MFA Low Res Program
Brooklyn Campus updates its popular MFA program to low-residency format, opening doors to writers from around the world
The Brooklyn Writers Foundry Creative Writing MFA has changed its format to a low-residency program, creating more opportunities for students who will complete residency periods in Brooklyn only twice a year.
Inspired by esteemed poet Marie Birmingham Ponsot ’40, the University established the program in 2013 on the Brooklyn Campus, as the first boutique MFA program in the University’s history. Prior to rolling out the low-residency format, students were required to attend all classes in person, limiting the program’s reach to the New York area. With only two required weeks of residency per year now, the program will be available to students from other parts of the world.
“Reshaping the program into the Brooklyn Writers Foundry Low-Residency MFA program is very cool, exciting stuff,” said Lee Clay Johnson, director of the program. “This new low-residency model will expand our reach, making us more accessible to all writers from different regions and walks of life.”
Beginning with its inaugural class in summer 2026, the low-residency program offers two one-week residency periods in January and June, where students will participate in daily on-campus classes, readings and lectures with core and guest faculty members. For the rest of the year, students receive individualized monthly feedback on their writing from their workshop instructors while participating in virtual discussion-based reading classes.
Graduates of the program have gone on to attend residencies, teach at the collegiate level and publish in journals, including Prairie Schooner, The Southampton Review, West Trade Review, The Whitney Review of New Writing, Gulf Stream Magazine and The Sunlight Press.
For alumna Hayley Barnes, who graduated from the program in 2024, her experience at St. Joseph’s was so positive that she returned to the University, this time as an employee, serving as program coordinator for the low-residency MFA program.
Now responsible for managing and executing logistics for residencies, assisting with student registration, recruitment and communication, and working to help advertise the program, her firsthand knowledge as an alumna makes her an integral part of the program.
“It’s not an exaggeration to say my experience changed my life,” Barnes said. “Earning an MFA degree at St. Joseph’s helped me take myself seriously as a writer, connected me to a thriving literary community, and introduced me to poems, stories, authors and journals I might never have otherwise found. The opportunities for education, connection and growth at the Foundry are limitless.”
Natiesha Evans ’25, whose poetry was accepted by the 2025 Kenyon Review Residential Writers Workshop and the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Poet & Author Fellowship, credits the support she received in the program as being invaluable to her success.
“No matter your experience as a writer or what stage you are in your work, you will learn to become the writer you know you are and desire to be,” said Evans. “Your advisers are dedicated and committed to seeing you succeed, supportive peers are a lifeline in your experience and a uniquely affirming environment fosters this.
The MFA program specializes in fiction, nonfiction and poetry, and takes two years to complete. For more information about the program, visit sjny.edu/MFA.