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Mile-High MFA in Creative Writing

Your life to this point has been the creation of your backstory. Just like those of the characters you create, all of your past experiences — your joys, your heartaches, the moments of insight that have shaped your values — have led you to this moment. This is the beginning of a new adventure, when you take all your knowledge, all the creative skills you’ve developed, and commit to the practice of creating the stories only you can share with the world. When you begin that undertaking with Regis and earn your MFA in Creative Writing, you join a low-residency program that will help you elevate your style, complete publisher-ready work and cultivate a community that will help your creative career thrive.

    Why Write with Regis University?

    Whether you’re writing fiction, poetry or memoir, you have a unique story to tell, deserving of a unique program to help you continue developing your artistic voice. As one of only two Jesuit Catholic, low-residency MFA programs nationwide, Regis can help you tell your story.
    Here, you'll find a community that will help you lift your incredible ideas to new heights (we mean that literally, when you complete residencies in the Mile-High City), and challenge you to discover deeper truth in your work. This is a writing program that is built on a tradition of questioning who you are – and who you are called to be in the world.

    How Will You Build Your Story?

    Explore our creative writing programs to find out.

    What Sets Regis Writers Apart?

    Nurturing your creative gifts at Regis provides unique benefits:

    • Participate in residencies at the only MFA program in Denver, the Mile-High City
    • A 2.5-to-1 student-to-mentor ratio helps writers get direct, personalized feedback and guidance from experts in the craft
    • Regis offers one of only two Jesuit Catholic, low-residency MFA programs in the United States, providing a rare creative experience grounded in the foundations of intellectual rigor and questioning inherent to a Jesuit Catholic education

    Plot Your Next Chapter

    Working within a low-residency program, you’ll draft your next masterpiece, then challenge your creation, discovering, with the encouragement of your peers and faculty mentors, how to strengthen your concepts through the cycle of critique and revision. And you’ll do it from the comfort of home, allowing you to be creative your way: early in the morning before the kids get up, late at night when your best ideas are buzzing through your head, on your lunch break at work — whenever and however you wish. As you earn your degree in creative writing, you’ll have opportunities to use your artistic gifts in service of others while discovering how you can share your gifts with future writers through education. Regis also affords you opportunities to travel abroad and spark your imagination in new, unexpected directions. When you graduate, you will have broadened your talents by writing across genres and will graduate with a publisher-ready manuscript.

    • The unique “Writing in the World” requirement helps you use your writing talents to contribute to your community. During the program’s periodic in-person residencies, you will attend seminars that will illuminate the real-world applications of your gifts.
    • By the time you reach your final residency in the program, you will develop a Writing in the World Action Plan, where you state how you will use your voice as a writer in the world to inspire and elevate your community.
    • Study across genres with semester-long immersions in writing formats outside your own area of specialty. Throughout your time in the program, you'll experiment with graphic narrative, picture books, scriptwriting, editing, teaching and publishing as you continue building your craft.

    OUR MILE HIGH MFA

    Faculty Spotlight

    Andrea Rexilius

    Dr. Andrea Rexilius, Ph.D., is the author of Sister Urn (Sidebrow, Spring 2019), New Organism: Essais (Letter Machine, 2014), Half of What They Carried Flew Away (Letter Machine, 2012), and To Be Human Is To Be A Conversation (Rescue Press, 2011), as well as the chapbooks, Séance (Coconut Books, 2014), To Be Human (Horseless Press, 2010), and Afterworld (above/ground press, 2020). She earned an M.F.A. in Poetry from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2005), and a Ph.D. in Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Denver (2010). Her creative and critical writing is featured in: Anne Carson: Ecstatic Lyre (U of Michigan P, 2015), The Volta Book of Poets (Sidebrow Books, 2014), Sixty Morning Talks: Serial Interviews with Contemporary Authors (Ugly Duckling Press, 2014), Letter Machine Book of Interviews (Letter Machine Editions, 2015), as well as the literary journals: Academy of American Poets, Coldfront, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, How2, Jubilat, and Volt, among others. Her essay on the poet Laura (Riding) Jackson, "Against the Commodity of the Poem," is archived on the Nottingham Trent University Laura (Riding) Jackson Scholarship page. From 2012-2015 she held the position of assistant professor in the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University, where she also acted as faculty director for the Summer Writing Program. From 2017-2021 she taught in and co-directed the Poetry Collective at Lighthouse Writers Workshop.

    Let's Begin

    Explore Regis University's Academic Program Guide.

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