Stetson University Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing

06/16/2026

06/16/2026

The Summer residency at Stetson concluded with a night full of presentations from our current students, including film, audio-visual work, improv, fiction, non-fiction, poetry and music.

After their presentations, all of the students, guests & faculty gathered for a community meal to celebrate.

We are so proud of all that presented their work! Thank you for a successful residency!



📸: Courtney Hanks | Creator

06/13/2026

Last night, our Keynote Artist Cyriaco Lopes presented a body of his work- teaching us about visual art, text + image collaboration, creating temporary art & the importance of a fleeting moment.

Cyriaco’s longtime collaborator Terri Witek introduced the artist.

Thank you Cyriaco for an enlightening night and for joining the MFA for the Visiting Artist Series!

06/13/2026

From DeLand history tours to library & Innovation Lab tours… daily workshops, nightly readings…community meals & downtown froyo nights… our current students have been hard at work while also forming their diverse writing community.

Tonight, our current students present what they’re working on!

06/13/2026

Thursday night, our Visiting Artist Series continued featuring Derrick Austin, Shane Hinton and Kenzie Allen.

Derrick Austin’s new poetry collection is This Elegance (Boa Editions, 2026). His other collections include Tenderness (Boa Editions, 2021), winner of the 2020 Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, and Trouble the Water (Boa Editions, 2016), which was selected by Mary Szybist for the A. Poulin Jr, Poetry Prize. He has had poems and essays commissioned by Th e Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, The New Museum, Craft Contemporary, Th e Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Arts, Th e Brick (formerly LAXART), Th e Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Th e Studio Museum in Harlem, and Th e Carnegie Museum of Art. His other honors include the 2026 AICA-USA Art Critics Fellowship, the Amy Lowell Traveling Poetry Fellowship, a Stegner Fellowship, and the Ron Wallace Poetry Fellowship at the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing. He lives in Chicago.

Shane Hinton is the author of three books:
Pinkies (CLMP Firecracker Award Finalist), Radio Dark, and Other Shane Hintons (Florida Book Award Bronze Medalist). He is the editor of the anthology We Can’t Help It If We’re From Florida, a fiction editor for Tampa Review, and he teaches writing at The University of Tampa.

Kenzie Allen is a Haudenosaunee poet and multimodal artist. Her debut poetry collection, Cloud Missives (Tin House, 2024), was a finalist for the National Poetry Series, the CLMP Firecracker Awards, the Indigenous Voices Awards, and the Maya Angelou Book Award, and was long listed for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Kenzie is the recipient of a 92NY Discovery Prize, an inaugural James Welch Prize for Indigenous Poets, the 49th ParallelAward in Poetry, grants from Ontario Arts Council, and fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, Aspen Summer Words, and In-Na-Po. Her poems can be found in Narrative Magazine, POETRY, Prairie Schooner, Best New Poets, and other venues, and her work extends into concrete poetry, digital media, and site-specific arts. A first-generation descendant of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, she teaches creative writing and Indigenous literatures at York University in Toronto.

06/11/2026

Our alumni night celebrated the 10 year anniversary of the program with presentations of creative work from the first cohort to the current graduates, followed by author signings.

Presenters included:

-Rebecca Renner (Stetson MFA 2018)
-Dr. Nikki Fragala Barnes (Stetson MFA 2019, UCF PhD 2025)
-Savannah Kater (Stetson MFA 2019)
-Carley Fockler (Stetson MFA 2020)
-Erica McCay (Stetson MFA 2020)
-Jennifer Leigh Paccione (Stetson MFA 2020)
-Tya Saunders (Stetson MFA 2023)
-Quin Killings (Stetson MFA 2024)
-blaze (Stetson MFA 2026)
-Ryan Forrest (Stetson MFA 2026)
-Ayoola Olubukola Her Silence (Stetson MFA 2026)

MFA Alumni from all over the world also sent in videos including Tony Pizzo, Lucianna Chixaro Ramos, Amanda Ellard & Dona Mayoora.

The audience was filled with MFA alumni, faculty & current students making it a beautiful, diverse night of community.

Thank you to all who to participated. 🎉



Stetson U Alumni Association Stetson University English Department Stetson University

Rebecca Renner nikki fragala barnes Carley Erica McCay Jennifer Leigh Paccione Tya Saunders Quin Killin' blaze R.A. Allen Ayo.Olubukola Amanda Ellard Dona Mayoora

06/11/2026

Tuesday we welcomed experts Ryan Rivas of Burrow Press and David James Poissant of the Florida Review for a panel on Submitting to Literary Magazines.

Ryan Rivas is the author of Nextdoor in Colonialtown (Autofocus, 2022), Lizard People (Th irtyWest, 2023) and The Estuary (forthcoming from Texas Review Press, 2027). He is the Founder & Publisher of Burrow Press. He writes about the convergence of Florida history, colonialism, suburbia, the gothic, literature, and art at ryanrivas.substack.com.

David James Poissant is the author of the novel Lake
Life (Simon & Schuster, 2020), a New York Times
Editors’ Choice selection, and The Heaven of Animals:
Stories (Simon & Schuster, 2014), a finalist for the L.A.
Times Book Prize. His work is in print in ten languages,
and his stories have appeared in The Atlantic, One
Story, Ploughshares, The Sewanee Review, The Southern
Review, and elsewhere. He is the editor of The Florida
Review and teaches in the MFA Program in Creative
Writing at the University of Central Florida.



Ryan Rivas Burrow Press The Florida Review

06/09/2026

For those who can’t be present tonight, please join us via zoom to watch & to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the program:

Topic: Stetson MFA Alumni Evening
Time: Jun 9, 2026 7:00-8:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting:

https://stetson-edu.zoom.us/j/92896173811?pwd=zlbQWMME1AYGlJkOPeJzeJuWK6zEoI.1

Meeting chat link
https://stetson-edu.zoom.us/launch/jc/92896173811

Meeting ID: 928 9617 3811
Passcode: 235854

Zoom unifies cloud video conferencing, simple online meetings, and cross platform group chat into one easy-to-use platform. Our solution offers the best video, audio, and screen-sharing experience across Zoom Rooms, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and H.323/SIP room systems.

06/09/2026

Tonight we welcome our alumni back to Stetson to celebrate 10 years!

06/09/2026

Last night our second round of graduates welcomed us in for a community meal, immersed us in multi-level audio and visual experiences and took us to church, turning the mirrors on the audience to be present in our bodies and to question what that means about the self.

Congratulations to Dejah Griffin, Ayoola Olubukola (Her Silence) and Zoe Poulette on inspiring all of us with your final performances.

Your MFA community is so proud of you!