The American University of Paris (AUP) is now home to Europe’s only two-year, interdisciplinary graduate program in creative writing, and is currently accepting applications for its inaugural class in Fall 2025. Combining the American liberal arts tradition with the outward-looking and cross-cultural nature of AUP, this program will bring students to meet, read and gain inspiration from writers, translators and artists from across the globe to think and write creatively across disciplines.

In pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at AUP, students are joining the rich literary community already present at the University and in the city of Paris, home to thriving networks of writers and translators, publishing houses, non-stop cultural events, and a myriad of archives, libraries, exhibition spaces and bookstores.
 

If Paris is undoubtedly a literary hub, and France is one of the countries in the world that reads the most, then AUP is the place where students can bridge their interests in literature with their desire to engage with global issues outside of their focus. AUP’s research centers, such as the Center for Writers and Translators, which publishes the Cahier Series, and other platforms for publishing such as the student-run Paris/Atlantic, the University’s annual literary and creative arts journal, allow scholars, writers, translators and artists to think collectively through pertinent issues and topics of our time and develop unique projects to respond to them creatively.

The more-than-40-volume Cahiers Series, for example, juxtaposes original writing pertaining to cultural translation with works by visual artists and has featured works by Anne Carson, Lydia Davis, Gao Xingjian, and Javier Marias. Each year, the University also hosts a Writer in Residence offering students the opportunity to discuss with and learn from the likes of poet and translator Sampoorna Chattarji (2019), novelist Sophie Mackintosh (2021), poet, editor and translator E. Tracy Grinnell (2022), creative non-fiction writer Tinashe Mushakavanhu (2023) and fiction and non-fiction author Rachel Lyon (2024).

The program aims to broaden students’ perspectives on literature through the study of translated works, the practice of translation, eco-politics and intermedial approaches to cultural exchange. Taught in English, the program also offers workshops in Fiction, Poetry, and Creative Non-Fiction, all the while challenging the divisions between these categories. As Program Co-Director Biswamit Dwibedy puts it, “the focus is on storytelling—you will be trained in any genre your story needs to be told in.”

In addition to its cross-genre, border-spanning curriculum and the rich cultural and creative scene offered by the city of Paris, the program takes students on a three-day writer’s retreat to the renowned Royaumont Abbey and offers study trips; faculty in the department of English and Comparative Literature have recently taken students to Iceland, London, Bordeaux, Crete, and Cairo. The India Literary Practicum, crafted specifically for this program, offers the chance to discover the country’s multilingual and multicultural thriving literary scene and meet with collaborators and students from some of the nation’s best design schools, NGOs, museums and archives.
 

There is no doubt that the wealth of creativity and the depth of culture in Paris is immense, but the AUP experience will take you on a journey well beyond the city limits, through personal exploration and the challenges raised by confrontation with difference. In pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at AUP, you will not only discover the literary heritage of Paris and its intersections with the rest of the world, but you will also become part of it. 
 

Visit the program page to learn more and meet the faculty.