Critical Conversations: bridging pathways forward to greater understanding and creative solutions.

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Our M.F.A. in writing offers the contemporary writer tools and support to cultivate a practice that is responsive to our rapidly evolving environmental and political times.
A diverse group of people sit on stage as they each read from papers they are holding in their hands. They all have microphones in front of them.
Type
Graduate, MFA
Start Term
Fall Only
Credits
39
Duration
2 Years
Courses
Plan of Study
School and Department
School of Liberal Arts and Sciences,
Writing
Student walking through Library hallway.

Writing at Pratt

Through weekly Writing Studio sessions with peers, faculty, and guest artists, writing practices seminars, unique electives, guided fieldwork residencies, and personalized faculty mentorships, you’ll join a community of writers invested in transdisciplinary experimentation and a rigorous study of literary arts.

Our program supports your development of a writing process that takes into account the material and technological aspects of writing, the human body that produces it, and the larger social, sexual, historical, economic, racial, and cultural contexts in which and through which all imaginative writing takes place.

The Experience

student in library, reading books, doing possible research

Transdisciplinary, socially engaged, and deeply personalized, our tight-knit writing community values a plurality of voices and approaches to writing, both on and off the page.

The program resides on Pratt’s Brooklyn campus, where Writing students enjoy dedicated 24/7 work spaces with desks, comfortable furniture, computers, free printing, art supplies, and a library of faculty, student, and alumni publications.

Pratt’s M.F.A. in Writing can be completed in four semesters of full-time study. We fund our students equally: for more information about student funding resources, please contact the program.

The Writing Studio

The Writing Studio lives at the center of our curriculum. Meeting weekly and co-led by collaborative faculty, studio is a scene for collective reading, study, inquiry, and critique. Breaking from traditional workshop norms, studio is a space of cross-genre, multimodal practice and experiments in pedagogy. Studio also includes our revision lab, in which a faculty member meets one-to-one with each student for post-critique reflection and manuscript review.

Mentored Studies

Through our Mentored Studies sequence, you and a faculty mentor will engage in regular, deep conversations throughout your time in the program. Your mentor will support the expansion of your writing practice and facilitate your thesis project. Past mentors include Anna Moschovakis, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, Mirene Arsanios, Ellery Washington, and James Hannaham.

Electives

You’ll participate in fascinating, small-sized seminars with our faculty in subjects such as multilingualisms, small press, ecopoetics, and experimental prose. You can also take advantage of space in our curriculum to pursue courses in Pratt’s celebrated art, design, and media studies programs, or to design your own custom independent study. Browse the full list of Writing MFA elective courses.

Publishing Collective

Each year, under the guidance of a faculty advisor, a self-selecting group of MFA students collaborates to solicit, edit, design and publish chapbooks by students enrolled in the program. These publications are celebrated in a culminating event, and are also distributed at local Brooklyn bookstores.

Fieldwork Residencies and Research Opportunities

Through the fieldwork course sequence you’ll study social practice methodologies and carry out a self-designed creative residency in collaboration with a literary institution, community organization, archive, or activist group of your choice. Past fieldwork sites include Wendy’s Subway, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and The Poetry Project.

MFA Writing students also frequently pursue individual research projects supported by the program and by Pratt’s Graduate Student Engagement Fund. With GSEF support our students have mounted gallery exhibitions, shot films, and traveled internationally to develop research archives for their creative projects.

The Thesis

Supported by your mentor, thesis advisor, and other faculty readers, your studies will culminate in the creation of a full-length manuscript, with the freedom to incorporate multimedia, performance-based, or collaborative elements.

Our Faculty

The Writing MFA faculty work as a pedagogical collective to support your writing process and goals. Distinguished and daring writers, artists, researchers, translators, and editors, they bring diverse views, methods, and perspectives to creating the environment in which you’ll study and create. See all Writing faculty and administrators.

