Writing, BFA

You're a writer. Join a unique community of poets, fiction and nonfiction writers, storytellers, and artists at Pratt.

A group of students sitting in a garden enclosed by white buildings and surrounded by trees and plants. They are listening to a faculty member. — Professor Laura Elrick teaches students the ritual of paper-making from plants grown in Pratt's Textile Dye Garden.

Type: Undergraduate, BFA
Credits: 126
Duration: 4 Years
Courses: Plan of Study
School and Department: School of Liberal Arts and Sciences,
Writing

Prospective candidates: RSVP for the BFA in Writing’s Fall 2025 informational sessions!

Please join us for an upcoming info session about Pratt’s BFA in writing.

Wednesday, October 29 at 5 pm — Register here

This session will be hosted by a group of current Pratt writing students.

Saturday, December 13 at 2 pm — Register here

This session will be hosted by acclaimed writing faculty Hannah Lillith Assadi, Laura Elrick, and Ellery Washington.

A group of students sits at a table, talking to each other with animated expressions

Write every day.

At Pratt, you’ll be writing from day one in a deeply personalized, joyful, transformative environment. We value a plurality of styles and approaches, and your writing practice will be at the heart of your studies as you develop your voice.

A Close-Knit, Supportive Community

A small student-to-faculty ratio, dedicated 24/7 student writing spaces, on-campus readings, and departmental social events foster an intimate and collaborative environment. Our extraordinary faculty will be both partner and mentor to you, helping you to explore, refine, reimagine, and own your talents.

A Dynamic Curriculum

Strengthen your writing practice with foundational courses in critical thinking, research, and world literature. Then dive into specialized writing electives like songwriting, journalism, and screenwriting, alongside classes in art and design and transdisciplinary minors. Your studies culminate in a book-length senior thesis project, which can take the shape of a novel, memoir, screenplay, or graphic novel, or a collection of poems, short stories, or experimental essays (or a mix of forms and images).

Hands-On Experience

Gather with your peers twice a week for intensive studios built on feedback and generative writing. You’ll also have opportunities to gain real-world experience by editing our well-established student publications, The Prattler and Ubiquitous, and by completing the Writing Lives Pathway, which prepares you for life after graduation.

Installation by Cassandra Bristow, BFA Writing ’22 — “Illuminated” installation by Cassandra Bristow, BFA Writing ’22, in the new writing studios

Write at an art school.

Explore Other Media

Complement and enhance your writing practice with courses in other media: painting, fashion, animation, photography, and more.

Collaborate Across Disciplines

Work with student artists, filmmakers, and designers on collaborative projects. Pratt’s rich array of minors, including Art of the Book, Black Studies, Photography, Social Justice, and Teaching Writing in NYC, to name a few, allows you to build a profoundly interdisciplinary practice that enriches and distinguishes your writing.

Write in Brooklyn. And Berlin!

An aerial view of Pratt Brooklyn campus showing leafy trees and brick buildings.

Two students in front of a building in Berlin. They are pointing at the building.

A Thriving Literary Hub

Brooklyn is home to diverse literary communities, experimental and alternative publishing houses, and nonprofits, some led by our visionary faculty. (For one example, check out the *Belladonna Collaborative.) Through courses like Community as Classroom, we help you find your people in Brooklyn and connect with NYC’s vibrant writing scene.

Study Abroad

Expand your worldview by spending a semester studying in our Pratt Berlin program.

Write your future.

Eight book covers — Books from the bookstore Twenty Stories founded by Emory Harkins and Alexa Trembly, both BFA Writing ’16

Internships and Fieldwork

Our dedicated internship coordinator will help you identify and secure internship opportunities across NYC at publishing houses, literary agencies, film and TV studios, podcast networks, newspapers and magazines, arts organizations, and community nonprofits.

Passionate about social justice or building new writing communities? Fieldwork is a unique course offering for students who want to gain experience that a more traditional internship can’t support, such as designing a community-engagement project.

In-Class Professional Training

Our Writer as Worker course provides skills and guidance for pursuing internships while in the program and meaningful employment after graduation. Through weekly visits with guest authors, agents, editors, journalists, teachers, filmmakers, and communications experts, you’ll gain practical knowledge on how to successfully apply for jobs, grants, fellowships, and graduate school.

Dedicated Career Support for Life

Your career journey doesn’t end at graduation. Our departmental alumni coordinator and Pratt’s Center for Career and Professional Development offer lifelong support, including one-on-one strategy sessions and reviews of résumés, cover letters, and websites.

