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A PhD in creative writing opens doors to a variety of career paths that may not be available to talented writers without this degree. If you want to enhance your writing skills and discover new employment opportunities, getting a PhD online can be an excellent solution.

An online Ph.D. in creative writing is a great option for students who aren’t ready to give up personal and professional commitments to pursue a degree. By attending classes online and watching recorded lectures, you can finish your studies without leaving the comfort of your own home.

The key to getting an online PhD is choosing the best option for your needs. Let’s take a closer look at the selection process.

When considering an online Ph.D. you need to understand what this degree entails as well as the opportunities it offers. This terminal degree focuses on the advanced study of creative writing. It is designed for individuals with a passion for writing who aspire to become professionals in the writing industry.

A doctor in creative writing goes beyond the traditional creative writing workshops. It explores the theoretical and critical aspects of the craft. It combines creative writing with scholarly research. The studies allow students to develop their writing skills by engaging in in-depth analysis and reflection on the creative process.

One of the key components of this PhD is writing a creative dissertation. This work demonstrates the student’s mastery of the craft and often takes the form of a novel, a collection of short stories, poetry, or a screenplay. The creative dissertation involves a critical component that demonstrates the student’s understanding and analysis of their creative work. It’s done within the context of existing literary traditions and theories.

In addition to the creative dissertation, students pursuing a doctorate in creative writing engage in rigorous coursework that covers multiple topics. These may include:

• Literary theory
• Genre studies
• Literary criticism
• Research methods

The coursework provides a strong foundation in the theoretical and critical aspects of creative writing. It provides students with the knowledge and skills necessary to contribute to the field.

This PhD also offers opportunities for professional development and networking. Many courses provide teaching or editorial assistantships, allowing students to gain valuable experience in the classroom. These opportunities not only provide financial support but also enhance the student’s teaching and mentoring skills. Such an approach prepares them for careers in academia or writing-related fields.

A doctorate in creative writing opens doors for students who are interested in pursuing careers as writers, editors, or literary agents. The degree demonstrates a high level of expertise and dedication to the craft. This turns graduates into highly sought-after professionals in the publishing industry. It also provides opportunities for collaboration with established writers through conferences, workshops, and literary events.

Students who opt for an online doctorate enjoy the flexibility and convenience of the format. Online schedules provide access to quality education and resources, allowing students to engage in coursework and research from anywhere in the world. Online learning platforms facilitate interaction with faculty and foster a supportive and collaborative environment.

Career Opportunities with an Online PhD in Creative Writing

After completing an online PhD in Creative Writing, you can either pursue your current career or explore other opportunities. Positions that graduates of online PhD programs can consider include:

Many graduates go on to teach at the university level. They can become professors of creative writing to teach aspiring writers and share their expertise. These positions often involve mentoring students, leading workshops, and conducting research in the field.

Graduates may secure positions as writers-in-residence at universities, organizations, or cultural institutions. In this role, they have the opportunity to work on their own writing projects while also engaging with the community through public readings, workshops, and literary events.

With their deep understanding of the craft of writing, doctoral graduates can pursue careers in editing. You may choose to work as an editor for a publishing house, literary magazine, or online publication. Alternatively, you can start your own editing business and offer services to writers.

Graduates can also explore careers as literary agents. With your knowledge of the publishing industry and the ability to identify exceptional writing talent, you can help other authors navigate the publishing world and build successful writing careers.

Many doctoral graduates choose to pursue freelance writing careers. They may write for magazines, newspapers, websites, or other publications. By leveraging advanced writing skills and critical thinking abilities, you can produce high-quality content across various genres.

After finishing an online PhD program, some people go on to become poet laureates or poetry consultants. In these roles, they promote and celebrate poetry within the community, organize events, and engage in public speaking engagements.

Graduates with a doctor of philosophy in Creative Writing can pursue careers as literary critics or reviewers. They can write book reviews for newspapers, magazines, or online platforms. Their skills allow these professionals to conduct insightful analyses and provide valuable commentary on contemporary literature.

Some doctorate program graduates choose to work in nonprofit organizations related to the literary arts. They may become directors, coordinators, or administrators. Your responsibilities can include organizing writing workshops, author events, and literary festivals.

With their strong writing skills and ability to craft compelling narratives, creative writers with a Ph.D. can excel in content writing and strategy roles. They may work for marketing agencies, businesses, or organizations. In these roles, you may be responsible for creating engaging content for websites, social media, and other platforms.

Graduates can explore careers in screenwriting. They can write scripts for television shows, films, or web series. By leveraging your storytelling abilities and understanding of narrative structure, you can come up with high-quality entertainment content.

Is Getting an Online PhD in Creative Writing a Good Idea?

Obtaining an online doctor of philosophy in creative writing can be a highly rewarding process. It can offer numerous benefits for aspiring writers. Here are a few reasons why it’s worth considering:

A PhD allows you to deepen your understanding of the craft and take your writing skills to an advanced level. Through rigorous coursework, critical analysis, and the production of a creative dissertation, students gain a comprehensive knowledge of the field. They also learn how to develop a unique writing voice.

An online PhD in creative writing can open up many interesting career opportunities. It can qualify graduates for positions as:

• Professors of creative writing
• Writers-in-residence
• Literary agents
• And many more.

This degree demonstrates a high level of expertise and dedication and backs the writer’s talent. When interviewing for a dream job, writers with a PhD have the upper hand.

Pursuing a PhD in creative writing is not just about professional development. It is also a journey of personal growth and self-discovery. Engaging with advanced coursework and exploring new literary theories allows writers to push the boundaries of their creative abilities.

Overall, if you love your writing experience and want to continue your career as a writer, a creative writing doctorate is worth pursuing. It can help you achieve career goals, learn new writing tactics, and explore valuable collaborations.

Top Online PhD Programs in Creative Writing

When choosing the best courses, you need to pay attention to the school’s location (in case occasional visits to the campus are required), accreditation, and time of schedule completion.

This list contains the top online PhD programs in creative writing to help you make the most suitable choice for your needs.

Located in Birmingham, UK, the University of Birmingham offers a solid doctorate program in Creative Writing . The duration of the course is three years if you decide to study full-time. If you enroll in a part-time course, it will take six years to complete.

The creative writing program involves collaboration with published writers, the development of creative writing knowledge, honing critique skills, and discovering new forms of writing for yourself.

The admissions requirements include:

• Master’s degree or relevant experience
• Description of creative project
• Description of the likely critical inquiry
• Examples of creative work
• Personal statement

The school is accredited by the Accredited Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business

Located in Nottingham, UK, the University of Nottingham has a strong online creative writing PhD program . The full-time schedule takes four years while part-time studies will require eight years. You will be studying independently while getting assistance from faculty through online supervision meetings. By the end of the course, you will complete a 100,000-word written thesis.

Admissions requirements include:

• English proficiency tests if you aren’t a native English speaker
• A PhD proposal
• Summary of research experience

The school is accredited by the Accredited Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.

Located in Lancaster, UK, Lancaster University offers an online PhD program . The full-time program only takes two years to complete while the part-time program is four years long. During the program, you will work with renowned published writers to hone your writing and creative skills. Lancaster University graduates have published multiple pieces of work and have exciting careers in the writing industry.

Admission requirements include:

• Master’s degree or equivalent (for students from the US, a bachelor’s degree will be sufficient)
• Research proposal
• Portfolio of original writing

Located in Manchester, UK, Manchester Metropolitan University has a distance PhD program in Creative Writing . The program allows you to hone your writing skills together with research training. You can study online but may need to attend some offline workshops and seminars.

• Two letters or recommendations
• A research proposal
• Master’s degree or bachelor’s degree
• Official transcripts
• Examples of your work

Requirements for international students may be different.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the advantages of pursuing an online PhD program in Creative Writing? An online PhD program offers flexibility by allowing students to study at their own pace regardless of their location. It also provides access to a diverse community of writer and industry professionals remotely. Are online PhD programs in Creative Writing as reputable as traditional on-campus programs? Yes, many online PhD programs in Creative Writing are offered by reputable universities and institutions. Accredited online programs often have the same rigorous curriculum and faculty as their on-campus counterparts. How does the online format impact the quality of education in a PhD program? Online PhD programs leverage various interactive technologies to deliver engaging learning experiences. Students have access to digital libraries, research databases, and other valuable information resources. Can I pursue an online doctorate in Creative Writing while working full-time? Yes, online programs offer flexibility that allows students to balance their studies with professional and personal commitments. You can usually access course materials and participate in discussions at your convenience. How long does the online PhD program in Creative Writing usually take to complete? The duration of online PhD programs in creative writing varies from school to school. For full-time format, it usually takes two to four years. If you choose to study part-time, the duration increases.

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Ph.D. Creative Writing

Ph.d. in creative writing.

A rigorous program that combines creative writing and literary studies, the Ph.D. in Creative Writing prepares graduates for both scholarly and creative publication and teaching. With faculty guidance, students admitted to the Ph.D. program may tailor their programs to their goals and interests.

The creative writing faculty at KU has been widely published and anthologized, winning both critical and popular acclaim. Faculty awards include such distinctions as the Nebula Award, Hugo Award, Osborn Award, Shelley Memorial Award, Gertrude Stein Award, the Kenyon Review Prize, the Kentucky Center Gold Medallion, and the Pushcart Prize.

Regarding admission to both our doctoral and MFA creative writing programs, we will prioritize applicants who are interested in engaging with multiple faculty members to practice writing across genres and forms, from speculative fiction and realism to poetry and playwriting/screenwriting, etc.

The University of Kansas' Graduate Program in Creative Writing also offers an  M.F.A degree .

Opportunities

A GTA appointment includes a tuition waiver for ten semesters plus a competitive stipend. In the first year, GTA appointees teach English 101 (first year composition) and English 102 (a required reading and writing course). Creative Writing Ph.D. students may have the opportunity to teach an introductory course in creative writing after passing the doctoral examination, and opportunities are available for a limited number of advanced GTAs to teach in the summer.

Department Resources

• Graduate Admissions
• Graduate Contacts
• Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.)

Affiliated Programs

• LandLocked Literary Magazine
• The Project on the History of Black Writing
• Center for the Study of Science Fiction
• Ad-Hoc African/Americanists and Affiliates

Degree Requirements

• At least 24 hours of credit in appropriate formal graduate courses beyond the M.A. or M.F.A. At least 15 hours (in addition to ENGL 800 if not taken for the M.A.) of this course work must be taken from among courses offered by the Department of English at the 700-level and above. English 997 and 999 credits cannot be included among the 24 hours. Students may petition to take up to 6 hours outside the Department.
• ENGL 800: Methods, Theory, and Professionalism (counts toward the 24 required credit hours).
• The ENGL 801/ENGL 802 pedagogy sequence (counts toward the 24 required credit hours).
• Two seminars (courses numbered 900 or above) offered by the Department of English at the University of Kansas, beyond the M.A. or M.F.A. ENGL 998 does not fulfill this requirement.
• ENGL 999, Dissertation (at least 12 hours).

If the M.A. or M.F.A. was completed in KU’s Department of English, a doctoral student may petition the DGS to have up to 12 hours of the coursework taken in the English Department reduced toward the Ph.D.

For Doctoral students,  the university requires completion of a course in responsible scholarship . For the English department, this would be ENGL 800, 780, or the equivalent). In addition, the Department requires reading knowledge of one approved foreign language: Old English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Greek, Latin, or Hebrew. Upon successful petition, a candidate may substitute reading knowledge of another language or research skill that is studied at the University or is demonstrably appropriate to the candidate’s program of study.

Doctoral students must fulfill the requirement  before  they take their doctoral examination, or be enrolled in a reading course the same semester as the exam. Students are permitted three attempts at passing each foreign language or research skill. Three methods of demonstrating reading knowledge for all approved languages except Old English are acceptable:

• Presenting 16 hours, four semesters, or the equivalent of undergraduate credit, earned with an average of C or better.
• Passing a graduate reading course at the University of Kansas or peer institution (e.g., French 100, German 100, etc.) with a grade of C or higher. In the past, some of these reading courses have been given by correspondence; check with the Division of Continuing Education for availability.
• Passing a translation examination given by a designated member of the English Department faculty or by the appropriate foreign language department at KU. The exam is graded pass/fail and requires the student to translate as much as possible of a representative text in the foreign language in a one-hour period, using a bilingual dictionary.
• Passing a translation examination given by the appropriate foreign language department at the M.A.-granting institution. Successful completion must be reflected either on the M.A. transcript or by a letter from the degree-granting department.

To fulfill the language requirement using Old English, students must successfully complete ENGL 710 (Introduction to Old English) and ENGL 712 (Beowulf).

Post-Coursework Ph.D. students must submit, with their committee chair(s), an annual review form to the DGS and Graduate Committee.

Doctoral students must take their doctoral examination within three semesters (excluding summers) of the end of the semester in which they took their final required course. If a student has an Incomplete, the timeline is not postponed until the Incomplete is resolved. For example, a student completing doctoral course work in Spring 2018 will need to schedule their doctoral exam no later than the end of Fall semester 2019. Delays may be granted by petition to the Graduate Director in highly unusual circumstances. Failure to take the exam within this time limit without an approved delay will result in the student’s falling out of good standing. For details on the consequences of falling out of good standing, see “Falling Out of Good Standing,” in General Department Policies and Best Practices.

