On March 29 and 30, graduating students in the University of King’s College Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction program showcased their talents during two evenings of virtual public readings.
The readings were part of Creative Campuses, a broader collaborative initiative to highlight the variety of creative work being done by students at Nova Scotia’s universities and community colleges.
During the public events, the King’s MFA students—all members of the Class of 2021—read from their nonfiction works-in-progress.
King’s two-year limited residency program provides students with the skills and mentorship they need to complete their own book-length manuscripts.
So far—and this will be only the program’s seventh graduating class—more than three dozen graduates have published books or have book contracts, and many have won regional and national literary awards for their work.
This year’s student projects cover the nonfiction waterfront—from memoir to literary nonfiction, journalistic investigation, and personal essays.
The topics they tackle are equally eclectic:
- navigating obsessive-compulsive disorder,
- exposing one of the most serious ethical scandals in Canadian medical history,
- documenting a year in the life of a pair of mute swans living and raising a family in Toronto’s Ashbridge’s Bay,
- telling tales from a diplomat’s career,
- exploring the complexity of what it means to be a mother,
- searching for acceptance as a young woman in all the wrong (and sometimes dangerous) places,
- and many more…
To watch the videos from both evenings, click on the “1/2” icon in the upper right corner of the video.
