Thesis Manuscripts turned Book Publication: Regis University’s Mile-High MFA in Creative Writing
Regis’ Mile-High MFA is a low-residency program that lets students stay at their jobs and close to their families but pushes them to make time for writing. Students leave the program with a polished thesis manuscript, along with an action plan for putting their writing into practice in the world.
Over the course of two years, students work closely with mentors in their primary genre. They start with an idea and graduate with a full manuscript of work (a book-length feature in fiction or nonfiction or a compilation of work in poetry) and the knowledge they need to start their journey to publishing. Twice a year, students come to campus to experience an intimate, ten-day residency in community with alumni, published authors and writing world professionals.
The Mile-High MFA celebrates the ways in which storytelling impacts our social and cultural lives, promotes social justice and enacts change in the world. Our program is a place for writers from various backgrounds, genres, specializations, and aesthetics to come together and learn from one another in an open and supportive environment. We value writers who are socially engaged, who critically examine the assumptions and social privileges of discourse, and who seek to further a literature and community that respects and values diverse perspectives and authorships.
Over the course of nine years, from the inception of the program in 2015 to now, we’ve seen 18 thesis manuscripts become published books in the world. This article highlights 6 of those publications. Please join us in celebrating the fantastic creative and critical work of our alumni.
Nawal Nader-French / a record of how the mother’s textile became sound
a record of how the mother's textile became sound is a lamentation, a memory, a deconstruction and reconstruction of the author's mother's life through an examination of the complex multilayered textile/text/sound axis. It is about the impossibility/possibility of recording memory, how daughters are tethered to mothers though root language, how mothers are other to daughters, and how we are on a journey to arrive at the other within the self. It is about continuing to arrive at the other still alive even after the mother dies. Distance is not widened to elimination nor condensed to an implosion; it is at a careful proximity where the other voice that is mother is able to continue to speak. a record of how the mother's textile became sound explores how text/textile/sound are vehicles for memories--textile perhaps serving as a bridge between text and sound.
Buy a record of how the mother's textile became sound on Amazon.
Miranda Martinez-Herbert / A Church Girl’s Recovery: Seasons of a Pornography Struggle
The average age a child encounters pornography is eleven, and by fourteen, most children have already been exposed—even Christians. Martinez-Herbert was a part of that statistic. Pornography is foreign. Intriguing. Enticing. But all vicious creatures eventually show their predator nature. A Church Girl’s Recovery is an introspective excavation of pain, struggle, and hope throughout a fourteen-year recovery journey that focuses on God’s promise of freedom and how community is essential for growth.
Buy A Church Girl's Recovery on Amazon.
Mary B. Kurtz / Apertures: Findings from a Rural Life
Author Mary B. Kurtz shares the rich experiences of her Colorado agricultural life in this collection of twenty-eight lyric essays, contributing immeasurably to the great tradition of Western American literature. As if looking through the aperture of a microscope with its light-gathering qualities, Kurtz sees a clear and magnified vision of her life on a ranch and writes about its daily rhythms, the murmurings of a natural world and the vagaries and mysteries of aging and mortality. Her stories are a manifestation of spirit, an exploration and amplification of her inner experience. She discovers her inherent instinct for survival and growth by meeting change and loss with hope and trust.
Buy Apertures: Findings from a Rural Life on Amazon.
Tameca L. Coleman (Meca’Ayo Cole) / an identity polyptych
an identity polyptych is a multi-part, multi-genre experimental work that explores familial estrangement, identity as a mixed-race Black person, and movement towards reconciliation. It can be considered a memoir. The book works to find peace, even if it feels next to impossible. It keeps in mind the trickiness of memory, the effects of trauma, the necessity and constant work of healing, and the unfulfilled wish to feel a true sense of belonging.
Buy an identity polyptych on Amazon.
Jason Masino / Sinner’s Prayer
Jason Masino's Sinner's Prayer invites us to question and redefine sin, our relationships to it and how those relationships impact our self-definitions. Using the seven deadly sins as a framework, Sinner's Prayer takes us on a journey through heartbreak, consumerism, exploitation, existentialism, nihilism and identity, with a pop soundtrack to nod our heads to all the way through. Rich with vivid poetry, crisp narrative prose, humor and grief, Masino expertly compels us to imagine and re-imagine.
Buy Sinner's Prayer from Barnes & Noble.
Hillary Leftwich / Aura: A Memoir
Aura is more than a memoir-- it's a spell book for survival, a powerful promise from mother to son, and an intimate examination of power, spirituality, and the abuse of both. Hillary Leftwich weaves together the stories of her life to create startlingly raw memories that are both personal and profoundly universal. She explores the devastating impact of patriarchy in her own life while searching for answers in witchcraft, womanhood and motherhood. Urgently portrayed and deeply felt, Aura is a complex tapestry of letters, spells and memories. Her story is a vivid confrontation against an unforgiving world that traps women and children in the systems meant to save them. This is a story for seekers, searchers and anyone in the process of saving themselves and their loved ones.
Buy Aura: A Memoir on Amazon.