Writing for Children and Young Adults
Writing for children and young adults incorporates a variety of genres: fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, playwritng,
screenwriting, and picture books. The audiences range in age from the youngest readers to young adults and adults. Silly, serious, tragic, historical, fantastical, whimsical, or high literary are all fair game in the writing for children area of study. Traditional or experimental styles are welcome, and mentors approach each student's work with open minds, experience in the literary realm, and a grounding in proven writing technique.
The concentration of writing for children is not isolated from the other areas of concentrations as occurs in other programs. The writing for children program has the same rigorous academic standards that all the areas of concentration do and offers students a chance to study in more than one area of concentration while still writing for the child/young adult audience.
The Spalding brief-residency Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults is a unique post-baccalaureate graduate degree program for students wishing to write for an audience of a particular age. The curriculum also offers students the opportunity to focus on the specific craft of writing in any one (or two) of the areas of writing plays, fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and screenplays.
At Spalding, in the Writing for Children and Young Adults area, students individualize their studies. For example, students who wish to write . . .
• children’s plays or adapt original work or work by others for children’s theater may opt for a semester in Playwriting
• middle-grade, young adult, or crossover novels may opt for a semester in Fiction
• picture books or novels-in-verse may opt for a semester in Poetry
• historical nonfiction or science books may opt for a semester in Creative Nonfiction
• screenplays for children and young adults or adapt original work or work by others for film may opt for a semester in Screenwriting
To insure that students in the Spalding MFA learn to engage their young audiences with work of literary merit, our students choose those focal areas from a variety of possibilities during the second or third semesters.
Overview
Semester 1 focuses on the intended audience in terms of basic creative writing considerations: subject, structure, and style.
Semesters 2 and 3 involve workshops and mentoring focusing on technique in the genre(s) of the student’s choice: playwriting, fiction, poetry, screenwriting, or creative nonfiction.
Semester 4 and the fifth residency culminate in combining audience awareness and technical expertise.
Each semester features both group instruction at the residency and extensive personalized mentoring during the at-home portion of the semester by a faculty of prize-winning, publishing writers who are also experienced teachers.
At the beginning of each semester, students and faculty work together for ten days in an intensive invigorating residency in Louisville or at a location abroad, after which they return home to correspond, one-on-one, with a faculty mentor in individualized study for the rest of the term.
The Spalding MFA semesters also include cross-genre workshops, interrelatedness of the arts through attendance at cultural events, low student-faculty ratios, and editing/publishing components.
The faculty members have won awards for picture books, middle books, and young adult novels, which include contemporary, historical, science fiction, and fantasy.
Faculty, Current & Recent
Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Louella Bryant
Carolyn Crimi
Louise Hawes
Joyce McDonald
Candice Ransom
Luke Wallin
Recent Visiting Writers
Sneed B. Collard III
Lisa Rowe Fraustino
Jack Gantos
Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket)
Heather Henson
Paul Brett Johnson
Alexandria LaFaye
George Ella Lyon
Donna Jo Napoli
Naomi Shihab Nye
Scott Russell Sanders
Lola M. Schaefer
Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen
Nancy Willard
What Our Graduates Say
Most low-residency MFA programs separate Writing for Children from the other genres, and I really appreciate the fact that at Spalding, Writing for Children is a respected peer alongside fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, playwriting, and screenwriting. –Stephanie Stuve Bodeen, Oregon, author of The Compound (Feiwel and Friend), nominated 2009 Best Books for Young Adults, also winner of the Ezra Jack Keats Award for Elizabeti's Doll
I feel so lucky to have found the Spalding MFA Program. The leadership, faculty, residencies, and schedule make it so conducive to living as a writer and student. –Lydia Griffin, Colorado, Prunes and Rupe (Filter Press)
From my first contact with the MFA office, the Spalding faculty and students have encouraged, guided, and nurtured my writer's soul. –Joan Donaldson, Michigan, The Secret of the Red Shoes (Ideals)
The Spalding program offers genuine enthusiasm and generosity of faculty, continuing opportunities for alumni and life-long friendships with fellow students who share the literary heart. –Edith M. Hemingway, Maryland, Drums of War (Scholastic), Road to Tater Hill (Delacorte)
For a brochure about the writing for children and young adult program, click here.
For a complete list of faculty click here
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