When you apply to the MFA program in Creative Writing at the College of Charleston, we consider your portfolio for one of two $5,000 awards: one for poetry, one for fiction. The award, which offsets annual tuition, is renewable for the second year of study.

From the largesse of an alum of the College of Charleston, The Woodfin Fellowship invests in your life as a writer. We beckon the very best writers from across the country to study in Charleston for two years. For a prospective student, this award asks for your very best work. The Woodfin Fellowship provides strong support for your contributions to our program, and the space our program provides you to develop your work for the wider world.

Current recipient Emma Stough, a fiction writer in her first year of the program, credits the award for bringing her to Charleston:

“Without the generous help of the Woodfin Fellowship, I wouldn’t have been able to move to South Carolina and enroll in the MFA at CofC. That would have meant missing out on this vibrant, supportive community of writers, classmates, and professors, and losing out on the opportunity to push my own limits as a writer and grow in ways I couldn’t have predicted. To have been able to do all this–and be able to continue to do so–is the greatest gift.”

Fellow recipient and poet McKayla Robbin attests to the artistic growth this gift encourages, and the community this gift has helped establish here. The help has given her the freedom to engage even more deeply with her work and the work of peers:

“The Woodfin Fellowship has given me the time and space to take creative risks and immerse myself in the world of poetry, both inside and outside the classroom — not to mention that it’s also given me the opportunity to get to know my fellow MFA-ers and join a wonderful, close-knit community of writers!”

The inaugural recipients, Laura Cannon and Nick Plasmati, echo Emma and McKayla.

For Laura, “The Woodfin Fellowship created the opportunity to say yes to the MFA program. Not only has the financial assitance reduced a large portion of my tuition costs, I also pushed myself to write new material for the fellowship’s submissions profile, which came to foster the foundation of my thesis work.”

Nick further notes the momentum: “The Woodfin, for me, is representative of the level of support this community has for developing writers. Ours is a new program, still finding its footing, and it’s been heartening and encouraging to feel supported over the last two years. To know that people out there believe in what we’re doing goes a long way.”

Consider our faculty, and the perspective these four writers share. The great credit they give the Woodfin Fellowship abides, and abounds. As you consider applying to our program, we look forward to your portfolio. With care we will consider how your work will continue to build upon the foundation set by this gift.

Living and working in Charleston entreats your senses to the challenges of beauty and history. The Woodfin Fellowship summons you to situate your efforts here, and enables you to incorporate, perhaps, lessons from this place and our program in your work, wherever your writing life may go after two years with us.