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• Creative Writing, MFA

The program in creative writing offers a two-year master of fine arts degree in creative writing in the areas of fiction and poetry. The MFA program is a small program within a large and vibrant writing community. The program typically admits six new students each year.

The MFA program is the only program of its kind to have an "alternating genre" admissions policy. The program admits fiction writers in even-numbered years and poets in odd-numbered years. This alternating admissions schedule allows the program to provide a 2-to-1 student/teacher ratio and lets fiction instructors focus entirely on one group of fiction writers, and poetry instructors on one group of poets for the two-year instructional period.

Please consult the table below for key information about this degree program’s admissions requirements. The program may have more detailed admissions requirements, which can be found below the table or on the program’s website.

Graduate admissions is a two-step process between academic programs and the Graduate School. Applicants must meet the minimum requirements of the Graduate School as well as the program(s). Once you have researched the graduate program(s) you are interested in, apply online .

Details about the admissions process can be found on the MFA admissions page. 

Graduate School Resources

Resources to help you afford graduate study might include assistantships, fellowships, traineeships, and financial aid.  Further funding information is available from the Graduate School. Be sure to check with your program for individual policies and restrictions related to funding.

Program Resources

Prospective students should see the program website for funding information.

Minimum Graduate School Requirements

Major requirements.

Review the Graduate School minimum academic progress and degree requirements , in addition to the program requirements listed below.

Mode of Instruction

Mode of Instruction Definitions

Accelerated: Accelerated programs are offered at a fast pace that condenses the time to completion. Students typically take enough credits aimed at completing the program in a year or two.

Evening/Weekend: ​Courses meet on the UW–Madison campus only in evenings and/or on weekends to accommodate typical business schedules.  Students have the advantages of face-to-face courses with the flexibility to keep work and other life commitments.

Face-to-Face: Courses typically meet during weekdays on the UW-Madison Campus.

Hybrid: These programs combine face-to-face and online learning formats.  Contact the program for more specific information.

Online: These programs are offered 100% online.  Some programs may require an on-campus orientation or residency experience, but the courses will be facilitated in an online format.

Curricular Requirements

Required Courses

Students take 3 credits in each of the first, second and third semesters, then 6 thesis credits in the fourth semester. These are not courses—rather, they're the means by which the University gives MFAs credit for their independent writing.

Students take 15 credits of electives drawn from appropriate courses across the curriculum. While students are expected to focus on and produce book-length theses by the end of their two years here, they are also encouraged to pursue other intellectual interests via these electives. In the past, MFA students have fulfilled their elective requirements by enrolling in literature courses, studying foreign languages, pursuing other artistic interests such as dance, book-making, and classical guitar, augmenting research for historical novels by taking appropriate history classes. MFA students may also hone their writing skills in other genres by taking intermediate and advanced undergraduate workshops and graduate level workshops in genres outside the one for which they were admitted, as electives with the permission of the instructor. Students may also take up to 6 elective credits in the form of additional thesis hours in the second and third semesters.

Graduate School Policies

The  Graduate School’s Academic Policies and Procedures  provide essential information regarding general university policies. Program authority to set degree policies beyond the minimum required by the Graduate School lies with the degree program faculty. Policies set by the academic degree program can be found below.

Major-Specific Policies

Prior coursework, graduate credits earned at other institutions.

With program approval, students are allowed to transfer no more than 12 credits of graduate coursework from other institutions. Coursework earned ten or more years prior to admission to a master’s degree is not allowed to satisfy requirements.

Undergraduate Credits Earned at Other Institutions or UW-Madison

No credits from a UW–Madison or other institution's undergraduate degree are allowed to count toward the degree.

Credits Earned as a Professional Student at UW-Madison (Law, Medicine, Pharmacy, and Veterinary careers)

Refer to the Graduate School: Transfer Credits for Prior Coursework policy.

Credits Earned as a University Special Student at UW–Madison

With program approval, students are allowed to transfer no more than 10 credits of coursework numbered 300 or above taken as a UW–Madison University Special student. Coursework earned ten or more years prior to admission to a master’s degree is not allowed to satisfy requirements.

