<p>Can anyone tell me anything about this school? I'm hearing it's the best in the nation right now. I was invited to tour the school with the chair next month... has anyone toured it yet?</p>
<p>All I can offer is that I too have heard that the Creative Writing Program at FSU is/will be rated #1 in the US. </p>
<p>It's in the College of Arts and Sciences:
<a href="http://www.fsu.edu/%7Efsuas/%5B/url%5D">http://www.fsu.edu/~fsuas/</a></p>
<p>English Department:
<a href="http://www.english.fsu.edu/%5B/url%5D">http://www.english.fsu.edu/</a></p>
<p>Creative Writing Program:
<a href="http://www.english.fsu.edu/crw/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.english.fsu.edu/crw/index.html</a></p>
<p>The Director of Creative Writing at FSU is Mark Winegardner. You may remember that he was selected by Random House to write 'The Godfather Returns' after the stories about the Corleone Family by Mario Puzo.
<a href="http://www.english.fsu.edu/faculty/mwinegardner.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.english.fsu.edu/faculty/mwinegardner.htm</a></p>
<p>Here's a University description...</p>
<p>Florida State Universitywhere the weather is grand, the oysters and BBQ and smoked mullet are second to none, and the writing community is as supportive as you'll find anywhere. FSU offers both the M.F.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Creative Writing. Our M.F.A. is a 45-hour degree including a 12-hour thesis. Our Ph.D. features a 24-hour creative dissertation. Students have the opportunity to take courses in cognate departments, including our top-ranked Film and Theater Schools. FSU's creative writing program, among the country's best, is home to winners of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, and features a faculty known not just as writers, but also as teachers of writing. Most admitted students ordinarily receive tuition waivers and teaching assistantships. Several competitive fellowships are also available. No program in the world has been included more often in Harcourt's Best New American Voices. Recent graduates have published books with Hyperion, Norton, Viking, MacAdam/Cage, Sarabande, Penguin, Henry Holt, Simon and Shuster, Copper Canyon, Houghton Mifflin, and several university presses. Our students have published in The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, The Georgia Review, Glimmer Train, Harper's, Ploughshares, and many other quality magazines. FSU students have the chance to work both for a publisher (Fiction Collective 2) and for our journal The Southeast Review.</p>
<p>This may be interesting...two competing poets (one from FSU ) compete to produce a poem online.</p>
<p>See: <a href="http://www.fsu.com/pages/2006/05/30/WarOfWords.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.fsu.com/pages/2006/05/30/WarOfWords.html</a></p>
<p>(Caution - Strong language)</p>
<p>From the University web pages:</p>
<p>"In 2007, the National Research Council will publish a new ranking of creative writing programs. FSU unabashedly plans to win that race. While other schools downplay competition among programs, FSU puffs out its chest, plumps up its feathers and struts," the article continues.</p>
<p>The article notes that FSU is the only school in Florida to offer a Ph.D. in creative writing and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing - a new designation for FSU granted earlier this year. In addition, FSU is the only school in Florida with a Pulitzer Prize winner on its creative writing staff.</p>
<p>Further, FSU has been included more often in Harcourt's Best New American Voices than any other school in Florida and has raked in numerous accolades during the past few years, with students and professors represented in New Stories from the South: The Year's Best and Atlantic Monthly.</p>
<p>Students also have won awards such as the Brittingham Prize for poetry and the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize.</p>
<p>The reason the creative writing major is so competitive is the writing workshops. I just returned from orientation, and im an english lit major. You are required to attend a certain number of writing workshops for the major, but these workshops are very small. A writing sample is required for application, and then the prof hand picks who s/he wants in the class. If you cant get picked, you cant get the degree. Hope that helps.</p>