This will be a brief(ish) blog update!
Effective March 2025, I was accepted as a student with the Master’s of Fine Arts (MFA), Creative Fiction, with King’s College in Halifax. King’s is associated with Dalhousie University.
About the Program
I became aware of the program about eighteen months ago when my brother sent me an article about this unique program that was available in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The MFA uses the following structure:
- In-person summer residency – about nine days in June 2025 and again in 2026.
- Full-time online studies with a mentor, Fall/Winter 2025/26 and 2026/27.
- Online residency – about a week in January 2026 and again in 2027.
The core objective of the program is to help authors finish their work and get published. At least, that’s my understanding 😉
The program connects aspiring authors (ME!) with mentors that have experience with writing but also the publishing industry.
Here’s a description of the program:
During the fall and winter semesters, students work with a mentor to make progress on their book manuscript. They will establish a contract of deliverables with their mentors to be reviewed and updated each fall and winter session. Students will have a variety of mentors over the course of the program. Mentors are assigned to help students develop specific skills vital to the progress of their project.
As I launch into the fall period, I need to have a draft manuscript ready. The length should be a minimum 50,000 words (roughly 200 pages).
Extinction Event was about 120,000 words.
Why a Master’s Degree?
I had just finished my college degree with St Lawrence, so why not be happy with that?
The answer: of course I am, but when I finished my degree in economics at Carleton University in Ottawa back in 1991 (ie. a VERY long time ago), I knew as early as then that I wanted to pursue a Master’s … of some kind.
Through university and even beforehand, I was always writing something and during that span of time, I almost did a minor in English literature. These were the courses that I enjoyed the most, but my circumstances seemed to push me towards certifications related to the financial industry.
When I left the government in 1995, I convinced myself that the way to go was with a Master’s in economics. I chose Simon Fraser University because one of the instructors (Richard Lipsey) literally wrote the book on Canadian economics.
The short version of the story is that things didn’t work out.
I traveled instead.
The idea of a Master’s was put on the backburner for three decades. I’m excited to say I have a family, I tried to launch and operate a few different businesses and I learned a lot along the way, especially the fact that I’m not meant to be a businessperson.
Prior to COVID breaking the world, I went down a number of different paths related to a Master’s program, including ethnomusicology, mythology, literature, folk tales, writing and more. The structure of the programs was not conducive to working from home on a program, so I gave up until that fateful day when I got the Globe and Mail article from my brother about the program.
Why the King’s MFA?
I’ve always been ‘writing’ but the mentorship part of the program is the critical component that I’ve been missing through the years.
The King’s approach seems very unique and reflects my expectations of post-graduate education in the post-COVID world.
Several aspects of the program are extremely appealing to me:
- The planned mentor relationship
- Online studies
- Residency – a brief, but important opportunity to meet other aspiring authors and the mentors that we’ll be working with
- The ability to balance life as a mature student with minor accomplishments in writing
I’m sure I’ll identify more features as the program progresses, but for now I’m happy to report that I start the program in June and I’ll report more about it in a few months!