  1. Christian Hawkey

    Professor

  2. Christopher Perez

    Visiting Professor

  3. Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts

    Assistant Professor

  4. Laura Elrick

    Associate Professor

  5. Anna Moschovakis

    Adjunct Associate Professor – CCE

  6. James Hannaham

    Professor

  7. Youmna Chlala

    Professor

  8. Mirene Arsanios

    Adjunct Assistant Professor

  9. Rachel Levitsky

    Professor

  10. Ellery Washington

    Associate Professor

  11. Hannah Assadi

    Visiting Instructor

A group of people stand in front of a projector screen as they attentively look at book being held by the person in the middle.

Our Alumni

Pratt’s distinguished alumni are leaders in an array of fields. They publish widely and have been awarded prestigious literary prizes. Their innovative work addresses critical social and political questions that reimagine our world.

Where They Work

  • Jive Poetic, Friday Night Curator, Nuyorican Poets Café 
  • Erika Hodges, Law Clerk, Orleans Public Defender’s Office
  • Alysia Slocum Laferriere, Editorial Fellow, Litmus Press
  • Ahana Ganguly, Assistant Editor, Futurepoem Books
  • Mahogany L. Browne, Executive Director, JustMedia
  • Irene Lee, Co-Founder, Boar Hair Books and Oreades Press 
  • a.Monti, Editor at Litmus Press
  • Angela Abiodun, Program Manager, The Octavia Project
  • Zora Iman Crew, actor in The Daphne Project (2021), Planet X (2018)  and The Legends of Sleepy Hollow (2021)

Publications and Awards

  • Alisha Mascarenhas, author of A Catalogue of Risk (Wendy’s Subway, 2024), winner of the Carlyn Bush Award
  • Stephon Lawrence, author of u know how much i hate being in social situations (Futurepoem, 2023)
  • Hamid Roslan, author of parsetreeforestfire (Ethos Books, 2019), Shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize for Poetry 2020 
  • Mahogany L. Browne, author of Woke Baby (2018, Macmillan) Chrome Valley: Poems (National Geographic Books, 2023), Vinyl Moon (Penguin, 2022), and others
  • a.Monti, author of Mycelial Person (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2021)
  • Jive Poetic, showcased on TVONE’s Lexus Verses and Flow, PBS News Hour, and BET
  • Irene Lee, co-author of Six Endings and Some Beginnings (Ordeas Press, 2022)

Our Stories

Author James Hannaham reads from a red book in a narrow venue lit in orange-red tones

Literary City

Prattfolio Story

Installation by Cassandra Bristow, BFA Writing ’22

New Writing Studios Offer Space to Create and Collaborate

Article

Samantha Hunt walks across a green yard toward a writing studio with a breezeway in the center, where her dog is jogging through

Revisited: From the Studio of Writing Professor Samantha Hunt

Prattfolio Story

Ready for More?

HERE’S HOW TO APPLYOUR CAMPUS & BEYOND
Join us at Pratt. Learn more about admissions requirements, plan your visit, talk to a counselor, and start your application. Take the next step.You’ll find yourself at home at Pratt. Learn more about our residence halls, student organizations, athletics, gallery exhibitions, events, the amazing City of New York and our Brooklyn neighborhood communities. Check us out.
@prattwriting
Writing at Pratt

