The Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA) has launched a new low-residency MFA program, “an exclusively global program for writers and writing, with a focus on transnational literature in English and world literature in translation.” The program will be modeled on their current low-residency MFA program.

The program will offer study in fiction, nonfiction, and literary translation, and students will be expected to attend four residencies to earn their degree, three at international locations and one at the VCFA campus in Vermont. Additionally, students will complete four semesters of creative and critical writing, working one-on-one with a faculty mentor by distance, followed by a final creative thesis in the fifth semester.

Xu Xi, former faculty chair of the MFA in Writing program, and Evan Fallenberg, novelist, translator, and VCFA alumnus, will codirect the new program. In a statement, the two announced:

We’re both really excited to be heading up what’s going to be the world’s very first low-residency International MFA in Creative Writing & Literary Translation. Our residencies will rotate globally, with a curriculum that focuses on international writing and literature, as well as translation. The literary world is global and writers need to broaden their perspective beyond their own borders through immersion in other cultures and languages, and through interactions with writers from other parts of the world.

The faculty for the new program include Sybil Baker (fiction/nonfiction), Jason Grunebaum (literary translation), Robin Hemley (nonfiction/fiction), Tabish Khair (fiction/nonfiction), Mark Polizzotti (nonfiction/literary translation), James Scudamore (fiction), Ira Sukrungruang (nonfiction/fiction), and Madeleine Thien (fiction).

Applications will be accepted beginning in January 2018. Residencies for the 2018–2019 academic year include Iceland in September 2018, followed by Hong Kong and VCFA Montpelier in March and August 2019, respectively.