* | Satisfies literary genre requirement (LG) |
** | Satisfies pre–20th century literary requirement (LC) |
*** | Satisfies literary theory requirement (LT) |
Students who are not English language and literature or creative writing majors may complete a minor in English and Creative Writing. The minor requires six courses (600 units). At least three of the required courses must be creative writing courses, with at least one being a beginning workshop, at least one being an advanced workshop, and at least one being a fundamentals course. Three of the remaining required courses may be taken in either the Department of English Language and Literature or the Program in Creative Writing; these courses may include technical seminars or arts general education courses. General education courses cannot be used for the minor if they are already counted toward the general education requirement in the arts. In some cases, literature courses outside of English language and literature and creative writing may count towards the minor, subject to the director of undergraduate studies’ approval.
Students who elect the minor program in English and Creative Writing must meet with the student affairs administrator for creative writing before the end of Spring Quarter of their third year to declare their intention to complete the minor. Students choose courses in consultation with the administrator. The administrator's approval for the minor program should be submitted to a student's academic advisor on the Consent to Complete a Minor Program form, available from the College adviser or online, by the deadline above.
Students completing the minor will be given enrollment preference for advanced workshops and some priority for technical seminars. They must follow all relevant admission procedures described at the Creative Writing website. For details, see Enrolling in Creative Writing Courses .
Courses in the minor (1) may not be double counted with the student's major(s) or with other minors and (2) may not be counted toward general education requirements. Courses in the minor must be taken for quality grades (not pass/fail) and bear University of Chicago course numbers.
One (1) Fundamentals Course | 100 | |
One (1) Beginning Workshop | 100 | |
One (1) Advanced Workshop | 100 | |
Three (3) CRWR or ENGL electives | 300 | |
Total Units | 600 |
** | Exceptions are subject to the director of undergraduate studies’ approval. |
Student circumstances change, and a transfer between the major and minor programs may be desirable to students who begin a course of study in either program. Workshop courses and a fundamentals course may count toward the minor. Students should consult with their academic advisor if considering such a transfer and must update their planned program of study with the student affairs administrator or director of undergraduate studies in creative writing.
Fundamentals in Creative Writing: Touchstones | 100 | |
Beginning Fiction Workshop | 100 | |
Advanced Fiction Workshop: Exploring Your Boundaries | 100 | |
Introduction to Fiction | 100 | |
Shakespeare's History Plays | 100 | |
Mysticism and Modernity | 100 | |
Total Units | 600 |
General education courses and beginning workshops are open to all students via the standard pre-registration process. Our consent-based courses prioritize students in the major, the minor, and the Creative Writing Option of the Master of Arts Program in the Humanities (MAPH). Note: Students who have not yet met with the director of undergraduate studies or student affairs administrator to begin a worksheet are not considered formally declared and therefore are not guaranteed priority in course enrollment.
For more information on creative writing courses and opportunities, visit the Creative Writing website.
Creative Writing Courses for the General Education Requirement in the Arts
These multi-genre courses are introductions to topics in creative writing and satisfy the general education requirement in the arts in the College. General education courses are generally taught under two headings—"Reading as a Writer" and "Intro to Genres"—and will feature class critiques of students’ creative work. They are open to all undergraduate students during pre-registration. These courses do not count towards the major in creative writing, but students may use these courses to satisfy the creative writing minor’s elective requirements if they are not already counted toward the students' general education requirement in the arts.
Fundamentals in Creative Writing Courses
These courses focus on a current debate relevant to all forms of literary practice and aim to develop cohort solidarity, promote a culture of exchange, and induct students into a reflection on practice that will service their artistic and professional development. They are open to declared majors only, except in circumstances approved by the director of undergraduate studies. Majors should take a Fundamentals course and a Beginning Workshop before enrolling in Advanced Workshops.
Beginning Workshops
These courses are intended for students who may or may not have writing experience, but are interested in gaining experience in a particular genre. Courses will focus on the fundamentals of craft and feature workshops of student writing. Open to all undergraduate students during pre-registration.
Technical Seminars
The aim of the technical seminars is to expand students’ technical resources through analysis of contemporary literature and practice-based training in elements of craft.
These workshops are intended for students with experience in a particular genre. Advanced workshops will focus on class critiques of student writing with accompanying readings from exemplary literary texts. Priority is given to students in the major, minor, or the MAPH Creative Writing Option .
Optional Thesis/Major Projects
The thesis/major projects course is optional for minors. While it is not required to complete the minor, students are welcome to opt in to the course. This course will revolve around workshops of student writing and concentrate on the larger form students have chosen for their creative thesis. Priority is given to students in the major, minor, or the MAPH Creative Writing Option .
For a current listing of Creative Writing faculty, visit the Creative Writing website.
CRWR 10206. Beginning Fiction Workshop. 100 Units.
Beginning Workshops are intended for students who may or may not have previous writing experience, but are interested in gaining experience in a particular genre. These workshops focus on the fundamentals of craft and feature workshops of student writing. See the course description for this particular workshop section in the notes below.
Instructor(s): Staff Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter Prerequisite(s): During pre-registration, this course is open only to declared Creative Writing Majors and declared Minors in English and Creative Writing, as well as graduate students. During add/drop the course will be instructor consent and open to all students in the College. Please contact the instructor to be added to the waitlist for the option to enroll during add/drop. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 30206
CRWR 10306. Beginning Poetry Workshop. 100 Units.
Instructor(s): Staff Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter Prerequisite(s): During pre-registration, this course is open only to declared Creative Writing Majors and declared Minors in English and Creative Writing, as well as graduate students. During add/drop the course will be instructor consent and open to all students in the College. Please contact the instructor to be added to the waitlist for the option to enroll during add/drop. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 30306
CRWR 10406. Beginning Nonfiction Workshop. 100 Units.
Instructor(s): Staff Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter Prerequisite(s): During pre-registration, this course is open only to declared Creative Writing Majors and declared Minors in English and Creative Writing, as well as graduate students. During add/drop the course will be instructor consent and open to all students in the College. Please contact the instructor to be added to the waitlist for the option to enroll during add/drop. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 30406
CRWR 10606. Beginning Translation Workshop. 100 Units.
Beginning Workshops are intended for students who may or may not have previous experience, but are interested in gaining experience in translation. See the course description for this particular workshop section in the notes below.
Instructor(s): Anne Janusch Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Please email the professor to be added to the waitlist during add/drop. To participate in this class, students should have intermediate proficiency in a foreign language. Note(s): Beginning Translation Workshop: Writing What's Been Written This workshop will explore literary translation as a mode of embodied reading and creative writing. Through comparative and iterative readings across multiple translations of both poetry and fiction, we will examine the interpretive decisions that translators routinely encounter when assigning an English to a work of literature first written in another language, as well as the range of creative strategies available to translators when devising a treatment for a literary text in English. Students will complete weekly writing exercises in retranslation and English-to-English translation, building to the retranslation of either a short piece of fiction or selection of poems. Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 10606, GRMN 30606, CRWR 30606, SALC 30706, SALC 10606
CRWR 12124. Reading as a Writer: Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty. 100 Units.
In this core course, students will investigate the complicated relationship between truth and art by reading and writing works "based on a true story." In poetry and prose, we will explore the lines between fiction and nonfiction, beauty and horror, as well as utterance and silence. Writers will develop critical responses to course readings, then explore those perspectives through creative work of their own. Readings include work by Jeffery Renard Allen, Ari Banias, Scott Blackwood, Brenda Hillman, Harold Pinter, and Claudia Rankine.
Instructor(s): Garin Cycholl Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through classes.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Note(s): This course meets the general education requirement in the arts.
CRWR 12133. Intro to Genres: Writing and Social Change. 100 Units.
In this course, we will explore the embattled, yet perpetually alive relationship between writing and activism by reading canonical and emergent works of fiction, narrative prose, and poetry that not only represent social ills, but seek to address and even spur social justice in some way. Students will be encouraged to choose an issue that they feel passionate about on which to research and respond for the entire quarter-and will be asked to produce short works in a range of genres in relation to that issue. Works studied will include the poetry of Percy Shelley, the short stories of John Keene, the essays of Anne Boyer, the graphic novels of Nick Drnaso, and the document-based poetry of Layli Long Soldier.
Instructor(s): Jennifer Scappettone Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.UChicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Satisfies the College Arts Core requirement.
CRWR 12138. Intro to Genres: Evil Incarnate. 100 Units.
Some of the most compelling pieces of writing across all genre deal with, and often feature, deeply problematic central adversarial characters without which the poem, story, or essay would have no forward motion, and no cause to exist. From Capote's In Cold Blood to Milton's Paradise Lost, from Bulgakov's Master and Margarita to Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem and Sabato's The Tunnel, literature returns again and again to the question of evil and the concept of opposition. This course is designed to explore this question alongside authors who have devoted their lives to understanding the role of evil in literature, its necessity, its appeal, its frivolity and its betrayal. The course will be divided into three section, each section devoted to a specific genre during which two to three texts will be explored, discussed and analyzed in class, and at the end of which one brief analysis paper will be due. One creative piece, in any of the three major genres, exploring the said topic will be due at the end of the course.
Instructor(s): Lina Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins; contact the instructor for a spot in the class or on the waiting list. Note(s): Satisfies the College Arts/Music/Drama Core requirement.
CRWR 12141. Intro to Genres: Drawing on Graphic Novels. 100 Units.
Like film, comics are a language, and there's much to be learned from studying them, even if we have no intention of 'writing' them. Comics tell two or more stories simultaneously, one via image, the other via text, and these parallel stories can not only complement but also contradict one another, creating subtexts and effects that words alone can't. Or can they? Our goal will be to draw, both literally and metaphorically, on the structures and techniques of the form. While it's aimed at the aspiring graphic novelist (or graphic essayist, or poet), it's equally appropriate for those of us who work strictly with words (or images). What comics techniques can any artist emulate, approximate, or otherwise aspire to, and how can these lead us to a deeper understanding of the possibilities of point of view, tone, structure and style? We'll learn the basics of the medium via Ivan Brunetti's book Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice, as well as Syllabus, by Lynda Barry. Readings include the scholar David Kunzle on the origins of the form, the first avant-garde of George Herriman, Frank King, and Lyonel Feininger, finishing with contemporaries like Chris Ware, Emil Ferris and Alison Bechdel. Assignments include weekly creative and critical assignments, culminating in a final portfolio and paper.
Instructor(s): Dan Raeburn Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): MADD 22141
CRWR 12143. Reading as a Writer: Embodied Language. 100 Units.
Embodied Language. This course studies how writers engage the senses to shape language into something actually felt and not just comprehended. We'll track the sensual life of words-what they do to the mouth, to the ear, their musical kinships with one another-and learn how these qualities combine to generate mood and atmosphere. Alongside writing that renders embodiment and the physical world, we'll read writing that makes abstraction feel concrete. Our weekly readings will guide our ongoing inquiry into questions such as: what constitutes an image? How does writing enact feeling? How do the sensory elements of a piece intensify or erode or expand its subject, and to what end? Texts will include poetry and prose by Sei Shōnagon, Francis Ponge, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Gwendolyn Brooks, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Wanda Coleman, Vasko Popa, Lorine Niedecker, Ai, Durga Chew-Bose, Shane McCrae, Jenny Zhang, Justin Torres, James Baldwin, Deborah Eisenberg, and many others. Each member of the class will be asked to write weekly critical and creative responses, to give one presentation, and to produce a final project at the end of the quarter.
Instructor(s): Margaret Ross Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins; contact the instructor for a spot in the class or on the waiting list. Note(s): This course meets the general education requirement in the arts.
CRWR 12145. Reading as a Writer: Re-Vision. 100 Units.
To revise a piece of writing isn't merely to polish it. Revision is transformation and yields an alternate reality. A new view, a re-vision. This course will start by tracking compositional process, looking at brilliant and disastrous drafts to compare the aesthetic and political consequences of different choices on the page. We'll then study poems, essays, and stories that refute themselves and self-revise as they unfold, dramatizing mixed feelings and changing minds. We'll end by considering erasure poetry as a form of critical revision. Our conversations will inspire weekly writing exercises and invite you to experiment with various creative revision strategies. Students will be asked to lead one presentation and to share their writing for group discussion.
Instructor(s): Margaret Ross Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory.
CRWR 12146. London vs. Nature: Writing Utopia and Dystopia in the Urban Landscape [Creative Writing Arts Core: R. 100 Units.
In this Arts Core course, students will be introduced to a range of the utopian and dystopian fantasies that writers have produced in response to the metropolis of London as the imperial epicenter of manufactured ecologies, from the late nineteenth century through the present day. They will study early responses to modernism and modernization in the city by figures like William Blake, Frederick Engels, Henry James, Ezra Pound, and Virginia Woolf before moving on to contemporary writers such as R. Murray Schafer, who apprehends the city through "earwitnessing" of noise pollution, and Bhanu Kapil, who recalls the race riots of the 1970s against the backdrop of the Nestle factory on the site of King Henry VIII's hunting grounds. Students will be exposed first-hand to how London is read by writers confronting planetary and political crisis through meetings with living publishers, authors, and art collectives like the Museum of Walking, grappling with the continual metamorphosis of the landscape-and through a sequence of on-site visits and psychogeographical experiments, they will have the opportunity to respond to the city in their own writing across a range of genres. (Arts Core)
Instructor(s): Jennifer Scappettone Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Acceptance to the London Study Abroad Program. Equivalent Course(s): ARCH 14146
CRWR 12147. Intro to Genres: The River's Running Course. 100 Units.
Rivers move--over land, through history, among peoples--and they make: landscapes and civilizations. They are the boundaries on our maps, the dividers of nations, of families, of the living and the dead, but they are also the arteries that connect us. They are meditative, meandering journeys and implacable, surging power. They are metaphors but also so plainly, corporeally themselves. In this course, we will encounter creative work about rivers, real and imaginary, from the Styx to the Amazon. Through poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama, we will consider what rivers are, what they mean to us, and how they are represented in art and literature. Rivers will be the topic and inspiration for our own creative writing, too. The goal for this course is to further your understanding of creative writing genres and the techniques that creative writers employ to produce meaningful work in each of those genres. You will also practice those techniques yourselves as write your own creative work in each genre. Our weekly sessions will involve a mixture of discussions, brief lectures, student presentations, mini-workshops and in-class exercises. Most weeks, you will be responsible for a creative and/or critical response (300-500 words) to the reading, and the quarter will culminate in a final project (7-10 pages) in the genre of your choice, inspired by the Chicago River.
Instructor(s): Stephanie Soileau Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CHST 12147, ENST 22147
CRWR 12148. Intro to Genres: Speculative Women. 100 Units.
Intro to Genres: Speculative Women Despite common misconceptions, women have been at the forefront of the speculative genre from its earliest inceptions. They have not merely defied the limitations and restraints of literature as defined by their contemporary society, but invented whole worlds and genres which continue to influence writers and writing as a whole today-from Mary Shelley's 1818 publication of "Frankenstein" to Virginia Woolf's 1928 publication of "Orlando," and even Margaret Cavendish's 1666 novel, "The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World." This course will be a brief foray into the strange and yet familiar worlds of various women across the history of speculative writing, ranging from Mary Shelley to Ursula K. Leguin, from Lady Cavendish to Margaret Atwood, from Alice Walker to Octavia E. Butler.
Instructor(s): Lina Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins; contact the instructor for a spot in the class or on the waiting list. Note(s): Satisfies the College Arts/Music/Drama Core requirement. Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 22148
CRWR 12150. Intro to Genres: Writing for TV: The Writers' Room. 100 Units.
In this course, you'll learn the craft of writing for television by collaboratively developing a pilot script for an original television series set in the South Side of Chicago. Modeled on the "writers' room," we'll research and develop the concept, characters, the outline, and create a plan for the series. In addition to being introduced to the fundamentals of storytelling through lectures, discussions, screenings, and script analysis, you'll also learn to work collaboratively with a team, constructing a daily agenda, brainstorming, researching, pitching, discussing ideas, and composing in screenwriting format. By the end of this hands-on course, you will be armed with a set of techniques and skills that will support your professional development as a writer.
Instructor(s): Julie Iromuanya Terms Offered: Summer TBD. September Term 2022
CRWR 12151. Intro to Genres: The Gothic Lens. 100 Units.
The Gothic is arguably the most evocative of all storytelling genres. As haunting as it is seductive in its ambiguities and luridly symbolic tropes, no form more powerfully captures our encounters with the irrational and the inexplicable, whether in nature, in others, or in ourselves. In this Arts Core course, we will approach the genre through all its forbidding yet intimate qualities. As we read Gothic fiction from different eras and cultures, from both a reader's perspective and a writer's perspective (the why/how/who of the author's decisions), we'll cover concepts like the sublime, the uncanny, and abjection, examining the work's sociopolitical layers but aiming our brightest light on its psychological underpinnings. We'll ask ourselves: in what ways does the Gothic mirror the most vulnerable and obscure aspects of the self? What might these extraordinary stories of transgression, violence, or supernatural conflict reveal about the horrors of ordinary life, the vagaries of our hidden desires, anxieties, and pathologies? Our focus on the psychological and evocative nature of the genre, especially from a writer's point of view, will also help us write our Gothic Scenes, where everyone will apply their own intimate "gothic lens" to memorable encounters from their recent past. (Arts Core)
Instructor(s): Vu Tran Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Note(s): This course meets the general education requirement in the arts.