The MFA advisor (sometimes referred to as the MFA program director) will review student academic performance and conduct in all coursework to determine that students are making satisfactory progress toward the degree. If at any time the MFA advisor determines that a student’s academic performance and/or conduct has not been satisfactory, the MFA advisor, with the input and concurrence of the voting members of the Creative Writing Steering Committee, may place the student on probation or may dismiss the student from the program. The period of probation will be one semester in duration. Prior to the end of the probationary period the MFA advisor will review the student’s performance and conduct and decide, with the input and concurrence of the voting members of the Creative Writing Steering Committee, to reinstate or dismiss the student.

Advisor / Committee

The current MFA advisor (sometimes referred to as the MFA program director) advises all MFA students.

Credits Per Term Allowed

Time limits.

It is expected that the MFA thesis be completed in May of the second year in the program.

Refer to the Graduate School: Time Limits policy.

Grievances and Appeals

These resources may be helpful in addressing your concerns:

• Bias or Hate Reporting  
• Graduate Assistantship Policies and Procedures
• Office of the Provost for Faculty and Staff Affairs
• Employee Assistance (for personal counseling and workplace consultation around communication and conflict involving graduate assistants and other employees, post-doctoral students, faculty and staff)
• Employee Disability Resource Office (for qualified employees or applicants with disabilities to have equal employment opportunities)
• Graduate School (for informal advice at any level of review and for official appeals of program/departmental or school/college grievance decisions)
• Office of Compliance (for class harassment and discrimination, including sexual harassment and sexual violence)
• Office Student Assistance and Support (OSAS)  (for all students to seek grievance assistance and support)
• Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards (for conflicts involving students)
• Ombuds Office for Faculty and Staff (for employed graduate students and post-docs, as well as faculty and staff)
• Title IX (for concerns about discrimination)

Students should contact the department chair or program director with questions about grievances. They may also contact the L&S Academic Divisional Associate Deans, the L&S Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning Administration, or the L&S Director of Human Resources.

Each student receives financial aid in the form of teaching assistantships, scholarships, tuition remission, and health benefits. Students may also receive prizes or fellowships.

• Professional Development

Take advantage of the Graduate School's  professional development resources to build skills, thrive academically, and launch your career. 

• Learning Outcomes
• Develop the creative and technical skills necessary to conceive, execute, and revise original literary work in a student's chosen genre (fiction or poetry).
• Demonstrate sensitivity to language and style on both the artistic and technical levels.
• Develop the critical, analytical, and editing skills necessary to evaluate literary works in progress, both in the student’s own work-in-progress, and in that of the student’s peers.
• Develop the ability to read literary works not only for their social, historical, intellectual, formal, and interpretive value, but for their capacity to inspire and generate new work, and to see in a finished work the process of its being made.
• Develop through study and practice the pedagogical skills necessary to teach creative writing courses to undergraduate students.
• Demonstrate understanding of professional and pedagogical practices and opportunities within and related to the field of creative writing.
• Recognize and apply principles of ethical conduct with respect to one's work.
• Engage with local communities of creative writers.

MFA Faculty & Staff

Faculty: Professors Amy Quan Barry, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, Beth Nguyen, and Porter Shreve

Staff: Faculty Associates Sean Bishop and Ron Kuka, Mendota Lecturers Leila Chatti and Dantiel W. Moniz

• Requirements

Contact Information

English College of Letters & Science creativewriting.wisc.edu

Sean Bishop, MFA Program Administrator [email protected] 206-491-1505

Professor Martin Foys, Director of Graduate Studies [email protected]

Graduate School grad.wisc.edu

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Brittingham/Pollak Deadline: September 15, 2024 Translation Prize Deadline: November 7, 2024

Submissions to the Wisconsin Poetry Series are now open! Any poet with an original, full-length collection is eligible for the 40th Annual Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prizes in Poetry, judged by the Founding Editor of the Wisconsin Poetry Series, Ronald Wallace. Each manuscript, accompanied by a $28 reading fee, will be considered for both prizes. Each winner will receive $1,500 and publication through the University of Wisconsin Press. At least three additional applicants will also be offered publication.