A student may not take their doctoral exam until the university’s Research Skills and Responsible Scholarship requirement is fulfilled (ENGL 800 or equivalent and reading knowledge of one foreign language or equivalent).

Requirements for Doctoral Exams

Reading Lists: 

All students are required to submit three reading lists, based on the requirements below, to their committee for approval. The doctoral exam will be held on a date at least twelve weeks after the approval from the whole committee is received. To facilitate quick committee approval, students may copy the graduate program coordinator on the email to the committee that contains the final version of the lists. Committee members may then respond to the email in lieu of signing a printed copy. Students should work with their committee chair and graduate program coordinator to schedule the exam at the same time as they finalize the lists.

During the two-hour oral examination (plus an additional 15-30 minutes for a break and committee deliberation), a student will be tested on their comprehension of a literary period or movement, including multiple genres and groups of authors within that period or movement. In addition, the student will be tested on two of the following six areas of study:

• An adjacent or parallel literary period or movement,
• An author or group of related authors,
• Criticism and literary theory,
• Composition theory, and
• English language.

No title from any field list may appear on either of the other two lists. See Best Practices section for more details on these six areas. See below for a description of the Review of the Dissertation Proposal (RDP), which the candidate takes the semester after passing the doctoral exam. 

While many students confer with the DGS as they begin the process of developing their lists, they are also required to submit a copy of their final exam list to the DGS. Most lists will be left intact, but the DGS might request that overly long lists be condensed, or extremely short lists be expanded.

Review of Literature

The purpose of the Review of Literature is to develop and demonstrate an advanced awareness of the critical landscape for each list. The student will write an overview of the defining attributes of the field, identifying two or three broad questions that animate scholarly discussion, while using specific noteworthy texts from their list ( but not all texts on the list ) as examples.

The review also must accomplish the following:

• consider the historical context of major issues, debates, and trends that factor into the emergence of the field
• offer a historical overview of scholarship in the field that connects the present to the past
• note recent trends and emergent lines of inquiry
• propose questions about (develop critiques of, and/or identify gaps in) the field and how they might be pursued in future study (but not actually proposing or referencing a dissertation project)

For example, for a literary period, the student might include an overview of primary formal and thematic elements, of the relationship between literary and social/historical developments, of prominent movements, (etc.), as well as of recent critical debates and topics.

For a genre list, the Review of Literature might include major theories of its constitution and significance, while outlining the evolution of these theories over time.

For a Rhetoric and Composition list, the review would give an overview of major historical developments, research, theories, methods, debates, and trends of scholarship in the field.

For an English Language Studies (ELS) list, the review would give an overview of the subfields that make up ELS, the various methodological approaches to language study, the type of sources used, and major aims and goals of ELS. The review also usually involves a focus on one subfield of particular interest to the student (such as stylistics, sociolinguistics, or World/Postcolonial Englishes).

Students are encouraged to divide reviews into smaller sections that enhance clarity and organization. Students are not expected to interact with every text on their lists.

The review of literature might be used to prepare students for identifying the most important texts in the field, along with why those texts are important to the field, for the oral exam. It is recommended for students to have completed reading the bulk of (if not all) texts on their lists before writing the ROL.

The Reviews of Literature will not be produced in an exam context, but in the manner of papers that are researched and developed in consultation with all advisors/committee members,  with final drafts being distributed within a reasonable time for all members to review and approve in advance of the 3-week deadline . While the Review of Literature generally is not the focus of the oral examination, it is frequently used as a point of departure for questions and discussion during the oral examination.

Doctoral Exam Committee

Exam committees typically consist of 3 faculty members from the department—one of whom serves as the Committee Chair—plus a Graduate Studies Representative.  University policy dictates the composition of exam committees . Students may petition for an exception for several committee member situations, with the exception of  the Graduate Studies Representative .

If a student wants to have as a committee member a person outside the university, or a person who is not in a full-time tenure-track professorship at KU, the student must contact the Graduate Secretary as early as possible. Applications for special graduate faculty status must be reviewed by the College and Graduate Studies. Requests for exam/defense approval will not be approved unless all committee members currently hold either regular or special graduate faculty status

Remote participation of committee members via technology

Students with committee members who plan to attend the defense via remote technology must be aware of  college policy on teleconferencing/remote participation of committee members .

A majority of committee members must be physically present for an examination to commence; for doctoral oral examinations this requirement is 2 of the 4 members, for master’s oral examinations the requirement is 2 of the 3 members. In addition, it is required that the student being examined, the chair of the committee, and the Graduate Studies Representative all be physically present at the examination or defense. Mediated attendance by the student, chair and Grad Studies Rep is prohibited.

The recommended time between completion of coursework and the doctoral examination is two semesters.

Final exam lists need to be approved and signed by the committee at least 12 weeks prior to the prospective exam date. This includes summers/summer semesters. The lists should then be submitted to the Graduate Program Coordinator. Reviews of Literature need to be approved and signed by the committee at least 3 weeks prior to the exam date. Failure to meet this deadline will result in rescheduling the exam. No further changes to lists or Reviews of Literature will be allowed after official approval. The three-week deadline is the faculty deadline--the last date for them to confirm receipt of the ROLs and confer approval--not necessarily the student deadline for submitting the documents to the faculty. Please keep that timing in mind and allow your committee adequate time to review the materials and provide feedback.

Students taking the Doctoral Exam are allowed to bring their text lists, the approved Reviews of Literature, scratch paper, a writing utensil, and notes/writing for an approximately 5-minute introductory statement to the exam. (This statement does not need to lay out ideas or any aspect of the dissertation project.)

Each portion of the oral examination must be deemed passing before the student can proceed to the Review of the Dissertation Proposal. If a majority of the committee judges that the student has not answered adequately on one of the three areas of the exam, the student must repeat that portion in a separate oral exam of one hour, to be taken as expeditiously as possible.  Failure in two areas constitutes failure of the exam and requires a retake of the whole.  The doctoral examining committee will render a judgment of Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory on the entire examination. A student who fails the exam twice may, upon successful petition to the Graduate Committee, take it a third and final time.

Students cannot bring snacks, drinks, treats, or gifts for committee members to the exam. Professors should avoid the appearance of favoritism that may occur if they bring treats to some student exams but not others.

The doctoral oral examination has the following purposes:

• To establish goals, tone, and direction for the pursuit of the Ph.D. in English for the Department and for individual programs of study;
• To make clear the kinds of knowledge and skills that, in the opinion of the Department, all well-prepared holders of the degree should have attained;
• To provide a means for the Department to assess each candidate’s control of such knowledge and skills in order to certify that the candidate is prepared to write a significant dissertation and enter the profession; and
• To enable the Department to recommend to the candidate areas of strength or weakness that should be addressed.

In consultation with the Graduate Director, a student will ask a member of the Department’s graduate faculty (preferably their advisor) to be the chairperson of the examining committee. The choice of examination committee chair is very important, for that person’s role is to assist the candidate in designing the examination structure, preparing the Review of Literature (see below), negotiating reading lists and clarifying their purposes, and generally following procedures here outlined. The other three English Department members of the committee will be chosen in consultation with the committee chair. (At some point an additional examiner from outside the Department, who serves as the Graduate School representative, will be invited to join the committee). Any unresolved problems in negotiation between a candidate and their committee should be brought to the attention of the Graduate Director, who may choose to involve the Graduate Committee. A student may request a substitution in, or a faculty member may ask to be dismissed from, the membership of the examining committee. Such requests must be approved, in writing, by the faculty member leaving the committee and by the Graduate Director.

Reading Lists

Copies of some approved reading lists and Reviews of Literature are available from the Graduate Secretary and can be found on the U: drive if you are using a computer on campus. Despite the goal of fairness and equity, some unavoidable unevenness and disparity will appear in the length of these lists. It remains, however, the responsibility of the examining committee, and especially the student’s chair, to aim toward consonance with the most rigorous standards and expectations and to insure that areas of study are not unduly narrow.

To facilitate quick committee approval, students may copy the graduate secretary on the email to the committee that contains the final version of the lists and reviews of literature. Committee members may then respond to the email in lieu of signing a printed copy.

Comprehension of a literary period (e.g., British literature of the 18th century; Romanticism; US literature of the 19th century; Modernism) entails sufficient intellectual grasp of both the important primary works of and secondary works on the period or movement to indicate a student’s ability to teach the period or movement and undertake respectable scholarship on it.

Comprehension of an author or group of related authors (e.g., Donne, the Brontës, the Bloomsbury Group, the Black Mountain Poets) entails knowledge, both primary and secondary, of a figure or figures whose writing has generated a significant body of interrelated biographical, historical, and critical scholarship.

Comprehension of one of several genres (the short story, the lyric poem, the epistolary novel). To demonstrate comprehension of a genre, a student should possess sufficient depth and breadth of knowledge, both primary and secondary, of the genre to explain its formal characteristics and account for its historical development.

Comprehension of criticism and literary theory entails a grasp of fundamental conceptual problems inherent in a major school of literary study (e.g., historicist, psychoanalytic, feminist, poststructuralist, etc.). To demonstrate comprehension of that school of criticism and literary theory, a student should be able to discuss changes in its conventions and standards of interpretation and evaluation of literature from its beginning to the present. Students will be expected to possess sufficient depth and breadth of theoretical knowledge to bring appropriate texts and issues to bear on questions of literary study.

Comprehension of composition theory entails an intellectual grasp of fundamental concepts, issues, and theories pertaining to the study of writing. To demonstrate comprehension of composition theory, students should be able to discuss traditional and current issues from a variety of perspectives, as well as the field’s historical development from classical rhetoric to the present.

Comprehension of the broad field of English language studies entails a grasp of the field’s theoretical concepts and current issues, as well as a familiarity with significant works within given subareas. Such subareas will normally involve formal structures (syntax, etc.) and history of the English language, along with other subareas such as social linguistics, discourse analysis, lexicography, etc. Areas of emphasis and specific sets of topics will be arranged through consultation with relevant faculty.

Ph.D. candidates must be continuously enrolled in Dissertation hours each Fall and Spring semester from the time they pass the doctoral examination until successful completion of the final oral examination (defense of dissertation).

• Students enroll for a minimum of 6 hours each Fall and Spring semester until the total of post-doctoral exam Dissertation hours is 18. One hour each semester must be ENGL 999. In order to more quickly reach the 18-hour minimum, and to be sooner eligible for GRAships, it is highly recommended that students enroll in 9 hours of Dissertation in the Spring and Fall semesters. 
• Once a student has accumulated 18 post-doctoral exam  hours, each subsequent enrollment will be for a number of hours agreed upon as appropriate between the student and their advisor, the minimal enrollment each semester being 1 hour of ENGL 999.
• A student must be enrolled in at least one hour of credit at KU during the semester they graduate. Although doctoral students must be enrolled in ENGL 999 while working on their dissertations, per current CLAS regulations, there is no absolute minimum number of ENGL 999 hours required for graduation.
• Students who live and work outside the Lawrence area may, under current University regulations, have their fees assessed at the Field Work rate, which is somewhat lower than the on-campus rate. Students must petition the College Office of Graduate Affairs before campus fees will be waived.

Please also refer to  the COGA policy on post-exam enrollment  or the  Graduate School’s policy .

As soon as possible following successful completion of the doctoral exam, the candidate should establish their three-person core dissertation committee, and then expeditiously proceed to the preparation of a dissertation proposal.  Within the semester following completion of the doctoral exam , the student will present to their core dissertation committee a written narrative of approximately  10-15 pages , not including bibliography, of the dissertation proposal. While the exam schedule is always contingent on student progress, in the first two weeks of the semester in which they intend to take the review , students will work with their committee chair and the graduate program coordinator to schedule the 90-minute RDP. Copies of this proposal must be submitted to the members of the dissertation committee and Graduate Program Coordinator no later than  three weeks prior  to the scheduled examination date.

In the proposal, students will be expected to define: the guiding question or set of questions; a basic thesis (or hypothesis); how the works to be studied or the creative writing produced relate to that (hypo)thesis; the theoretical/methodological model to be followed; the overall formal divisions of the dissertation; and how the study will be situated in the context of prior scholarship (i.e., its importance to the field). The narrative section should be followed by a bibliography demonstrating that the candidate is conversant with the basic theoretical and critical works pertinent to the study. For creative writing students, the proposal may serve as a draft of the critical introduction to the creative dissertation. Students are expected to consult with their projected dissertation committee concerning the preparation of the proposal.

The review will focus on the proposal, although it could also entail determining whether or not the candidate’s knowledge of the field is adequate to begin the composition process. The examination will be graded pass/fail. If it is failed, the committee will suggest areas of weakness to be addressed by the candidate, who will rewrite the proposal and retake the review  by the end of the following semester . If the candidate abandons the entire dissertation project for another, a new RDP will be taken. (For such a step to be taken, the change would need to be drastic, such as a move to a new field or topic. A change in thesis or the addition or subtraction of one or even several works to be examined would not necessitate a new proposal and defense.)  If the student fails to complete the Review of the Dissertation Proposal within a year of the completion of the doctoral exams, they will have fallen out of departmental good standing.  For details on the consequences of falling out of good standing, see “Falling Out of Good Standing,” in General Department Policies and Best Practices.