CRWR 12153. Reading as a Writer: The Walker in the City. 100 Units.
Flâneur: from French, "to stroll, loaf, saunter"; probably from Old Norse flana, "to wander aimlessly"; Norwegian flana, "to gad about. The image of the poet as flâneur -- a metropolitan artist in motion -- emerged as an archetype of romantic and modernist literature. We will consider the walking poet in interaction with race, mobility and disability, gender and queerness, class, migration, ecology, and other embodied experiences. Texts will include work by Kathy Ferguson, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Walter Benjamin, William Blake, Judith Butler, Sunaura Taylor, June Jordan, Walt Whitman, and others. Students will lead one presentation during the quarter and keep a notebook/sketchbook.
Instructor(s): Anna Torres Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Acceptance to the London Study Abroad Program
CRWR 12154. Reading as a Writer: Brevity. 100 Units.
This course will consider brevity as an artistic mode curiously capable of articulating the unspeakable, the abyssal, the endless. Reading very brief works from a long list of writers, we will ask: when is less more? When is less less? What is minimalism? What is the impact of the fragment? Can a sentence be a narrative? Can a word comprise a poem? Our readings will include short poems, short essays, and short short stories by Yannis Ritsos, francine j. harris, Aram Saroyan, Richard Wright, Cecilia Vicuña, Kobayashi Issa, Renee Gladman, Robert Creeley, Alejandra Pizarnik, Lucille Clifton, Lydia Davis, Jamaica Kincaid, Yi Sang, Anne Carson, Franz Kafka, Prageeta Sharma, Venita Blackburn, Jorge Luis Borges, Samuel Beckett, and others. Students will be asked to lead one presentation and to write critical and creative responses for group discussion.
Instructor(s): Margaret Ross Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory.
CRWR 12156. Fundamentals: A Gathering of Flowers: The Anthology. 100 Units.
In 1925, The New Negro: An Interpretation, a collection of poems, short stories, and essays was published-it ushered a new era, what was then called the New Negro Renaissance. An artistic and literary movement with the objective to subvert what Alain Locke called the "Old Negro," by providing a corrective and aspirational image of contemporary Negro life, was borne. Around forty years later, Black Arts: An Anthology galvanized the Black Arts Movement, what Larry Neal called the "aesthetic and spiritual sister" of the Black Power Movement. The Best American Short Stories and the Norton Anthology of Literature by Women are two more examples of anthologies, one to cultivate the genre and the other to recover the literature of marginalized women writers. In this course, we'll examine anthologies, a word derived from the Greek for "a gathering of flowers." As we study these "flowers," we'll discern the objectives that shape their construction, as well as what was put in and what was left out. In short essays and exercises, we'll also investigate the social, cultural, and political contexts that influenced these objectives, as well as the resultant literary and cultural implications. For your final, you'll design your own literary anthology.
Instructor(s): Julie Iromuanya Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through classes.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory.
CRWR 12159. Reading as a Writer: The Bad Girls Club. 100 Units.
Jezebels, witches, femme fatales, nasty women, sirens, madwomen, and murderesses: the world over, these women of many names-whom we'll collectively refer to as the Bad Girls Club-have alternately inspired the disdain and delight of multitudes. Whether jailed, expelled, excommunicated, or burned at the stake, their (anti)heroic antics have challenged, critiqued, or, some might say, corrupted the laws, mores, and sensibilities of societies. If it is true that polite, well-behaved women rarely make history, then what do impolite, badly-behaved women teach us about the construction of (his) story? In this course, we'll examine literature from around the world featuring members of the Bad Girls Club, who in opposing complimentary constructions of femininity, femaleness, and power invite introspection on the gendered nature of story and storytelling. In short critical papers, we'll analyze the tropes, features, and conventions of literature featuring these bad characters, and in short exercises, you'll write stories, poems, and essays inspired by them.
Instructor(s): Julie Iromuanya Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 12159
CRWR 12160. Reading as a Writer: Exploring the Weird. 100 Units.
In 1917 the Russian critic Viktor Shklovsky coined the word 'ostranenie,'-translating roughly as 'defamiliarization'-to illustrate a concept that asks the writer or artist to see the everyday in new and unfamiliar ways. In fiction writing this means avoiding cliché while cultivating elements of surprise, the unexpected, the strange. It means the author offering a new perspective on something familiar, something surprising and, often, yes, a little weird. So what does it mean to follow the weird as a fiction or creative non-fiction writer? As a poet? How can we indulge that strange, uncanny, often suppressed side of ourselves in a way that not only serves a work of literary art but opens it up to new possibilities? This class will look at ways writers use defamiliarization and other techniques to create unexpected and sometimes jarring effects and will encourage students to take similar risks in their own writing. Students will view read various works of fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, view films, and read critical and craft- oriented texts. They will write short weekly reading responses and some creative exercises as well. Each student will also be expected to make a brief presentation and turn in a final paper for the class.
Instructor(s): Augustus Rose Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list.
CRWR 12163. Reading as a Writer: Obscenities. 100 Units.
Obscenity" is a term for what is repulsive, abhorrent, excessive, or taboo in a society; and yet many artworks once considered to be obscene are now celebrated as landmarks of world literature, from the ancient poetry of Sappho to modern novels like Ulysses. In this course, we will study literary works that have been banned or censored as "obscene" to examine our own perspectives, attitudes, and assumptions as literary artists. How does obscenity shape our understanding of gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, or public and private speech? What are the uses of obscenity in constructing new possibilities for literary expression? Authors studied will include Toni Morrison, Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, Vladimir Nabokov, Hilda Hilst, and Allen Ginsburg; and we will supplement these readings with works of literary theory, psychoanalysis, and case law. Students will produce their own original poetry, fiction, and nonfiction to reimagine what is permissible-and possible-in language and society for contemporary literary artists.
Instructor(s): Chicu Reddy Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): PARR 33000
CRWR 12164. Reading as a Writer: Good Translation. 100 Units.
The past few years have seen a proliferation of major awards for works of contemporary world literature that have been translated into English (among them the International Booker Prize, the National Book Award for Translated Literature, and the National Book Critics Circle Book in Translation Prize). While such awards certainly elevate translation as a mode of writing comparable to that of other literary arts, they also raise important questions about the production, circulation, and reception of translated literature in the Anglosphere. In this course, we will read a number of recent award-winning books in English translation (both poetry and prose), considering how these books traveled from origin to translation, and how we as readers engage with them - as translations and as literary texts. How are translations made? How do we evaluate books that have two writers: author and translator? What larger forces (social, aesthetic, commercial, political) are at work when deciding which translated books will hold value for Anglophone readers? We'll explore these questions through weekly readings and discussions, student presentations, critical analyses and creative responses. As a final project, students will develop their own evaluative rubrics from which to award a prize to one of the translations we've read.
Instructor(s): Annie Janusch Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins.
CRWR 12165. Intro to Genres: Short Form Screenwriting. 100 Units.
This course explores short form screenwriting, as distinct from feature-length or episodic screenwriting. In addition to studying the essential elements of a screenplay, we will read, view, and discuss approaches to scripting brief documentary, poetic, and fictional time-based works. This work will prepare us for in- and out-of-class writing exercises in these modes, which students will often discuss in a workshop environment. Students will respond in creative and critical ways to the screenings and readings; present on a specific time-based work or creator; and write in the short screenwriting formats under study, culminating in a final creative project.
Instructor(s): Nick Twemlow Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Note(s): This course meets the general education requirement in the arts.
CRWR 12166. Reading as a Writer: The Spiritual, Psychedelic, and Visionary. 100 Units.
In this class we'll think about and try to generate literary forms capable of holding, inviting, or emitting a kind of otherworldly glow; expressing or representing access to some other mode of being. How have writers done this in the past? We'll look to a wide range of sources for models, including the visionary writings of William Blake, poems by Allen Ginsberg, narratives by early Christian mystics (Margery Kempe, Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen), Buddhist sutras, 20th century phenomenological artworks and writing about them (including films and/or writing by Joan Jonas, Michael Snow, Robert Irwin, and Peter Kubelka), poetry and narratives of channeling (Alice Notley, James Merrill), writings of and about psychedelic experience (Aldous Huxley, Terence McKenna), immersive experimental poetics (M. NourbeSe Philip), and contemporary Thai experimental film (Apichatpong Weerasethakul), among others. Students will leave this class with an enhanced familiarity with an array of visionary forms and their history in Western writing and poetics, as well as hopefully new or renewed access to another mode of writing and thinking for themselves
Instructor(s): Kai (Kirsten) Ihns Terms Offered: Winter Note(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. This course meets the general education requirement in the arts.
CRWR 12167. Intro to Genres: Mysteries Abound. 100 Units.
Perhaps no other narrative genre is more compelling or popular than the mystery. True Crime, Thrillers, and Whodunits consistently top the charts of bestsellers each year. In this Arts Core class, we will explore the mechanics of this fascinating genre. We will take the classic mystery tale written by masters like Arthur Conan Doyle and Raymond Chandler as an archetype, then examine what can be done with them. Together, we'll dive into tales of intrigue by Poe and Kleist, psychological thrillers by Patricia Highsmith and Jeffery Eugenides, neo-noir films such as Chinatown, noir-poetry by Deryn Rees-Jones and Sean O'Brien, and postmodern mystery-parodies like those of Jorge Luis Borges. Together, we'll look at the way they hang together, the desire and fear that drives them, and the secrets they tell-or try to keep hidden. Along the way, we will attempt to design and plot our own mysteries, and find ways to improve them in a workshop setting.
Instructor(s): Valer Popa Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins.
CRWR 12168. Reading as a Writer: Art vs. the Algorithm. 100 Units.
An inquiry into what makes art "good" or "lasting," particularly in the age of our algorithm-shaped exposure. Students will read "viral" texts across three genres from ~1750 to 2024, including Matthew Lewis, 20th century gossip columns, and BookTok sensations like R.F. Kuang. Texts will be read in conversation with both historical and contemporary writing on craft, allowing students to respond both critically and creatively to the virality of these texts, ultimately deciding for themselves how we can begin to approach the role of the artist in the age of the algorithm.
Instructor(s): Victoria Flanagan Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): If you wish to add this course during add/drop please email the instructor to be added to the waitlist.
CRWR 17003. Fundamentals in Creative Writing: Truth. 100 Units.
In this class we'll study how writers define and make use of truth--whatever that is. In some cases it's the truth, singular; in others a truth, only one among many. Some writers tell it straight, others slant. Some, like Tim O'Brien, advocate story-truth, the idea that fiction tells deeper truths than facts. To get at the heart of these and other unanswerable questions we'll read writers who've written about one event in two or more modes. Nick Flynn's poems about his father, for example, which he's also set down as comic strips as well as in prose. Jeanette Winterson's first novel as well as her memoir, sixteen years later, about what she'd been too afraid to say in it. Karl Marlantes' novel about the Vietnam war, then his essays about the events he'd fictionalized. Through weekly responses, creative exercises, and longer analytic essays you'll begin to figure out your own writerly truths, as well as the differences-and intersections-between them.
Instructor(s): Dan Raeburn Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): This is class is restricted to students who have declared a major in Creative Writing or a minor in English and Creative Writing. Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins.
CRWR 17007. Fundamentals in Creative Writing: The Grammar of Narrative. 100 Units.
Storytelling goes nearly as far back as human consciousness, while the ways in which we tell stories has been expanding ever since. This class will look at several different forms of narrative-fiction, creative non-fiction, narrative poetry, and film-and explore the "grammar" of these different genres, what they share and where they differ and how their particular strengths influence the ways in which they most effectively communicate. How does film (a visual medium) tell a story differently than does fiction (which asks us to project our own imagined version of the story), differently than creative non-fiction, (which must always rely on facts), differently than poetry (which condenses the story to its essences)? How do these different genres and mediums influence the stories they tell and the effects they achieve? Readings will include primary texts as well as critical and fundamentals texts in each genre. Students will complete weekly reading responses, as well as creative exercises. A paper focusing on a specific element derived from the class will be due at the end of the course.
Instructor(s): Augustus Rose Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Students must be a declared Creative Writing major or Minor in English and Creative Writing to enroll. Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins.
CRWR 17012. Fundamentals in Creative Writing: Creative Research/The Numinous Particulars. 100 Units.
According to Philip Gerard, "Creative research is both a process and a habit of mind, an alertness to the human story as it lurks in unlikely places." Creative writers may lean on research to sharpen the authenticity of their work; to liberate themselves from the confines of their personal experience; to mine existing stories and histories for details, plot, settings, characters; to generate new ideas and approaches to language, theme and story. The creative writer/researcher is on the hunt for the numinous particulars, the mysteries and human stories lurking in the finest grains of detail. In this course, we will explore the research methods used by creative writers and consider questions that range from the logistical (eg. How do I find what I need in an archive?) to the ethical (eg. How do I conscientiously write from a point of view outside my own experience?) to the aesthetic (eg. How do I incorporate all these researched details without waterlogging the poem/story/essay?). We will read poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction that relies heavily on research and hear from established writers about the challenges of conducting and writing from research. Assignments will include reading responses, creative writing and research exercises, short essays and presentations.
Instructor(s): Stephanie Soileau Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Students must be a declared Creative Writing major or Minor in English and Creative Writing to enroll. Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory.
CRWR 17013. Fundamentals in Creative Writing: Touchstones. 100 Units.
Most passionate readers and writers have literary touchstones --those texts we return to again and again for personal or aesthetic influence and inspiration. When we are asked what book we would want with us if we were stranded on a desert isle, our touchstones are the ones that leap immediately to mind. Some texts are fairly ubiquitous touchstones: The Great Gatsby, Harry Potter and the [take your pick], The Bell Jar, Little Women, Letters to a Young Poet, Leaves of Grass. Others are quirkier, more idiosyncratic. What -- if any -- qualities do these touchstones share, within and across genres? What lessons about writing craft can be drawn from them? In this course, we'll read texts that are commonly cited as touchstones, along with fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction that students bring to the table -- their own literary touchstones. In that sense, our reading list will be collaborative, and students will be expected to contribute content as well as an analytical presentation on the craft issues raised by their selections. Our assignments will include reading responses, creative writing exercises, short essays and presentations.
Instructor(s): Stephanie Soileau Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Students must be a declared Creative Writing major to enroll during preregistration. Contact instructor to be added to the waitlist. Attendance on the first day is mandatory.
CRWR 17014. Fundamentals in Creative Writing: A Gathering of Flowers. 100 Units.
Instructor(s): Julie Iromuanya Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Students must be a declared Creative Writing major to enroll during preregistration. Contact instructor to be added to the waitlist. Attendance on the first day is mandatory.
CRWR 17015. Fundamentals in Creative Writing: Sincerity (and Irony) 100 Units.
What does it mean for a piece of writing to be "sincere"? How do we know a (character, poem, "I," essay) is "sincere"? What does it mean to make that judgment, and what does it commit us to? How does that judgment change a reader's orientation to the object? We will approach these questions obliquely first, by thinking about how irony works. Are irony and sincerity opposites? We'll look at a range of contemporary and historical objects in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. This will include essays by Kierkegaard, Oscar Wilde, Wayne Booth, Jonathan Swift, and R. Magill Jr., fiction by Vladimir Nabokov, Joanna Ruocco, and Kathy Acker, and poetry by Chelsey Minnis, Jenny Zhang, Amiri Baraka, and others. We'll also consider certain internet objects and think about their relationship to sincerity (and irony). This course will give students a more nuanced and historically grounded handle on these questions, and will help them develop a style of writing that's able to more intentionally (and interestingly) choose its tonal legibilities.
Instructor(s): Kirsten Ihns Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): This is class is restricted to students who have declared a major in Creative Writing or a minor in English and Creative Writing. Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins.
CRWR 17016. Fundamentals in Creative Writing: The Frame Narrative. 100 Units.
In this course, students will engage in a close examination of the various permutations of the frame narrative device across time and genre. From A Thousand and One Nights, to Hamlet, to the "Call of Cthulhu" and Watchmen, the "story within a story" construction is one of the oldest and most employed literary devices-one which can either elevate or imperil the work wherein it is utilized. Students will respond to the material in both critical and creative manners, culminating in a final analytical and creative piece that employs the craft elements discussed and unpacked in class.
Instructor(s): Lina Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas Terms Offered: Spring Note(s): During pre-registration, this course is open only to declared Creative Writing Majors and declared Minors in English and Creative Writing
CRWR 17017. Fundamentals in Creative Writing: Haunted Craft, the Art of the Spectral Metaphor. 100 Units.
This course will be a close examination of the use of spectral imagery as a craft element in narratives across genre and time. From Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" to Emily Carrol's A Guest in the House, to Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and Octavia Butler's Fledgling, the supernatural metaphor presents a unique stage upon which to play out questions of gender autonomy, mental health, repressed sexuality, racism and more. Students in this course will be expected to put the fantastical metaphor under a microscope and explore its potential through both creative and critical work of their own.