For the third time this year, we are also accepting submissions to the Wisconsin Prize for Poetry in Translation , judged by Idra Novey and awarding $1,500 plus publication. Translators or original authors are invited to submit a full-length collection of poetry translated into English. Applicants to the translation prize will be asked to confirm they have permission for English translation and publication of the work, by its author(s) and the executor(s) of any active copyright(s). Submissions must be accompanied by a $28 reading fee.  

Manuscript Requirements:

• For the Brittingham & Felix Pollak Prizes, the author's name and contact info should not appear anywhere on the document . Please assemble a single pdf including a title page, a table of contents, the manuscript poems, and (optionally) an acknowledgments page listing any magazines or journals where the submitted poems may have first appeared. Manuscripts should be 50 to 90 pages in length on 8.5" x 11" pdf pages.
• For the Wisconsin Prize for Poetry in Translation, the name of the translator and original author should appear on the title page of the document . Please assemble a single pdf including a title/author page, a table of contents, the manuscript poems, 50-to-250-word bios for each original author and translator, a project statement up to 500 words in length, and (optionally) an acknowledgments page listing any magazines or journals where the submitted translations may have first appeared. Manuscripts must include each poem in both its original language and in English translation, comprising 75 to 150 total pages in length, on 8.5" x 11" pdf pages.

This Year's Judges:

Ron Wallace, the Founding Editor of the Wisconsin Poetry Series, has come out of retirement to judge the 40th Annual Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prizes in Poetry. He is Felix Pollak Professor of Poetry, Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His twenty books and chapbooks include Long for This World: New and Selected Poems , and For Dear Life: Poems . He divides his time between Madison and a forty-acre farm in Bear Valley, Wisconsin. 

Idra Novey will judge the Wisconsin Prize for Poetry in Translation. She is a novelist, poet, and translator. Her novel Take What You Need was a New York Times Notable Book of 2023 and named a Best Book of the Year with The New Yorker, L.A. Times , Boston Globe , NPR, Today , and Yiyun Li's Author Pick at The Guardian . Her first novel Ways to Disappear was a finalist for the L.A. Times First Fiction Prize and winner of the 2016 Brooklyn Public Library Prize and the Sami Rohr Prize. Her fiction and poetry have been translated into a dozen languages and she’s written for The New York Times , The Atlantic , The Washington Post , and The Guardian . In 2022, she received a Pushcart Prize for her story "The Glacier" published in The Yale Review .

Novey’s works as a translator include Clarice Lispector’s novel The Passion According to G.H. and a co-translation with Ahmad Nadalizadeh of Iranian poet Garous Abdolmalekian, Lean Against This Late Hour , a finalist for the PEN America Poetry in Translation Prize in 2021. She teaches in Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program. 

Her first book of poems in a decade, Soon and Wholly , is forthcoming in September 2024.

Please upload an original poetry manuscript in pdf format, no fewer than 50 and no more than 90 pages in length. Your manuscript should be formatted as specified below. Please be sure your name and contact information DO NOT APPEAR anywhere in the manuscript. You will be asked to pay a $28 entry fee, by credit card. All submissions will be considered for both the Brittingham Prize in Poetry and the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. Winners will be announced no later than February 15, 2025, and will receive $1,500 each shortly thereafter. Winning manuscripts will be published in the late winter or early spring of 2026. Four additional manuscripts will also be selected for publication by UW Press, as part of the Wisconsin Poetry Series. Your manuscript should include the following:

• A simple title page, which should not include the name of the author. 
• A table of contents, with accurate page numbers indicated.
• 50 to 90 pages of poetry, with numbered pages.
• An acknowledgments page (optional, if any of the poems have appeared previously in journals or magazines).

________________________________________

Please upload a book-length collection of poetry translated into English, in pdf format. The translations submitted must be previously unpublished in book form. The manuscript must include each poem in its original language, as well as in translation, and should be no fewer than 75 and no more than 250 pages in length.