After passing the Review of the Dissertation Proposal, the student should forward one signed copy of the proposal to the Graduate Program Coordinator. The RDP may last no longer than 90 minutes.

Students cannot bring snacks, drinks, treats, or gifts for committee members to the review. Professors should avoid the appearance of favoritism that may occur if they bring treats to some student exams but not others.

The Graduate Catalog states that the doctoral candidate “must present a dissertation showing the planning, conduct and results of original research, and scholarly creativity.” While most Ph.D. candidates in the Department of English write dissertations of a traditional, research-oriented nature, a creative writing candidate may elect to do a creative-writing dissertation involving fiction, poetry, drama or nonfiction prose.  Such a dissertation must also contain a substantial section of scholarly research related to the creative writing.  The precise nature of the scholarly research component should be determined by the candidate in consultation with the dissertation committee and the Graduate Director. Candidates wishing to undertake such a dissertation must complete all Departmental requirements demanded for the research-oriented Ph.D. degree.

Scholarly Research Component (SRC)

The Scholarly Research Component (SRC) of the creative-writing dissertation is a separate section of the dissertation than the creative work. It involves substantial research and is written in the style of academic prose. It should be 15-20 pages and should cite at least 20 sources, some of which should be primary texts, and many of which should be from the peer-reviewed secondary literature. The topic must relate, in some way, to the topic, themes, ideas, or style of the creative portion of the dissertation; this relation should be stated in the Dissertation Proposal, which should include a section describing the student’s plans for the SRC. The SRC may be based on a seminar paper or other work the student has completed prior to the dissertation; but the research should be augmented, and the writing revised, per these guidelines. The SRC is a part of the dissertation, and as such will be included in the dissertation defense.

The SRC may take two general forms:

1.) An article, publishable in a peer-reviewed journal or collection, on a specific topic related to an author, movement, theoretical issue, taxonomic issue, etc. that has bearing on the creative portion. The quality of this article should be high enough that the manuscript could be submitted to a peer-reviewed publication, with a plausible chance of acceptance.

2.) A survey . This survey may take several different forms:

• A survey of a particular aspect of the genre of the creative portion of the dissertation (stylistic, national, historical, etc.)
• An introduction to the creative portion of the dissertation that explores the influences on, and the theoretical or philosophical foundations or implications of the creative work
• An exploration of a particular technical problem or craft issue that is salient in the creative portion of the dissertation
• If the creative portion of the dissertation includes the results of research (e.g., historical novel, documentary poetry, research-based creative nonfiction), a descriptive overview of the research undertaken already for the dissertation itself
• A combination of the above, with the prior approval of the student’s dissertation director.

The dissertation committee will consist of at least four members—two “core” English faculty members, a third faculty member (usually from English), and one faculty member from a different department who serves as the Graduate Studies representative. The committee may include (with the Graduate Director’s approval) members from other departments and, with the approval of the University’s Graduate Council, members from outside the University. If a student wants to have a committee member from outside the university, or a person who is not in a full-time tenure-track professorship at KU, the student must contact the Graduate Secretary as early as possible. Applications for special graduate faculty status must be reviewed by the College and the Office of Graduate Studies. Requests for defense approval will not be approved unless all committee members currently hold either regular or special graduate faculty status.

The candidate’s preferences as to the membership of the dissertation committee will be carefully considered; the final decision, however, rests with the Department and with the Office of Graduate Studies. All dissertation committees must get approval from the Director of Graduate Studies before scheduling the final oral exam (defense). Furthermore, any changes in the make-up of the dissertation committee from the Review of the Dissertation Proposal committee must be approved by the Director of Graduate Studies.

Once the dissertation proposal has passed and the writing of the dissertation begins, membership of the dissertation committee should remain constant. However, under extraordinary circumstances, a student may request a substitution in, or a faculty member may ask to be dismissed from, the membership of the dissertation committee. Such requests must be approved, in writing, by the faculty member leaving the committee and by the Graduate Director.

If a student does not make progress during the dissertation-writing stage, and accumulates more than one “Limited Progress” and/or “No Progress” grade on their transcript, they will fall out of good standing in the department. For details on the consequences of falling out of good standing, see “Falling Out of Good Standing,” in General Department Policies and Best Practices

Final Oral Exam (Dissertation Defense)

When the dissertation has been tentatively accepted by the dissertation committee (not including the Graduate Studies Representative), the final oral examination will be held, on the recommendation of the Department. While the exam schedule is always contingent on student progress, in the first two weeks of the semester in which they intend to defend the dissertation, students should work with their committee chair and graduate program coordinator to schedule it.

Although the dissertation committee is responsible for certification of the candidate, any member of the graduate faculty may be present at the examination and participate in the questioning, and one examiner—the Graduate Studies Representative—must be from outside the Department. The Graduate Secretary can help students locate an appropriate Grad Studies Rep. The examination normally lasts no more than two hours. It is the obligation of the candidate to advise the Graduate Director that they plan to take the oral examination; this must be done at least one month before the date proposed for the examination.

At least three calendar weeks prior to the defense date, the student will submit the final draft of the dissertation to all the committee members (including the GSR) and inform the Graduate Program Coordinator. Failure to meet this deadline will necessitate rescheduling the defense.  The final oral examination for the Ph.D. in English is, essentially, a defense of the dissertation. When it is passed, the dissertation itself is graded by the dissertation director, in consultation with the student’s committee; the student’s performance in the final examination (defense) is graded by the entire five-person committee

Students cannot bring snacks, drinks, treats, or gifts for committee members to the defense. Professors should avoid the appearance of favoritism that may occur if they bring treats to some student defenses but not others

These sets of attributes are adapted from the Graduate Learner Outcomes that are a part of our Assessment portfolio. “Honors” should only be given to dissertations that are rated “Outstanding” in all or most of the following categories:

• Significant and innovative plot/structure/idea/focus. The writer clearly places plot/structure/idea/focus in context.
• Thorough knowledge of literary traditions. Clear/flexible vision of the creative work produced in relation to those literary traditions.
• Introduction/Afterword is clear, concise, and insightful. A detailed discussion of the implications of the project and future writing projects exists.
• The creative dissertation reveals the doctoral candidate’s comprehensive understanding of poetics and/or aesthetic approach. The application of the aesthetic approach is innovative and convincing.
• The creative dissertation represents original and sophisticated creative work.
• The creative dissertation demonstrates thematic and/or aesthetic unity.

After much discussion about whether the “honors” designation assigned after the dissertation defense should be for the written product only, for the defense/discussion only, for both together, weighted equally, or eradicated altogether, the department voted to accept the Graduate Committee recommendation that “honors” only apply to the written dissertation. "Honors" will be given to dissertations that are rated "Outstanding" in all or most of the categories on the dissertation rubric.

Normally, the dissertation will present the results of the writer’s own research, carried on under the direction of the dissertation committee. This means that the candidate should be in regular contact with all members of the committee during the dissertation research and writing process, providing multiple drafts of chapters, or sections of chapters, according to the arrangements made between the student and each faculty member. Though accepted primarily for its scholarly merit rather than for its rhetorical qualities, the dissertation must be stylistically competent. The Department has accepted the MLA Handbook as the authority in matters of style. The writer may wish to consult also  the Chicago Manual of Style  and Kate L. Turabian’s  A Manual for Writers of Dissertations, Theses, and Term Papers .

Naturally, both the student and the dissertation committee have responsibilities and obligations to each other concerning the submitting and returning of materials. The student should plan on working steadily on the dissertation; if they do so, they should expect from the dissertation committee a reasonably quick reading and assessment of material submitted.

Students preparing their dissertation should be showing chapters to their committee members as they go along, for feedback and revision suggestions. They should also meet periodically with committee members to assess their progress. Prior to scheduling a defense, the student is encouraged to ask committee members whether they feel that the student is ready to defend the dissertation. Ideally, the student should hold the defense only when they have consulted with committee members sufficiently to feel confident that they have revised the dissertation successfully to meet the expectations of all committee members.

Students should expect that they will need to revise each chapter at least once. This means that all chapters (including introduction and conclusion) are shown to committee members once, revised, then shown to committee members again in revised form to assess whether further revisions are needed, prior to the submitting of the final dissertation as a whole. It is not unusual for further revisions to be required and necessary after the second draft of a chapter; students should not therefore simply assume that a second draft is necessarily “final” and passing work.

If a substantial amount of work still needs to be completed or revised at the point that the dissertation defense is scheduled, such a defense date should be regarded as tentative, pending the successful completion, revision, and receipt of feedback on all work. Several weeks prior to the defense, students should consult closely with their dissertation director and committee members about whether the dissertation as a whole is in a final and defensible stage. A project is ready for defense when it is coherent, cohesive, well researched, engages in sophisticated analysis (in its entirety or in the critical introduction of creative dissertations), and makes a significant contribution to the field. In other words, it passes each of the categories laid out in the Dissertation Rubric.

If the dissertation has not clearly reached a final stage, the student and dissertation director are advised to reschedule the defense.

Prior Publication of the Doctoral Dissertation

Portions of the material written by the doctoral candidate may appear in article form before completion of the dissertation. Prior publication does not ensure the acceptance of the dissertation by the dissertation committee. Final acceptance of the dissertation is subject to the approval of the dissertation committee. Previously published material by other authors included in the dissertation must be properly documented.

Each student beyond the master’s degree should confer regularly with the Graduate Director regarding their progress toward the doctoral examination and the doctorate.

Doctoral students may take graduate courses outside the English Department if, in their opinion and that of the Graduate Director, acting on behalf of the Graduate Committee, those courses will be of value to them. Their taking such courses will not, of course, absolve them of the responsibility for meeting all the normal departmental and Graduate School requirements.

Doctoral students in creative writing are strongly encouraged to take formal literature classes in addition to forms classes. Formal literature classes, by providing training in literary analysis, theory, and/or literary history, will help to prepare students for doctoral exams (and future teaching at the college level).

FALL SEMESTER            

• GTAs take 2 courses (801 + one), teach 2 courses; GRAs take 3 courses.
• Visit assigned advisor once a month to update on progress & perceptions. 1st-year advisors can assist with selecting classes for the Spring semester, solidifying and articulating a field of specialization, advice about publishing, conferences, professionalization issues, etc.

SPRING SEMESTER

• GTAs take 2 courses (780/800/880 + one), teach 2 courses. GTAs also take ENGL 802 for 1 credit hour. GRAs take 3 courses.
• Visit assigned advisor or DGS once during the semester; discuss best advisor choices for Year 2.

SUMMER SEMESTER

• Enroll in Summer Institute if topic and/or methodology matches interests.
• Consider conferences suited to your field and schedule; choose a local one for attendance in Year 2 and draft an Abstract for a conference paper (preferably with ideas/materials/ writing drawn from a seminar paper).  Even if abstract is not accepted, you can attend the conference without the pressure of presenting.
• Attend at least one conference to familiarize yourself with procedure, network with other grad students and scholars in your field, AND/OR present a paper.

FALL SEMESTER

• Take 2 courses, teach 2 courses.
• Visit advisor in person at least once during the semester.

WINTER BREAK

• Begin revising one of your seminar papers/independent study projects/creative pieces for submission to a journal; research the journals most suited to placement of your piece.
• Begin thinking about fields and texts for comprehensive examinations.
• Choose an advisor to supervise you through the doctoral examination process.
• Visit assigned 1st-year advisor in person at least once during the semester (at least to formally request doctoral exam supervision OR to notify that you are changing advisors).
• Summer teaching, if eligible.
• Continue revising paper/creative writing for submission to a journal.
• Begin reading for comprehensive exams.
• Attend one conference and present a paper. Apply for one-time funding for out-of-state travel  from Graduate Studies .
• Teach 2 courses; take 997 (exam prep).
• Finalize comps list by end of September; begin drafting rationales.
• Circulate the draft of your article/creative piece to your advisor, other faculty in the field, and/or advanced grad students in the field for suggestions.
• Revise article/creative piece with feedback from readers.
• Teach 2 courses; take 997 or 999 (dissertation hours). Enroll in 999 if you plan to take your comps this semester, even if you don’t take them until the last day of classes.
• Take comps sometime between January and May.
• Summer teaching, if available.
• Submit article/creative work for publication.
• Continuous enrollment after completing doctoral exam (full policy on p. 20)
• Research deadlines for grant applications—note deadlines come early in the year.
• Attend one conference and present a paper.
• Teach 2 courses, take 999.
• Compose dissertation proposal by November.
• Schedule Review of Dissertation Proposal (RDP—formerly DPR).
• Apply for at least one grant or fellowship, such as a departmental-level GRAship or dissertation fellowship. (Winning a full-year, non-teaching fellowship can cut down your years-to-degree to 5 ½, or even 5 years.)
• Conduct research for and draft at least 1 dissertation chapter.
• Conduct research and complete a draft of at least 1 dissertation chapter.
• Revise & resubmit journal article, if necessary.
• Attend 1st round of job market meetings with Job Placement Advisor (JPA) to start drafting materials and thinking about the process.
• Research and complete a draft of at least 1 dissertation chapter, if teaching (1-2 chapters if not).
• Visit dissertation chair  and  committee members in person at least once during the semester.
• Research and complete a draft of at least 1 dissertation chapter (1-2 chapters if not teaching).
• Apply for a departmental grant or fellowship, or, if already held, try applying for one from outside the department, such as those offered by KU’s Hall Center for the Humanities or the Office of Graduate Studies. For  a monthly list of funding opportunities , visit the Graduate Studies website.
• Research and complete a draft of at least 1 dissertation chapter.
• Attend job market meetings with JPA in earnest.
• Apply for external grants, research fellowships, postdoctoral positions with fall deadlines (previous fellowship applications, your dissertation proposal, and subsequent writing should provide a frame so that much of the application can be filled out with the “cut & paste” function).
• Research and complete a draft of at least 1 dissertation chapter (1-2 if not teaching).
• Visit dissertation chair and committee members in person at least once during the semester.
• Polish dissertation chapters.
• Apply for grants and fellowships with spring deadlines.
• Defend dissertation.

