Write professionally.
On your own terms.
The only virtual writing program built like an MFA, without the cost, commitment, or burden of an academic bureaucracy.
Welcome to the last writing community you’ll ever need.
I’m Joshua Roark, a Creative Writing and Pedagogy professor, and I founded PocketMFA with the Discover New Art team in 2022. Recognizing the barriers posed by time and financial constraints in traditional MFA programs, we sought to create a more accessible alternative that focuses on the experience, community, and progress rather than the attainment of a terminal degree. By remaining completely virtual, we are able to serve talented writers all over the world.
By joining PocketMFA, you’ll gain a clear understanding of the market for your writing, a community of serious working writers, a dedicated and passionate mentor to guide you, and an answer to the question we all ask ourselves: am I any good at this?
PocketMFA offers two routes into its lifelong community of writers, the Craft Workshop and the Manuscript Studio—each an intensive yet accessible learning experience designed after an MFA semester. In addition to PocketMFA, I direct Antioch University Los Angeles’s Post-MFA Certificate in the Teaching of Creative Writing program. Pedagogy is my passion and I guarantee that PocketMFA’s curriculum is as rigorous as graduate school, without the needless bureaucracy.
As a bonus, all PocketMFA writers receive free access to the PocketMFA Virtual Residency, a month-long feast of writing panels, seminars, and events every April, exclusive to PocketMFA alumni.
We are currently welcoming the seventeenth cohort of writers at PocketMFA. Our mentors are published and award winning authors, and the community is filled with serious, published writers of all genres. We warmly invite you to become one of them.
Your writing career is worth investment
A typical graduate degree averaged $60,000 in 2024, not counting in the burdensome cost of committing to two years of disruption and uprooting your life for the effort. At PocketMFA, we are fraction of the price, with robust scholarships and payment plans available to all writers without extra fees. We are also entirely virtual, built around a working writer’s schedule. And if you do choose to pursue a traditional degree after, alumni have been able to use their time at PocketMFA as credit earned.
What some of our recent alumni say:
Mentors that work for you
Our faculty have sold hundreds of books and have taught thousands of hours. We seek out the very best authors to mentor writers like you across our Craft Workshops and Manuscript Studios.
At PocketMFA, you’ll join the mentor of your choice and develop together an Individual Syllabus that is best suited to your voice, your manuscript, and your goals.
Modeled after the mentorship of low-residency MFA programs, you’ll receive deep line-by-line feedback, career guidance, and craft expertise from the experts you deserve.
