Seton Hill upgrades its Popular Fiction program to an MFA

For many years now, Seton Hill University's Master of Arts program in Writing Popular Fiction has been one of the few places where genre-fiction writers (including those doing science fiction and fantasy, as well as romance and mystery) have been welcome in a graduate-level program in creative writing.

And now, Seton Hill has upgraded its program from a Master of Arts to a Master of Fine Arts (from an M.A. to an M.F.A.).

The significance, for those who don't follow such arcana, is that an M.F.A. is considered a "terminal degree" in Creative Writing -- and no, that doesn't mean it'll kill your writing career <grin>. Rather, it means it's the highest academic degree offered in that discipline (whereas an M.A. is considered a waystation en route to a Ph.D.; the Ph.D. is the terminal degree in most disciplines that offer M.A. degrees).

The best-known graduate from the science fiction and fantasy stream of the the old M.A. program at Seton Hill is Nalo Hopkinson. The university is located in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

More information on the program is here.

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