About

This international and cross-cultural project works to bridge two worlds by bringing undergraduate students at the University of Bahrain together with graduate writing mentors from the College of Charleston’s MFA Creative Writing program for a semester-long course in the art of writing. Directed by Prof. Bret Lott, two MFA mentors work with six undergraduate students of English at the University of Bahrain.

The MFA mentors design their own course syllabus and writing exercises. Then using Skype and email, the mentors and students spend the spring semester working together in the study and practice of writing fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. A generous grant from the United States Embassy in Bahrain funds the project, which seeks through the making of art to help students better prepare to make an impact on their culture through the written word; likewise, the lives of our MFA student mentors are impacted, revealing to them the larger world and the commonalities we share as human beings.

The project culminates with a visit to Bahrain by the MFA mentors and Prof. Lott, where they meet their students in person, present a published anthology of their work, hold a formal reading, and teach micro-workshops to interested students at the University of Bahrain.