The MFA in Dramatic Writing at the University of New Mexico is a three-year program requiring 60 hours to complete the degree. The program offers continuing opportunities for producing new work from writers working in the MFA program. These opportunities create an environment where students are either preparing scripts for submission to our annual new works festival called Linnell Festival of New Plays, submitting material for production to the local theatre community, or for the season of plays selected by students that is presented in our black-box, Theatre X. The Linnell Festival presents new work over three weeks in multiple venues on and off campus. Five students in our writing program have won national playwriting awards for the plays presented in this festival four of them from Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. Completing this program means you will have created a portfolio of a minimum of 6 scripts (3 full length stage plays, 1 full length screen play, 1 short screen or stage piece, and dissertation work). This work will have emerged from the courses in the Writing Core taken by all the MFA Writing students. It involves four intensive semester-long writing seminars that confront the principles and craft of dramatic writing, the resources of the writer's world, and a way of thinking about dramatic work.