Creative Writing Faculty

• Associate Professor

• Professor of English & Environmental Studies

• Assistant Professor

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Obtaining a doctorate degree in creative writing provides an education specializing in fiction writing techniques and literary analysis. Upon receiving a PhD in Creative Writing, graduates can use the degree to further develop their own creative writing career or teach others the skills and techniques used to write and analyze literature at the high school, college, or university level.

Requirements

Most PhD programs are very selective in choosing which few students will be admitted to study in their program. Candidates should have an excellent mastery of the written word, literary analysis, and familiarity with the liberal arts. Many schools require or prefer that a masterís degree in English or a related subject area be held by the applicant in order to be considered for their degree program.

Multiple letters of recommendation, GRE scores, and writing samples are required by most programs to help determine whether you are right for the rigorous demands of earning a doctorate degree. Academic writing samples are often required in addition to creative writing samples; this gives the office of admissions an idea of both your creative talent and your ability to analyze and critique literary works.

Expectations

Students accepted into a doctoral creative writing program can expect to study for approximately three to five years depending on the program. Students can also expect to have to write a variety of essays, teach classes on writing techniques and literature, complete a comprehensive examination, and compose a dissertation. Courses required often include a combination of literature, writing, and teaching classes.

Online Programs

Online programs exist for the bachelorís degree and masterís degree level of English, literature, and creative writing education. However, those wishing to pursue a PhD in Creative Writing must obtain their degree in person rather than online.

Offline Programs

If you want to obtain your doctorate degree in creative writing, there are numerous universities across the country with creative writing programs to consider. Some programs put a higher emphasis on teaching others how to write, while other programs focus more on your own writing abilities. Here are some of the programs available to those interested in creative writing.

University of Illinois Chicago

The University of Illinois Chicago offers a PhD in Creative Writing geared towards those students who wish to eventually pursue a career in teaching. The program teaches writing skills as well as teaching skills to prepare graduates for work in the academic world. Students will be required to write a creative dissertation, as well as teach creative writing to become educated and prepared for teaching after receiving their degree.

Department of English University of Illinois at Chicago 2027 University Hall 601 S. Morgan St. (M/C 162) Chicago, IL 60607-7120 Phone: 312-413-2200 www.uic.edu

Western Michigan University

Western Michigan University offers a PhD in English with an emphasis in creative writing. Students are required to take two teaching courses and prove their competency in a foreign language, in addition to their literature classes. Students will also take workshops to prepare for their dissertation in their selected area of specialization.

Creative writing students must also participate in doctoral reading programs before taking their doctoral reading exam. Upon passing the doctoral reading examination, students will then be required to write a dissertation. For questions regarding admission to their graduate school, contact the university at the following address or website.

2240 Seibert Administration Building 1903 W Michigan Ave Western Michigan University Kalamazoo MI 49008-5211 Phone: 269-387-2000 www.wmich.edu

University of Cincinnati

The University of Cincinnati offers a PhD in English and Comparative Literature with a focus in creative writing. All doctoral students participate in the departmentís teaching training program which lasts approximately seven months. During the program students will have the opportunity to teach college writing courses. Students may also take courses that specialize in how to teach creative writing. Creative writing students will complete a creative dissertation and analytical essay in order to finish their degree. More information regarding the graduate program can be found by contacting the Department of English or visiting their website.

Department of English College of Arts & Sciences University of Cincinnati PO Box 210069 Cincinnati, OH 45221-0069 Phone: 513-556-3906 www.artsci.uc.edu

University of Utah

The University of Utah offers a PhD in Literature with a creative writing emphasis. Students will learn better creative writing techniques while also learning how to analyze literary works. The PhD is generally for those students wishing to teach at a college or university upon completion.

Students will graduate with the skills to teach not only creative writing, but literature courses as well. Students will learn literary history, attend writing workshops, and complete a prospectus and dissertation. Contact the English Department regarding admission and program requirements.

Department of English Languages & Communication Bldg 255 S Central Campus Drive, Room 3500 Salt Lake City, UT 84112 Phone: 801-581-6168 www.hum.utah.edu

University of Denver

A PhD in Creative Writing is offered by the University of Denver. Students better their writing through constant practice and by reading literary works. Four workshops will be completed over the course of the studentís program. Students will not only read works from their genre, but also works dealing with anthropology, philosophy, art history, and other subject areas. Contact the university with any questions regarding their program.

English Department 2000 E. Asbury Denver, CO 80208 Phone: 303-871-2266 www.du.edu

Georgia State University

The PhD in Creative Writing offered by Georgia State University allows students to practice and better their writing abilities while also critiquing and analyzing literature. Unless completed at the MA or MFA level, students must take courses in literary theory, form, and contemporary poetry or fiction craft. All students are also required to complete a dissertation. Questions regarding admission requirements or their program of study can be directed to the Department of English.

Department of English P.O. Box 3970 Atlanta, GA 30302-3970 Phone: 404-413-5800 workshop.gsu.edu

Employment Opportunities

Many graduates immediately begin teaching at the university level and start working towards a tenured position. Work at community colleges and high schools teaching English and creative writing is also a choice for many upon receiving their degree.

Teaching is not the only option for post-grads. Working for magazines, newspapers, and other print or online media is available for creative writers, especially after developing a strong creative writing portfolio. Choosing to be an author or writer can also be composed of freelance work and self-employment. According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, 70% of writers and authors were self-employed in 2008.

Salary Ranges

The salary range for those who obtain a PhD in creative writing varies greatly depending on the position obtained after graduation and the location of the school. According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, teaching at the high school level on average earns $52,200 a year, with those having a doctoral degree potentially earning more. Post-secondary educators earn on average $108,749 as a professor, $76,147 as an associate professor, and $63,827 as an assistant professor.

Writers and Authors

Salaried writers and authors earned on average $57,070 in 2008. Freelance writers’ annual earnings vary greatly depending on the type of freelance work and number of projects completed each year. Many freelance writers have to find income from working another part-time or full-time job.

Employment Outlook

High school teachers.

According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, teaching at the high school level is expected to grow by 13% between 2008 and 2018. An even higher demand for teachers will be seen for high schools in poor and inner-city school districts, since many teachers leave to teach elsewhere after a short period of time in these areas.

The Bureau of Labor and Statistics expects the demand of post-secondary educators to grow by 15% between 2008 and 2018, which is faster than the average growth rate for most positions. This is due to the increased number of students attending community colleges and universities around the country. Tenured positions are still expected to be quite competitive to earn, but part-time and non-tenured positions are expected to grow even faster.

The writing industry is very competitive, and many writers and authors will continue to stay self-employed. However, there is an expected increase of salaried writers and authors by 8% between 2008 and 2018. Companies online are seeing an increased need for writers as more material is needed for websites, so many writers are expected to start writing for online publications.

Top Ranked Doctoral Programs

Search for other great programs, 5 responses to “creative writing”.

Of course it is very interesting that one now can obtain a phd degree from one’s workplace without hampreing the job.But it could have been better if one had had the opportunity of doing an online phd degree.

Will it be possible in future to do an online degree in liberal arts specially in english?It would be very good if one got the chance to do a phd degree the same way.

I am interested in pursuing a ph.d in creative writing and literature—–looking for an accredited online program

I’m interested in pursuing a doctorate degree in Creative Writing. I’m searching for programs on the west coast of the United States.

I have been looking for an online PhD program in Creative Writing and have not found any accredited ones. I don’t understand why this is a area of study with such limited accessibility for online classes. The bulk of the work is reading and documenting and writing which seems to be a perfect fit for an online course. I did find one that sounded perfect AIU…however they are NOT accredited.

I currently have three Masters Degrees and two of them are MFA’s. One in Non-fiction and one in fiction. My fourth Masters degree will be completed in January 2022. It is an MFA in poetry. I have a memoir published and five esssys published. I have another book to be published this November 2021. Lipstick Lesbian.. book of poems (LGBTQ) Could I get any classes waived in a PhD. Creative Writing program?

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Department of English and Related Literature

PhD in English with Creative Writing

Join a thriving community of researchers to develop a substantial research project alongside an original piece of creative writing.

Join a passionate and intellectual research community to explore literature across all periods and genres.

Your research

Our PhD in English with Creative Writing encourages distinctive approaches to practice-based literary research. This route allows you to develop a substantial research project, which incorporates an original work of creative writing (in prose, poetry, or other forms). As part of a thriving community of postgraduate researchers and writers, you'll be supported by world-leading experts with a wide range of global and historical specialisms, and given access to unique resources including our   letterpress printing studio  and   Writer in Residence.

Under the guidance of your supervisor, you will complete a critical research component of 30-40,000 words and a creative component written to its natural length (eg a book-length work of poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction). A typical semester will involve a great deal of independent research, punctuated by meetings with your supervisor who will be able to suggest direction and address concerns throughout the writing process. You will be encouraged to undertake periods of research at archives and potentially internationally, depending on your research.

Throughout your degree, you will have the opportunity to attend a wide range of research training sessions in order to learn archival and research skills, as well as a range of research and creative seminars organised by the research schools and our distinguished Writers at York series. This brings speakers from around the world for research talks, author conversations, and networking.

Applicants for the PhD in English with Creative Writing should submit a research proposal for their overall research project, along with samples of creative and critical writing, demonstrating a suitable ability in each, as part of the application. Proposals should include plans for a critical research component of 30-40,000 words and a creative component written to its natural length (eg a book-length work of poetry, fiction or creative nonfiction), while demonstrating a clear relationship between the two.

Students embarking on a PhD programme are initially enrolled provisionally for this qualification until they pass their progression review at the end of their first full year of study. 

[email protected] +44 (0) 1904 323366

Related links

• How to apply
• Research degree funding
• Accommodation
• International students
• Life at York

You also have the option of enrolling in a PhD in English with Creative Writing by distance learning, where you will have the flexibility to work from anywhere in the world. You will attend the Research Training Programme online in your first year and have supervision and progression meetings online.

You must attend a five-day induction programme in York at the beginning of your first year. You will also visit York in your second and third years (every other year for part-time students).

Apply for PhD in English with Creative Writing (distance learning)

World-leading research

We're a top ten research department according to the Times Higher Education’s ranking of the latest REF results (2021).

35th in the world

for English Language and Literature in the QS World University Rankings by Subject, 2023.

Committed to equality

We're proud to hold an Athena Swan Bronze award in recognition of the work we do to support gender equality in English.

Writers at York series

We host a series of hugely successful seminars, open to everyone, where a stellar cast of world-famous contemporary writers deliver readings and workshops.

Explore funding for postgraduate researchers in the Department of English and Related Literature.

Supervision

Explore the expertise of our staff and identify a potential supervisor.

Research student training

You'll receive training in research methods and skills appropriate to the stage you've reached and the nature of your work. In addition to regular supervisory meetings to discuss planning, researching and writing the thesis, we offer sessions on bibliographic and archival resources (digital, print and manuscript). You'll receive guidance in applying to and presenting at professional conferences, preparing and submitting material for publication and applying for jobs. We meet other training needs in handling research data, various modern languages, palaeography and bibliography. Classical and medieval Latin are also available.

We offer training in teaching skills if you wish to pursue teaching posts following your degree. This includes sessions on the delivery and content of seminars and workshops to undergraduates, a structured shadowing programme, teaching inductions and comprehensive guidance and resources for our graduate teaching assistants. Our teacher training is directed by a dedicated member of staff.

You'll also benefit from the rich array of research and training sessions at the Humanities Research Centre .

Course location

This course is run by the Department of English and Related Literature.

You'll be based on  Campus West , though your research may take you further afield.

We also have a distance learning option available for this course.

Entry requirements

For doctoral research, you should hold or be predicted to achieve a first-class or high upper second-class undergraduate degree with honours (or equivalent international qualification) and a Masters degree with distinction. 

The undergraduate and Masters degrees should be in literature and/or creative writing, or in a related subject that is related to the proposed research project. 