CRWR 17018. Fundamentals in Creative Writing: Desire and Longing. 100 Units.
In fiction, it is often said that an effective character must have a clear desire. Kurt Vonnegut famously advised, "Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water." The idea is that desire is an animating, energizing, and focusing force in storytelling. In this course, we'll attempt to apply the animation, energy, and focus of desire to personal essays, poems, and fiction, and explore how writers depict desire and longing in a wide range of work. We'll also attempt to catalog different kinds of desire: crushes, obsessions, nostalgia, and farsickness, to name a few. We'll pay special attention to how we can write about strong emotional experiences without resorting to cliches or sentimentality. Potential texts will be Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux, Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas, Eros the Bittersweet by Anne Carson, Crush by Richard Siken, The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
Instructor(s): Ryan Van Meter Terms Offered: Spring Note(s): During pre-registration, this course is open only to declared Creative Writing Majors and declared Minors in English and Creative Writing. If you wish to add this course during add/drop please email the instructor to be added to the waitlist.
CRWR 20203. Technical Seminar in Fiction: Research and World-Building. 100 Units.
Writing fiction is in large part a matter of convincing worldbuilding, no matter what genre you write in. And convincing worldbuilding is about creating a seamless reality within the elements of that world: from setting, to social systems, to character dynamics, to the story or novel's conceptual conceit. And whether it be within a genre of science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, or even contemporary realism, building a convincing world takes a good deal of research. So while we look closely at the tools and methods of successful worldbuilding, we will also dig into the process of research. From how and where to mine the right details, to what to look for. We will also focus on how research can make a fertile ground for harvesting ideas and even story. Students will read various works of long and short fiction with an eye to its worldbuilding, as well as critical and craft texts. They will write short weekly reading responses and some creative exercises as well. Each student will also be expected to make a brief presentation and turn in a final paper for the class.
Instructor(s): Augustus Rose Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): During pre-registration, this course is open only to declared Creative Writing Majors and declared Minors in English and Creative Writing, as well as graduate students. During add/drop the course will be instructor consent and open to all students in the College. Please contact the instructor to be added to the waitlist for the option to enroll during add/drop. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40203
CRWR 20209. Technical Seminar in Fiction: Scenes & Seeing. 100 Units.
At the core of literary storytelling is dramatization, which enables a reader to "see" the world, characters, and incidents at play and to vicariously experience their emotional and psychological consequences in the story. The primary vehicle for dramatization in a story is the scene, which consists of many crucial parts: characterization, setting and imagery, dialogue and action, tone and atmosphere, subtext and thematic development. In this course we'll break down all these parts and examine how they can function on their own as well as interact to bring a moment or event to life. Where and how should a particular scene begin and end? How should information be organized? How might we determine a scene's goals in isolation and in support of the larger narrative of a short story, novella, or novel? And ultimately, beyond characters talking, acting, and reacting, how might we expand our traditional notions of what a scene is and what it can do? We'll consider such questions as we discuss exceptionally crafted scenes from short stories, novels, plays, and even film, TV, and podcasts, with an eye also on the differences in scene craft from genre to genre and what that can teach us specifically as fiction writers. Course assignments will include reading responses, writing exercises, short essays, and student presentations.
Instructor(s): Vu Tran Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40209
CRWR 20217. Technical Seminar in Fiction: Elements of Style. 100 Units.
What we call style is more than literary flourish. Control of a story begins with a writer's characteristic approach to the line. Style dictates and shapes immersive and impactful worlds of our creation. It's also indicative of a work's larger themes, philosophies, and aesthetic sensibility. In this class, we'll examine fiction by wordsmiths such as James Baldwin, Gabriel García Márquez, Toni Morrison, and Marguerite Duras in order to contemplate the influence that elements such as diction, syntax, rhythm, and punctuation have on a writer's style.
Instructor(s): Julie Iromuanya Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40217
CRWR 20221. Technical Seminar in Fiction: Detail. 100 Units.
John Gardner said that the writer's task is to create "a vivid and continuous fictional dream." This technical seminar will focus on the role of detail in maintaining this dream. In this course we will deconstruct and rebuild our understanding of concepts like simile, showing vs. telling, and symbolism, asking what these tools do and what purpose they serve. Drawing from fiction and essays from Ottessa Moshfegh, Barbara Comyns, Zadie Smith, and others, students will practice noticing, seeing anew, and finding fresh and unexpected ways of describing. We will also examine what is worthy of detail in the first place, how detail functions outside of traditional scene, and the merits and limits of specificity, mimesis, and verisimilitude. Finally we will consider what it means to travel across a landscape of vagueness and euphemism as we search for the quality of "thisness" that James Wood claims all great details possess. In addition to assigned readings, students will be responsible for reading responses, short craft analyses, vigorous class participation, and several creative exercises and peer critiques applying these lessons.
Instructor(s): Benjamin Hoffman Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40221
CRWR 20224. Technical Seminar in Fiction: Narrative Tempo. 100 Units.
At certain moments," writes Italo Calvino of his early literary efforts, "I felt that the entire world was turning into stone." Slowness and speed govern not just the experience of writing but also the texture of our fictional worlds. And this is something we can control. Sublimely slow writers like Sebald or Duras can make time melt; spritely magicians like Aira and Rushdie seem to shuffle planes of reality with a snap of their fingers. This seminar gathers fictions that pulse on eclectic wavelengths, asking in each case how narrative tempo embodies a fiction's character. Our exercises will play with the dial of compositional speed, testing writing quick and slow; alternately, we'll try to recreate the effects of signature texts. Weekly creative and critical responses will culminate in a final project.
Instructor(s): Benjamin Lytal Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40224
CRWR 20232. Technical Seminar in Fiction: Narrative Influence. 100 Units.
T. S. Eliot once said that "good writers borrow, great writers steal." In this class we will look at modeling as a springboard for original creativity. What makes a piece of writing original? Is it possible to borrow a famous writer's story structure, theme, or even attempt their voice, yet produce something wholly original? How specifically are writers influenced and then inspired? Readings will pair writers with the influences they've talked or written about, such as Yiyun Li and Anton Chekhov; Edward P. Jones and Alice Walker; Sigrid Nunez and Elizabeth Hardwick, and George Saunders and Nikolai Gogol. Writing exercises will experiment with aspects of voice, narrative structure, point of view, tone, and use of dialog. While this is not a workshop course, come prepared to write and share work in class. Students will pursue both creative work and critical papers.
Instructor(s): Sharon Pomerantz Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40232
CRWR 20233. Technical Seminar in Fiction: Who Sees and Who Speaks? 100 Units.
Who Sees and Who Speaks? What is the nature of the encounter between a narrator and a character, and how do elements of character and plot play out in narrative points of view? Drawing on the narratological work of theorists such as Gérard Genette and Monika Fludernik and of critics such as James Wood, this technical seminar considers what point of view, perspective, and focalization can do or make possible. Readings may include stories by Jorge Luis Borges, Jamaica Kincaid, Haruki Murakami, Jenny Zhang, William Faulkner, Lorrie Moore, Jamil Jan Kochai, Italo Calvino, Ursula K. Le Guin, Gabriel García Márquez, Edith Wharton, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, Edwidge Danticat, Jhumpa Lahiri, Lesley Nneka Arimah, and Virginia Woolf, among others, and will introduce instances of first-person-plural and second-person narrative, as well as modes of representing speech and thought such as free indirect discourse. Over the course of the quarter, students will write short analyses and creative exercises, culminating in a final project.
Instructor(s): Sophia Veltfort Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): During pre-registration, this course is open only to declared Creative Writing Majors and declared Minors in English and Creative Writing, as well as graduate students. During add/drop the course will be instructor consent and open to all students in the College. Please contact the instructor to be added to the waitlist for the option to enroll during add/drop. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40233
CRWR 20236. Technical Seminar in Fiction: Alternative Points of View. 100 Units.
Point of view is one of our most powerful narrative tools, controlling voice, perspective, and level of access to every bit of information a reader receives. When writers are first finding their way into new fiction projects, however, it is easy to default to the two points of view we are most commonly exposed to: a traditional first person or third person that behaves predictably. In this Technical Seminar, we will mine the work of Julie Otsuka, Carmen Maria Machado, Robert Coover, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, and other writers for strategic usage of alternative points of view, including second person, first person plural, free indirect discourse, and deliberate shifts from one point of view into another. Assignments will include short critical and creative responses, a final fiction assignment, and a final presentation.
Instructor(s): Meghan Lamb Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40236
CRWR 20309. Technical Seminar in Poetry: Generative Genres. 100 Units.
From ancient Sumerian temple hymns to 7th-century Japanese death poems to avant-garde ekphrasis in the 21st century, the history of poetry is as rich in genres as it is in forms. Why does it feel so good to write a curse? What is an ode and how is it different from an aubade? In this technical seminar we will study the origins, transcultural functions, and evolving conventions of some of the oldest-living genres of lyric poetry - the ode, the elegy, the love poem, the curse, to name a few. We will read living writers such as Alice Oswald, Danez Smith, Kim Hyesoon, and Natalie Diaz alongside historical forerunners including Aesop, Sei Shonagon, John Keats. Federico Garcia Lorca, Sylvia Plath, and Paul Celan. Students will write weekly experiments of their own in response to our readings, and for a final project they will edit a mini-anthology of a genre of their choice, including a short critical introduction.
Instructor(s): Suzanne Buffam Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40309
CRWR 20312. Technical Seminar in Poetry: Prosody. 100 Units.
PROSODY This course will be a deep dive into prosody. What is prosody? Merriam-Webster describes it as "the rhythmic and intonational aspect of language" - we might also describe it as the way poems move, and how they move their reader. Arguably one of the most important (and least visible) aspects of poetic composition, prosody can teach you to see and write differently. We'll begin with an introduction to historical metrics (the boring but necessary part), and then move on to studying more contemporary models. Readings will include a bit of scholarly work on prosody by Rosemary Gates and Boris Maslov, but mostly we'll read poems, from the 12th century to the 21st, that foreground prosody and rhythmic structure. This will be a practice-intensive class-you will be asked to produce several exercises a week, in addition to a final paper or project.
Instructor(s): Kirsten Ihns Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): During pre-registration, this course is open only to declared Creative Writing Majors and declared Minors in English and Creative Writing, as well as graduate students. During add/drop the course will be instructor consent and open to all students in the College. Please contact the instructor to be added to the waitlist for the option to enroll during add/drop. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40312
CRWR 20313. Technical Seminar in Poetry: Against or Onto 'The Road'" 100 Units.
This technical seminar in poetry offers writers an opportunity to examine an essential American poetic space: the road. A core question is how one reads the road's poetic surface versus its depths. Does journey itself lay out a clear narrative, admitting its forks, detours, and breakdowns? How is a basic American "compass" disrupted by poetic reconsiderations of "the road?" Does every road run "west?" How is the road itself as much about dislocation as it is about coherent journey? As an orientation to a poetics of space, participants will engage critical perspectives set up by Gaston Bachelard, CS Giscombe, and Rebecca Solnit. Then, writers will develop their own critical/creative responses, exploring models established by Gabe Gudding, William Least Heat-Moon, Ed Roberson, and Muriel Rukeyser. Inviting her readers to remap historical and mythic journeys, Rukeyser resets the road as a conduit into a reassessment of national narrative through The Book of the Dead. Taking his own road east, Gudding overturns a "beat poetics" of travel in his Rhode Island Notebook. Least Heat-Moon (Blue Highways) and Roberson (MPH and Other Road Poems) invite explorations of "the road" as much in time as in space or personal journey. Overall, the course remaps that road, in the words of Giscombe, itself a "scattering [where] nothing cohered."
Instructor(s): Garin Cycholl Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): If you wish to add this course during add/drop please email the instructor to be added to the waitlist. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40313
CRWR 20404. Technical Seminar in Nonfiction: Forms of the Essay. 100 Units.
The essay, derived from the French term essayer meaning "to try" or "to attempt," is not only a beloved sub-genre of creative nonfiction, but a form that yields many kinds of stories, thus many kinds of structures. Araceli Arroyo writes that the essay can "reach its height in the form of a lyric, expand in digression, coil into a list, delve into memoir, or spring into the spire of the question itself all with grace and unexhausted energy." In this course, we will analyze the essay's continuum, marked by traditional, linear narratives on one end, and at the other, everything else. In our class, we will investigate the relationship between content and form. What does it mean to be scene-driven? What happens when a narrative abandons chronology and event, propelled instead by language and image? What is gained through gaps and white space? You will leave this class with a strong grasp of content's relationship to form, prepared to participate effectively in creative writing workshops. You will also create a portfolio of short writings that can be expanded into longer pieces. Readings will include: Nox by Anne Carson; A Bestiary by Lily Hoang; Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions by Valeria Luiselli; Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine; Essayists on the Essay edited by Ned Stuckey-French
Instructor(s): Kathleen Blackburn Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40404
CRWR 20410. Technical Seminar in Nonfiction: Epistolary Form. 100 Units.
When does a body of writing become "literary"? What stories might be found inside the hastily scrawled lines of a postcard buried in the attic or an incomplete to-do list drifting down the sidewalk? Beginning with the modern epistle and epistolary novel, this cross-genre seminar orbits the space where non-literary documents give way to artistic compositions that a given set of experts would otherwise neatly categorize and deposit somewhere literature is supposed to belong. As we practice the interplay of research and imagination toward the realization of a final project, we'll examine how writers of nonfiction and documentary poetics have used everything from blueprints of a prison cell to vaudeville ephemera to frame, develop, and heighten true stories. We'll consider ethics of authority such as information access, authentication, and journalistic objectivity alongside rhetorical matters of credibility, emotional truth, and the serviceability of facts. Come play in the archives and observe the power of repurposed material.
Instructor(s): Dina Peone Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40410
CRWR 20412. Technical Seminar in Nonfiction: The writer as researcher. 100 Units.
Research is an essential and imaginative process for the nonfiction story, but in what ways are the writer's methods unique to literary practice? This course will explore the role of research in writing creative nonfiction. Students will develop methods that play a role in writing essays, memoir, and literary journalism. The seminar will be conducted in four sequential parts: immersion research; interview techniques; library research; translating technical jargon for a public readership. Assignments will equip students with the practical steps for completing each style of research. We will also discuss how to integrate research into the descriptions, narrative, and subtext of the writing. Students will experiment with: dramatizing research through scene-building; using reflection to respond to their findings; and inviting research to become part of the plot. Research, we will find, generates some of the most dramatic and surprising moments in the writing process. We will read texts that correspond to the areas of focus, including works by Eula Biss, Daisy Hernandez, and Sarah Viren. Students will leave the course equipped to include research into their writing process for advanced writing workshops and thesis projects.
Instructor(s): Kathleen Blackburn Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40412
CRWR 21502. Advanced Translation Workshop. 100 Units.
All writing is revision, and this holds true for the practice of literary translation as well. We will critique each other's longer manuscripts-in-progress of prose, poetry, or drama, and examine various revision techniques-from the line-by-line approach of Lydia Davis, to the "driving-in-the-dark" model of Peter Constantine, and several approaches in between. We will consider questions of different reading audiences while preparing manuscripts for submission for publication, along with the contextualization of the work with a translator's preface or afterword. Our efforts will culminate in not only an advanced-stage manuscript, but also with various strategies in hand to use for future projects. We will also have the opportunity to have conversations via Zoom with some of the translators we'll be reading. Students who wish to take this workshop should have at least an intermediate proficiency in a foreign language and already be working on a longer translation project.
Instructor(s): Jason Grunebaum Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu (include writing sample). Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Students who wish to take this workshop should have at least an intermediate proficiency in a foreign language and already be working on a longer translation project. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 41502
CRWR 21504. Advanced Translation Workshop: Scales of Reading. 100 Units.
Peer review of translations-in-progress can often take the form of line edits: we discuss word choices that call attention to themselves rather than talking through the larger compositional units in which those choices are made. While a fine-grained reading is vital to revision, it can also run the risk of minimizing our critical engagement with translated texts merely on the basis of "awkward" or " stilted" language. This workshop will explore the different scales of reading employed in reviewing drafts: Yes, those instances that make us pause or take us out of the text are worth marking for the translator, but ultimately, they're only useful to the translator if we can synthesize them into a larger, coherent reading of the work as a whole. By treating translations-in-progress as literary works deserving of close readings (rather than merely manuscript pages to be edited), we'll seek to provide our peers with a critical account of our experience as the primary readers of their translations. Specifically, we'll practice grounding our accounts in aspects of craft and structure, form and content, in order to move beyond our subjectivities as readers and our idiolects as writers - and better understand how a translated work's larger concerns are enacted in the language itself. Students with translations-in-progress, as well as students who will be starting new projects, are welcome to participate in this workshop.
Instructor(s): Annie Janusch Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu (include writing sample). Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Students who wish to take this workshop should have at least an intermediate proficiency in a foreign language and already be working on a longer translation project. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 41504
CRWR 21505. Advanced Translation Workshop: Prose Style. 100 Units.