As part of your application, you will be asked to confirm that permission has been granted to the translator(s) of this book for English translation and publication of the original text, by its original author(s) and the executor(s) of any active copyright(s). Alternately, you may declare that the translator(s) hold the rights to the translations because the original text is in the public domain.

Your manuscript should be formatted as specified below. Please be sure both the name of the translator(s) and the original author(s) appear on the title page of the manuscript. You will be asked to pay a $28 entry fee, by credit card. 

The winner will be announced no later than February 15, 2025, receiving $1,500 shortly thereafter. The winning manuscript will be published in the spring of 2026. Manuscripts that do not win the prize may still be considered for publication and inclusion in the Wisconsin Poetry Series. Your manuscript should include the following:  

• A simple title page, which should include the names of the original author(s) and translator(s). 
• 75 to 250 pages of poetry (including both the poems in their original language, and in English translation), with numbered pages. 
• A biography page, including 50-to-250-word bios for each author and translator.
• A book description that addresses the project's historical, cultural, and/or artistic significance.

• Arts & Humanities

Seek the challenge

What does it mean to study the humanities at a large public research university like UW-Madison? Rich interdisciplinary work. A tradition of rigorous debate. Unparalleled language programs. A focus on the Midwest's unique role — past, present and future — in our society. Opportunities to study under leading scholars and contribute to a global body of knowledge. And so much more. 

Revisiting History With a New Lens

Finn Enke researches the intersection of social movements, gender and sexuality.

Faculty receive 2024-25 WARF Named Professorships, Kellett Fellowships, and Romnes Awards

17 College of Letters & Science faculty have been awarded fellowships from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research for 2024-25. The awardees span across all four research divisions of L&S.

Behind the Scenes: Preparing for the 2024 Summer Olympics

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Grant Nelsestuen, Associate Dean of Arts & Humanities

The humanities are essential to our future. They make an enormous difference in our lives, and we need them now more than ever.

Arts & Humanities Departments & Programs

Click to view all academic degree-granting program in the Arts & Humanities division.

African Cultural Studies, Department of

The mission of the Department of African Cultural Studies is to provide research and teaching in the languages and expressive cultures of Africa and Africans around the world.

Department Chair : Luis Madureira

Art History, Department of

The mission of the Department of Art History is to promote scholarly inquiry into the history of art in all its different media in a wide range of historical periods and world cultures.

Department Chair: Kirsten Wolf

Asian Languages & Cultures, Department of

The Department of Asian Languages and Cultures includes instruction in Chinese, Japanese and Korean, as well as courses on literature, linguistics, culture, religion, and thought in East Asia.

Department Chair: Charo D'Etcheverry

Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Department of

The Department of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies offers undergraduate majors in classical humanities, classics (Greek and Latin), and Latin, along with a certificate in classical studies. The department also cooperates with the School of Education to offer a teacher certification program in Latin.

Department Chair: Alex Dressler

Creative Writing Program

The Creative Writing Program provides a full range of opportunities for undergraduates, graduate students, and, through the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing's fellowships, post-graduates to study, practice, and receive recognition in the genres of poetry and fiction. While the program's primary emphasis is on those genres, it additionally offers classes in creative nonfiction and playwriting. The program also sponsors readings throughout the academic year that are free and open to the public.

English, Department of

The Department of English includes a wide array of disciplines in contemporary English studies: literary studies, composition and rhetoric, creative writing, English linguistics and English as a second language. The department offers a strong undergraduate major in literature, with complementary tracks in creative writing and linguistics.

Department Chair: Christa Olson

English as a Second Language, Program in

The Intensive English Program provides quality instruction to adults who wish to improve their proficiency in English. English as a Second Language offers full-time 15-week programs in the fall and spring semesters and an 8-week program in the summer.

Director: Joe Nosek

French and Italian, Department of

The Department of French and Italian is recognized as a leader in literary and critical scholarship, and for a tradition of excellence in teaching and pedagogical research and training. The department is proud of its reputation for interdisciplinary innovation in curriculum and technology.