Other relevant experience and expertise may also be considered:

• Evidence of training in research techniques may be an advantage.
• It would be expected that postgraduate applicants would be familiar with the recent published work of their proposed supervisor.
• Publications are not required and the Department of English and Related Literature does not expect applicants to have been published before they start their research degrees.

Supervisors interview you to ensure a good supervisory match and to help with funding applications.

The core deciding factor for admission is the quality of the research proposal, though your whole academic profile will be taken into account. We are committed to ensuring that no prospective or existing student is treated less favourably. See our  admissions policy  for more information.

Apply for the PhD in English with Creative Writing

Have a look at the supporting documents you may need for your application.

Before applying, we advise you to identify potential supervisors in the department. Preliminary enquiries are welcomed and should be made as early as possible. However, a scattershot approach – emailing all staff members regardless of the relationship between their research interests and yours – is unlikely to produce positive results. 

If it's not clear which member of staff is appropriate, you should email the   Graduate Chair .

Students embarking on a PhD programme are initially enrolled provisionally for that qualification. Confirmation of PhD registration is dependent upon the submission of a satisfactory proposal that meets the standards required for the degree, usually in the second year of study.

Find out more about how to apply .

English language requirements

You'll need to provide evidence of your proficiency in English if it's not your first language.

Check your English language requirements

Research proposal

In order to apply for a PhD, we ask that you submit a research proposal as part of your application.

When making your application, you're advised to make your research proposals as specific and clear as possible. Please indicate the member(s) of staff that you'd wish to work with

You’ll need to provide a summary of between 250 and 350 words in length of your research proposal and a longer version of around 800 words (limit of 1000). The proposal for the MA in English (by research) should be 400–500 words.

Your research proposal should:

• Identify the precise topic of your topic and communicate the main aim of your research.
• Provide a rigorous and thorough description of your proposed research, including the contributions you will make to current scholarly conversations and debates. Creative Writing proposals should include plans for a critical research and a creative component.
• Describe any previous work you have done in this area, with reference to relevant literature you have read so far.
• Communicate the central sources that the project will address and engage.
• Offer an outline of the argument’s main claims and contributions. Give a clear indication of the authors and texts that your project will address.
• Include the academic factors, such as university facilities, libraries resources, centres, other resources, and / or staff, which have specifically led you to apply to York.

What we look for:

• How you place your topic in conversation with the scholarly landscape: what has been accomplished and what you plan to achieve. This is your chance to show that you have a good understanding of the relevant work on your topic and that you have identified a new way or research question to approach the topic.
• Your voice as a scholar and critical thinker. In clean, clear prose, show those who will assess your application how your proposal demonstrates your original thinking and the potential of your research.
• Your fit with York, including the reasons for working with your supervisor and relevant research schools and centres.
• Above all, remember that there isn’t one uniform way to structure and arrange your research proposal, and that your approach will necessarily reflect your chosen topic.

Careers and skills

• You'll receive support in applying to and presenting at professional conferences, preparing and submitting material for publication and applying for jobs.
• You'll benefit from training in handling research data, various modern languages, palaeography and bibliography. Classical and medieval Latin are also available. The   Humanities Research Centre   also offers a rich array of valuable training sessions.
• We also offer training in teaching skills if you wish to pursue a teaching post following your degree. This includes sessions on the delivery and content of seminars and workshops to undergraduates, a structured shadowing programme, teaching inductions and comprehensive guidance and resources for our graduate teaching assistants.
• You'll have the opportunity to further your training by taking courses accredited by Advance HE:   York Learning and Teaching Award (YLTA)   and the   York Professional and Academic Development scheme (YPAD) .

Find out more about careers

Discover York

We offer a range of campus accommodation to suit you and your budget, from economy to deluxe.

Discover more about our researchers, facilities and why York is the perfect choice for your research degree.

Graduate Research School

Connect with researchers across all disciplines to get the most out of your research project.

Find a supervisor

Explore our staff expertise

Find out all you need to know about applying to York

Find funding to support your studies

Creative Writing and Literature

Students enrolled in the Master of Liberal Arts program in Creative Writing & Literature will develop skills in creative writing and literary analysis through literature courses and writing workshops in fiction, screenwriting, poetry, and nonfiction. Through online group courses and one-on-one tutorials, as well as a week on campus, students hone their craft and find their voice.

Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature

Get a ph.d. in creative writing and literature.

Admission to the creative writing program is extremely competitive, with up to 20 new students across the two genres selected each year from the hundreds of applications received from around the world. The curriculum for Ph.D. students emphasizes creative writing and literary study. The city of Houston offers a vibrant, multi-cultural backdrop for studying creative writing at the University of Houston. With a dynamic visual and performing arts scene, the Houston metropolitan area supplies a wealth of aesthetic materials.

Overview of Admissions Requirements

Minimum requirements for admission.

• M.A. in English or M.F.A. in Creative Writing  
• 3.5 GPA in graduate studies 

Application Deadline

The admissions deadline for our Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature is January 15.

For more admissions information, visit the How to Apply web page for our Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature.  

History of the Creative Writing Program

Over the years many more internationally acclaimed writers have made the Program their home, including Mary Gaitskill, Richard Howard, Howard Moss, Linda Gregg, Adam Zagajewski, Daniel Stern, David Wojahn, Edward Hirsch, Alan Hollinghurst, Mark Strand, David Wagoner, Philip Levine, Charles Wright, Claudia Rankine, Kimiko Hahn, Mark Doty and Ruben Martinez.

Current faculty includes Erin Belieu, Robert Boswell, Audrey Colombe, Chitra Divakaruni, Nick Flynn, francine j. harris, Antonya Nelson, Alex Parsons, Kevin Prufer, Brenda Peynado, Martha Serpas, Roberto Tejada, and Peter Turchi.

Quick Links

Program Breakdown & Degree Requirements

Graduate Curricular Specializations

Financial Aid

How to Apply

Inprint Student Writing Awards

The Creative Writing Program

The PhD in English Literature with Creative Dissertation at the University of Georgia is for writers who wish to advance their expertise and sophistication as scholars. Our students are accomplished poets, fiction writers, essayists, translators, and interdisciplinary artists who are ready to move beyond the studio focus of the MFA to a more intensive program of literary study. Over the course of the five-year program our students develop research specialties that complement their writing practice and prepare them professionally for a teaching career at the university or college level.

Our creative writing faculty are nationally and internationally recognized writers and translators with academic specializations in a variety of literary and theoretical fields, including Genre Theory, Poetics, Global Literature, Native American Literature, African American Literature, Postcolonial Literature, and Translation Studies. Our program fosters serious conversations among our students about aesthetics and criticism, experience and culture, and politics and history—not only in the classroom but through public readings and lectures. Our faculty and students play an active role in the cultural life of Athens, both as artists and organizers.

Program Overview

During the first two years of study our Ph.D. candidates select from course offerings in the English Department, seminars that signal both our faculty’s recognition of intellectual and disciplinary change and our abiding commitment to traditional literary history. Each student takes at least one Creative Writing course a year in addition to courses in various literary specialties. A list of our department’s recent graduate course offerings can be found here .  Prior to beginning their third year, students prepare reading lists for comprehensive exams in three academic research fields of their choosing. Every CWP student chooses “Forms and Craft” as one of their exam areas. This reading list serves as a research field unique to each writer’s approach to their particular genre. Some of the “Forms and Craft” lists designed recently by CWP students include, “The Midwestern Novel”; “Occult and Visionary Poetics”; “History of Surrealism”; “Monstrosity in Epic Poetry”; and “Literary Translation: Theory and Practice.” The two other exam fields should complement and expand the student’s areas of expertise beyond craft in order to broaden their historical and theoretical understanding of literature. In recent years, CWP students have elected to take exams in fields such as, “A Global History of the Novel,” ”Modernism and the Historical Avant-Garde,” “Aesthetic Theory,” ”African American Literature,” “Latinx Literature,” “Ecopoetics,” “The Southern Novel,” “Lyric Theory,” and “Science Fiction.”

Typically the exam committee is headed by a member of the creative writing faculty and two other professors from the department at large, experts in the respective exam areas. During the third year students read in preparation for written and oral exams. Each written exam takes the form of a twenty-page written exhibit in which the student answers a directive question formulated in conjunction with the exam area’s director. This exhibit should demonstrate the student’s grasp of the field as a whole and serves as a demonstration of their ability to teach in this area at the undergraduate level. Once the student has passed written exams, they are admitted to an oral exam overseen by the exam committee as a whole. Once the student passes both oral and written exams, they are admitted officially to candidacy for the PhD and begin working on their dissertation.

During their fourth and fifth years CWP students complete a creative dissertation with a critical introduction. The dissertation typically is a full-length work in a single genre—a work of fiction, creative non-fiction, or poetry. The introduction is the author’s scholarly address to their audience. In the past students have used the introduction as a scholarly analysis of the state of the genre, a critical meditation on process informed by literary history, or a theoretical tracing of literary influence.

CWP Faculty

[email protected] | 706-542-1261

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Upcoming Events

April 4 diann blakely visiting poet: ana božičević, april 25 a flaw in the design: writing the literary thriller with nathan oates, latest news.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Professor LeAnne Howe Delivers Plenary Talk at The 50th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies 

Monday, March 11, 2024

Creative Writing Student Sayantika Mandal's poem published in Glassworks Magazine

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Aruni Kashyap to deliver the 2024 Tagore Lecture in Modern Indian Literature at Cornell University

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College of Arts and Sciences » Academic Units » English » Creative Writing » Graduate Program » PhD in Creative Writing

PhD in Creative Writing

Program overview.

The PhD in Creative Writing and Literature is a four-year course of study. Following two years of course work that includes workshop, forms classes, pedagogical training, literature, and theory, students take exams in two areas, one that examines texts through the lens of craft and another that examines them through the lens of literary history and theory. Recent examples of the genre area include Comic Fiction, History of the Love Lyric, and Fantasy; recent examples of the scholarly area include History of the Novel, 20th Century American Poetry, and Modern & Contemporary British Fiction. In the first two years, students take three courses per semester; the teaching load throughout the program is one class per semester. Every PhD student has the opportunity to teach creative writing, with many also teaching literature classes. Most students are funded by teaching, with two or three at a time funded by editorial work at  The Cincinnati Review or Acre Books, and others funded in their dissertation year by college- or university-level fellowships. Fifth-year support, while not guaranteed, has generally been available to interested students in the form of student lecturerships, which carry a 2-2 load. The Creative Writing PhD at the University of Cincinnati has maintained over the last decade more than a 75% placement rate into full-time academic jobs for its doctoral graduates. Two-thirds of these positions are tenure-track.

Application Information

• Exam Areas and Committee
• Doctoral Candidacy Form
• Foreign Language
• Exam Procedures
• Dissertations
• Applying for Fifth-Year Funding
• Working for The Cincinnati Review
• Teaching Opportunities
• All Creative Writing Graduate Courses
• Archive of Technique & Form Courses

PhD Program in English Language and Literature

The department enrolls an average of ten PhD students each year. Our small size allows us to offer a generous financial support package. We also offer a large and diverse graduate faculty with competence in a wide range of literary, theoretical and cultural fields. Each student chooses a special committee that works closely along side the student to design a course of study within the very broad framework established by the department. The program is extremely flexible in regard to course selection, the design of examinations and the election of minor subjects of concentration outside the department. English PhD students pursuing interdisciplinary research may include on their special committees faculty members from related fields such as comparative literature, medieval studies, Romance studies, German studies, history, classics, women’s studies, linguistics, theatre and performing arts, government, philosophy, and film and video studies.

The PhD candidate is normally expected to complete six or seven one-semester courses for credit in the first year of residence and a total of six or seven more in the second and third years. The program of any doctoral candidate’s formal and informal study, whatever his or her particular interests, should be comprehensive enough to ensure familiarity with:

• The authors and works that have been the most influential in determining the course of English, American, and related literatures
• The theory and criticism of literature, and the relations between literature and other disciplines
• Concerns and tools of literary and cultural history such as textual criticism, study of genre, source, and influence as well as wider issues of cultural production and historical and social contexts that bear on literature

Areas in which students may have major or minor concentrations include African-American literature, American literature to 1865, American literature after 1865, American studies (a joint program with the field of history), colonial and postcolonial literatures, cultural studies, dramatic literature, English poetry, the English Renaissance to 1660, lesbian, bisexual and gay literary studies, literary criticism and theory, the nineteenth century, Old and Middle English, prose fiction, the Restoration and the eighteenth century, the twentieth century, and women's literature.

By the time a doctoral candidate enters the fourth semester of graduate study, the special committee must decide whether he or she is qualified to proceed toward the PhD. Students are required to pass their Advancement to Candidacy Examination before their fourth year of study, prior to the dissertation.

PhD Program specifics can be viewed here: PhD Timeline PhD Procedural Guide

Special Committee

Every graduate student selects a special committee of faculty advisors who work intensively with the student in selecting courses and preparing and revising the dissertation. The committee is comprised of at least three Cornell faculty members: a chair, and typically two minor members usually from the English department, but very often representing an interdisciplinary field. The university system of special committees allows students to design their own courses of study within a broad framework established by the department, and it encourages a close working relationship between professors and students, promoting freedom and flexibility in the pursuit of the graduate degree. The special committee for each student guides and supervises all academic work and assesses progress in a series of meetings with the students.