Purple, lean, evocative, muscular, literary, exuberant, lucid, stilted, elliptical. These are all labels that critics and reviewers have used to characterize prose styles that call attention to themselves in distinct ways. Of course, what constitutes style not only changes over time, but also means different things in different literary traditions. How, then, do translators carry style over from one language and cultural milieu to another? And to what extent does style structure storytelling? We will explore these questions by reading a variety of modern and contemporary stylists who either write in English or translate into English, paying special attention to what stylistic devices are at work and what their implications are for narration, characterization, and world building. Further, we'll examine the range of choices that each writer and translator makes when constituting and reconstituting style, on a lexical, tonal, and syntactic scale. By pairing readings with generative exercises in stylistics and constrained writing, we will build toward the translation of a short work of contemporary fiction into English. To participate in this workshop, students should be able to comfortably read a literary text in a foreign language.
Instructor(s): Annie Janusch Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 41505
CRWR 22117. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Beginning a Novel. 100 Units.
This workshop is for any student with a novel in progress or an interest in starting one. Our focus will be the opening chapter, arguably the most consequential one-for the reader naturally, but most importantly for us the writer. How might it introduce the people and world of the story, its premise or central conflict, its narrative tone and style? How might it intrigue, orient, or even challenge the reader and begin teaching them how to read the book? And if the first chapter is our actual starting point as the writer, how might it help us figure out the dramatic shape of our novel, its thematic concerns, its conceptual design? We'll apply such questions to the opening chapters of an exemplary mix of novels-The Great Gatsby, The Age of Innocence, Invisible Man, Beloved, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, The Vegetarian, Normal People, etc.- and examine what they are expected to do as well as what they can unexpectedly do. And as everyone workshops the first chapter (or prologue) of their own novel, we'll consider ways of adjusting or rethinking them so that the author can better understand their project overall and build on all the promise of the material they have.
Instructor(s): Vu Tran Terms Offered: Autumn Note(s): Students must have taken Fundamentals + a Beginning Workshop in the same genre as the Advanced Workshop you want to register for. Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42117
CRWR 22128. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Novel Writing, The First Chapters. 100 Units.
In this workshop-focused class we will focus on the early stages of both developing and writing a novel: choosing the POV, establishing the setting, developing the main characters and the dynamics between them, setting up the conflicts and seeding the themes of book, etc. As a class we will read, break down and discuss the architecture of the openings of several published novels as you work on your own opening chapters, which will be workshopped during the course.
Instructor(s): Augustus Rose Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu (include writing sample). Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42128
CRWR 22130. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Inner Logic. 100 Units.
In this advanced workshop, we will explore the range of strategies and techniques that fiction writers employ to make readers suspend their disbelief. We will consider how imagined worlds are made to feel real and how invented characters can seem so human. We will contemplate how themes, motifs, and symbols are deployed in such a way that a story can feel curated without seeming inorganic. We will consider how hints are dropped with subtlety, how the 'rules' for what is possible in a story are developed, and how writers can sometimes defy their own established expectations in ways that delight rather than frustrate. From character consistency to twist endings, we'll investigate how published authors lend a sense of realism and plausibility to even the most far-fetched concepts. Through regular workshops, we will also interrogate all students' fiction through this lens, discussing the ways in which your narratives-in-progress create their own inner logic. Students will submit two stories to workshop and will be asked to write critiques of all peer work.
Instructor(s): Baird Harper Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42130
CRWR 22132. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Strange Magic in Short Fiction. 100 Units.
In this workshop based course we'll investigate how strangeness and magic function in short fiction. We'll read stories by authors like Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado, and Alice Sola Kim, examining how these writers portray the fantastical and impossible. We'll explore concepts like defamiliarization, versimilitude, and the uncanny. We will contemplate how magical realism and surrealism differ from sci-fi and fantasy genre writing, and ask how we, as writers, can make the quotidian seem extraordinary and the improbable seem inevitable, and to what end? Students will complete several short creative exercises and workshop one story that utilizes magic or strange effects. Students will also be expected to write thoughtful, constructive critiques of peer work. Throughout the course, we'll consider how the expectations of literary fiction might constrain such narratives, and we can engage with and transcend these archetypes.
Instructor(s): Benjamin Hoffman Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42132
CRWR 22133. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Writing the Uncanny. 100 Units.
Sigmund Freud defines "the uncanny" ("unheimlich") as something that unnerves us because it is both familiar and alien at the same time, the result of hidden anxieties and desires coming to the surface. In this advanced fiction workshop, we will explore how fiction writers use the uncanny to create suspense, lend their characters psychological depth, thrill and terrify their readers, and lay bare the darkest and most difficult human impulses. We will read and discuss fiction by writers like Shirley Jackson, Jamaica Kincaid, Octavia Butler, Kelly Link, Ben Okri, Haruki Murakami, and Victor Lavalle, drawing craft lessons from these writers to guide our own attempts at writing the uncanny. Much of our class time will be dedicated to evaluating student work and honing our skills of composition and critique. In addition to shorter writing exercises and "mini-workshops" throughout the quarter, every student will complete a full-length "uncanny" short story for workshop and compose critique letters for each of their peers. Students will be required to significantly revise their full-length short story by the end of the quarter.
Instructor(s): Stephanie Soileau Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42133
CRWR 22134. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Cultivating Trouble and Conflict. 100 Units.
If you want a compelling story, put your protagonist among the damned." --Charles Baxter While crisis is to be avoided in life, when it comes to narrative, trouble is your friend. In this advanced workshop we'll explore the complex ways writers create conflict in their stories, be it internal or external, spiritual or physical, romantic, financial or familial. We'll read masters of the form like Edward P. Jones, George Saunders, ZZ Packer, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Yiyun Li, and discuss how they generate conflict that feels organic, character-driven, and inevitable. Weekly writing exercises will encourage you to take creative risks and hone new skills. Each student will workshop two stories, with strong emphasis on focused and productive peer critique and in-class commentary.
Instructor(s): Sharon Pomerantz Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42134
CRWR 22135. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Narrative Time. 100 Units.
The Long and the Short of it: Narrative Time A story's end point determines its meaning. The history of a life can be covered in a sentence, a few pages or seven volumes. How do writers decide? In this advanced workshop, we'll look at different ways to handle narrative time, paying special attention to building blocks like direct and summary scene, flashback, compression, slowed time and fabulist time. We'll examine work by writers whose long stories feel like novels, like Alice Munro and Edward P. Jones, alongside those who say everything in a short single scene of a page or two, like Grace Paley and Kate Chopin. Students will be encouraged to experiment with time in both writing exercises and story revisions.By the end of the course, you will have generated significant raw material and workshopped one story. Two stories, one polished and one in draft, will be prepared for the final.
Instructor(s): Sharon Pomerantz Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42135
CRWR 22140. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Killing Cliché 100 Units.
It's long been said that there are no new stories, only new ways of telling old ones, but how do writers reengage familiar genres, plots, and themes without being redundant? This course will confront the literary cliché at all levels, from the trappings of genre to predictable turns of plot to the subtly undermining forces of mundane language. We will consider not only how stories can fall victim to cliché but also how they may benefit from calling on recognizable content for the sake of efficiency, familiarity, or homage. Through an array of readings that represent unique concepts and styles as well as more conventional narratives we will examine how published writers embrace or subvert cliché through story craft. Meanwhile, student fiction will be discussed throughout the term in a supportive workshop atmosphere that will aim not to expose clichés in peer work, but to consider how an author can find balance-between the familiar and the unfamiliar, between the predictable and the unpredictable-in order to maximize a story's effect. Students will submit two stories to workshop and will be asked to write critiques of all peer work.
Instructor(s): Baird Harper Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42140
CRWR 22146. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Disruption and Disorder. 100 Units.
This workshop-based course proceeds from the premise that disorder and disruption are fruitful aesthetics that might be applied to numerous elements of fiction to unlock new possibilities in our work. Students will seek to identify typical narrative conventions and lyrical patterns and then write away from them-or write over them, toward subversion, surprise, and perhaps even a productive anarchy. Students will search for hidden structures in work by Taeko Kono, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Diane Williams, Garielle Lutz, and others, examining the methods these writers use to lead readers to unexpected, original, and transgressive places. Students will complete several short creative exercises in which they practice disruption and disorder in plot, pace, dialogue, and syntax. In the second half of the course, students will workshop one story or excerpt and write thoughtful, constructive critiques of peer work. Revision is also a crucial component of this class, as it is an opportunity to radically warp and deviate from our prior visions. Throughout the quarter, we will attempt to interrupt and shake up our own inclinations as artists.
Instructor(s): Benjamin Hoffman Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42146
CRWR 22149. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Long Stories. 100 Units.
The advantage, the luxury, as well as the torment and responsibility of the novelist," writes Henry James, "is that there is no limit to what he may attempt." Writers interested in these torments and luxuries can begin to experiment with long form in this workshop. Each student will compose a single long story of about forty pages. We'll attend to the freshness of beginnings, the satisfactions (and compromises) of endings and, most acutely, to the crises of middles. A scaffolding of workshops, outlines, and conferences will support and structure your efforts. Along the way we'll explore the opportunities of long-form structure with examples from the likes of David Foster Wallace, Alice Munro, Ted Chiang, and Toni Morrison. Most of our class time will be devoted to workshopping long stories by students.
Instructor(s): Benjamin Lytal Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42149
CRWR 22150. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Radical Revision. 100 Units.
Like so many essential and life-sustaining processes-relationship maintenance, money management, digestion-revision is something we often talk about without "really" talking about it (to use the words of writer Matthew Salesses). Yet by refusing (or failing) to "really" talk about revision, writers deny themselves the opportunity to actively engage with the potentialities of their work: the different shapes, forms, and shifts it might take. In this class, we will demystify the revision process by analyzing the works of writers-such as Anna Kavan, Edwidge Danticat, and Suzanne Scanlon-who have pursued radical revisions to their projects, including expansions (short stories developed into novels), compressions (longer works condensed into shorter pieces), point of view changes, and dramatic stylistic transformations. With a combination of creative exercises and workshops, we will also work toward our own radical revisions.
Instructor(s): Meghan Lamb Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42150
CRWR 22152. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Finding and Refining Voice. 100 Units.
As writers, your "voice" is you imposing who you are on the truthfulness of your sentences. Finding your voice, then, is the process-whether you're describing a character, an image, or an idea-of constantly asking yourself, Do I absolutely believe this?, of rewriting and rewriting your sentences until you absolutely do believe it, and finally of refining all the technical aspects you brought to bear to assure that level of individual truth. Out of that, naturally and inevitably, comes your voice-at least for the time being. In this workshop, we'll examine this crucial stage in the development of your own aesthetic, which is not merely a writing style, but more importantly a personal perspective on the world that informs and is informed by that style. We will read a selection of writers with distinctive worldviews and thus distinctive literary voices (Paul Bowles, Toni Morrison, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Lorrie Moore, Ottessa Moshfegh, Ocean Vuong, Garth Greenwell, etc.), and we'll complement those readings with writing exercises and workshops of your own fiction, where you will actively interrogate, cultivate, and refine your emerging voice.
Instructor(s): Vu Tran Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42152
CRWR 22153. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Rants and Rambles. 100 Units.
The unshackled narrators that dominate many of our most exciting novels-from Dostoevsky's underground man to the uber-relatable mother of 2019's Ducks, Newburyport-take their bearings not from the scenic method of theater or the omniscient narration of history but from the essay form and from oral storytelling. This workshop plumbs those resources to better understand this alternative tradition, studying the craft that can make unruly narrative both highly entertaining and intellectually satisfying, exploring rhetoric, repetition, leitwortstil, logical nesting, suspense, digression, irony, and humor. While executing creative exercises in voice, we'll read books of furious energy by Thomas Bernhard and Jamaica Kincaid alongside cooler, essayistic meanders by W. G. Sebald and Claire-Louise Bennett. Students will compose and workshop a substantial work that takes its cues from these examples.
Instructor(s): Benjamin Lytal Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42153
CRWR 22154. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Unlikeable Characters. 100 Units.
From "unreliable" to "unlikeable," certain characters--and character qualities--are often measured against popular understandings of who is "good," who is "relatable," and who gets to decide. As Ottessa Moshfegh quips in a Guardian interview, "We live in a world in which mass murderers are re-elected, yet it's an unlikeable female character that is found to be offensive." In this technical seminar, we will critically investigate cultural dialogues around "unlikeability," and discuss the shared qualities and compelling narrative capabilities of "unlikeable" characters. Assignments will include reading responses, short craft analyses, and a presentation.
Instructor(s): Meghan Lamb Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42154
CRWR 22155. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Writing About Work. 100 Units.
Writing about work, jobs, and vocational experiences may seem contradictory- or even antithetical-to our goals in fiction. After all, if we aim to inspire, to invigorate, to otherwise wield a narrative "axe for the frozen sea within us" (as Kafka wrote), why write about the very day-to-day tasks so often charged with numbing and blurring our sensation of life? In this workshop, we will explore and answer this question with our own work-focused fictions, developing strategies for defamiliarizing the mundane, and using routines to build dramatic tension. Utilizing a combination of creative workshops and exercises-and drawing upon models from the job-focused fiction of Eugene Martin, Dorothy Allison, Lucia Berlin, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Edwidge Danticat, and other writers-we will also deepen and develop our characters through precise depictions of their work environments.
Instructor(s): Meghan Lamb Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42155
CRWR 22156. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Narrator as Personality. 100 Units.
While aspiring writers usually grasp quickly how to write direct dialog-we hear it all around us, in public and private spaces-narration is a trickier enterprise. In this writing workshop, we will look at the narrator as personality, a voice that exists to tell the story, but not always to enter it. The narrator can be a constant, like an elbow in the side, or effaced, touching down to only give us the basics of time and place. They can be all knowing, summarizing scenes, people and events from a distant, God-like vantage, or reportorial, speaking in present tense as events unfurl. Some narrators make us laugh but are conning us with their charm; others explain the psychology of events like a great therapist or moralize like a member of the clergy. We will read a wide range of examples from writers like Edward P. Jones, Anton Chekhov, Salman Rushdie, Amy Hempel, Yiyun Li, and Louise Erdrich. Students will be encouraged to experiment in both writing exercises and story revisions. By the end of the course, you will have generated significant raw material and workshopped one story, which you will revise for the final.
Instructor(s): Sharon Pomerantz Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42156
CRWR 22157. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Tiny Chapters. 100 Units.
In this advanced fiction workshop, students will have the opportunity to assemble a long narrative out of short fragments. Composing with small units reframes the art of narrative. We'll study the diverse affordances of working with fragments-collage, aporia, essayistic interpolation-always keeping an eye on the totality of our narratives. We'll discuss the art of brevity-including related forms like the aphorism, the note, and the joke. We'll begin in experiment and end with substantial compositions. Our readings will be drawn from the numerous contemporary novelists who use this method (Jenny Offill, Olga Ravn, Dorthe Nors) as well as the older generation of authors who, in their different ways, may be said to have pioneered the form (Marguerite Duras, Gwendolyn Brooks, William Gass, Renata Adler). But most of our class time will be devoted to workshopping original student work.
Instructor(s): Benjamin Lytal Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42157
CRWR 22158. Advanced Fiction Workshop: From the Ground Up. 100 Units.
In a craft talk, writer Stephen Dobyns once described an exercise he used for generating stories inspired by Raymond Carver, who said about his process, "I write the first sentence, and then I write the next sentence and then the next." Apparently, Dobyns was frustrated by that answer, but later challenged himself to write 50 first sentences of potential stories. Then, he picked half of them and wrote 25 first paragraphs. From those, he eventually completed about a half dozen stories. (I learned this from an article by the great short story writer Kelly Link.) In this generative workshop, we will proceed in this fashion. During the first week, we'll study the first sentences of stories and each write our own 50 first sentences. During the second week, we'll study the first paragraphs of stories and each write 25 first paragraphs, and so on until all students have a few complete drafts of stories, one of which will be submitted to our in-class workshop. Along the way, we'll read and discuss well-made stories by writers such as Kelly Link, Denis Johnson, Joy Williams, Edward P. Jones, Justin Torres, Mary Gaitskill, and many others. To be successful, students will read and write actively and share their well-informed opinions with enthusiasm, especially in our workshop discussions.
Instructor(s): Ryan Van Meter Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42158
CRWR 22159. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Family Life, Family Strife. 100 Units.
If, as the opening lines of Anna Karenina suggests, it is true that "every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," then the unique character of family is largely determined by its distinct manner and type of conflict. In this advanced fiction workshop, we'll examine fiction about family friction with an eye for observing the strategies that authors have used to construct dramas that revolve around how families love, cope, or crumple in the midst of crisis. As we identify tropes of family dysfunction, we'll also consider the ways authors use narrative devices like point-of-view, setting, plot, and scene to investigate how we define family (and how those definitions have evolved); its bonds and intergenerational inheritances; how families-like institutions- are bonded by their distinctive habits, manners, mores, and laws; and how kinship might magnify, subvert, or critique larger society. Above all, we'll debate what family life and family strife teach us about storytelling. Over the course of the term, we will write and workshop your own fiction inspired by model texts.
Instructor(s): Julie Iromuanya Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42159
CRWR 23113. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Waste, Surplus, Reuse. 100 Units.