@prattwriting

  • The Writing Department is thrilled to congratulate Prof. Sofi Thanhauser (@yesfutureyes), recipient of a 2025 Whiting Foundation Award in Nonfiction! Congratulations, Sofi! 🎉 * From the Selection Committee: How thrilling to encounter this uniquely elegant intelligence. Sofi Thanhauser’s curiosity is a gift to the reader; her sentences are as layered as her investigations, which look with a devoted intensity at the objects around us that might otherwise escape our attention. This includes the very fabric of the clothes we wear: how it is grown and sewn, by whom and at what cost, and how those threads twine our history with the planet’s future. Argument, memoir, and reportage grow in scope and import, becoming symphonic.
  • Thank you to everyone who performed at and attended Tuesday evening’s Student-Faculty Reading in the Alumni Reading Room, and to organizers Hannah Assadi and Anselm Berrigan for their work putting together the event! ✨
  • Happy Tuesday Takeover! Today, Anna talked with first year student, Cliffy, about her first year at Pratt!
  • Please join Writers Forum in welcoming this performance adaptation of poupeh missaghi’s 2024 novella ‘sound museum’ at Memorial Hall. Tuesday, April 8, 5pm. Free and open to all in the Pratt community; for non-Pratt attendees, please RSVP by email (amoschov@pratt.edu) before 4pm on Tuesday.
  • The second of our Tuesday events is a reading by members of the Pratt writing community! Come hear works in progress by your colleagues and friends on the third floor of the library after enjoying the writer’s forum performance across the way in memorial hall.
  • The NYM Prattler Speakeasy/Launch Party Gallery Show, was an overwhelming success, more than 100+ people showed up to engage in the open-mic, or view the readings/performances. In collaboration with the Dynamic Arts Collective and DGT Gallery House, The Prattler created this Speakeasy to foster artist communication as well as highlight the brilliant contributors of New York Minute who wrote to the prompt of what the city means to them. The next issue launches April 25th, don’t miss it!
  • Happy Tuesday Takeover!!! This week we are highlighting what can be found on the bulletin boards of The Cannoneer. 📌 Be sure to keep an eye out for the ever changing posters in The Cannoneer displaying internship information, department wide events, and more!
  • Our spring writing activisms event is a talk by Tracy Rosenthal! Tracy Rosenthal is a writer and an organizer. Their writing has appeared most often in The New Republic, but also in The Nation, The LA Times, The Baffler, and elsewhere. They are an advisor at UCLA’s Institute for Inequality and Democracy, a fellow at CUNY’s Center for Place, Culture, and Politics, and recently won the Antipode Film grant. Their book Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis, co-written with their mentor Leonardo Vilchis, was published by Haymarket Books. They were a co-founder of the LA Tenants Union, and are now on rent strike in New York City.
  • MFA alum @aarushifire’s solo show is in the New York City Fringe Festival! 🎭Come see or stream EMOJI: The Hieroglyphs of Our Time, or how I learned to stop worrying and send the risky text 🤷🏽‍♀️ on April 5th, 10th, 18th, 19th. Buy tickets at https://tickets.frigid.nyc/event/6897:1092 ❤️
View on Instagram
The Writing Department is thrilled to congratulate Prof. Sofi Thanhauser (@yesfutureyes), recipient of a 2025 Whiting Foundation Award in Nonfiction! Congratulations, Sofi! 🎉 * From the Selection Committee: How thrilling to encounter this uniquely elegant intelligence. Sofi Thanhauser’s curiosity is a gift to the reader; her sentences are as layered as her investigations, which look with a devoted intensity at the objects around us that might otherwise escape our attention. This includes the very fabric of the clothes we wear: how it is grown and sewn, by whom and at what cost, and how those threads twine our history with the planet’s future. Argument, memoir, and reportage grow in scope and import, becoming symphonic.
@prattwriting
@prattwriting
•
Follow
The Writing Department is thrilled to congratulate Prof. Sofi Thanhauser (@yesfutureyes), recipient of a 2025 Whiting Foundation Award in Nonfiction! Congratulations, Sofi! 🎉 * From the Selection Committee: How thrilling to encounter this uniquely elegant intelligence. Sofi Thanhauser’s curiosity is a gift to the reader; her sentences are as layered as her investigations, which look with a devoted intensity at the objects around us that might otherwise escape our attention. This includes the very fabric of the clothes we wear: how it is grown and sewn, by whom and at what cost, and how those threads twine our history with the planet’s future. Argument, memoir, and reportage grow in scope and import, becoming symphonic.