Events and Visiting Writers

Stand Up Comedy for Writers. Video by Max Berger.
Read More in Prattfolio.

Our Writer at Large program, the annual Michael Mahoney Memorial Reading, the MFA’s Writing Activisms series, and other events bring renowned writers to campus for readings, workshops, and manuscript consultations. Beyond these events, department faculty regularly invite writers to spend time with their classes. Recent guests include Ottessa Moshfegh, Ross Gay, Simone White, Layli Long Soldier, Alexander Chee, Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Michelle Tea, Asiya Wadud, Chloë Bass, Sarah Thankam Mathews, and Eugene Lim.

Our Faculty

Writing faculty members are distinguished writers, artists, and editors who are deeply committed to nurturing the potential of each student. Bringing a range of views, methods, and perspectives, they provide a rigorous and singular educational experience. See all Writing faculty and administrators.

Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts
Associate Professor
Laura Henriksen
Adjunct Associate Professor
Christian Hawkey
Professor
Laura Elrick
Associate Professor
Dianca Potts
Adjunct Associate Professor
Christopher Perez
Visiting Professor
Anna Moschovakis
Adjunct Associate Professor – CCE

Our Alumni

A group of young people are gathered around a teacher as they look at her computer screen. They are in a classroom with a grey door in the background.

Where They Work

Carly Tagen-Dye, Editorial Assistant, People Magazine
Anika Jade Levy, Founding Editor, Forever Magazine
Alexa Trembly and Emory Harkins, Twenty Stories Bookstore
Ryan Carson, Founder, NO OD NY
Erin Perez, Poetry Teacher, Saint Ann’s School

MFA Programs Recently Attended by BFA Writing Alumni

Brown University MFA Literary Arts Program
Columbia University MFA Writing Program
University of Wyoming MFA Creative Writing Program
The New School MFA Creative Writing Program

Recent Alumni Publications

Adrian Shirk, Heaven Is a Place on Earth (Counterpoint, 2022)
Laura Henriksen, Laura’s Desires (Nightboat Books, 2024)
Phoebe Robinson, Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes (Tiny Reparations Books, 2021)
Brandi Spering, This I Can Tell You (Perennial Press, 2021)
Kate Gavino, A Career in Books (Plume, 2022)

Success Stories

A woman with long brown hair in a blue blouse smiling outdoors.

For Laura Henriksen, BFA Writing ’12, One Teacher’s Mentorship Opened Whole Possible Futures

Prattfolio Story

Writing Alumni Stories

Page

Author James Hannaham reads from a red book in a narrow venue lit in orange-red tones

Discovering Our Literary City

Prattfolio Story

This American Life, The Out Crowd, episode 688, by Lola Dupre

Team Featuring Writing Alumna Lina Misitzis Awarded Pulitzer Prize for This American Life Episode

Article

From the Catalog

View all Writing courses

The BFA in Writing at Pratt Institute prepares students to become highly proficient and self-sustaining creative writers. Through our studio-based approach and our commitments to inquiry, creative research, and critical self-reflection, we invite students to expand their creative range, to investigate the cultural and historical forces that have sculpted the literary traditions they seek to enter, to become expert practitioners, and to explore the other fields on offer at Pratt. Our focus is students’ creative expression, balanced with professional preparation and community engagement via hands-on courses, internships, and colloquia, so that students are prepared to navigate the changing literary landscape. Our pedagogy combines rigor with care, and the department administration and faculty work actively on behalf of students to shape their time at Pratt and to connect them to campus resources, so that—despite the solitude that sometimes attends the writing life—students feel supported and equipped to achieve their goals.

Via completion of the program, BFA Writing students will:

Expand their creative process through practices of creative making, experimentation, and play
Learn to ask and investigate a question through the refinement of curiosity, attention, and research
Acquire an eloquent critical language for discussions of their work and its place in diverse literary traditions
Demonstration through informed reading and writing practices, an understanding of the social and historical forces that have shaped their imagination
Develop expertise in a selected form or genre
Become a self-sustaining practitioner by
- Learning to assemble a revised, cohesive, and polished body of work
- Acquiring professional skills and knowledge that will support a working life

Ready for More?

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Join us at Pratt. Learn more about admissions requirements, plan your visit, talk to a counselor, and start your application. Take the next step.	Building your portfolio can be daunting. We’ll answer your questions and help you feel confident about the portfolio you submit with your application. Start building your portfolio, now.	You’ll find yourself at home at Pratt. Learn more about our residence halls, student organizations, athletics, gallery exhibitions, events, the amazing City of New York and our Brooklyn neighborhood communities. Check us out.