Shima Oliaee has spent her career telling other people’s stories. This fall, she will begin a new chapter focused on finding the space, community and mentorship to write her own.
Oliaee will join the first cohort of Rice University’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program, a three-year graduate program launching in fall 2026 through the School of Humanities and Arts and the Department of English and Creative Writing.
“I want to make original, creative work that reflects new ways of thinking about the world and explore more deeply how I can help it, while I am in Houston,” Oliaee said. “I’m excited to surprise myself in this new adventure and learn from my colleagues and community.”
Originally from Nevada and most recently based in New York City, Oliaee has built a wide-ranging career across television, journalism and audio storytelling. Before becoming a journalist, she worked in comedy television, including on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. She later moved from Los Angeles to New York and joined Radiolab.
Oliaee eventually founded her own company, Shirazad Productions, giving her greater independence to develop, report and retain ownership of the stories she found most compelling.
“I made–from conception, production, to release–six series in eight years, which is a little bananas,” Oliaee said. “I wanted to be an artist my whole life, and the moment I got my first opportunity, I did everything I could to make it a success.”
Her projects have taken her across the country and around the world. She has reported on subjects ranging from Dolly Parton (Dolly Parton’s America) and the fall of the Mississippi state flag (The Flag and the Fury) to conversion therapy (UnErased), the overturn of Roe v Wade (The Competition), America’s color line (The Vanishing of Harry Pace), and Iranian women who disguised themselves as men to enter soccer stadiums (Pink Card).
Much of her work was rooted in listening, interviewing and understanding how people make sense of their experiences. Oliaee said her graduate studies in psychology became an important part of her approach to journalism.
“I had years of training and practice,” she said, “learning how to really listen and give people the space and time to share things they didn’t even know they wanted to say.”
After years of moving quickly from one production to the next, Oliaee began to consider what stories she had not yet given herself the time to tell. She started writing a book, and a mentor later encouraged her to apply to MFA programs.
Rice’s program was announced while she was preparing applications. Oliaee already knew faculty member Kiese Laymon through her podcast work. She had interviewed Laymon and worked with him as an editorial adviser on one of her series.
Oliaee applied to eight programs across the country and was admitted to all eight. Her decision became clear after visiting Rice and meeting its creative writing faculty. She felt at home.
“When I came to Rice and met the faculty and spent, I think, 36 hours on campus, I just fell in love,” she said. “The day I left, I remember standing on campus and thinking, ‘I am not yet the person that would write the book I would write if I had gone through the program at Rice.’”
Rice’s MFA in Creative Writing will nurture writers working in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, translation and hybrid forms. Its small cohorts will receive close mentorship from faculty while exploring opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration across the university.
The program’s public-facing mission particularly resonated with Oliaee. Through community writing residencies, students will partner with Houston nonprofits, schools and cultural institutions to explore how storytelling can support empathy, advocacy and change.
That approach aligns with Oliaee's existing view of the purpose of creative work.
“How do we take information that is groundbreaking, information that people need, and make it accessible to the public?” she said. “I want to influence culture. I want things to get better.”
Houston also offers Oliaee a setting that reflects the international and cultural perspectives that have shaped her journalism. “I’m very excited that Houston is one of the most diverse, international cities in the country,” she said. She is eager to listen to new voices across Texas and to continue exploring the South, where many of her previous projects were reported. “I feel like the South made my name, and I can’t wait to grow even more through the vibrant literary and art scenes I encountered when I visited in the spring.”
At Rice, Oliaee plans to continue working on two books, a documentary series, and a film. “The best people I met in the last decade were all writers, and two of them are professors in the creative writing program at Rice,” she said. “This felt like a dream opportunity to me.”
For Oliaee, joining Rice’s inaugural MFA cohort is about more than producing her next project. It is an opportunity to slow down, grow alongside other writers and consider how her work can continue serving the communities whose stories she tells.
“I hope to have the time of my life,” she said, “and meanwhile, I plan to use my pen in the pursuit of justice.”