At Cornell, teaching is considered an integral part of training in academia. The field requires a carefully supervised teaching experience of at least one year for every doctoral candidate as part of the program requirements. The Department of English, in conjunction with the  John S. Knight Institute for Writing  in the Disciplines, offers excellent training for beginning teachers and varied and interesting teaching in the university-wide First-Year Writing Program. The courses are writing-intensive and may fall under such general rubrics as “Portraits of the Self,” “American Literature and Culture,” “Shakespeare,” and “Cultural Studies,” among others. A graduate student may also serve as a teaching assistant for an undergraduate lecture course taught by a member of the Department of English faculty.

Language Requirements

Each student and special committee will decide what work in foreign language is most appropriate for a student’s graduate program and scholarly interests. Some students’ doctoral programs require extensive knowledge of a single foreign language and literature; others require reading ability in two or more foreign languages. A student may be asked to demonstrate competence in foreign languages by presenting the undergraduate record, taking additional courses in foreign languages and literature, or translating and discussing documents related to the student’s work. Students are also normally expected to provide evidence of having studied the English language through courses in Old English, the history of the English language, grammatical analysis or the application of linguistic study to metrics or to literary criticism. Several departments at Cornell offer pertinent courses in such subjects as descriptive linguistics, psycholinguistics and the philosophy of language.

All PhD degree candidates are guaranteed five years of funding (including a stipend , a full tuition fellowship and student health insurance):

• A first-year non-teaching fellowship
• Two years of teaching assistantships
• A fourth-year non-teaching fellowship for the dissertation writing year
• A fifth-year teaching assistantship
• Summer support for four years, including a first-year summer teaching assistantship, linked to a teachers’ training program at the Knight Institute. Summer residency in Ithaca is required.

Students have also successfully competed for Buttrick-Crippen Fellowship, Society for the Humanities Fellowships, American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), Shin Yong-Jin Graduate Fellowships, Provost’s Diversity Fellowships, fellowships in recognition of excellence in teaching, and grants from the Graduate School to help with the cost of travel to scholarly conferences and research collections.

Admission & Application Procedures

The application for Fall 2024 admission will open on September 15, 2023 and close at 11:59pm EST on December 1, 2023.

Our application process reflects the field’s commitment to considering the whole person and their potential to contribute to our scholarly community.  Applicants will be evaluated on the basis of academic preparation (e.g., performance in relevant courses, completion of substantive, independent research project). An applicant’s critical and creative potential will be considered: applicants should demonstrate interest in extensive research and writing and include a writing sample that reveals a capacity to argue persuasively, demonstrate the ability to synthesize a broad range of materials, as well as offer fresh insights into a problem or text. The committee will also consider whether an applicant demonstrates a commitment to inclusion, equity, and diversity and offers a substantive explanation for why study at Cornell is especially compelling (e.g., a discussion of faculty research and foci). Admissions committees will consider the entire application carefully, including statements and critical writing, as well as transcripts, letters of recommendation, and a resume/cv (if provided). Please view the requirements and procedures listed below, if you are interested in being considered for our PhD in English Language and Literature program.

Eligibility: Applicants must currently have, or expect to have, at least a BA or BS (or the equivalent) in any field before matriculation. International students, please verify degree equivalency here . Applicants are not required to meet a specified GPA minimum.

To Apply: All applications and supplemental materials must be submitted online through the Graduate School application system . While completing your application, you may save and edit your data. Once you click submit, your application will be closed for changes. Please proofread your materials carefully. Once you pay and click submit, you will not be able to make any changes or revisions.

Deadline: December 1st, 11:59pm EST.  This deadline is firm. No applications, additional materials, or revisions will be accepted after the deadline.

PhD Program Application Requirements Checklist

• Academic Statement of Purpose Please describe (within 1000 words) in detail the substantive research questions you are interested in pursuing during your graduate studies and why they are significant. Additionally, make sure to include information about any training or research experience that you believe has prepared you for our program. You should also identify specific faculty members whose research interests align with your own specific questions.  Note that the identification of faculty is important; you would be well advised to read selected faculty’s recent scholarship so that you can explain why you wish to study with them. Do not rely on the courses they teach.  Please refrain from contacting individual faculty prior to receiving an offer of admission.
• Personal Statement Please describe (within 1000 words) how your personal background and experiences influenced your decision to pursue a graduate degree and the research you wish to conduct.  Explain, for example the meaning and purpose of the PhD in the context of your personal history and future aspirations.  Please note that we will pay additional attention to candidates who identify substantial reasons to obtain a PhD beyond the pursuit of an academic position. Additionally, provide insight into your potential to contribute to a community of inclusion, belonging, and respect where scholars representing diverse backgrounds, perspectives, abilities, and experiences can learn (productively and positively) together.
• Critical Writing Sample Your academic writing sample must be between 3,000 and 7,500 words (12-30 pages), typed and double-spaced. We accept excerpts from longer works, or a combination of shorter works.
• Three Letters of Recommendation We require 3 letters of recommendation.  At the time of application, you will be allowed to enter up to 4 recommenders in the system.  Your application will be considered “Complete” when we have received at least 3 letters of recommendation.   Letters of recommendation are due December 1 . Please select three people who best know you and your work. Submitting additional letters will not enhance your application. In the recommendation section of the application, you must include the email address of each recommender. After you save the information (and before you pay/submit), the application system will automatically generate a recommendation request email to your recommender with instructions for submitting the letter electronically. If your letters are stored with a credential service such as Interfolio, please use their Online Application Delivery feature and input the email address assigned to your stored document, rather than that of your recommender’s. The electronic files will be attached to your application when they are received and will not require the letter of recommendation cover page.
• Transcripts Scan transcripts from each institution you have attended, or are currently attending, and upload into the academic information section of the application. Be sure to remove your social security number from all documents prior to scanning. Please do not send paper copies of your transcripts. If you are subsequently admitted and accept, the Graduate School will require an official paper transcript from your degree-awarding institution prior to matriculation.
• English Language Proficiency Requirement All applicants must provide proof of English language proficiency. For more information, please view the  Graduate School’s English Language Requirement .
• GRE General Test and GRE Subject Test are NO LONGER REQUIRED, effective starting with the 2019 application In March 2019, the faculty of English voted overwhelmingly to eliminate all GRE requirements (both general and subject test) for application to the PhD program in English. GRE scores are not good predictors of success or failure in a PhD program in English, and the uncertain predictive value of the GRE exam is far outweighed by the toll it takes on student diversity. For many applicants the cost of preparing for and taking the exam is prohibitively expensive, and the exam is not globally accessible. Requiring the exam narrows our applicant pool at precisely the moment we should be creating bigger pipelines into higher education. We need the strength of a diverse community in order to pursue the English Department’s larger mission: to direct the force of language toward large and small acts of learning, alliance, imagination, and justice.

General Information for All Applicants

Application Fee: Visit the Graduate School for information regarding application fees, payment options, and fee waivers .

Document Identification: Please do not put your social security number on any documents.

Status Inquiries:  Once you submit your application, you will receive a confirmation email. You will also be able to check the completion status of your application in your account. If vital sections of your application are missing, we will notify you via email after the Dec. 1 deadline and allow you ample time to provide the missing materials. Please do not inquire about the status of your application.

Credential/Application Assessments:  The Admission Review Committee members are unable to review application materials or applicant credentials prior to official application submission. Once the committee has reviewed applications and made admissions decisions, they will not discuss the results or make any recommendations for improving the strength of an applicant’s credentials. Applicants looking for feedback are advised to consult with their undergraduate advisor or someone else who knows them and their work.

Review Process:  Application review begins after the submission deadline. Notification of admissions decisions will be made by email by the end of February.

Connecting with Faculty and/or Students: Unfortunately, due to the volume of inquiries we receive, faculty and current students are not available to correspond with potential applicants prior to an offer of admission. Applicants who are offered admission will have the opportunity to meet faculty and students to have their questions answered prior to accepting. Staff and faculty are also not able to pre-assess potential applicant’s work outside of the formal application process. Please email [email protected] instead, if you have questions.

Visiting: The department does not offer pre-admission visits or interviews. Admitted applicants will be invited to visit the department, attend graduate seminars and meet with faculty and students before making the decision to enroll.

Transfer Credits:  Students matriculating with an MA degree may, at the discretion of the Director of Graduate Studies, receive credit for up to two courses once they begin our program.

For Further Information

Contact [email protected]

Graduate College

English: creative writing (ph.d.),   application deadlines.

Deadline for Fall semester: January 15.

  Resume/Curriculum Vitae (CV)

A resume or curriculum vitae (CV) is required; please submit within the online application system.

  Graduate test

The GRE is not required.

Note: International applicants may have to provide evidence of English language proficiency. 

  Recommendations

This program requires three recommendations. Please send email requests for such recommendations from within the online system.

  Written statement

Please prepare a statement which covers the following information, and attach it within the online application:

I am applying for admission into the ______________________________ program.

Programs/concentrations include:

• PhD in Literature
• PhD in English Education
• PhD in Creative Writing—Fiction
• PhD in Creative Writing—Poetry
• PhD in Creative Writing—Drama

Submit a 750-word essay about why you wish to undertake graduate study and which key experiences have shaped your decision. You may reflect upon ideas, texts, and modes of study that inspire you and discuss your plans for pursuing them. Please use the essay to highlight important aspects of your application.

  Previous written work

Submit a writing sample on a topic in your chosen program/concentration. Your writing sample(s) should be typed, double-spaced, and unmarked. For the Ph.D. in English: Creative Writing, you must submit two samples: (1) a 10-15 page scholarly paper that focuses on a literary topic, and (2) an original piece of creative writing, with applicants interested in Playwriting or Poetry submitting 15-30 pages of original work in their genre, and those focused on Fiction submitting up to 30 pages of their original fiction.

  Other program materials

If applying for graduate assistantship, complete the following narrative and submit within the online application:

If you have taught before, write a 700- to 1000-word essay explaining your teaching philosophy and experience. If you have not taught, write a 500-word essay in which you imagine your own approach to teaching.

  Transcript requirement

An official transcript from the institution from which you received your bachelor degree is required, as well as a transcript from the institution(s) where any additional graduate level courses or degrees have been taken/completed. Applicants are not required to submit an official transcript of courses taken/completed at WMU.

  Additional information

If you have any questions, please review the website below for program and contact information.

Department of English — College of Arts and Sciences

Start my application now

Return to All Program Summaries

Application deadline: December 1

The program provides dual emphasis in literature and creative writing, culminating in the dissertation, which combines critical analysis with creative originality. Roughly half of the dissertation is based on original research, that is to say, research contributing to knowledge which enriches or changes the field. Doctoral candidates not only read and write texts as finished products of scholarship in researching their creative work’s literary and historical milieu, but also consider the text as writers create it, then compose texts as writers, a process that goes to the source of the study of literature and of literature itself. This integration of literature and creative writing is reflected in the structure of the dissertation, which introduces the creative work within a context of critical inquiry, bringing together the examination and embodiment of the literary act, a new model of scholarship and creative innovation.

PhD candidates in literature and creative writing must pass the same departmental screening examination taken by PhD candidates in Literature who are not working in the area of creative writing. The exam tests students in various areas of emphasis (British literature, American literature, poetry, prose, etc.) and literature and historical periods as a measure of their preparedness to undertake independent research.

The literature and creative writing student takes 64 units in all, 32 in literature, 24 in creative writing workshops and seminars and 8 units of dissertation studies credits.

Admission Requirements

Requirements for admission to study in the department of English include: scores satisfactory to the department in both the verbal and quantitative General Test and the literature Subject Test of the Graduate Record Examinations; evidence of experience and ability in creative writing, as demonstrated by a creative writing sample; evidence of competence in writing English and interpreting English literature, as demonstrated by a sample of written work by the applicant on literary subjects; a satisfactory written statement by the applicant of aims and interests in graduate work; letters of recommendation from at least three college instructors; and grades satisfactory to the department earned by the applicant at other institutions. This program will accept applicants with BA degrees or transfer students with an MA or MFA in creative writing.

Degree Requirements

These degrees are under the jurisdiction of the Graduate School. Refer to the Graduate School    section of this catalogue for general regulations. All courses applied toward the degrees must be courses accepted by the Graduate School.

Graduate Curriculum and Unit Requirements

The graduate curriculum is divided into 500-level foundation courses and 600-level advanced courses. The 500-level courses offer fundamental work in theory and in the history of British and American literatures and cultures. The 600-level courses feature advanced studies in theory, creative writing seminars and workshops and special topics. Although students will normally take 500-level courses leading up to the screening procedure (see Screening Procedure) and 600-level courses thereafter, students after consultation with their advisers may be permitted to take 600-level courses in the first semester of their graduate training.

The student’s course work must total at least 64 units. No more than eight units of 794 Doctoral Dissertation and no more than four units of 790 Research may count toward the 64 units. A maximum of 12 transfer units, approved by the graduate director, is allowed toward the 64 units minimum required by the PhD (See Transfer of Course Work .)