Department Chair: Grazia Menechella

Gender and Women's Studies, Department of

The mission of the Department of Gender and Women's Studies is to expand the understanding and appreciation of women's lives and experiences both historically and in contemporary societies. The department defines education and learning in the broadest sense, including coursework, research, and a wide range of educational programs on and off campus.

Department Chair: Judy Houck

German, Nordic, and Slavic+, Department of

The Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic+ strives to create inclusive excellence by valuing the contributions of people of diverse backgrounds based on their race, ethnicity, culture, veteran status, marital status, socio-economic level, national origin, religious belief, ability, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, and class. This is an ongoing task that requires each of us to unlearn our socialization in cultures where privilege and opportunity are unequally distributed along many of those lines and then to put that learning into practice in our classrooms, syllabi, decision-making structures, and research.

Department Chair: Jolanda Vanderwal Taylor

History, Department of

The Department of History serves over 750 undergraduate majors and countless additional students drawn to history to meet other requirements of the College. As a member of the Graduate School, the History Department has a vibrant community of over 200 graduate students.

The Department of History of Science joined the Department of History in summer 2017.

Department Chair: Neil Kodesh

Honors Program

The L&S Honors Program serves over 1,300 students in the College of Letters and Science with an enriched undergraduate curriculum. Students in the program pursue the Honors in the Liberal Arts, Honors in the Major or Comprehensive Honors Degrees. The program began in response to a 1958 petition by students seeking more challenging work and opportunities to "delve more deeply" into their fields of interest.

Director: Daniel Kapust

Integrated Liberal Studies Program (ILS)

The Integrated Liberal Studies (ILS) Program offers an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the basic subjects in the liberal arts curriculum. Its faculty members are drawn from many programs and departments at the UW-Madison. This diversity enables the ILS Program to offer the different subject areas needed to satisfy the breadth requirement and for a sound liberal education.

Program Chair: Karen Britland

Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies Program (ITS)

Formerly the M.A./Ph.D. in Theatre and Drama, the Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies Program at UW-Madison prepares M.A. and Ph.D. students to pursue innovative, interdisciplinary research in theatre studies, and to relate their scholarly research to production and/or teaching.

Director: Paola Hernandez

Jewish Studies, Mosse/Weinstein Center for,

Founded in 1991, the George L. Mosse/Laurence A. Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies brings together a variety of disciplines to study and interpret Jewish and ancient Israelite history, religion, politics, society, and culture. Drawn from over a dozen different departments, our faculty have achieved national and international prominence for teaching and scholarship.

Director: Jordan Rosenblum

Language Sciences Program

Language Sciences is a hub for cross-disciplinary and cross-departmental collaborative research, teaching, service, and outreach related to the scientific study of human language at UW-Madison. Language Sciences houses an undergraduate Linguistics major, a Ph.D. program in Linguistics, and a Linguistics Ph.D. minor. Our faculty from across campus are engaged in innovative research projects spanning a broad range of topics and methods of inquiry.

Program Chair: Rajiv Rao

Medieval Studies Program

The Medieval Studies Program offers an interdisciplinary environment for the pursuit of knowledge relating to the Middle Ages, a period spanning Late Antiquity to roughly 1500. Representing faculty from over 18 departments, the Program offers courses and certificate programs at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.

Director: Lisa Cooper

Mead Witter School of Music

The Mead Witter School of Music is proud of an outstanding international roster of faculty artists and scholars devoted to the School's fundamental mission of fostering and promoting the global cultural art of music. The school's 60-member faculty maintains a unique focus on individual student achievement, utilizing the vast resources of the world-famous Madison campus.

Director: Dan Cavanagh

Philosophy, Department of

The Department of Philosophy carries on a long and proud tradition of highly acclaimed teaching and research in core areas of philosophy — especially in the philosophy of science and ethics, but also in metaphysics, epistemology, and the history of philosophy.