What do writers and artists do with surplus, with extras, leftovers, and other excesses of production? Is there a creative use to put them to? When viewed in the context of ecology and economy, what are the ethical dimensions of working with surplus? Are there also ethics and aesthetics of the "useless"? With these guiding questions, this course will explore creative approaches to waste, and develop revision practices that draw on the reuse of material surplus. We will consider forms of excess, and we'll examine diverse types of waste and things that "waste", including literal trash, ruins, the body, time, the dream, and everyday texts (such as emails, text messages, rough drafts, conversations, and ephemeral media). Readings and media may include work by Georges Perec, Harryette Mullen, Nikki Wallschlaeger, T. S. Eliot, Kurt Schwitters, and Agnes Varda. Students should plan to complete various prompts, lead discussion on readings, and complete a final project.
Instructor(s): Nate Hoks Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43113
CRWR 23123. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Form & Formlessness. 100 Units.
Wallace Stevens suggests that "The essential thing in form is to be free in whatever form is used." How does form provide a kind of freedom for a poet? How does it manifest itself in a poem? Does it mean we have to follow prescribed rules, or is there a more intuitive approach? This course will give students a chance to try out a range of traditional and experimental forms, both as an attempt to improve as writers and in order to interrogate form and its other, what Bataille called the formless, or "unformed" (l'informe). We'll explore traditional and contemporary takes on a variety of forms, such as sonnets, odes, aphorisms, serial poems, and poetic collage. Students should expect to write exercises, submit new poems, contribute feedback on peer work, write short response papers, and submit a final portfolio.
Instructor(s): Nathan Hoks Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43123
CRWR 23126. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Poetry and the Present Moment. 100 Units.
In this workshop we will tackle the problem of writing poetry in the present moment at a range of scales, thinking critically about our world's obsession with the "contemporary." At the grandest scale, we will ask what it means to write into the contemporary moment, one in which we seem to feel time fading with every status update and tweet, and one that demands embodied engagement-reading works that have been written recently, in dialogue with living authors. At the most intimate scale, we will consider how poetry can cultivate critical awareness of the present moment amidst forces that pull us with dopamine-induced promises and regrets into the future and past. How does poetry, with its odd ability to punctuate, syncopate, fragment, and suspend time, intervene in daily life and in the historical record? Authors for consideration will include Issa, Basho, Gertrude Stein, F.T. Marinetti, David Harvey, Cecilia Vicuna, Bernadette Mayer, Etel Adnan, Leslie Scalapino, Lyn Hejinian, Julie Patton, CA Conrad, Julian T. Brolaski, and Bhanu Kapil. Students will have the chance to experiment with different forms of attunement to the present, and will produce a daybook in tandem with a final "book" project that may take a range of forms.
Instructor(s): Jennifer Scappettone Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43126
CRWR 23132. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Poets' Prose. 100 Units.
Which one of us, in his moments of ambition, has not dreamed of the miracle of a poetic prose," wrote Charles Baudelaire in Paris Spleen,"... supple enough and rugged enough to adapt itself to the lyrical impulses of the soul, the undulations of reverie, the jibes of conscience?" This genre-blurring workshop will explore elements of the history and practice of the prose poem, and other poems and texts that combine strategies, forms and gestures of prose (fiction, nonfiction, etc.) with those of poetry. We will also read texts that are difficult to classify in terms of genre. "Flash Fiction," "Short Shorts," the fable, the letter, the mini-essay, and the lyric essay will be examined, among others. We will discuss the literary usefulness (or lack of it) of genre and form labels. The class will be taught as a workshop: students will try their hand at writing in their choices of hybrid forms, and will be encouraged to experiment. Writers from all genres are welcome, as what we will be studying, discussing, and writing will involve the fruitful collision of literary genres.
Instructor(s): Suzanne Buffam Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43132
CRWR 23133. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Poets in Archives. 100 Units.
This course will examine how the historical archive can be a source for poetry writing, seeking to develop frameworks for interpreting the experiences that poets enact through archives. Deeper questions to be examined involve the relation between poetic form and historical knowledge; the relation between imagination and memory; between material histories and their inscription; between poets and their historical and biographical pasts; and between the critical and creative, the historical and biographical, and the exteriors and interiors of literature, history, myth, and politics. Because this is an advanced workshop, we will rely on mutual exchange dedicated to improving writing. Critique will therefore be our core activity, guided by our readings and professor instruction, but driven primarily by original student work and discussion.
Instructor(s): Edgar Garcia Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43133
CRWR 23134. Advanced Poetry Workshop: The Book as Form. 100 Units.
What is a book? This supposedly obsolete medium has undergone vital metamorphosis over the course of the past century, migrating from text into the visual and performing arts, as well as online. As contemporary writers we will consider what it means to contribute to its evolution, thinking about new forms that the "poetry collection" can take, as well as more emergent forms of the book as project-or process. Authors to be studied include Sappho, Basho, Mina Loy, Bruno Munari, Bread and Puppet Theater, Susan Howe, Anne Carson, Ann Hamilton, Buzz Spector, Bhanu Kapil, Don Mee Choi, Jen Bervin, Mei-Mei Burssenbrugge, Stephanie Strickland, Tan Lin, Edwin Torres, Nanni Balestrini, Douglas Kearney, and Amaranth Borsuk. Be prepared to think about poetry from the scale of the syllable to the scale of the entire bound (or unbound) work.
Instructor(s): Jennifer Scappettone Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43134
CRWR 23135. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Weird Science. 100 Units.
This class invites students to explore various relationships between science and poetry, two domains that, perhaps counter-intuitively, often draw from each other to revitalize themselves. As poets, we'll use, misuse, and borrow from science in our poems. We'll approach poems like science experiments and aim to enter an "experimental attitude." From a practical point of view, we'll try to write poems that incorporate the language of science to freshen their own language or to expand the realm of poetic diction. Furthermore, we'll work with tropes and procedural experiments that may result in revelation, discovery, and surprise. Readings may include work by Aimé Césaire, Kimiko Hahn, Ed Roberson, Dean Young, Joyelle Mcsweeney, and Will Alexander. Students can expect to write several poems, participate in discussion forums with both initial response papers and follow-up comments, critique peers' work, and submit a final portfolio. A substantial amount of class time will be spent workshopping student work.
Instructor(s): Nathan Hoks Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43135
CRWR 23136. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Poetry as Parasite. 100 Units.
Might there be a kind of poem that acts like a parasite latched on to a host body? A poem whose very life is the fusion of various sources, voices, discourses? This poetry workshop invites students to read and write poetry that, either overtly or subtly, engages with other texts. We'll examine ways that poems create intertextual relationships (e.g. quoting, voicing, alluding, echoing, stealing, sampling, imitating, translating…) and test out these methods in our own writing. Students should expect to engage with the basic question of how their work relates to other poets and poems. Expect to read a substantial amount of work by modern and contemporary poets, submit new original poems for workshop, complete intertextual writing exercises, participate in discussion forums with both initial response papers and follow-up comments, critique peers' work, and submit a final portfolio. A substantial amount of class time will be spent workshopping student work.
Instructor(s): Nathan Hoks Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43136
CRWR 23137. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Poetry, Archives, and History. 100 Units.
This course introduces fundamental ideas about poetic form and approaches to poetic writing through close reading and discussion of poetry (modern and contemporary but not exclusively). We will consider poetic elements from the ground-up-reading closely for sound, image, syntax, and meaning-in order to enliven those elements in student writing. Likewise, we will consider how poems appear at a crossroads between history and experience (the past and present) in order to inspire students to write not only about themselves but about real and imagined social, cultural, historical, and intellectual locations and horizons (considering such aspects of poetry writing as geography, history, mythology, anthropology, kinship, science, visual media, audio media, etc). We will do so in conversation with our peers by way of regular presentations and workshops, in which students will give feedback to one another's works, learning thus how to read critically while generously, and how to respond collegially while also constructively. At the end of the quarter students will revise drafts based on class writing exercises and workshop conversations, to produce a portfolio prefaced by a critical reflection. The arc of the class also involves the making of a collaborative syllabus (with a wide range of texts offered and guided by the instructor but available to the creative configuration of the students themselves), to strengthen our grasp of archival and curatorial aspects of poetry writing.
Instructor(s): Edgar Garcia Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43137
CRWR 23138. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Poetics of Procedure and Restraint. 100 Units.
Rats who build the labyrinth from which they will try to escape" is how Raymond Queneau famously described the members of Oulipo, a group of international writers and mathematicians founded in France in 1960, and which still thrives today. The group's aim is to use constraints and procedures to create new literary forms. ("Oulipo" is an acronym that stands for Workshop or Sewing Circle of Potential Literature.) In a similar spirit of playful experiment, we will take a hands-on approach, with students composing new drafts each week. We will experiment with a variety of methods, ranging from traditional verse forms to concrete poetry; creative translations; re-writing; erasures; collages; documentary and research-based poetics; site-specific and ritual poetry; incorporating film, sound, image; and a selection of stimulating Oulipian constraints (e.g. only using certain letters or writing three versions of the same poem, etc.). As we workshop students' drafts, we will discuss topics including inspiration, authorship, form, copying and plagiarism; poetry, activism, and social justice; and the idea of "fact" in poetry. At the end of the quarter, you'll revise your drafts and collect them in a portfolio.
Instructor(s): Rachel Galvin Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43138
CRWR 23139. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Ekphrastic Poetry. 100 Units.
In this generative advanced poetry workshop we will find inspiration for our own poetry by engaging with the visual arts. We will read poems that respond to, reflect, and refract the arts, and exercises will be based on our own encounters in museums, at the movies, in the realms of fashion, architecture, landscape, and elsewhere. We will ask ourselves about artifice and making, the materiality of the written word, the relationship between observation and expression, the emotive qualities of the image, and the sonic qualities of words. Most of our course reading will be contemporary poetry, but we will also explore a range of exciting earlier examples. Each class meeting will include workshops of student poems, discussions of assigned literature, and conversations about art practice and art community. In addition to reading deeply, looking closely, and writing wildly, students are expected to be lively participants in the arts community on campus, and will attend exhibitions, concerts, readings, screenings, and other events and experiences that bring us into contact with various modes of expression. Texts may include poems by, Harryette Mullen, James Schuyler, Brenda Shaughnessy, David Trinidad, and Virgil.
Instructor(s): Robyn Schiff Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43139, CHST 23139
CRWR 23140. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Poetry and Crisis. 100 Units.
Since Homer's narratives of war and exile, and Hesiod's accounts of cyclical degeneration and the uncertain future of humankind, poetry has dealt with crisis and liminality. Our own present moment is defined by a convergence of climate and ecological crises, refugee crisis, food crisis, war, and epidemic. In this workshop, we will examine poetic writing arising out of crises, whether political, artistic, or existential, and craft poems that attempt to deal with crisis - both in the form of a concrete Event, and as a literary trope - through critical creative engagement, experimentation, and intertextual dialogue. Readings may include work by Peter Balakian, Jericho Brown, Don Mee Choi, Jorie Graham, Ilya Kaminsky, Valzhyna Mort, Claudia Rankine, Ocean Vuong, as well as classical sources. Students can expect to workshop their poems in class; to engage, critically and supportively, with peers' work; and to develop a final portfolio.
Instructor(s): Oksana Maksymchuk Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43140
CRWR 23141. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Visitations. 100 Units.
This class will explore how visitations, hauntings, suspense, uncertainty, grotesquerie, uncanny repetitions, unholy resurrections, phenomenal midnight meetings, and other gothic manipulations of matter, time, and space figure in a range of poems and texts. Because hesitance, fragment, the ever- presence of history, and notions of closure come into play whenever ghosts and others returning from beyond make visitations, our conversation will inevitably turn to the question of the openness of text, and in addition to gothic themes, we will examine form and strategy to wonder together how language turns and returns upon itself like the vampire that rises again and again in various shape-shifting guises. What is natural? What is unnatural? What is supernatural? How do the inexplicable and the explicable meet in poems? And how do poems vex the unstable categories of the past and the present?
Instructor(s): Robyn Schiff Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43141
CRWR 23142. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Poetic Forms of Brevity. 100 Units.
Advanced Poetry Workshop: Poetic Forms of Brevity Brevity is the soul of wit, and in some definitions, it's also an essential characteristic of lyric poetry. In this course, we'll read diverse examples of relatively brief poetic forms, such as epigrams, aphorisms, haikus, tankas, prose poems, and sonnets, to generate our own writing. Finally, we'll also practice revising poems for economy: that is, cutting as many words as possible from every draft. Students can expect to complete weekly prompts, give a presentation, participate in workshops, and turn in a final portfolio.
Instructor(s): Nathan Hoks Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43142
CRWR 23143. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Mask, Persona, and Translation in Twenty-First Century Poetry. 100 Units.
This advanced workshop engages the play of mask and persona in contemporary poetry, including how these have been utilized in poets' theater, dramatic monologue, confessional writing, autobiographical play, and translation of poems. Participants will be invited to experiment with voice and persona in writing and consider questions such as: How does the mask offer a means of engaging core aspects of self, society, and language? Writers for discussion include John Canaday, Denise Duhamel, Duriel Harris, Ilya Kaminsky, Yang Lian, Ed Pavlic, Fernando Pessoa, and Evie Shockley.
Instructor(s): Garin Cycholl Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43143
CRWR 23144. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Voice. 100 Units.
This course will focus on poetry's rich histories of poetic voicings, building multiple definitions of what voice "sounds" like, how it is constructed, how it says, and how to quiet and amplify one's own poetic voice. We will use our readings and findings to generate our own poetic voicings for student-led workshops.
Instructor(s): Nicholas Twemlow Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): If you wish to add this course during add/drop please email the instructor to be added to the waitlist. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43144
CRWR 24002. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Writing About the Arts. 100 Units.
Thinking about practices is a way of focusing a conversation between creative writers, art historians, curators, and working visual artists, all of whom are encouraged to join this workshop. We ourselves will be practicing and studying a wide variety of approaches to visual art. We'll read critics like John Yau and Lori Waxman, memoirists like Aisha Sabbatini Sloan, inventive historians like Zbigniew Herbert, and poets like Gwendolyn Brooks and Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, as well as curatorial and museum writings, catalogue essays, artists' statements, and other experimental and practical forms. The course hopes to support students both in developing useful practices and experimenting boldly. Classes will be shaped around current exhibitions and installations. Sessions will generally begin with student-led observation at the Smart Museum, and we will spend one session on close looking in the study room at the Smart. Students will also visit five collections, exhibitions and/or galleries and, importantly, keep a looking notebook. Students will write a number of exercises in different forms (immersive meditation, researched portrait, mosaic fragment), and will also write and revise a longer essay (on any subject and in any mode) to be workshopped in class.
Instructor(s): Rachel Cohen Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop. Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 24002, ARTH 34002, CRWR 44002
CRWR 24012. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Writing the Narrative Nonfiction Feature. 100 Units.
In this writing workshop, students will go through all the stages of composing a narrative nonfiction feature story. After generating a few ideas that seem original, surprising in their approach, and appropriate in scope, we will write and re-write pitches, learning how to highlight the potential story in these ideas. After the class agrees to "assign" one of these features, each student will report, research and write a draft. The features will be workshopped in class, and students will go through an editorial process, polishing their stories through drafts and experimenting with style and form for a final assignment. Along the way, we will consider the mechanics, ethics and craft of this work as we read published nonfiction and talk to writers/reporters about their process. In the end, we should be able to put together a publication that contains all of these feature stories.
Instructor(s): Ben Austen Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44012
CRWR 24019. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Experimental Essay. 100 Units.
Most introductions to creative nonfiction include one sections devoted to the strange and unwieldy-Ander Monson's "I've Been Thinking About Snow" or a page or two of Anne Carson's Nox. A brief foray into the metaphysical essay, the interactive essay, the performance essay and then back into the mainstream of creative nonfiction. This course, however, will be ignoring the mainstream entirely and, rather, will be devoted to the fringe, the strange and almost undefinable. From the performance essay to the video game essay, from the illustrated essay to the found essay and everything in between. This course will consist of experimental readings with accompanying writing prompts and in-class discussions, as well as dedicated workshops to each student's own experimental creative nonfiction project.
Instructor(s): Lina Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44019
CRWR 24020. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Writing the Eco-memoir. 100 Units.
We live in an era marked by human-driven environmental change, an epoch distinguished not only by the reality of anthropogenic impacts, but of human witness. Never before, writes Elizabeth Rush, have humans been here to tell the story of collapse, extinction, adaptation, and memory. In this workshop, we will read and write eco-memoir, a hybrid form of literary nonfiction that blends the work of ecology, history, and personal narrative to understand more fully how memory is bound to ecosystems. Some might simply call this memoir, following J. Drew Lanham's view that the writing of memoir is also the writing of environment. This course will ask how the memoirist looks at place, taking up W.G. Sebald's thinking that places seem to "have some kind of memory, in that they activate memory in those who look at them." Students will practice using the tenets of literary memoir-writing to engage with the theoretical frameworks of such environmental thinkers as Donna Haraway and Jedidiah Purdy. We will ask: to what extent is remembering a collective act? How might the eco-memoir represent the uneven consequences of ecological disruption? What narrative structures does the story of an ecosystem take? Students will write two-full length essays or memoir chapters. Readings will include texts by Kendra Atleework, Elizabeth Bush, Linda Hogan, J. Drew Lanham, W.G. Sebald, and visiting writers.
