The Newport MFA in Creative Writing

We forget I'm a student

“Salve Regina University's Master of Fine Arts in creative writing program – the Newport MFA – immerses students in the creative life through residencies and mentorships, publishing and editing panels and craft talks, always with a sustained focus on writing. [The] two-year creative writing program provides dedicated faculty mentorship in the genres of fiction, poetry, nonfiction and historical fiction and culminates with each student completing a polished manuscript.

“The low-residency format of our MFA in creative writing program honors the increasing demands on students' time, teaching them to integrate writing into their day and setting them on the path to becoming lifelong writers.”

From “The Newport MFA in Creative Writing.” Salve Regina University, salve.edu. Accessed 3 January 2025.

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In March 2023, I applied to the Newport MFA in Creative Writing at Salve Regina University.

In April 2023, Salve Regina University accepted me to the Newport MFA in Creative Writing, and I’ve been in the thick of it ever since. This has meant writing and writing and writing and so much writing, as well as mentorships with some fabulous faculty and residencies in Newport, Rhode Island, twice a year, and those I treasure especially.

I’m sitting on my last plane back to Los Angeles from Providence, and all I can do is wish I had another week, or just a few more days, maybe another afternoon, something. There’s something breathtaking about spending a week of nearly uninterrupted time surrounded by likeminded, likehearted individuals who only gathered together for the love of and hope in the craft. I get swept away by the work and my fellow writers, by the workshops and the craft talks, by the wind onto the snow-clad cobblestones of Newport’s narrow streets.

We take these corridors down to the Fastnet Pub for a pint of Whalers, to Cru Cafe where the baristas remember us and our orders, to the Red Parrot for oysters and a glass of Captain’s Daughter, to the Newport Blues Cafe for life music and a late night. In the past we’ve gone to the rock formations off Purgatory Road or to the lighthouse near Castle Hill Inn, and in the summer we’ll ride bikes to some secluded beach for a swim, to Marco’s Café for a sandwich and Aquidneck Park after for a picnic, or to the Breakers and her cliff walk arms that hold the southern end of the island in either direction.

The way the program is designed, a new cohort arrives each residency, and an old cohort graduates. This means we are always meeting new people and saying goodbye to friends. I’ve made some very good friends this way.

We come to this place [to romance the muse].

I don’t have much to say, I guess, in this first Substack of the new year, but no, that’s not true either. Gratitude for friends, love for them, and the expression of this, well, that’s everything, isn’t it?

This week I workshopped an essay¹ I’m working on that’s all about my time at Mepkin Abbey, working the mushroom farm, and wrestling with God; in response to the prompt, Why, with regards to my workshop piece, I wrote:

Writing has become, for me, a not insignifcant part of my prayer, and maybe all this is a prayer of petition. I hope it’ll someday be one of adoration and of thanksgiving…. For now, it’ll just have to be a prayer of hope.

So this is me, writing, praying, thanking God for my friends, for my writer friends, and for writing. I don’t always write pretty, I don’t always write good, but in all things, the writing always has my back pretty good.

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I count myself so fortunate that my record is flawless—2 for 2, that’s a 100% success rate—when it comes to landing in a masters program for creative writing (not to mention an excellent batting average² in terms of familial support, without which I could do none of this, and without which many others muscle through their craft). The University of Limerick was a major stepping stone for me creatively and academically, and Salve Regina has let me continue the work I started there. Aside from that, in addition to that, and more importantly than that, these two programs led me to friendships I look forward to honoring my whole life.

1. Me? In a nonfiction workshop? Groundbreaking. (To quote Jeb Bush: Please clap.)

2. Don’t ask me why I used a baseball metaphor, I don’t know either.