NEOMFA : Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

08/31/2026

Alum Lisa Langford’s play “Con” will have two staged readings as part of Seat of the Pants Productions’s Salon Series, both directed by Natalie Sander Kern and produced by Julia Fisher:

– Saturday, September 12 at 1:30 p.m. in Canton, venue TBD

– Saturday, September 12 at 7:30 p.m. in Cleveland, at Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ, 2592 W 14th St #309.

Both events will be followed by a talkback with the playwright.

Tickets are $10.

Info at

Seat of the Pants is always traveling around Northeast Ohio, and we'd like you to be able to join us, too! But we know that driving longer distances or through inclement weather or at night isn't for everyone — and that's why we created The Caravan Program!

08/27/2026

Congrats to alum Steven Caumo, whose new novel Dryad was released by JournalStone! Info at https://journalstone.com/bookstore/dryad/.

“Deep in the woods, the last dryad—Scarlet Oak—mourns her fallen sisters and seethes with hatred for humanity. In nearby Evergreen, Persephone ‘Percy’ Birch is home from college for the summer, looking to reconnect with her best friend and unrequited love, Cheryl Young. But after a drunken party gone wrong with a group of entitled jocks led by Percy’s cousin Ricky, Cheryl ends up buried alive—right at the base of the dryad ‘s tree.

“Free at last, fueled by blood and righteous anger, Scarlet Oak enacts her terrible vengeance on the small Pennsylvania town. As bodies pile up, only Percy seems to notice the connection between the victims and Cheryl’s disappearance. Can Percy and her sheriff father stop Scarlet and save Cheryl before it’s too late?”

Dryad arrives on the heels of Steven’s recent novella Thrill Killers. Find that one too via Grindhouse Press at https://grindhousepress.com/steven-caumo/.

08/25/2026

Congrats to alum Sony Q. Ton-Aime, named by Pittsburgh Magazine and PUMP as one of the Pittsburgh 40 Under 40 Class of 2026! https://www.pittsburghmagazine.com/40-under-40-honorees/

Sony is the Executive Director, Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures. https://pittsburghlectures.org/lectures/sony-ton-aime/

As well, he’s the author of the recent poetry collection, Konbit. Available now at https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/K/bo265673332.html !

Poems that capture a transformative and visionary way of life in Haiti.Konbit is a Haitian Creole word, a way of living, for which there is no direct translation in the English language. It captures the communal life in Haiti and is used for every event where neighbors are called upon to help each o...

08/21/2026

Student Ashton River Leigh, alum Carrie George, core faculty Hilary Plum, and recent guest faculty Xan Forest Phillips are among the readers in the 2x2 / FMZ event on Saturday, August 29! 7:00 pm at Riff’s, 2418 Professor Ave in Cleveland. .216

08/19/2026

Alum Zach Peckham has co-launched a new journal, Delicatessen! https://www.delicatessen.site/

“Delicatessen is a journal of book reviews and literary criticism, specializing in texts from small, independent, non-profit, and university-affiliated publishers.

“Our mission is to cultivate reception and readership for titles from noncommercial presses, broadly conceived, while supporting emerging and established critics. We pay our contributors.”

Welcome to the Deli at https://www.delicatessen.site/weekly-specials !

08/17/2026

Student Julianne Metzger Taylor will be the guest reader for the Poetry Night event on August 21 at Last Exit Books & Coffeehouse in Kent. The program starts at 8:00 pm at 24 E Main St #1, Kent, OH 44240. Open mic to follow!!!

08/13/2026

Faculty Caryl Pagel and Hilary Plum will share their work along with Sujata Lakhe in the Open Air Poetry Reading on Thursday, August 20th at 6:00 pm. Presented by Mac's Backs-Books On Coventry, the event will be held in the PEACE park outside the Coventry Library (2843 Washington Blvd, Cleveland Heights, OH).

Open Air Poetry Reading Poets Sujata Lakhe, Caryl Pagel, and Hilary Plum will read in PEACE park outside the Coventry Library on Thursday, August 20th at 6 pm. Sujata Lakhe was born in India and grew up in steel-town Bhilai before immigrating to Cleveland in her early 20s. She has co-authored resear...

08/12/2026

Congrats to alum Dominic Dulin, whose poetry chapbook Type Man Type was published by Community Mausoleum! This new work is on sale now at https://www.communitymausoleum.org/books/p/type-man-type !

“Type Man Type opens like a laptop to mount an investigation of political interconnection via linguistic incident, shifting mechanical procedures of digital language production into radically contested space, and exposing the layered violences embedded in our most mundane human speech acts. Anarchist texts and online typing quizzes rupture one another in kind, their noise floor pierced by Dulin’s wry and tender hyper-compressions of interior-exterior, self-other, animal-human imagining. The keyboard becomes a tool for individual and collective liberation. Or not. Did anyone ask the monkey if it wanted to type Shakespeare?”

More on Dominic Dulin at https://dominicdulin.com/ .

Excerpt from Type Man Type at https://www.communitymausoleum.org/coma-journal/dominic-dulin-four-poems .

Poetry | Dominic Dulin | August 2026 | 48 Pages 22 Lb. Cream Lettermark Bond Bound in Unknown Deadstock “Yellowed Terminal / Cig Stain” Cover with Copper Staples Designed and typeset by Community Mausoleum. Printed by Outlandish Press .

08/10/2026

Plenty of time to plan for our next application cycle! See below for info on the NEOMFA!

The Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts (NEOMFA) is the nation’s only consortial MFA creative writing program. Students may focus on one of four genres: fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, or playwriting. Applicants may enter through one of three gateway universities: The University of Akron, Cleveland State University, or Kent State University.

The NEOMFA accepts applications for three cycles each academic year:
— November 15 (spring matriculation; part-time applicants and other students not seeking funding);
— January 15 (fall matriculation; full-time applicants seeking funding); and
— April 15 (fall matriculation; part-time applicants and other students not seeking funding).

For more information, visit neomfa.org/apply or contact [email protected]!