Instructor(s): Kathleen Blackburn Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44020
CRWR 24021. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: The Trouble with Trauma. 100 Units.
In "The Body Keeps the Score" Bessel van der Kolk writes, "The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves." Many trauma survivors begin writing reluctantly, even repulsed by the impulse to query their woundedness. The process is inhibited by stigma surrounding the notion of victimhood, entities that would prefer a survivor's silence, plus our tendency to dismiss and devalue ones suffering in relation to others. Students in this class will shed some of these constricting patterns of thinking about trauma so they may freely explore their stories with confidence, compassion, curiosity, and intention. We'll read authors who have found surprise, nuance, and yes, healing through art, honoring the heart-work that happens behind the scenes. Half of class-time will include student-led workshops of original works in progress. Paramount to our success will be an atmosphere of safety, supportiveness, respect, and confidentiality. By the quarters end each student will leave with a piece of writing that feels both true to their experience and imbued with possibility.
Instructor(s): Dina Peone Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44021
CRWR 24022. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Writing Beyond the Event. 100 Units.
Much of the tradition of Western storytelling relies on scene-driven narratives propelled by rising action toward an inevitable apex. Often natural disasters are illustrated the same way: hurricanes, invasion of new species, infectious disease, and oil spills are cast as singular events with a beginning, middle and end. This advanced workshop will explore how to push beyond the event. We will examine how forms of nonfiction, from investigative journalism to lyric essays, push against the hegemony of the "event" to tell a longer, slower story of disruption across the nexus of time and space. Following Rob Nixon's concept of slow violence, readings will focus on places and communities whose narratives do not fit tidily into beginning-middle-end story structures. Workshop will ask students to consider how their work might recognize the contexts of extraction, commodity flow, climate change, and borders surrounding the "events" driving our stories.
Instructor(s): Kathleen Blackburn Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44022
CRWR 24023. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Coming of Age Memoir. 100 Units.
Where does childhood end and adulthood begin? For Wordsworth growth happens in reverse. "The Child is the father of the Man," he wrote in 1802, yearning to recall the fundamental joy of a rainbow. Proust was eager to forget his schooldays: "We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us." In this class, students will search their lives for events and lessons which they may consider formative, together evaluating the standards they use to qualify rites of passage, in order to isolate unique patterns of growth that students can call their own. Half the quarter will be dedicated to discussing original student work. A multitude of possibilities will be offered by readings of contemporary memoirists from all walks of life. By quarters end, each student will have laid down the groundwork for a dexterous memoir about surviving the challenges of their youth, and in doing so perhaps even imagine a future that is less prescribed and more personally fulfilling.
Instructor(s): Dina Peone Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Submit writing sample via www.creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44023
CRWR 24024. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Writing Reading. 100 Units.
There are many creative ways to write of, about, from, and because of reading. In this class, serious readers will have the chance to practice forms they love and may not often get chances to write: the incisive review, the long-form reading memoir, the biographical sketch of a writer in history, the interview, the essay about translation, diaristic fragments. In this course, we'll develop individual approaches, styles and regular practices. We'll make use of both creative (and traditional) research, analysis, and criticism, and explore the wide terrain available to creative writers. We'll go back to foundational essayists including Toni Morrison and Virginia Woolf, study contemporary writers of reading such as Jazmina Berrera, Claire Messud, Niela Orr, Ruth Franklin, Emily Bernard, Hanif Abdurraqib, and Parul Sehgal. Students will keep a reading/writing notebook, conduct an interview, and write and revise a longer essay for workshop.
Instructor(s): Rachel Cohen Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44024
CRWR 24025. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Queering the Essay. 100 Units.
In Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Queering the Essay, we'll approach the essay as a vehicle for queer narratives, as a marker of both individual and collective memory, and as a necessary compliment to the journalism and scholarship that have shaped queer writing. Through readings and in-class exercises, we'll explore tenets of the personal essay, like narrative structure and pacing, alongside considerations of voice and vulnerability. After a brief historical survey, we'll look to contemporary essayists as our guides--writers like Billy-Ray Belcourt, Melissa Faliveno, Saeed Jones, Richard Rodriguez, and T. Fleischmann-- alongside more familiar writers like Alison Bechdel and Maggie Nelson. And through student-led workshops, we'll wrestle with concerns that often trouble narratives of otherness: What does it mean to write a personal narrative that has a potential social impact? How can we write trauma without playing into harmful stereotypes? How can our writing work as--or make demands toward--advocacy, rather than voyeurism?
Instructor(s): Victoria Flanagan Terms Offered: Winter Note(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44025, GNSE 44205, GNSE 24205
CRWR 24026. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Feminist Biography. 100 Units.
The personal is political - that slogan of Women's Liberation - has long been understood, among other things, as a call for new forms of storytelling. One of those forms, feminist biography, has flourished in publishing since the 1970s, and it continues to evolve today, even as the terms of feminism and of biography are continually re-negotiated by writers and critics. In this workshop, we read some of those writers and critics. And we read illustrative examples of contemporary feminist biography (and anti-biography) in various nonfiction genres, including magazine profile, trade book, Wiki article, audio performance, personal essay, cult pamphlet, avant-garde art piece. Mostly, we try out the form for ourselves, in our own writing. Each workshop writer will choose a biographical subject (single, collective, or otherwise), and work up a series of sketches around that subject. By the end of the quarter, workshop writers will build these sketches into a single piece of longform life-writing. The workshop will focus equally on story-craft and method (e.g. interview and research techniques, cultivating sources); indeed we consider the ways that method and story are inevitably connected. This workshop might also include a week with an invited guest, a practicing critic or biographer.
Instructor(s): Avi Steinberg Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44026, GNSE 44026, GNSE 24026
CRWR 24027. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Environmental Writing, Editing, and Publication. 100 Units.
Environmental writing is a quickly-expanding field in the literary and publishing community. It encompasses nonfiction sub-genres of traditional journalism, personal essay, and hybrid forms. This course is designed for students in creative writing with an interest in environmental reportage; it is also intended for students in environmental sciences (broadly speaking) with some writing experience who wish to practice presenting complex information to a non-expert audience. Reading contemporary environmental and science writing, students will develop nonfiction techniques relevant to writing environmental stories, like how to find and contact field experts, how to engage readers in complex topics, how to integrate research into narrative, how to use dialogue from interviews, how to weave the personal together with research material, and how to pitch environmental stories. The course will also cover the practical aspects* of the field by including a workshop with the Careers in Creative Writing Journalism program, guest lectures from editors and journalists in the field, and assignments that familiarize students with current environmental literary magazines. Readings will include Kerri Arsenault's Mill Town and selections from The Best American Science and Nature Writing.
Instructor(s): Kathleen Blackburn Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44027
CRWR 24028. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: World-building in Long-form Nonfiction. 100 Units.
A writer setting out to write a long piece of nonfiction prose may assume that the world of the piece is given, but in fact the nonfiction writer has significant work to do to create a space where a reader can live. In writing creative biography, history, memoir, literary criticism, art writing, and narrative journalism, there are wonderful possibilities for archival research, visiting places and spaces, making first hand observations, interviewing, finding settings and characters, and atmospheric research, whether reading old magazines, listening to radio shows, or studying weather patterns. In this course, advanced writers will immerse themselves in one longer project, developing it in notebooks and weekly postings and exercises. The first half of the course will focus more on practicing and reading (writers including Elizabeth Rush, Zbigniew Herbert, Valeria Luiselli, and James Baldwin), the second half will focus on workshopping as the longer pieces develop. Students will finish the course with a sustained piece of prose.
Instructor(s): Rachel Cohen Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44028
CRWR 24029. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Writing Sports. 100 Units.
As live performance, public ritual, and sheer melodrama, sports give lavish expression to some of our most deeply held cultural attitudes. As sports-related industries have grown exponentially in the past decades, and as the material and political fortunes at stake in these games has also grown, so too has the need for serious writing about sports. The world's stadiums and arenas have become theaters of very real battles over race and gender, class and religion, colonialism and social justice. At the same time, the games themselves have also changed in fascinating and telling ways. This workshop invites writers who are curious about sports as a subject for literary exploration. We examine the subject through various genres of nonfiction, from longform journalism to personal essay to audio storytelling. Our readings will include both canonical and contemporary voices in sports writing. Workshop writers can choose to build a portfolio of three pieces of original nonfiction, or one long piece in three parts. No previous knowledge of sports is required.
Instructor(s): Avi Steinberg Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44029
CRWR 24030. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Writing the Narrative Nonfiction Feature. 100 Units.
Apart from it being nonfiction, a nonfiction feature is like a short story-in terms of length and scenes and characters and all the potential innovations of storytelling. In this writing workshop, students will go through each stage of composing a narrative nonfiction feature story. After generating a few ideas that seem original, surprising in their approach, and appropriate in scope, we will write pitches. After the class agrees to "assign" one of these features, each student will report, research and write a draft. The features will be workshopped in class, and students will go through an editorial process, polishing their stories and experimenting with style and form for a final assignment. Along the way, we will consider the mechanics, ethics and craft of this work as we read published nonfiction and talk to writers and reporters about their process. There will be an emphasis in the class on Chicago writers and their beats; in weekly writing assignments, students will also report on local stories.
Instructor(s): Ben Austen Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44030, CHST 24030
CRWR 24031. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Excavating the Self. 100 Units.
What does it mean to make sense out of lived experience? How do we claim ownership of our own stories, and shape those narratives on our own terms, independent of pressures that originated elsewhere? How do we craft narrative personas that readers deem trustworthy; how do we capture voices that feel compelling, urgent, and help to reorder the fallout of our lives into a coherent structure that can offer insight, even to readers we have never met? In this advanced nonfiction workshop, we will attempt to grapple with some of these concerns. With a particular emphasis on memoir and personal essay, we will explore what it means to excavate the self and map out the vast terrain contained within. Readings will include Vivian Gornick, Leslie Jamison, Aleksander Hemon, James Baldwin, William Maxwell, Orhan Pamuk and Thomas Browne. Class time will be split between discussion of readings and student led workshops of original essays/memoirs in progress. By the end of the quarter, students will have workshopped two pieces of writing and submitted a final portfolio.
Instructor(s): Valer Popa Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): If you wish to add this course during add/drop please email the instructor to be added to the waitlist. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44031
CRWR 24032. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: CyberWorkshop - Writing the Web. 100 Units.
An inquiry into the ways we write about the internet, this workshop will survey works spanning across narrative nonfiction genres, from writing by William Gibson and Naomi Klein to the rise of the YouTube video essay as a sub-genre. Students will write and workshop essays that arise from hyper-contemporary corners of the internet, defining, as they go, a new kind of ekphrasis for the digital age.
Instructor(s): Victoria Flanagan Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): If you wish to add this course during add/drop please email the instructor to be added to the waitlist. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44032
CRWR 29200. Thesis/Major Projects: Fiction. 100 Units.
This thesis workshop is for students writing a creative BA or MA thesis in fiction, as well as creative writing minors completing the portfolio. It is primarily a workshop, so please come to our first class with your project in progress (a story collection, a novel, or a novella), ready for you to discuss and to submit some part of for critique. As in any writing workshop, we will stress the fundamentals of craft like language, voice, and plot and character development, with an eye also on how to shape your work for the longer form you have chosen. And as a supplement to our workshops, we will have brief student presentations on the writing life: our literary influences, potential avenues towards publication, etc.
Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Note(s): Required for CW majors and MAPH CW Option students completing creative BA and MA theses in fiction and CW minors completing minor portfolios in fiction. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 49200
CRWR 29300. Thesis/Major Projects: Poetry. 100 Units.
This thesis workshop is for students writing a creative BA or MA thesis in poetry, as well as creative writing minors completing the portfolio. Because it is a thesis seminar, the course will focus on various ways of organizing larger poetic "projects." We will consider the poetic sequence, the chapbook, and the poetry collection as ways of extending the practice of poetry beyond the individual lyric text. We will also problematize the notion of broad poetic "projects," considering the consequences of imposing a predetermined conceptual framework on the elusive, spontaneous, and subversive act of lyric writing. Because this class is designed as a poetry workshop, your fellow students' work will be the primary text over the course of the quarter.
Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Note(s): Required for CW majors and MAPH CW Option students completing creative BA and MA theses in poetry and CW minors completing minor portfolios in poetry. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 49300
CRWR 29400. Thesis/Major Projects: Nonfiction. 100 Units.
This thesis workshop is for students writing a creative BA or MA thesis in nonfiction, as well as creative writing minors completing the portfolio. Student work can be an extended essay, memoir, travelogue, literary journalism, or an interrelated collection thereof. It's a workshop, so come to the first day of class with your work underway and ready to submit. You'll edit your classmates' writing as diligently as you edit your own. I focus on editing because writing is, in essence, rewriting. Only by learning to edit other people's work will you gradually acquire the objectivity you need to skillfully edit your own. You'll profit not only from the advice you receive, but from the advice you learn to give. I will teach you to teach each other and thus yourselves, preparing you for the real life of the writer outside the academy.
Instructor(s): Dan Raeburn; Lina Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Note(s): Required for CW majors and MAPH CW Option students completing creative BA and MA theses in nonfiction and CW minors completing minor portfolios in nonfiction. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 49400
CRWR 29500. Thesis/Major Projects: Fiction/Nonfiction. 100 Units.
This thesis workshop is for students writing a creative BA or MA thesis or minor portfolio in either fiction or nonfiction--or both. In other words, your project may take a number of forms: fiction only, nonfiction only, a short story and an essay, a novel chapter and a piece of narrative journalism, and so on. This course might be of special interest to those working on highly autobiographical pieces or incorporating substantial research into their creative process--fiction that hews close to fact, say, or nonfiction that leans heavily into storytelling. And/or it might be useful for those who want to pursue hybrid or between-genres projects or simply want to continue working in more than one form. We'll be open to many possibilities. It's not a prerequisite that you've taken both a fiction and creative nonfiction course previously, but it will nonetheless be quite helpful to have done so. Note, too, that this is the cumulative course in Creative Writing. There will still be room to explore and rethink (sometimes radically) the pieces you've drafted in previous classes, but please do come to our first session with a clear sense of what you want to work on over the quarter. Required for CW majors and MAPH CW Option students completing creative BA and MA theses in fiction or nonfiction and CW minors completing minor portfolios in fiction or nonfiction.
Instructor(s): Staff Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu (in application please indicate experience in fiction & nonfiction and how this thesis workshop informs your own writing practice). Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 49500
Director of the Program in Creative Writing Robyn Schiff Email
Director of Undergraduate Studies Vu Tran Taft House 302 Email
Program Manager Michael Fischer Taft House 103 773.834.8524 Email
Student Affairs Administrator Denise Dooley Taft House 104 773.702.0355 Email
[email protected]
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The Program in Creative Writing takes a comprehensive approach to the study of contemporary literature, criticism, and theory from a writer’s perspective, and provides rigorous training in the fundamental practices of creative writing. In our courses, students work with established poets and prose writers towards these pursuits, and both the major and minor in Creative Writing provide ample opportunities for interdisciplinary work across University departments. The program’s commitment to interdisciplinary work and academic rigor, coupled with an emphasis on teaching the elements of creative writing that underlie all genres, accounts for the program's vitality and explains why Creative Writing at Chicago is currently the largest initiative in the humanities for the College. The Program in Creative Writing offers workshops and seminars in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, as well as an increasing number of translation workshops.
Students who graduate with the bachelor of arts in Creative Writing will both be skilled in writing in a major literary genre and have a theoretically informed understanding of the aesthetic, historical, social, and political context of a range of contemporary writing. Students who are not English Language and Literature or Creative Writing majors may complete a minor in English and Creative Writing.
English (creative writing), ba.
Develop a literary voice that serves your academic, professional and artistic goals. Renowned, award-winning writers guide your engagement in supportive and rigorous workshops that enable your expressive growth.
The BA in English with a concentration in creative writing focuses on the study and practice of the literary arts, with courses in poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction.
Students gain practical experience through writing workshops and internship opportunities.
The undergraduate program features an outstanding faculty whose many books have received major national and international recognition.
In addition to the guidelines in the Concurrent Program Options section below, students interested in pursuing concurrent or second baccalaureate degrees in The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences are advised to visit The College's website for more information and requirements.
Acceptance to the graduate program requires a separate application. Students typically receive approval to pursue the accelerated master’s during the junior year of their bachelor's degree program. Interested students can learn about eligibility requirements and how to apply .
General university admission requirements:
All students are required to meet general university admission requirements. First-year | Transfer | International | Readmission
A current ASU student has no additional requirements for changing majors.
Students should visit the Change of Major form for information about how to change a major to this program.
ASU has partnered with the following institutions to enable you to do a seamless transfer.
ASU is committed to helping students thrive by offering tools that allow personalization of the transfer path to ASU. Students may use MyPath2ASU® to outline a list of recommended courses to take prior to transfer.
ASU has transfer partnerships in Arizona and across the country to create a simplified transfer experience for students. These pathway programs include exclusive benefits, tools and resources, and they help students save time and money in their college journey.