The student will be assigned a faculty mentor in his or her first semester in the graduate program and will be encouraged in subsequent semesters to begin putting together an informal qualifying exam committee. The makeup of the qualifying exam committee may change as the interests of the student change. The faculty mentor and informal qualifying exam committee will assist the student in planning a program of study appropriate to the student’s interests leading to the screening procedure.

Screening Procedure

At the end of the student’s fourth semester (second semester for students who enter with an MA or MFA degree or near equivalent), the student will sit for a departmental examination, which is part of a comprehensive screening procedure. Rarely, and only with the approval of the graduate director and the graduate committee, will a student be allowed to postpone the departmental examination and the screening procedure, and then only for one year. Prior to the screening procedure, the student will be allowed to take a maximum of four units of independent study ( ENGL 590   ), and that independent study will normally be used to prepare for the departmental examination; all other units must be in the 500- or 600-level seminar.

Qualifying Exam Committee

Immediately following successful completion of the screening procedure, the student will nominate formally a five-member qualifying exam committee, including a chair and three other members from the English Department who are in the student’s areas of interest and an outside member from another PhD-granting department. The committee must be in place and approved by the Graduate School at the time the student chooses a dissertation topic, writes the dissertation prospectus and schedules a qualifying examination.

Qualifying Examination

Following completion of course work, the student must sit for a qualifying examination, at a time mutually agreed upon by the student and the qualifying exam committee.

This is a field examination given in the subject of the student’s proposed dissertation research. No less than one month before the qualifying examination, the student will submit to the qualifying exam committee a dissertation prospectus. The prospectus, it is understood, will not be a polished dissertation proposal, but at a minimum it should display a strong knowledge of the subject, much of the relevant secondary material and other contexts crucial to the writing of the dissertation, and should present a workable plan of attack as well as a reasonably sophisticated understanding of the theoretical assumptions involved in the subject.

The qualifying examination will consist of both written and oral portions with special emphasis areas in creative writing. It will focus on the dissertation area and its contexts with the specific format and content of the examination being negotiated among the student and all members of the examination committee. Upon successful completion of the qualifying examination the student proceeds to the writing of the doctoral dissertation.

Dissertation

The final stage of the program is the submission of a creative dissertation that makes an original, substantial and publishable contribution to creative literature: a book of poems, a novel, a collection of short stories.

Foreign Language

PhD students are required to demonstrate proficiency in at least one foreign language. This may be demonstrated by completing a course in the literature of that language at the 400 or 500 level (with a grade of B [3.0] or better) or by passing a foreign language exam that tests proficiency in reading comprehension and translation. PhD students may also be required to demonstrate proficiency in additional languages, as determined by the qualifying exam committee in view of the student’s proposed field of research.

Creative Writing and Literature Master’s Degree Program

Online Courses

11 out of 12 total courses

On-Campus Experience

One 1- or 3-week residency in summer

$3,220 per course

Unlock your creative potential and hone your unique voice.

Build a strong foundation in literary criticism and writing across multiple genres — including fiction, nonfiction, and drama — in our live online writing and literature program with an in-person writers’ residency at Harvard.

Program Overview

Through the master’s degree in creative writing and literature, you’ll hone your skills as a storyteller — crafting publishable original scripts, novels, and stories.

In small, workshop-style classes, you’ll master key elements of narrative craft, including characterization, story and plot structure, point of view, dialogue, and description. And you’ll learn to approach literary works as both a writer and scholar by developing skills in critical analysis.

Program Benefits

Instructors who are published authors of drama, fiction, and nonfiction

A community of writers who support your growth in live online classes

Writer's residency with agent & editor networking opportunities

Personalized academic and career advising

Thesis or capstone options that lead to publishable creative work

Harvard Alumni Association membership upon graduation

Customizable Course Curriculum

As you work through the program’s courses, you’ll enhance your creative writing skills and knowledge of literary concepts and strategies. You’ll practice the art of revision to hone your voice as a writer in courses like Writing the Short Personal Essay and Writing Flash Fiction.

Within the creative writing and literature program, you will choose between a thesis or capstone track. You’ll also experience the convenience of online learning and the immersive benefits of learning in person.

11 Online Courses

• Primarily synchronous
• Fall, spring, January, and summer options

Writers’ Residency

A 1- or 3-week summer master class taught by a notable instructor, followed by an agents-and-editors weekend

Thesis or Capstone Track

• Thesis: features a 9-month independent creative project with a faculty advisor
• Capstone: includes crafting a fiction or nonfiction manuscript in a classroom community

The path to your degree begins before you apply to the program.

First, you’ll register for and complete 2 required courses, earning at least a B in each. These foundational courses are investments in your studies and count toward your degree, helping ensure success in the program.

Getting Started

We invite you to explore degree requirements, confirm your initial eligibility, and learn more about our unique “earn your way in” admissions process.

A Faculty of Creative Writing Experts

Studying at Harvard Extension School means learning from the world’s best. Our instructors are renowned academics in literary analysis, storytelling, manuscript writing, and more. They bring a genuine passion for teaching, with students giving our faculty an average rating of 4.7 out of 5.

Bryan Delaney

Playwright and Screenwriter

Talaya Adrienne Delaney

Lecturer in Extension, Harvard University

Elisabeth Sharp McKetta

Our community at a glance.

80% of our creative writing and literature students are enrolled in our master’s degree program for either personal enrichment or to make a career change. Most (74%) are employed full time while pursuing their degree and work across a variety of industries.

Download: Creative Writing & Literature Master's Degree Fact Sheet

Average Age

Course Taken Each Semester

Work Full Time

Would Recommend the Program

Professional Experience in the Field

Pursued for Personal Enrichment

Career Opportunities & Alumni Outcomes

Graduates of our Creative Writing and Literature Master’s Program have writing, research, and communication jobs in the fields of publishing, advertising/marketing, fundraising, secondary and higher education, and more.

Some alumni continue their educational journeys and pursue further studies in other nationally ranked degree programs, including those at Boston University, Brandeis University, University of Pennsylvania, and Cambridge University.

Our alumni hold titles as:

• Marketing Manager
• Director of Publishing
• Senior Research Writer

Our alumni work at a variety of leading organizations, including:

• Little, Brown & Company
• New York University (NYU)
• Bentley Publishers

Career Advising and Mentorship

Whatever your career goals, we’re here to support you. Harvard’s Mignone Center for Career Success offers career advising, employment opportunities, Harvard alumni mentor connections, and career fairs like the annual on-campus Harvard Humanities, Media, Marketing, and Creative Careers Expo.

Your Harvard University Degree

Upon successful completion of the required curriculum, you will earn the Master of Liberal Arts (ALM) in Extension Studies, Field: Creative Writing and Literature.

Expand Your Connections: the Harvard Alumni Network

As a graduate, you’ll become a member of the worldwide Harvard Alumni Association (400,000+ members) and Harvard Extension Alumni Association (29,000+ members).

Harvard is closer than one might think. You can be anywhere and still be part of this world.

Tuition & Financial Aid

Affordability is core to our mission. When compared to our continuing education peers, it’s a fraction of the cost.

After admission, you may qualify for financial aid . Typically, eligible students receive grant funds to cover a portion of tuition costs each term, in addition to federal financial aid options.

What can you do with a master’s degree in creative writing and literature?

A master’s degree in creative writing and literature prepares you for a variety of career paths in writing, literature, and communication — it’s up to you to decide where your interests will take you.

You could become a professional writer, editor, literary agent, marketing copywriter, or communications specialist.

You could also go the academic route and bring your knowledge to the classroom to teach creative writing or literature courses.

Is a degree in creative writing and literature worth it?

The value you find in our Creative Writing and Literature Master’s Degree Program will depend on your unique goals, interests, and circumstances.

The curriculum provides a range of courses that allow you to graduate with knowledge and skills transferable to various industries and careers.

How long does completing the creative writing and literature graduate program take?

Program length is ordinarily anywhere between 2 and 5 years. It depends on your preferred pace and the number of courses you want to take each semester.

For an accelerated journey, we offer year round study, where you can take courses in fall, January, spring, and summer.

While we don’t require you to register for a certain number of courses each semester, you cannot take longer than 5 years to complete the degree.

What skills do you need prior to applying for the creative writing and literature degree program?

Harvard Extension School does not require any specific skills prior to applying, but in general, it’s helpful to have solid reading, writing, communication, and critical thinking skills if you are considering a creative writing and literature master’s degree.

Initial eligibility requirements can be found on our creative writing and literature master’s degree requirements page .

Harvard Division of Continuing Education

The Division of Continuing Education (DCE) at Harvard University is dedicated to bringing rigorous academics and innovative teaching capabilities to those seeking to improve their lives through education. We make Harvard education accessible to lifelong learners from high school to retirement.

• Schools & departments

Creative Writing PhD

Awards: PhD

Study modes: Full-time, Part-time

Funding opportunities

Programme website: Creative Writing

Discovery Day

Join us online on 18th April to learn more about postgraduate study at Edinburgh

View sessions and register

Research profile

The PhD in Creative Writing offers committed and talented writers the opportunity to study Creative Writing at the highest level.

Supported by an expert supervisory team you will work independently towards the production of a substantial, publishable piece of creative writing, accompanied by a sustained exercise in critical study.

The academic staff you will be working with are all active researchers or authors, including well-published and prize-winning writers of poetry, prose, fiction and drama. They include:

• Dr Jane Alexander - Fiction
• Dr Lynda Clark - Fiction
• Dr Patrick Errington - Poetry
• Dr Miriam Gamble - Poetry
• Dr Alan Gillis - Poetry
• Nicola McCartney - Drama
• Dr Jane McKie - Poetry
• Dr Allyson Stack - Fiction
• Kim Sherwood - Fiction
• Alice Thompson - Fiction

Find out more about the programme and our team

Training and support

We encourage you to share your research and learn from the work of others through a programme of seminars and visiting speakers.

We have an in-house Writer-in-Residence, annual writing prizes, and a range of opportunities to learn from experts in the publishing industry.

We also offer access to opportunities provided by the Sottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities.

Our postgraduate journal, Forum, is a valuable conduit for research findings and provides an opportunity to gain editorial experience.

• Forum: postgraduate journal of culture and the arts

A UNESCO World City of Literature, Edinburgh is a remarkable place to study, write, publish, discuss and perform prose, poetry and drama.

Take a PhD with us and you will be based in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC) in the historic centre of this world-leading festival city.

Our buildings are close to:

• National Library of Scotland (where collections include the Bute Collection of early modern English drama and the John Murray Archive)
• Edinburgh Central Library
• Scottish Poetry Library
• Scottish Storytelling Centre
• Writers’ Museum
• Traverse Theatre

We have strong links with the Edinburgh International Book Festival, which annually welcomes around 1,000 authors to our literary city.

There are lots of opportunities to write and share your work, from Forum to The Selkie, which was founded by Creative Writing students in 2018 to showcase work by people who self-identify as underrepresented.

Around the city, you’ll find library readings and bookshop launches, spoken word gigs, cabaret nights and poetry slams, including events run by celebrated publishing outlets, from Canongate and Polygon / Birlinn to Luath Press, 404 Ink, Taproot Press and Mariscat.

You will have access to the University’s many literary treasures, which include:

• William Drummond library
• Lewis Grassic Gibbon library
• Hugh MacDiarmid library
• Norman MacCaig library
• W.H. Auden collection
• Corson collection
• works by and about Sir Walter Scott
• Ramage collection of poetry pamphlets

The Centre for Research Collections also holds a truly exceptional collection of early Shakespeare quartos and other early modern printed plays. These have been put together by the 19th century Shakespearean James Halliwell-Phillipps, the correspondence of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle (the focus of one of the major editorial projects in Victorian studies of the last half-century), and the extensive Laing collection of medieval and early modern manuscripts.

You will also have access to letters and papers by - and relating to - authors including:

• Christopher Isherwood
• Rudyard Kipling
• John Middleton Murry
• Walter de la Mare
• George Mackay Brown
• Compton Mackenzie

Many of the University's Special Collections are digitised and available online from our excellent Resource Centre, Computing Labs, and dedicated PhD study space in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC).

Look inside the PhD study space in LLC

Entry requirements

These entry requirements are for the 2024/25 academic year and requirements for future academic years may differ. Entry requirements for the 2025/26 academic year will be published on 1 Oct 2024.

A UK masters degree, or its international equivalent, in creative writing, normally with distinction.

We may also consider your application if you have equivalent qualifications or experience. For additional information please refer to the pre-application guidance in the 'How to apply' section.

International qualifications

Check whether your international qualifications meet our general entry requirements:

• Entry requirements by country
• English language requirements

Regardless of your nationality or country of residence, you must demonstrate a level of English language competency at a level that will enable you to succeed in your studies.

English language tests

We accept the following English language qualifications at the grades specified:

• IELTS Academic: total 7.0 with at least 6.5 in each component. We do not accept IELTS One Skill Retake to meet our English language requirements.
• TOEFL-iBT (including Home Edition): total 100 with at least 23 in each component. We do not accept TOEFL MyBest Score to meet our English language requirements.
• C1 Advanced ( CAE ) / C2 Proficiency ( CPE ): total 185 with at least 176 in each component.
• Trinity ISE : ISE III with passes in all four components.
• PTE Academic: total 70 with at least 62 in each component.

