GORHAM – The University of Maine System has won approval for the state’s first master’s program in creative writing. The University of Maine System board of trustees approved the Stonecoast Master’s of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at their meeting Monday. The University of Southern Maine hopes to start the program in the summer of 2002.

The program will be Maine’s first “low-residency” graduate degree writing program in which students spend only a small percentage of time in the classroom.