Program learning outcomes identify what a student will learn or be able to do upon completion of their program. This program has the following program outcomes:
Studying abroad expands students' perspectives by exposing them to new and distinct cultures, communities and people. Students can explore the English language at a deeper level through an extended lens of dialects, literature and terminology in one of more than 300 study abroad programs.
Students can enhance their resumes with the educational experience and heightened cultural competency, communication and critical thinking skills they acquire through study abroad programs.
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences recommends these study abroad programs for students majoring in English with a concentration in creative writing .
Degree programs in English prepare students for graduate studies in a number of programs, including English, creative writing, education, law and business. They also lead to a variety of careers in diverse fields. Employers seek those with strong writing, communication and critical thinking skills. Some of the most common professions for English majors are in the fields of:
Graduates often find roles where they spend time:
Example job titles and salaries listed below are not necessarily entry level, and students should take into consideration how years of experience and geographical location may affect pay scales. Some jobs also may require advanced degrees, certifications or state-specific licensure.
Career | *Growth | *Median salary |
---|---|---|
Bright Outlook
Department of English | RBHL 170 [email protected] 480-965-3168
College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
The undergraduate Creative Writing major at the University of Illinois, formerly known as the Rhetoric major, is one of the oldest of its kind in the country. Now in its seventh decade, the major combines small workshops (poetry, fiction, nonfiction) and a variety of literature courses.
Note: We also offer a Creative Writing minor. For an overview of our minor requirements, click here .
The undergraduate Creative Writing major at the University of Illinois, formerly known as the Rhetoric major, is one of the oldest of its kind in the country. Now in its seventh decade, the major combines small workshops (poetry, fiction, nonfiction) and a variety of literature courses. The result is a strong but flexible program of study that develops students' analytical and creative skills and prepares them for work or graduate study in any number of fields.
Students in the undergraduate program edit and publish an annual journal, Montage Arts Journal , which features poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and visual art by University of Illinois undergraduate student writers and artists. For more information about Montage , visit montagejournal.wordpress.com .
Through our program, writers shape their literary voices, develop distinctive styles, and intensify their written, critical, and editorial skills. Students write about what matters most to them and learn about contemporary literary publishing through developing their imaginative, expressive, and dynamic writing.
Literature for creative writers (6 credit hours).
Creative Writing majors must complete at least one of the following 3-course (9-hour) sequences:
The remaining 3 hours in this category can be satisfied by a fourth CW Workshop outside of the chosen sequence. CW 404 and CW 406 may be repeated once for credit, but may not be repeated to fulfill this requirement.
3 hours of Writing and Literature coursework, either:
12 additional hours of approved ENGL coursework, including:
For more information on the Creative Writing major and minor, please visit our listings in the Academic Catalog:
The faculty of the Creative Writing Program represent a diverse range of writing and teaching styles and interests and are actively working in various genres and media, including poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, theater, and film. Faculty members have received numerous awards and fellowships. A small selection of these includes the Yale Series of Younger Poets, the Native Writers' Circle Award of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award, the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Fiction, the FC2 National Fiction Competition, a Whiting Award, the A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize, the Kate Tufts Discovery Prize, the William Peden Prize, the Academy of American Poets Award, the Bakeless Prize, Wallace Stegner fellowships, and fellowships from the NEA, Guggenheim Foundation, Yaddo, MacDowell, Bread Loaf, Sewanee, and many others.
Follow the links below to learn more about our undergraduate Creative Writing program's core faculty members:
Ángel García
Janice N. Harrington
Amy Hassinger
Christopher Kempf
Julie Price
John Rubins
Ted Sanders
Alex Shakar
Corey Van Landingham
David Wright
College Info
So you’re thinking about majoring in creative writing! Completing an undergraduate creative writing program can be a great way to explore your love of fiction or poetry and hone your craft.
As edifying as a creative writing major can be, it may not be what you expect. Dedicated creative writing majors are also quite uncommon, so if you're committed to getting your degree in that subject, you'll have a narrower pool of possible colleges. This post will help you decide whether a creative writing major is right for you.
Feature Image: Nilufer Gadgieva /Flickr
As I mentioned above, creative writing is a relatively rare major, so if you're solely focused on schools with a dedicated creative writing degree, you might miss out on schools that could be a great fit for you.
Keep in mind that a lot of school that don’t offer specific majors still have great opportunities to pursue creative writing, whether by completing a minor, contributing to the campus literary journal, or simply taking classes.
Even if you know you want to study creative writing, try researching the opportunities available at different schools with an open mind . You might be surprised by what you find!
I once had a friend who loved writing ;but hated reading—especially if he had to analyze the text. If you tend to agree with him, and would rather be submerged in a vat of ants than write a paper about Virginia Woolf's use of symbolism to comment on World War I in The Waves , this course of study isn't right for you. Most creative writing majors are run by the English department, and, in fact, many are special tracks within the English major. As such, they involve a lot of reading of all kinds , including fiction, plays, poetry, and literary theory.
I was an English major in undergrad, and we were expected to read a roughly book a week in each class . Some were long (I had one professor assign the longest single volume novel in the English language ) and some were short, but it added up to a lot of books! You’ll also have to write critical essays analyzing these works of literature—if you really only want to write your own fiction or poetry, consider majoring in something else and taking creative writing classes as electives.
Writing isn't like engineering: you don't need a specific degree to pursue it professionally. The only thing that you need to do to be a writer is to write.
Most writing jobs, whether in publishing, journalism or teaching, don’t require or even expect you to have majored in creative writing. For the few positions that do require a writing degree, which are almost exclusively in academia, you'll actually need a graduate degree (generally an MFA).
Studying writing in school is a great way to motivate you to work on your writing and to get constructive feedback (more on this below), but it’s not the only way. A lot of great writers studied something totally unrelated to writing or didn’t go to college at all.
So far I've focused mostly on reasons you might not want or need to major in creative writing, but there's one very good reason to do so: you'll spend a lot of time writing, talking about writing, and reading your peers' writing.
One of the key features of any creative writing major is the workshop —a small class where students closely read and dissect each other’s work. Workshops can be very productive, since they offer the opportunity for lots of revision and rewriting. However, they also involve a lot of criticism and can be challenging for very sensitive people. Consider how you'll react to someone not liking your writing or suggesting ways to improve it.
Many creative writing majors also require a capstone project or creative BA thesis, which requires you to complete a substantive piece of work that's at or near publication ready. For students who are genuinely committed to publishing their writing, this project is an invaluable stepping stone.
At schools with particularly strong writing programs, majors may have the opportunity to attend special readings or meetings with authors that aren't open to non-majors. They may also have priority for activities like working at the literary journal or university press.
These kinds of perks are completely dependent on the school, however, so make sure to research the specific programs that you're interested in.
Creative writing majors offer a unique opportunity to focus on the craft of writing, but they aren't right for everyone. If the following statements apply to you, a creative writing major could be a great fit:
Convinced you want to be a creative writing major? Check out our list of the best undergrad writing programs .
Creative writing majors go on to a wide range of jobs. If you're exploring different career ideas , check out our guides on how to become a lawyer and how to become a teacher .
If you're looking at colleges , also check out our guide on how to pick the best school for you and our list of the best college search websites .
For those of you interested in particularly selective schools , we have a guide to getting into Ivy League schools written by a Harvard grad.
How to Get Into Harvard and the Ivy League
How to Get a Perfect 4.0 GPA
How to Write an Amazing College Essay
What Exactly Are Colleges Looking For?
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Alex is an experienced tutor and writer. Over the past five years, she has worked with almost a hundred students and written about pop culture for a wide range of publications. She graduated with honors from University of Chicago, receiving a BA in English and Anthropology, and then went on to earn an MA at NYU in Cultural Reporting and Criticism. In high school, she was a National Merit Scholar, took 12 AP tests and scored 99 percentile scores on the SAT and ACT.
Have any questions about this article or other topics? Ask below and we'll reply!
B.a. in creative writing.
Syracuse University has a long and storied history of nurturing great writers. From Stephen Crane and Shirley Jackson to Joyce Carol Oates and Nana Adjei-Brenyah, students have made good use of the Syracuse winters to hone their craft and explore their imaginations. The result has been books as varied in styles as they are in subjects----SU authors have critiqued the ills of society, explored human frailties and strengths, and probed the psychological depths of horror and mystery.
The Creative Writing Major in the English and Textual Studies Department is designed for students who want to be part of this tradition and have an intense interest in cultivating the skills, knowledge and inventiveness needed to write creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. This 30-credit major combines a grounding in literary study with a workshop-style focus on writing. Students will learn to use language to create complex and emotionally powerful work. Required classes include literature classes, and creative writing workshops and craft classes in at least two genres. It is our belief that all writers need to be readers. To that end, the classes, even the workshops, balance reading historical and contemporary literature with the practice of writing.
For those students already committed to a demanding major, but still interested in creative writing, the 18-credit minor is an excellent alternative to the major. Comprised of three workshops and three craft classes, the minor will provide students with a focused creative writing experience.
The renowned MFA in Creative Writing program provides a myriad of resources for undergraduate students to draw from, including a well-established reading series (The Raymond Carver Reading Series https://thecollege.syr.edu/english-department/creative-writing-mf-program/raymond-carver-reading-series/), opportunities for students to meet with visiting writers, highly talented graduate students who will help guide undergraduates, an undergraduate creative writing club “Write Out,” and, most importantly, the opportunity to work closely with highly accomplished writers, including Mona Awad, Dana Spiotta, Jonathan Dee, Brooks Haxton, Bruce Smith, Matt Grzecki, Sarah Harwell and Christopher Kennedy.
First-year students can choose to live in the Creative Writing Learning Living Community (LLC), where they can meet fellow students and create friendships, network with faculty and established authors through public readings and LLC dinners, and explore their passion for reading and writing poetry, fiction, graphic novels, creative nonfiction or any other types of writing.
The major has been designed to pair with a number of other majors—yes, majors you would expect, like journalism and history—but also Pre-med, information science, biology, physics, philosophy, political science, art history, African-American Studies, illustration, religion, photography, drama and even Applied Mathematics! Creative writers publish their creative work, but they are also in demand in the fields of publishing, public relations, marketing, advertising, web design, media design, branding, social media communications, teaching, publishing, editing, grant writing, journalism, technical writing, health care professions, and computer science. Nearly every profession is in need of highly skilled writers to interpret technical fields to the general public, to create compelling stories, and to compress and synthesize information so that it is gripping and persuasive. And all writers need subjects and a breadth of knowledge in order to write about issues that matter to an audience.
Finally, Creative Writing is committed to fostering an inclusive, diverse community of readers and writers. Required readings are deliberately chosen to represent various cultures, classes, modes of experience, and cultures. As a student you will be encouraged to partake in one of literature’s highest goals—to give voice to a plurality of experiences and world views.
If you’re interested in learning more, please contact Sarah Harwell at [email protected] .
If you would like to declare the major or minor, please contact Katherine Kidd at [email protected] .
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The Creative Writing and Literature Major is open to ALL LSA students.
Creative Writing and Literature Majors write fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction under the close guidance of faculty mentors, and may workshop their writing with other student writers in small writing seminars. Majors also study the art of writing through the study of literature. Majors specialize in fiction, poetry, or nonfiction early in their studies.
Creative Writing graduates pursue successful careers as writers, editors, educators, advertising professionals, and many other writing related-fields. Every year our graduates are admitted to competitive graduate school programs in the fine arts, education, law, business, public policy, social work, and other courses of professional study that demand proficient writing skills and creative approaches to problem solving.
RC Creative Writing students have demonstrated unparalled success in the esteemed U of M Hopwood Awards , winning over 100 awards since the 1994-95 school year.
Students meet with the creative writing major advisor when declaring, making course substitutions, discussing transfer/study abroad credit evaluations, internships, preparing major release forms, and information on graduate school study and career paths.
Although students may pursue study in multiple genres, most specialize in a single genre:
Fiction / Creative Nonfiction
Digital Storytelling
Advising appointments can be made here or by calling RC Academic Services at 763-0032.
Minimum Credits: 28
The major is structured into four genre tracks. In addition to the Fiction / Creative Nonfiction, Poetry, and Digital Storytelling tracks, students may elect a multi-genre track in consultation with their principal writing instructors and the major advisor.
Each track consists of:
Four elective creative writing courses
Five elective upper level literature courses
Students complete a minimum of four creative writing courses, at least three of which must be at the 300 level or above and at least three of which must be taken in the RC. A usual track is an introductory course (Narration) and three upper-level courses. Students may count one non-RC creative writing course towards the writing requirement.
Creative Writing Courses: Students may elect any combination of seminars and tutorials from the following:
RCHUMS 220 Narration: Intro to Fiction Writing
RCHUMS 325, 326, 425, 426 Tutorials: Permission of instructor required
RCHUMS 320 Narration: Advanced Fiction Writing
RCHUMS 334 (Section 005) Memoir: Writing from Within
Other departmental offerings listed under RCHUMS 334 or RCCORE 334. Details here.
Literature Electives: Students complete five literature courses, at the 300-level or above. One literature course must focus on either ancient literature or medieval literature (pre-1600). The ancient / medieval requirement may focus on non-Western or Western literature, but must pre-date Shakespeare if a Western literature course is elected. English 367 – Shakespeare’s Plays does not fulfill this requirement, although the course can count towards the literature requirement.
Students are encouraged to take literature courses in the RC Arts and Ideas Major, the Department of English or the Comparative Literature Program . Students majoring in a second language may count one upper-level literature course in that language, or one upper-level literature course completed during a full semester studying abroad in a non-English speaking country. Upper-level literature courses taken abroad also may be counted. All literature courses counted toward the Creative Writing and Literature Major must be at least three (3) credits.
Courses that have been used to meet the requirement in the past include:
RCHUMS 354 Race and Identity in Music
RCHUMS 344 Reason and Passion in the 18th Century
RCHUMS 342 Representing the Holocaust in Literature, Film and the Visual Arts
Other RCHUMS courses listed in the Arts and Ideas in the Humanities major
English 350 Literature in English to 1660 (for ancient/medieval requirement)
English 328 Writing and the Environment
English 379 Literature in Afro-American Culture
Other English Department courses with a literature focus
CLCIV 385 Greek Mythology (for ancient/medieval requirement)
Asian 314 Strange Ways: Literature of the Supernatural in Pre-modern Japan and China
MEMS 386 Medieval Literature, History and Culture
Students complete a minimum of four creative writing courses, at least three of which must be at the 300 level or above and at least three of which must be taken in the RC. A usual track is an introductory course (Writing Poetry) and three upper-level courses. Students may count one non-RC creative writing course towards the writing requirement.
RCHUMS 221 Writing Poetry
RCHUMS 321 Advanced Poetry Writing
RCHUMS 334 Workshop with Incarcerated Poets and Artists
Literature courses listed above under Fiction / Creative Nonfiction
English 340 Studies in Poetry
English 440 Modern Poetry
English 442 Studies in Poetry
The digital storytelling track studies the ways story interacts with technology and the effect of digital media on writing and the creative process. Students electing this track pair writing practice with the study of the theory, ethics, and history of digital media.
Creative Writing Courses: At least 4 courses required over two categories
Creative Writing Courses: choose a minimum of two Residential College creative writing courses that focus on writing fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry. Only one course in a student’s major plan should be at the 200-level:
Introductory Courses (may elect 1 to count towards major):
Upper-level Courses:
RCHUMS 320 Advanced Narration
RCHUMS 321 Advanced Poetry Writing
RCHUMS 325, 326, 425, 426 Creative Writing Tutorials
Digital Writing / Skills Courses: choose a minimum of two digital storytelling / writing courses at the 300-level or above that focus on digital media and/or electronic literature writing and practice. Courses that have been used to meet the requirement in the past include:
RCCORE 334 (Section 004) Digital Storytelling
English 420 Tech and the Humanities / Electronic Literature
RCSCI 360 (Section 001) Documentary Photography
RCHUMS 325, 326, 425, 426 Creative Writing Tutorials with a focus on writing for, and/or creating, electronic literature or digital media content (permission of instructor required)
Digital Studies Requirement: At least 2 courses required
Choose a minimum of two digital studies theory courses at the 300-level or above that focus on the theory of digital culture and/or the digital humanities. Courses that have been used to meet the requirement in the past include:
AmCult 358 Topics in Digital Studies
AmCult 360 Radical Digital Media
FTVM 368 Topics in Digital Media Studies
English 405 Theories of Writing
Literature Requirement: At least 3 courses required
Literature courses must be taken at the 300-level or above. Literature courses should not focus on digital studies but should offer complementary skills and additional context in the art and craft of literature. One course must focus on ancient/medieval literature. For more information on specific literature requirements, please see the Literature section listed under Fiction / Creative Nonfiction.
A student deemed eligible to attempt Honors typically completes the following process:
A student whose overall academic record meets the eligibility criteria for honors and whose creative work models originality and the promise of mastery in their chosen genre may apply for an honors thesis. Honors theses are typically 75-100 pages of polished fiction or creative nonfiction, or a collection of 25 or more poems. The student and their faculty advisor will determine the exact length and content of the final thesis.
