Work with writers of memoir and creative nonfiction, including Lidia Yuknavitch, Krystal Sital, Lacy M. Johnson, Gayle Brandeis, Steven Church, Kelle Groom, Benjamin Busch, Suzanne Roberts, Arianne Zwartjes, and Brian Turner.

Our faculty have publications with presses such as W.W. Norton & Co., Graywolf Press, Ecco, Simon & Schuster, Harper Perennial, Tin House Books, Jonathan Cape/Random House (UK), Grove Press, Four Way Books, University of Iowa Press, and the University of Nebraska Press; their work has been published in such magazines as Harper’s, National Geographic and National Geographic Traveller, the New York Times and The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Esquire, The Nation, Salon, The Atlantic, Best American Essays, Virginia Quarterly Review, South American Explorers, and more. They’ve been recognized as Barnes & Noble Great New Writers and been included in their Best American Series. Our faculty has been awarded many grants and fellowships, including from the NEA, Lannan Foundation, and Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selections.

Cover of "Dust to Dust" by Benjamin Busch, faculty in the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program at Sierra Nevada University
Cover of "The Art of Misdiagnosis" by Sierra Nevada University MFA in Creative Writing faculty Gayle Brandeis
Cover of "i'm just getting to the disturbing part" by Sierra Nevada University MFA in Creative Writing faculty Steven Church
Cover of "Imagine Wanting Only This" by Sierra Nevada University MFA in Creative Writing faculty Kirsten Radke
Cover of I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl by Kelle Groom, faculty in the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program at Sierra Nevada University
Cover of The Other Side by Lacy M. Johnson, faculty in the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program at Sierra Nevada University
Cover of "The Reckonings" by Sierra Nevada University MFA in Creative Writing faculty Lacy M Johnson
Cover of "One With The Tiger" by Sierra Nevada University MFA in Creative Writing faculty Steven Church
Cover of "All They Will Call You" by Sierra Nevada University MFA in Creative Writing faculty Tim Hernandez
Cover of "Africans in America" by Sierra Nevada University MFA in Creative Writing faculty member Patricia Smith, with Charles Johnson and WGBH
Cover of Almost Somewhere by Suzanne Roberts, faculty in the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program at Sierra Nevada University
Cover of My Life as a Foreign Country by Brian Turner, faculty in the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program at Sierra Nevada University

“The MFA program at Sierra Nevada University creates a tight literary and global community, writers who are connected to each other through our shared interest in storytelling, but who are also deeply engaged with the world.”

— Suzanne Roberts, MFA Faculty

Recent guest authors have included Rick Moody, Jennifer Percy, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Colin Grant.

We don’t just teach the finer points of craft. Our students — past and current — have published in publications including Slate, Huffington Post, the Rumpus, and McSweeney’s, and they’ve worked with National Geographic crews in Afghanistan.

  • Sustainability
  • Liberal Arts
  • Professional Preparedness
  • Entrepreneurial Thinking