I am so pleased to interview Meg Kearney and Quintin Collins, of the innovative, culturally relevant low-residency MFA at Lasell University. Solstice Literary Magazine is a free-standing nonprofit, but we have had a long-standing sisterly relationship with the Solstice MFA.
Meg and Quintin are also distinguished poets. Please read their bios to see their publishing accomplishments.
Lee Hope, Founder and Fiction Editor, Solstice Literary Magazine
LEE: Your MFA has an intriguing history and has overcome odds to be reemerging as a force among low-residency MFA programs nationally. Could you describe its origin, its transition and its recent rebirth at Lasell?
Meg: Lee, as someone instrumental in helping to launch the Solstice MFA Program way back in 2005 and 2006, you know well that from our birth we have been dedicated to nurturing the many diverse voices of America. That started with hiring an inclusive faculty made of incredible writers who love to teach, establishing need-based scholarships before we had our first student, and ensuring that a rigorous curriculum dovetailed with a supportive and friendly community. We launched in summer 2006 with ten students representing poets, creative nonfiction writers, and people who wrote fiction for both adults and young adults. In a few years, we began establishing a number of merit-based fellowships, and in later years we added comics & graphic narratives as our fifth genre offering. We now boast 179 alumni spread across the U.S., Canada, and beyond—and I am delighted to say that they’re publishing like crazy, and many are still quite involved. Alums are able to audit our residency craft classes for free, and in summer return to campus for an annual writing retreat. They can also take advantage of our post-graduate semester program, which helps them get manuscripts in shape to send to agents & editors, and our post-graduate certificate program, where they can come back for one year and do a deep-dive into a genre different from their MFA focus.
Quintin: Our rebirth at Lasell began with our search for a new home amid Pine Manor College’s impending closure. We considered public and private institutions in and outside of Massachusetts. After narrowing the list down and contacting these colleges and universities, we had a conversation with Lasell University’s leadership. Within the first few minutes of that meeting, we felt affirmed in our confidence that the university’s mission and values aligned with the Solstice MFA Program. Through more coordination, paperwork, and a lengthy accreditation process to establish us at Lasell, we moved our operations, faculty, staff, and students over at the start of 2022 and officially launched in March of that year. We started out small because of the transition, but since then, we have more than tripled our student count, added six new faculty members, and launched our Social Action & Writing Track.
LEE: How is your MFA distinct from other MFA’s? For instance, you offer a social justice concentration, as well as a pedagogical one. Could you elaborate? And what other aspects of your program set it apart? For instance, you also have a generous scholarship program.
Meg: Yes, our optional Pedagogy Track and Social Action and Writing Track are part of what make the Solstice Program unique—not just among other low-residency programs but all MFA programs across the board. And students who opt to take one of the Tracks don’t pay extra for that experience. Our need-based scholarships, awarded to between 20 & 30 percent of our student body, as well as our myriad fellowships, also set us apart. Note that we provide that sort of financial aid while also keeping our tuition and fees as low as possible—we are among the most affordable low-residency MFA programs in the country! And I want to mention our Spotlight Poet Program, which expands our mission to celebrate voices from underrepresented communities as well as uplift the work of emerging writers who have at most two full-length books. But at the heart of everything is our community—students, alums, faculty, staff—we are truly built on a culture of kindness, which keeps me going when what’s going on in the world at large feels overwhelming.
Quintin: Speaking from my experience as an alum, I can personally say Solstice excels at prioritizing its identity as a community. I often tell prospective students that the term is not just a marketing buzzword for us. We’re intentional about ensuring everyone views time at Solstice as the only place worth being. Additionally, we stress the importance of being the biggest cheerleaders for each other while at the same time challenging students to work together and with their mentors to become the best version of themselves as writers.
LEE: You have had a higher percentage of alumni go on to publish their work than many other programs do. Why would you say they have achieved this success? Does the student/mentor ratio play a role?
Quintin: By the time students graduate, we want them to have pride in what they can create. Moreover, we want them to have the knowledge to take that writing to market with literary journals, agents, and presses. During residencies, we offer elective sessions on various aspects of the publishing industry and Q&As with agents. Students also have access to a wealth of faculty and staff expertise formally (through their independent study with mentors) and informally. A final way we try to connect our students and alums with publishing opportunities is through the calls for submission listed in our e-newsletter, Write This Moment!, and other correspondence. That all said, their success goes back to their pride in their writing and work ethic. We have industrious writers in our community and only encourage their initiative.
Meg: And as I mentioned, our alums are publishing; more than 33% have published at least once book since graduation, and more than 60% of Solstice alum have published in literary journals. Another 15% have landed teaching or writing-related jobs—that’s about the percentage of students who opt for our Pedagogy Track.
LEE: This past year, you have hired several new faculty after the retirement of some others. Could you give a few highlights about some of these new additions?
Meg: We’re very excited about our new faculty members! Alphabetically, there’s F. Douglas Brown, who years ago was our Cave Canem Partner Poet whom we admired and adored so much we vowed to have him come back as faculty; the incredibly powerful poet and essayist Tara Betts, who is also working on an anthology of bop poems with Afaa M. Weaver—who happens to be our commencement speaker in July 2025; rising rock star fiction writer Gina Chung, who writes both short stories and novels; the multi-talented memoirist, essayist, critic, journalist, poet, teache r, and performer Ethan Gilsdorf; the beyond-inspiring poet, anthologist, and translator Jennifer Jean; and musician-turned-writer and natural comedian Adi Rule, who writes fiction for middle grade and YA but is also an essayist and editor. What an embarrassment of riches!
LEE: What other information would you care to share with our readers?
Quintin: Solstice is not a program where you’re just another warm body in a seat. From the moment we first connect with you and well into your life as an alum, we want to celebrate and nurture your work. You have a story, poem, essay, or other piece of writing to share, and we’re here to help you bring it to fruition in the best way possible.
Meg: I can’t express it any better than Q—who is not only a Solstice alum and award-winning poet but also one of those rare poets with the “administrator gene.” I’m so deeply lucky to have him beside me at the helm.
Lee Hope, is the author of the novel Horsefever, a finalist in the Midwest Book Awards. She is a recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship, and a Maine Arts Commission Fellowship for Fiction. She has published stories in numerous literary journals such as Witness and The North American Review. She founded and directed a low-residency MFA program and has taught at various universities. She also teaches for Changing Lives Through Literature, which serves people on probation and parole.
