Fast Response Deadline for Winter Cohort: December 15, 2024 Apply Now
PocketMFA
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The Cohort Model at PocketMFA

 

Professional authors of every genre support and lead our small groups of writers on a challenging journey of mentorship and workshopping every three months.

 

  • Designed with research-based best practices for graduate level learning
  • Built with a schedule and workload designed around your availability
  • Project-based to ensure you make real progress on your current manuscript
  • Focused on moving your publishing and career forward

 

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The Benefits of Twelve Weeks of Deep Learning

Our unique curriculum has been designed for the working writer from the ground up. At PocketMFA you can expect:

  • Respect for your own authority over the journey through the creation of your unique Learning Contract
  • Graduate level instruction on craft during our Direct Instruction seminars
  • Deep insights and guidance on your manuscript with our One-on-One Mentorship
  • Development of your voice, community, and skillset during the Peer Workshop sessions
  • Practical advancement of your publishing goals as a writer through our Writing Life Residency
  • Sincere creative relationships with the other working writers in PocketMFA Community
  • Post-cohort opportunities for continued progress through our Working Writer Services

We have high expectations of every writer in our program, and if you are selected to join us, we have genuine faith that you can reach them.

Phillippa H.

“The program really allowed me to regain a writer’s community and confidence in my abilities. This has been really invaluable to me… I feel like a real writer. Finally.”

See Our Current Mentors

Tim N.

“My approach to writing has been completely transformed after working with Cynthia. The readings and prompts got me to think about writing a poem the same way I think about making a collage or a painting, treating language as I would any medium, responding to what is does rather than willing it into place.”

See Our Current Mentors

Matthew M.

“Pocket MFA has been invaluable to me. Robert was a perfect mentor, who really meshed with my own unique writing style. On top of that, everyone in our group was incredibly thoughtful, kind, and inquisitive. It was truly a blast seeing everyone each week and learning at a breakneck pace.”

See Our Current Mentors

What interests you the most about the potential of PocketMFA's Cohort model?

Please select one below.

Direct Instruction

Your Mentor will lead the class through two weeks of rigorous direct instruction, placed as the first and tenth week of the program.

This will consist of two 3-hour live Zoom classes with the Mentor, online discussions with your cohort throughout the week, the generation of new material, and the reading and study of select craft materials on literary technique.

All weekend Zoom schedules will be defined by the writing groups themselves, in order to best fit into everyone’s busy life schedule.

 

Take Our Writer Quiz to See If You're a Fit

Mentorship & Peer Workshops

After your Mentor gets to know each writer and their individual goals through the direct instruction period, they and every writer develop a plan for continued learning over the next eight weeks. This plan, the Learning Contract, may be a general goal of improving craft and ability, or it may include a direct thesis project the writer wishes to complete.

You’ll send the Mentor two packets of work over the two months, which they will respond to in writing. These packets will vary depending on your project plan but may contain: essays reflecting on assigned readings, new writing, edited writing, etc. This is where your learning really gets a committed and individualized follow through— key to any significant growth as a writer.

Concurrent with the mentoring, the PocketMFA team will also facilitate peer workshops for the writers. These workshop sessions will be intimate and rigorous discussions around original writing, learning texts, and more. The PocketMFA team utilizes a unique version of the Lerman Critical Response Process for our workshops.

The second week of the program is dedicated to training and understanding the PocketMFA expectations for feedback and workshopping.

 

RSVP for Our Next Meet the Mentors Panel

Writing Life Residency

The last two weeks of the curriculum are separated from the first ten, happening in either the summer or winter exclusively. See our Annual Schedule below for the dates.

The Writing Life Residency will be a chance for the entire cohort, all genres and writers, to get together. To keep the events accessible, the residency will unfold over 8-9 nights, after USA working hours, on Zoom. Each night will consist of a mixture or learning activities, community building, and student and guest performances. Every student will have the chance to publicly read their work in front of their mentors, peers, friends, and family.

Some topics for the learning activities may include developing publication strategies, creating community outside of academia, getting an agent, building social presence, finding grants and residencies, freelance editorial work, hosting readings, & more.

 

RSVP for the Next Info Session with Our Director