Department Chair: Emily Fletcher

Religious Studies Program

Religious studies is an academic discipline that looks at religious phenomena worldwide from a variety of angles in order to achieve an understanding of the many roles that religion plays in human life. Students of religion use different methods for different goals. These include historical methods to understand how religions change in time; critical literary methods to understand religious ideas; aesthetic methods to understand religious art; social-scientific methods to understand the relationship between religion and society and culture.

Director: Susan Ridgely

Second Language Acquisition, Doctoral Program in

Second Language Acquisition (SLA) is the scholarly field of inquiry that investigates the human capacity to learn languages other than the first, during late childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, and once the first language or languages have been acquired. SLA studies a wide variety of complex influences and phenomena that contribute to the puzzling range of possible outcomes when learning an additional language in a variety of contexts.

Director: Katrina Daly Thomspson

Spanish and Portuguese, Department of

The Department of Spanish and Portugues e is dedicated to the study and teaching of the languages, literatures and cultures of the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking worlds. It is one the largest departments of Spanish and Portuguese in the United States, and offers a full range of undergraduate and graduate courses and areas of specialization in literature, culture, and linguistics.

Department Chair: Fernando Tejedo

Centers, Institutes & Special Projects

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American Constitution, Center for the Study of the

The Center for the Study of the American Constitution (CSAC) is a non-profit, non-partisan center dedicated to serving scholars, educators, and students who are interested in the American Constitution in its historical context. 

Director and Co-editor: John P. Kaminski

Creative Writing, Wisconsin Institute for

Since 1986, the University of Wisconsin's Institute for Creative Writing has provided time, space, and an intellectual community for writers working on a first book of poetry or fiction. Since 2012, we have also considered applicants who have published only one full-length collection of creative writing prior to the application deadline, although unpublished authors remain eligible, and quality of writing remains the nearly exclusive criterion for selection. Altogether, our poetry and fiction fellows have published more than a hundred full-length collections and novels, many of them winning major national honors.

Coordinator:  Sean Bishop

Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE)

The Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) is a multi-volume reference work that documents words, phrases, and pronunciations that vary from one place to another across the United States.  The entries in DARE include regional pronunciations, variant forms, some etymologies, and regional and social distributions of the words and phrases. 

Chief Editor: Joan Hall

Early Modern Studies, Center for

The Center for Early Modern Studies aims to encourage innovative research and foster lively dialogue and debate across a wide range of disciplines with a special focus on the early modern period (15th-18th centuries).

Director: Steve Hutchinson

Film and Theater Research, Wisconsin Center for

Researchers at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research may study more than a century of cinema, radio, television, and theater through moving images, visual materials and manuscripts. Collections donated by some of Hollywood's most renowned directors, producers, screenwriters and actors, often augmented by viewing copies of their most significant works, provide complementary documentation for both the art and business of Hollywood's Golden Age, as well as more modern independent and experimental filmmaking. 

Director:  Vance Kepley

Gender and Women, Center for Research on

The Center for Research on Gender and Women was established in 1977 and serves as a unit of the Department of Gender and Women Studies to promote greater knowledge and understanding about gender and women’s studies both in the US and globally. It promotes scholarly interactions among gender studies researchers on campus, as well as linkages with women’s studies scholars nationally and internationally.

Director: Chris Garlough

Harvey Goldberg Center for the Study of Contemporary History

Humanities, center for the.

The Center for the Humanities is a hub of creative inquiry and cultural life, drawing renowned scholars from across campus and around the globe to present cutting-edge research and engage new ideas. Through seminars, workshops, and conferences, the Center fosters collaboration beyond disciplinary lines and promotes intellectual exploration outside the classroom.

Director: Russ Castronovo

Humanities, Institute for Research in the (IRH)

Founded in 1959, the Institute for Research in the Humanities (IRH) sponsors some 40 external and internal fellowships. The institute encourages innovative research and interdisciplinary exchange asking large questions of history, culture, literature, ideas, language, and the arts.

