English Literature With Creative Writing

Admission to the program is granted primarily on the basis of manuscript quality and the student’s promise.An applicant may be admitted to study as a major, a minor, or a sequence-only student.Recent graduates of the program include Mac Arthur “Genius” Award Winner Karen Russell; Veronica Roth, whose bestselling novel “Divergent” was first drafted while she was a student; poet Peter Kline; and award-winning essayist Angela Mears.

Most Creative Writing Majors begin taking creative writing courses in their sophomore year and complete the yearlong “sequence” of study during their junior year, and some have the opportunity to complete an additional honors project before graduation (see Recommended Schedule for Prospective Writing Majors below).

Students also learn from prominent visiting writers at our annual Festival of Writing in the Spring.

Award-winning authors teach poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, as well as courses that cross genres, guiding students to examine literary works as writers and encouraging them to study the best literary models.

Professors and students work in a close-knit community as they write their own stories, novellas, poems and essays within the living tradition of literature.

If you’re an aspiring writer and a literature enthusiast, this is the course combination for you.

On this course you’ll study some of the most vital and influential works of literature, as well as develop a wide range of creative writing skills and knowledge, looking at forms such as novels, short stories, poetry, plays, screenplays and graphic novels.

Poetry students study the uses of metaphor and mode, and the theory of prosody (including both the major form of poetry in English-accentual-syllabic verse-and the minor forms, accentual, syllabic, and free verse).

Fiction students consider the tenets of realism and its alternatives, and practice different approaches to style, characterization, structure, and point of view.

On the 200-level, no prior knowledge of the genre is required.

Note: Admission to the next stage of the Creative Writing Major or the Sequence-based Minor in Creative Writing, the year-long 300-level advanced course sequences, is competitive.