6 days ago
View on Instagram |
1/9
Thank you to everyone who performed at and attended Tuesday evening’s Student-Faculty Reading in the Alumni Reading Room, and to organizers Hannah Assadi and Anselm Berrigan for their work putting together the event! ✨
Thank you to everyone who performed at and attended Tuesday evening’s Student-Faculty Reading in the Alumni Reading Room, and to organizers Hannah Assadi and Anselm Berrigan for their work putting together the event! ✨
Thank you to everyone who performed at and attended Tuesday evening’s Student-Faculty Reading in the Alumni Reading Room, and to organizers Hannah Assadi and Anselm Berrigan for their work putting together the event! ✨
Thank you to everyone who performed at and attended Tuesday evening’s Student-Faculty Reading in the Alumni Reading Room, and to organizers Hannah Assadi and Anselm Berrigan for their work putting together the event! ✨
Thank you to everyone who performed at and attended Tuesday evening’s Student-Faculty Reading in the Alumni Reading Room, and to organizers Hannah Assadi and Anselm Berrigan for their work putting together the event! ✨
Thank you to everyone who performed at and attended Tuesday evening’s Student-Faculty Reading in the Alumni Reading Room, and to organizers Hannah Assadi and Anselm Berrigan for their work putting together the event! ✨
@prattwriting
@prattwriting
•
Follow
Thank you to everyone who performed at and attended Tuesday evening’s Student-Faculty Reading in the Alumni Reading Room, and to organizers Hannah Assadi and Anselm Berrigan for their work putting together the event! ✨
6 days ago
View on Instagram |
2/9
@prattwriting
@prattwriting
•
Follow
Happy Tuesday Takeover! Today, Anna talked with first year student, Cliffy, about her first year at Pratt!
1 week ago
View on Instagram |
3/9
Please join Writers Forum in welcoming this performance adaptation of poupeh missaghi’s 2024 novella ‘sound museum’ at Memorial Hall. Tuesday, April 8, 5pm. Free and open to all in the Pratt community; for non-Pratt attendees, please RSVP by email (amoschov@pratt.edu) before 4pm on Tuesday.
@prattwriting
@prattwriting
•
Follow
Please join Writers Forum in welcoming this performance adaptation of poupeh missaghi’s 2024 novella ‘sound museum’ at Memorial Hall. Tuesday, April 8, 5pm. Free and open to all in the Pratt community; for non-Pratt attendees, please RSVP by email (amoschov@pratt.edu) before 4pm on Tuesday.
1 week ago
View on Instagram |
4/9
The second of our Tuesday events is a reading by members of the Pratt writing community! Come hear works in progress by your colleagues and friends on the third floor of the library after enjoying the writer’s forum performance across the way in memorial hall.
@prattwriting
@prattwriting
•
Follow
The second of our Tuesday events is a reading by members of the Pratt writing community! Come hear works in progress by your colleagues and friends on the third floor of the library after enjoying the writer’s forum performance across the way in memorial hall.
1 week ago
View on Instagram |
5/9
The NYM Prattler Speakeasy/Launch Party Gallery Show, was an overwhelming success, more than 100+ people showed up to engage in the open-mic, or view the readings/performances. In collaboration with the Dynamic Arts Collective and DGT Gallery House, The Prattler created this Speakeasy to foster artist communication as well as highlight the brilliant contributors of New York Minute who wrote to the prompt of what the city means to them. The next issue launches April 25th, don’t miss it!
The NYM Prattler Speakeasy/Launch Party Gallery Show, was an overwhelming success, more than 100+ people showed up to engage in the open-mic, or view the readings/performances. In collaboration with the Dynamic Arts Collective and DGT Gallery House, The Prattler created this Speakeasy to foster artist communication as well as highlight the brilliant contributors of New York Minute who wrote to the prompt of what the city means to them. The next issue launches April 25th, don’t miss it!
The NYM Prattler Speakeasy/Launch Party Gallery Show, was an overwhelming success, more than 100+ people showed up to engage in the open-mic, or view the readings/performances. In collaboration with the Dynamic Arts Collective and DGT Gallery House, The Prattler created this Speakeasy to foster artist communication as well as highlight the brilliant contributors of New York Minute who wrote to the prompt of what the city means to them. The next issue launches April 25th, don’t miss it!
