro Area HR Generalist Human Resources Education Marymount University Masters, HR, GPA:3.72 Moscow Psychological and Social Institute (MPSI) Master's, Psychology, GPA: 3.51 Experience Diplomatic Language Services     May 2013 - Present Inlingua     July 2011 - April 2013 inlingua     February 2011 - June 2011 inlingua     September 2008 - January 2011

Olesya Trigubova

Greater Seattle Area social worker at Evergreen Care Network Hospital & Health Care Education Moscow Psychological and Social Institute (MPSI)     1995 — 2000 Bachelor’s degree, in early-childhood education psychology Experience Evergreen Care Network     April 2009 - September 2014 Outsourcing Call-center «Clientterra»     May 2005 - December 2006

Yelena Kozelchuk

Montreal, Canada Area International Trade, Purchasing Coordination, Project Development International Trade and Development Education Istanbul University     2004 — 2005 Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.), International Management, Marketing Moscow Psychological and Social Institute (MPSI)     1995 — 2000 Experience D&D INVESTMENTS INC     November 2007 - Present GOLDAS Dis Tic A.S.     February 2005 - August 2008 Gulaylar Group     2004 - 2006

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Moscow Get Together

April 20, 2016 @ 5:00 pm

For Registration Questions:

az.krasnova@gmail.com

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Event Details

International Location: Moscow

Dear friends,

I will be visiting Moscow for a few days and thought it would be great to see you all for after-work drinks on Wednesday April 20th starting 18:00. Please RSVP by sending me an email to [email protected] . The place will be confirmed as soon as I know how many people are coming.

Also, if anyone is interested to take over Cornell Club of Moscow, please do let me know. And huge thanks to Cecilia for doing a wonderful job for the past three years! You will be missed dearly!

Hope to see you soon, Anastasija  Krasnova

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