To be eligible to apply for honors, a student must demonstrate exceptional skill in the art and craft of prose, poetry, or creative nonfiction. The student must have completed a minimum of two Residential College creative writing classes, although honors students typically complete three or more by the start of their thesis sequence. The student also must hold a GPA of at least 3.4 overall.
Students who meet the above criteria are eligible to apply for the honors thesis project in the winter term of their junior year, typically by late March. To apply, students shall submit:
A writing sample (10 pages of prose or 5 poems) that represents the student’s best, most polished work.
A brief statement (1-2 pages) describing the honors project. Applicants should also include the name of a faculty member they wish to request as their thesis advisor.
Questions about the submittal process can be directed to the creative writing major advisor here
The Honors Committee, consisting of faculty in the Creative Writing program, will judge the student’s work on its quality, originality, and promise of mastery in their chosen genre. The Committee reviews all honors applications after the submission deadline. Students are notified of the Committee’s decision in late March or early April. If the planned project is accepted for honors, the Committee will assign a faculty thesis advisor to the student.
Honors Theses require a two-semester commitment. Students enroll in RCCORE 490 for the fall term and RCHUMS 426 for the winter term. A passing grade in RCCORE 490 earns a Y grade, indicating that the thesis work will continue into the next semester. At the end of the second term, the Y grade converts to the grade earned in RCHUMS 426. Exceptions to the two-semester requirement are rare but may be discussed with the thesis advisor.
When the honors thesis project is complete (typically the last week of March or the first week of April of the senior year), the student’s honors thesis advisor and one other member of the Residential College’s Creative Writing faculty will determine if the project qualifies for honors and (if so) what level of honors the student receives. Honors thesis students also participate in a public reading with fellow thesis students at the end of the winter term (typically the second week of April).
To download the honors information, click here.
Laura Kasischke Poetry; Fiction
Christopher Matthews Fiction; Poetry
Sarah Messer Poetry; Creative Nonfiction; Prison Creative Arts Program
Susan Rosegrant Creative Nonfiction; Journalism; Fiction
Laura Thomas Fiction; Creative Nonfiction
A. Van Jordan Poetry, Film Studies
Aisha Sloan Creative Nonfiction, Digital Storytelling
You don’t need to be a dedicated major to participate in workshops, tutorials, and classes taught by Creative Writing faculty, which are open to enrollment from all students. If even only for a semester, you wish to explore your interest in writing, consider taking a RC Creative Writing course !
For RC students, creative writing courses fulfill the RC Arts Practicum requirement. For RC and LSA students, RCHUMS 220, RCHUMS 221, and RCHUMS 325 satisfy Creative Expression distribution.
You can participate in the RC Review , our annual student-run journal featuring student poetry, fiction, and visual art. RC students can get a credit for participating in the RC Review.
Or consider joining the RC Creative Writing Forum , which like RC Review, offers RC students a credit, but is open to all for participation.
Check out the RC Writers Website, for the Residential College writing community.
Paths to publication: a conversation with allison epstein and jon michael darga.
Link to the video recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ArrpiEKKc
Link to the recording of the webinar on our youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SD6LC4Zu-0
Hone your craft with the pros, start a lifelong apprenticeship in the literary arts.
The creative writing program that nurtured Dennis Lehane ’88, best-selling author and HBO writer/producer, is now accepting applications to earn B.A. and BFA degrees. But you don’t have to be gunning for a Hollywood contract to enroll. Our liberal arts graduates also go on to MFA programs and careers in journalism, media, PR, editing and publishing, counseling and software design.
Writers in paradise.
Spend 8 days in workshops with writers like Andre Dubus III, Anne Hood, Laura Lippman, Lori Roy, Stewart O’Nan, David Yoo and Laura Williams McCaffrey. This writer’s conference is held on our Florida campus every January.
You’ll also have the chance to meet and talk with other celebrated writers including Stephen King, Carl Hiaasen, Julianna Baggott and Mark Bowden. These and other literary lights give talks here throughout the year.
Need help with finances? In addition to the academic scholarships we hand out upon application, you can apply for the Artistic Achievement Award .
Without my mentors through the creative writing department, I wouldn’t be in graduate school studying for my MFA with the opportunities ahead of me to teach and write. With their support, I was able to study travel writing in Paris and London, which was instrumental in my growth as a writer and a person. The creative writing department at Eckerd College is a hidden gem—once you find it, you must hold onto it! —Olivia Jacobson ’22
Creative Writing majors have interned on campus with our student newspaper, The Current , and our literary magazine, Eckerd Review . Another recent student was an editing intern at I Love the Burg , a creative agency in downtown St. Petersburg.
Pay it forward by tutoring with Journeys in Journalism . This community program teaches local elementary, middle and high school students how to be reporters, photographers, editors and page designers for their school newspapers.
Spend a term living at our London Study Centre and studying the literature of Great Britain. Includes a week of travel and tickets to epic museums and theatre productions. Or choose from one of 300+ other destinations we offer every year.
Eckerd is just a stone’s throw from some of America’s hottest literary landmarks and events. Check it out:
Craft of writing.
This course reviews poetic and narrative language and introduces the concept of literary texture. Present what you write in class at public readings held on campus once a semester.
Learn about literary essays by reading masters like Harry Crews, Eudora Welty and Joan Didion. This class explores how to use imagination to shape format, technique and your own personal style.
St. Petersburg, Florida 33711 800.456.9009 or 727.867.1166
The Franklin College Department of English and Creative Writing is committed to the careful study of the individual expression and cultural values found in English, American, and world literature.
The department is one of Franklin College’s most exciting intellectual communities. Our faculty of dedicated teacher-scholars share with students their expertise in, and enthusiasm for, literature from a variety of genres, periods, and cultures—works drawn from the traditional canon to the works of emerging artists, from Greek tragedy to graphic novels, from Shakespearean sonnets to postmodern poetry. Small class sizes mean professors get to know their students and can engage with them in intense debates and deep analyses of literary works that continue outside the classroom.
Our dedicated faculty of practicing writers and scholars guide students in small classes and workshops that cover a variety of genres, as well as provide students with frequent out-of-class opportunities to exercise and hone their craft. Creative writing students can expect a rigorous yet collegial environment that allows for engaged learning, collaboration and experimentation.
Why english and creative writing at franklin college.
Our professors use a variety of approaches that focus on how language and literary forms recreate both individual experiences and the large, impersonal forces that shape cultures and historical periods. In so doing, we seek in our classes to understand the many varieties of the human condition. In addition to taking courses with our award-winning faculty, our creative writing students benefit from the creative writing program’s reading series, which brings talented poets, fiction writers, memoirists, and playwrights to teach and study with them each year.
Not only do English and creative writing majors learn a great deal in the classroom, they also take part in activities related to the disciplines. Such activities regularly include working on the editorial board of the college literary journal, the Apogee (founded in 1961); attending performances and creative-writing readings; and participating in other events in and around Franklin, Indianapolis, Bloomington, Louisville, and elsewhere in the region.
With opportunities to study abroad during entire semesters, during the college’s four-week Immersive Term, or over the summer, English majors have recently taken courses in England, France, Spain, Costa Rica, Germany, Uganda, Japan, and elsewhere.
In keeping with the college’s strong interdisciplinary character, English and Creative Writing majors frequently choose to pursue a second major or a minor in disciplines such as elementary education , French , history , multimedia journalism , political science , philosophy , psychology , religious studies, or Spanish . Recent English courses have been cross-listed in theatre and the liberal arts program, and students may count an upper-level course in French or Spanish literature toward their English degree.
Our faculty advisers are committed to helping students find careers in fields that excite them. Recent graduates have used their English degrees to pursue rewarding careers in teaching, publishing, health care, marketing, business, the performing and creative arts, communications, technical writing, and non-profit management. Others have gone on to graduate programs in English, law, divinity, library science, and counseling.
Program handouts.
Students who choose to study english and creative writing at franklin college can pursue two different majors — english and creative writing. both are also available as a minor. in addition, we offer an additional minor in professional writing..
Immerse yourself in literature, history and the human condition as a Franklin College English major.
Experiment with language and style, developing a unique voice.
Carlson-stauffer visiting writers’ series.
The English and Creative Writing department is proud to sponsor the Carlson-Stauffer Visiting Writers’ Series, which brings nationally recognized authors to campus. All events are free and open to the public.
The series is named for two beloved professors emerita, Kathy Carlson and Emily Stauffer, both of whom retired in spring 2015. Together, their combined service at Franklin College spanned close to 70 years. The series began in 2015 and has allowed the department to host dozens of writers from across the country. Writers hold a publicly open reading. Typically, they also interact with creative writing students at a meal, visit creative writing classes to conduct a masterclass in their genre, and/or offer feedback on students’ writing.
Visiting writers have been poets, fiction writers, YA authors, writers of non-fiction, and multi-genre writers. Some notable names include:
This fall (2024), the department will welcome back Samantha Fain (’20) to celebrate the release of her latest poetry collection, Are You There .
On Nov. 28, 2023, the department welcomed poet Matthew Minicucci for his second visit in our series. Matthew read from his fourth poetry collection, Dual, which was released by Acre Books. The event was held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2023 in the B.F. Hamilton Auditorium. A book signing followed the reading.
“I believe that you get a sense of belonging and that you matter. Personally, I enjoy the conversations with professors and other faculty members and getting to know them.”
Express your creativity through apogee, our annual literary journal., apogee is franklin college’s student-run literary magazine that accepts previously unpublished work in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, drama, and visual art. apogee is an annual publication published in late spring. submissions are open during the summer and fall..
Questions about Apogee ? Contact our Faculty Advisor.
Our mission.
By honing a diverse set of reading and writing skills, the English and creative writing department’s majors and minors recognize the artistic achievements, insights, and possibilities inherent in literature to create their own meaningful work as they prepare for professional positions, graduate study, and civic engagement.
Students in English and Creative Writing will be able to:
In addition to their commitment to the classroom, faculty in the English and creative writing department maintain active scholarly agendas, publishing their research and presenting at major national and international conferences on a wide variety of topics, including the intersections of narrative theory and gender theory; the limitations of humanity in Shakespeare’s Richard II ; modernist irony as a response to colonial exhibitions; flipped classroom pedagogy; landscape and medieval gender roles; feminist readings of global modernism; and deforestation in contemporary Anglophone Caribbean literature. In addition, our creative writing faculty have won awards and national attention for their work.
Introductory courses provide students with an understanding of different creative genres, as well as the fundamentals of creative writing processes, literary citizenship and the contemporary literary landscape. Students learn to read like writers, engaging in literary analysis to appreciate the nuances of text construction. In later courses, students perform genre-specific studies, closely studying, deploying and sharpening particular writing techniques, and engaging in significant revision and experimentation as they hone their unique voices and join ongoing literary conversations.
As creative writers, we untangle texts and cultural contexts to discover new strategies for reading and writing, with students interrogating both the worlds of the texts they read and write, and their own world, understanding how texts communicate, shape and move all of us. Through guided practice, students gain confidence, empathy, and practical critical writing and thinking skills that allow them to make powerful contributions to the world.
Department of english and creative writing.
101 Branigin Blvd. Franklin, IN 46131 Johnson Center for Fine Arts
317.738.8271
Monday - Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridfay, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Main navigation, undergraduate major.
The English department trains skilled and multifaceted users of language. English students learn to read carefully, explore diverse human perspectives and sources of knowledge, and write and communicate persuasively. Whether learning how to analyze a text or how to craft their own writing, English students develop core verbal strengths and can adapt to many exciting career paths.
The College of Arts and Sciences offers a B.A. in English with concentrations in either Creative Writing or Literary Studies on the St. Petersburg campus. View more information about options on the USF Tampa and Sarasota-Manatee campuses.
English at the USF St. Petersburg campus is challenging and exciting. Undergraduates work closely with faculty who are also leading scholars in their field. English students engage closely with their local community, and student-led groups include the English honor society Sigma Tau Delta and the campus literary magazine Papercut. English students at USF St. Petersburg campus may find themselves performing in a play, tending a local community garden, joining social justice movements, organizing for change, or paddling a Florida stream.
The English department offers two concentrations: Creative Writing and Literary Studies. The concentration in Creative Writing is designed for aspiring writers of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Students learn to discuss writing as a craft, explore diverse literary forms and techniques, refine their skills and offer constructive feedback in workshops, and participate in creative literary communities.
The concentration in Literary Studies prepares students to be innovative communicators and researchers, whether they move forward into careers or into graduate school. Students learn how to talk and think analytically about literature, and they consider h, consider historic contexts of literary history, culture, and criticism. Students learn to read deeply and analytically; write critically and creatively; think conceptually and contextually; and engage research tools from rare book collections in the library to the internet.
English graduates pursue careers in medicine, law, financial planning, education, business, and the arts. English alumni from USF St. Petersburg campus include:
Always refer to the Undergraduate Catalog for degree requirements. Students normally begin progress toward the major by taking at least one course from the major core, as these often serve as prerequisites for the electives. Students should consult with an English advisor to create the most beneficial set of courses for them.
For questions about this program, contact an Academic Advisor .
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Visit TIYC. Treasure Island Yacht Club (Building 1) 39 Treasure Island Rd, Suite 133 San Francisco, CA 94130. Treasure Island marina. Please note that Treasure Island Yacht Harbor is managed by Almar Marina which is a separate organization from TIYC. For Slip Reservation please contact the Marina Manager, Anthony Cirillo: 415-981-2416
The Treasure Island Yacht Club, a local waterfront marina and club, was purchased by TIY & TC LLC, a bank-affiliated entity, after closing in August. The new owners plan to operate the club, but face zoning limitations for development.
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Treasure Island Yacht Harbor. The Treasure Island Marina is managed by Almar Marina which is a separate organization from TIYC. For slip reservations please contact the Marina Manager, Anthony Cirillo, at 415-981-2416. ... Treasure Island Yacht Club (Building 1) 39 Treasure Island Rd, Suite 133 San Francisco, CA 94130.
Treasure Island Yacht Club (Building 1) 39 Treasure Island Rd, Suite 133 San Francisco, CA 94130. Treasure Island marina. Please note that Treasure Island Yacht Harbor is managed by Almar Marina which is a separate organization from TIYC. For Slip Reservation please contact the Marina Manager, Anthony Cirillo: 415-981-2416 .
Treasure Island Yacht Club, San Francisco, California. 673 likes · 3,079 were here. TIYC is a small yacht club located in Clipper Cove on Treasure Island. Our membership includes power
From our iconic, Mediterranean-themed architecture to the most exquisite culinary experience anywhere in West Central Florida, The Club at Treasure Island serves as the cultural nerve-center for Tampa Bay's trendsetters and community leaders - the ultimate crossroads of lavish luxury and social responsibility.
TIYC is a small yacht club located at Clipper Cove on Treasure Island at the heart of the San Francisco Bay. We are affiliated with the Pacific Inter-Club Yachting Association, the U.S. Naval Sailing Association, Yachting Club of America and the Yacht Racing Association of San Francisco Bay.
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The 36,966-square-foot club, located at 400 Treasure Island Causeway, features a wraparound swimming pool with a sundeck, a tiki bar, a dining restaurant, a 47-slip marina, six tennis courts, a fitness center and a venue space for weddings and events. The new owner plans to continue to operate the marina. The club was originally for members only.
TIYC is a small yacht club located at Clipper Cove on Treasure Island at the heart of the San Francisco Bay. We are affiliated with the Pacific Inter-Club Yachting Association, the U.S. Naval Sailing Association, Yachting Club of America and the Yacht Racing Association of San Francisco Bay.
The Treasure Island Yacht and Tennis Club has sold for the second time in less than five months since St. Petersburg business mogul Bill Edwards abruptly closed its doors in August 2023. Andrew Tavakoli, CEO of West Hollywood, California-based Tavaco Companies, now controls the 7.76-acre waterfront club and marina at 400 Treasure Island ...
Treasure Island Yacht Club is a small Gem on the water. It is nestled in a very calm cove, with spectacular views of the new span of the bay bridge on one side, and spectacular views of the city of San Francisco. When you are done with a day of racing/sailing on the bay, perhaps this is the perfect place to pull over and do a barbecue :) The ...
The club's previous owner, Bill Edwards, took over the property in 2009 and turned it into an event space after the Treasure Island Yacht and Tennis Club filed for bankruptcy.
Club Calendar Cruise Ins
A former yacht and tennis club turned event space that shut its doors in August now has a new owner. California-based Tavaco Properties acquired the Club at Treasure Island last week and plans to ...
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The 37,000-square-foot Treasure Island Yacht and Tennis Club will soon have a new lease on life as an entertainment and hospitality destination with pickleball facilities. Its new ownership group has no plans to redevelop the embattled property that recently changed hands twice in less than five months. West Hollywood, California-based Tavaco ...
The Club at Treasure Island - Home to Marker14 Restaurant
Coordinates: 43.3969° N, 72.0634° W. Phone : 603-763-5961. General Email : [email protected]. MEMBERSHIP INQUIRIES: [email protected]. Commodore: David Goddard. Email: [email protected]. Please note that LSYC is a seasonal club so the phone is not manned during the winter months. Use an email address above during the off season and we ...
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