Director: Steve Nadler

Interdisciplinary French Studies, Center for

The Center for Interdisciplinary French Studies is committed to the connection of francophonie in all domains of study at UW-Madison and abroad.

Co-Directors: Gilles Bousquet and Aliko Songolo

Interdisciplinary Humanities

Ranging across the vast array of human experience, creativity, and expression, Interdisciplinary Humanities offers students the ability to discover, explore, and understand the human condition through a variety of content areas, media, and methodologies.

Max Kade Institute for German American Studies

The Max Kade Institute for German American Studies is an interdisciplinary unit dedicated to researching the story of German-speaking immigrants and their descendants in a global and multicultural context; preserving American print culture and personal documents in the German language; and sharing the Institute’s resources through teaching, publications, community outreach, and public programming.

Directors: Mark Louden

Language Institute

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is an international leader in foreign language education and research, with the capacity to offer instruction in over 80 modern and ancient languages. Drawing on the wealth of this expertise, the Language Institute promotes collaboration for research, education and outreach in languages, literatures and cultures.

Director: Dianna Murphy

Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture

The Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture is dedicated to studying and preserving Yiddish music and culture, teaching it to new generations, and supporting scholarship that explores it as an important facet of Jewish and American life.

Director: Sunny Yudkoff

Pushkin Studies, Wisconsin Center for

The Wisconsin Center for Pushkin Studies is a unique resource for scholars dedicated to research and publication on the work of Alexander Pushkin.

Religion and Global Citizenry, Center for

The mission of The Center for Religion and Global Citizenry is to increase UW-Madison students’ religious literacy and their facility for communicating across boundaries of faith so that they may function effectively as citizens of a religiously diverse world. This is achieved via two programs: The Interfaith Fellows Programs and The Interdisciplinary Religious Group.

The Center was established in August of 2017 after the closing of the Lubar Institute for the Study of Abrahamic Religions in June of 2016. The Center hopes to grow to become the hub for discussion of religious pluralism on the UW-Madison Campus and the greater Madison community.

Upper Midwestern Cultures, Center for the Study of

The Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures is committed to the languages and cultural traditions of this region's diverse peoples. The Center fosters research and the preservation of archival collections, while producing educational and outreach programs for a broad public audience. It also assists community groups, classrooms, and scholars with projects involving Upper Midwestern Cultures.

Director: Anna Rue

Visual Cultures, Center for

The Center for Visual Cultures develops and sustains vital connections and collaborations between the study and practice of the visual with bridges across the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences. As a leader in the field since 2002, we support cutting edge creative production and interdisciplinary research, programming, and community outreach activities in the new and developing field of visual cultures studies.

Director: Laurie Beth Clark

Writing Center

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Writing Center helps undergraduate and graduate students in all disciplines become more effective, more confident writers. The Center's methods - multi-faceted, flexible, and collaborative - reflect respect for the individual writer, whose talents, voice, and goals are central to its endeavors.

Co-Directors: Nancy Linh Karls and Emily Hall

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Sean Bishop

Credentials: MFA, University of Houston

Position title: Creative Writing Program Administrator, Teaching Faculty

Email: [email protected]

Sean Bishop is Editor of the Wisconsin Poetry Series. His collection of poems, The Night We’re Not Sleeping In , won the Kathryn A. Morton Prize and the Edna Meudt Poetry Award, and appeared from Sarabande Books. He is the recipient of the Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing’s Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellowship, and his poems have appeared in  Best New Poets ,  Harvard Review ,  Ploughshares ,  POETRY , and elsewhere. He is the former Managing Editor of  Gulf Coast  and  Better  (bettermagazine.org).

23rd Annual Fall Celebration:  OCTOBER 17-20, 2024

Free, year-round public author events

in partnership with the MADISON PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION

Yalitza Ferreras

Book Festival Events

Yalitza Ferreras is the 2022-23 Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing at UW-Madison. She received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award and is a recent Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University. Winner of the 2020 Bellevue Literary Review prize in fiction, her stories have also appeared in Best American Short Stories, Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, Aster(ix) Journal, Colorado Review and elsewhere.