The NYM Prattler Speakeasy/Launch Party Gallery Show, was an overwhelming success, more than 100+ people showed up to engage in the open-mic, or view the readings/performances. In collaboration with the Dynamic Arts Collective and DGT Gallery House, The Prattler created this Speakeasy to foster artist communication as well as highlight the brilliant contributors of New York Minute who wrote to the prompt of what the city means to them. The next issue launches April 25th, don’t miss it!
The NYM Prattler Speakeasy/Launch Party Gallery Show, was an overwhelming success, more than 100+ people showed up to engage in the open-mic, or view the readings/performances. In collaboration with the Dynamic Arts Collective and DGT Gallery House, The Prattler created this Speakeasy to foster artist communication as well as highlight the brilliant contributors of New York Minute who wrote to the prompt of what the city means to them. The next issue launches April 25th, don’t miss it!
@prattwriting
@prattwriting
•
Follow
The NYM Prattler Speakeasy/Launch Party Gallery Show, was an overwhelming success, more than 100+ people showed up to engage in the open-mic, or view the readings/performances. In collaboration with the Dynamic Arts Collective and DGT Gallery House, The Prattler created this Speakeasy to foster artist communication as well as highlight the brilliant contributors of New York Minute who wrote to the prompt of what the city means to them. The next issue launches April 25th, don’t miss it!
2 weeks ago
View on Instagram |
6/9
@prattwriting
@prattwriting
•
Follow
Happy Tuesday Takeover!!! This week we are highlighting what can be found on the bulletin boards of The Cannoneer. 📌 Be sure to keep an eye out for the ever changing posters in The Cannoneer displaying internship information, department wide events, and more!
2 weeks ago
View on Instagram |
7/9
Our spring writing activisms event is a talk by Tracy Rosenthal! Tracy Rosenthal is a writer and an organizer. Their writing has appeared most often in The New Republic, but also in The Nation, The LA Times, The Baffler, and elsewhere. They are an advisor at UCLA’s Institute for Inequality and Democracy, a fellow at CUNY’s Center for Place, Culture, and Politics, and recently won the Antipode Film grant. Their book Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis, co-written with their mentor Leonardo Vilchis, was published by Haymarket Books. They were a co-founder of the LA Tenants Union, and are now on rent strike in New York City.
@prattwriting
@prattwriting
•
Follow
Our spring writing activisms event is a talk by Tracy Rosenthal! Tracy Rosenthal is a writer and an organizer. Their writing has appeared most often in The New Republic, but also in The Nation, The LA Times, The Baffler, and elsewhere. They are an advisor at UCLA’s Institute for Inequality and Democracy, a fellow at CUNY’s Center for Place, Culture, and Politics, and recently won the Antipode Film grant. Their book Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis, co-written with their mentor Leonardo Vilchis, was published by Haymarket Books. They were a co-founder of the LA Tenants Union, and are now on rent strike in New York City.
3 weeks ago
View on Instagram |
8/9
MFA alum @aarushifire’s solo show is in the New York City Fringe Festival! 🎭Come see or stream EMOJI: The Hieroglyphs of Our Time, or how I learned to stop worrying and send the risky text 🤷🏽‍♀️ on April 5th, 10th, 18th, 19th. Buy tickets at https://tickets.frigid.nyc/event/6897:1092 ❤️
MFA alum @aarushifire’s solo show is in the New York City Fringe Festival! 🎭Come see or stream EMOJI: The Hieroglyphs of Our Time, or how I learned to stop worrying and send the risky text 🤷🏽‍♀️ on April 5th, 10th, 18th, 19th. Buy tickets at https://tickets.frigid.nyc/event/6897:1092 ❤️
@prattwriting
@prattwriting
•
Follow
MFA alum @aarushifire’s solo show is in the New York City Fringe Festival! 🎭Come see or stream EMOJI: The Hieroglyphs of Our Time, or how I learned to stop worrying and send the risky text 🤷🏽‍♀️ on April 5th, 10th, 18th, 19th. Buy tickets at https://tickets.frigid.nyc/event/6897:1092 ❤️
3 weeks ago
View on Instagram |
9/9

From the Catalog

School of Liberal Arts and Sciences

A student pours a chemical into a beaker while wearing a labcoat and protective glasses.

Writing