Your English language qualification must be no more than three and a half years old from the start date of the programme you are applying to study, unless you are using IELTS , TOEFL, Trinity ISE or PTE , in which case it must be no more than two years old.

Degrees taught and assessed in English

We also accept an undergraduate or postgraduate degree that has been taught and assessed in English in a majority English speaking country, as defined by UK Visas and Immigration:

• UKVI list of majority English speaking countries

We also accept a degree that has been taught and assessed in English from a university on our list of approved universities in non-majority English speaking countries (non-MESC).

• Approved universities in non-MESC

If you are not a national of a majority English speaking country, then your degree must be no more than five years old* at the beginning of your programme of study. (*Revised 05 March 2024 to extend degree validity to five years.)

Find out more about our language requirements:

Fees and costs

Scholarships and funding, featured funding.

There are a number of scholarship schemes available to eligible candidates on this PhD programme, including awards from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Please be advised that many scholarships have more than one application stage, and early deadlines.

• Find out more about scholarships in literatures, languages and cultures

Other funding opportunities

Search for scholarships and funding opportunities:

• Search for funding

Further information

• Phone: +44 (0)131 650 4086
• Contact: [email protected]
• School of Literatures, Languages & Cultures
• 50 George Square
• Central Campus
• Programme: Creative Writing
• School: Literatures, Languages & Cultures
• College: Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Select your programme and preferred start date to begin your application.

PhD Creative Writing - 3 Years (Full-time)

Phd creative writing - 6 years (part-time), application deadlines.

Due to high demand, the school operates a number of selection deadlines. We will make a small number of offers to the most outstanding candidates on an ongoing basis, but hold the majority of applications until the next published selection deadline when we will offer a proportion of the places available to applicants selected through a competitive process.

Deadlines for applicants applying to study in 2024/25:

• How to apply

You must submit two references with your application.

• Pre-application guidance

Before you formally apply for this PhD, you should look at the pre-application information and guidance on the programme website.

This will help you decide if this programme is right for you, and help us gain a clearer picture of what you hope to achieve.

The guidance details the writing samples you should send us as part of your application (either fiction or poetry, along with a shorter sample of your academic writing).

It will also give you practical advice for writing your project summary – one of the most important parts of your application.

Find out more about the general application process for postgraduate programmes:

CCNY Graduate Course Bulletin for English

The city college of new york, cuny.

• Summer 2023
• Spring 2024
• Registration Overview

Creative Writing

B3000 fiction workshop.

Prof. Dalia Sofer Mondays 4:45 – 6:35pm Section 1FG (20772)

In this course we will read and discuss your manuscripts—short stories or excerpts from longer works. Together we’ll explore the elements of craft, including point of view, character, setting, style, and language. We’ll talk about the possibilities of fiction—how, for example, conflict (internal and external) can create narrative tension, how subtext can reveal the complexity of a situation, how time can be collapsed or expanded, or how well-chosen details can evoke character. We will also consider structure and form, as well as editing and revision. Ideally, you’ll each submit two pieces for discussion throughout the course. In each class, we’ll discuss two students’ works, and fellow students will provide written notes and critiques; I will do the same. My primary goal in this course is to focus on your intention, and on whether your manuscript manifests that intention. I’m less interested in the “formulas” of storytelling than in discovering what is unique to your vision. We’ll explore ways to sustain narrative tension while allowing a work of fiction the freedom to be what it wants to be, and we’ll talk about roadblocks and successes. Occasionally, time permitting, we may also take detours to read stories or essays that may fuel our conversations.

Dalia Sofer is the author of the novels  Man of My Time  (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020)—a New York Times Editors’ Choice and Notable Book of 2020, and  The Septembers of Shiraz  (Ecco Press, 2007)—also selected as a  New York Times  Notable Book of the Year, winner of the Sami Rohr Choice Award, a finalist for the Jewish Book Award, and longlisted for several prizes.  A recipient of a Whiting Award, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, the Sirenland Fellowship, the Santa Maddalena Foundation Fellowship, and multiple residencies at Yaddo, Sofer has contributed essays and reviews to various publications, including  The New York Times Book Review, The LA Review of Books, The Markaz Review, and The Believer.  

Prof. Soraya Palmer Tuesdays 4:45 – 6:35pm Section 2RS (36954)

This course will help you to tap into the unexpected and embrace the elements of surprise in your writing. I will be encouraging you to embrace the childhood parts of your imagination that can get you out of your comfort zone in your writing and allow yourself to experiment, fail, and try again. Some weeks will include prompts that all students will be expected to partake in at home or (time permitting) in class. These assignments are aimed at examining the craft techniques we are familiar with from an unfamiliar lens. For instance, how might animating an ordinary object force you to use setting (e.g.: a haunted house, a talking mirror) as a central character in your story? How do you use the macabre to build tension and create a sense of dread for your characters and/or your readers? We will read short works by authors who embrace the unfamiliar such as Carmen Maria Machado, George Saunders, Lesley Nneka Arimah, and Maisy Card to examine how authors use elements of surrealism, magical realism, unexpected turns, and strangeness to tell stories. Each student will have the opportunity to be workshopped one piece of their choice and one prompt-based piece. You may submit short stories or excerpts of longer works. Students will be expected to actively participate both verbally and in writing for their peers during the workshop.

All genres are welcome.

Soraya Palmer  is the author of  The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts.  She is a Flatbush-born-and-raised writer and licensed social worker who has worked to advocate for survivors of gender-based violence who are facing criminal charges related to their abuse. She has also spent time as a community organizer for young people who fights against gentrification and police brutality. Her novel was named one of  Today’s  “38 Best New Books to Read in 2023,” one of the “Buzziest Debut Novels of the New Year” by Goodreads, one of the “Best and Most Anticipated Books of 2023” by  Elle  magazine, and one of “The Most Anticipated Feminist Books of 2023” by Ms. Magazine. Her writing has appeared in Electric Literature, Hazlitt, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. She has been awarded a residency at Blue Mountain Center and graduated from the Virginia Tech MFA program. She lives in Brooklyn with her cat, Nicholas.

Prof. Salar Abdoh Tuesdays 6:45 – 8:35pm Section 2TU (20991)

This course is a standard graduate workshop. Each student shares their work two times during the semester. Submissions can be segments of a novel or a short story. My focus in the workshop is entirely on the students’ own pieces. My style is not to do paragraph by paragraph edits of a work. Rather, I look at the overall arc of a piece, and address the fundamental elements of fiction within it – pacing, character, voice, dialogue, prose, transitions, et cetera. Another aspect of my style of workshop is to not be overly intrusive. In other words, I try to work within the context that the writer has created; I don’t believe in ‘hard intrusion’ into a writer’s intent, style and execution, unless on very rare occasions it is absolutely called for.

Salar Abdoh is a novelist, essayist and translator. His latest book,  A Nearby Country Called Love , was published in 2023.

B3200 Poetry Workshop

Prof. David Groff Wednesdays 4:45 – 6:35pm Section 3FG (32603)

Just as each of us humans has a distinctive voiceprint, so does every poet. In this workshop you’ll be encouraged to define and refine your particular poetic voice. We’ll use the reading aloud of our poems to make observations and insights about them that lead us into the adventure of revision. In class exercises and discussion, we’ll explore ways to liberate the imagination and take poems to the often-startling places they need to go, while writing in both received and organic poetic forms. We will also read poets of diverse nationalities, races, eras, genders, and aesthetics, to discover how we can better value their voices and find inspiration for our own poems. In addition to writing and revising poems, we will explore where and how to send them out for publication, as part of a larger discussion about the voice of the emerging writer in a complex and rapidly changing American literary culture. Please be ready to submit a poem a week, do assigned reading of work by poets past and present, provide generous written responses to poems by other workshop participants, perform in-class and take-home poetry prompts, present the workshop with a written introduction to a poet you love, and create an end-of-semester chapbook of your poetry.

David Groff received his MFA from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. He also has an MA in English and Expository Writing from the University of Iowa. His books of poetry are Live in Suspense (Trio House Press, 2023),  Clay (Trio House Press, 2013), and Theory of Devolution (University of Illinois Press, 2002). He has co-edited the anthologies Who’s Yer Daddy?: Gay Writers Celebrate Their Mentors and Forerunners (University of Wisconsin Press, 2013), and Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS (Alyson, 2010).

B3600 Non-Fiction Workshop

Prof. Irvin Weathersby, Jr. Mondays 6:45 – 8:35pm Section 1HJ (32607) ONLINE

During the fall semester, students will submit two manuscripts up to twenty-five pages each, and learn to critique the work of their peers. Students will also explore exemplars of creative nonfiction and discuss the publication process from writing query letters, soliciting representation, and working with publishers. This class will nurture writers looking to expand their understanding of creative non-fiction as it relates to other forms including memoir, narrative non-fiction, feature writing, journalism, the personal essay and others, including fiction and poetic forms. Each of us has a story to tell, and this workshop will give students the tools to determine how their stories will be told. Irvin Weathersby is the author of  In Open Contempt,  a memoir-in-essays forthcoming in January 2025 that mediates on expressions of racism in art, museums, and public space in New Orleans and throughout the world. He has written for  Guernica, Esquire, The Atlantic, EBONY , and other outlets. He is a 2022 Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellow. His work has also received funding and support from the Voices of our Nation Arts Foundation, the Professional Staff Congress-City University of New York Research Award, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference where he was named the 2019 Bernard O’Keefe Scholar in Nonfiction. He has earned an MFA in creative writing from The New School, and a master’s in education from Morgan State University. He teaches composition and creative writing at Queensborough Community College and in the MFA program at St. Joseph’s University.

B4501 Special Topics: Screenwriting Workshop

Prof. Marc Palmieri Mondays 4:45 – 6:35pm Section 1FG (32606)

The good news is, these days one can move a script from page to screen faster and cheaper than ever before. While the possibility of selling a script to Hollywood is always real (seriously- it does happen), it is exciting and motivating to consider that thanks to how far digital technology has come, seeing one’s own work on the independent film circuit, festivals and the internet can happen without someone giving you lots and lots of money. Students will develop a screenplay for a film, television or the web. All are welcome to work in other variations such as television scripts and web series scripts. We will examine the storytelling possibilities of the form, its advantages and challenges – and no doubt stumble on important things we didn’t expect. Students will also offer critiques and participate in feedback discussions of classmates’ work.

Marc Palmieri  has taught dramatic writing in the MFA program at CCNY since 2010, and has taught Modern and Postmodern Drama, Shakespeare, Dramatic Writing for the stage, TV and film, Fiction and other courses for the Undergraduate English Department since 2006. He is an assistant professor in the School of Liberal Arts at Mercy College. Credits include: Miramax Films’ Telling You (screenplay), The Thing (webseries), stage plays include Waiting For The Host, Levittown (NY Times Critic’s Pick), The Groundling, Carl The Second and Poor Fellas (all published by Dramatists Play Service). He has published twice in Fiction, as well as the Global City Review and (Re) An Ideas Journal, and in numerous anthologies for Applause/Limelight Books and Smith & Kraus Inc. His collection of plays for middle schoolers, S(cool) Days, is published by Brooklyn Publishers. His memoir, She Danced With Lightning is published by Post Hill Press (August, 2022). Marc is a fully vested member of SAGAFTRA and Actors Equity.BA Wake Forest, MA, MFA CCNY. 

www.marcpalmieri.com

This course is also available as Craft Seminar.

Craft Seminars

B1616 bible, myth and contemporary literature.

Prof. Mark J. Mirsky Thursdays 6:45 – 8:35pm Section 4TU (22220)

This course is designed to introduce graduate Creative Writing students, and students in the Literature M.A., to the way questions of good and evil, belief or non-belief in an afterlife, and the idea of the hero or heroine, are expressed both in contemporary fiction and major texts of the past. We will read chapters from major texts of Antiquity as well as from writers in the Twentieth Century. The course starts with the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh , chapters of Homer’s Odyssey , then alternates with stories of the Polish writer, Bruno Schulz, readings from The Book of Genesis , The Book of Job , Franz Kafka’s The Trial, and Max Frisch’s Homo Faber . Among the contemporary writers whose books are included are William Faulkner, Milan Kundera, Cynthia Ozick, James Baldwin, Bruno Schulz, Isak Dinesen, Jorge Luis Borges, and Donald Barthelme and Joyce Carol Oates. The latter will be a guest speaker during the semester. The instructor requires the submission of two questions about the reading assigned for that week. At the end of the course students must submit either a creative response or critical paper on one or two of the books from the syllabus. This final paper should number between nine and ten pages or 2,500 words. In addition to the books and stories that students are required to read, the instructor will provide further reading as background to the class discussion and speak about them. These will include pages from Hesiod’s Theogony , chapters from The Book of Samuel 2 , (the story of King David and Absalom), The Gospel of Matthew , work by Flannery O’Connor, Marcel Proust, Miguel de Unamuno and Robert Musil in pdf or e-pub versions. These readings, however are optional.

Tentative Reading List: The Epic of Gilgamesh, 2nd Norton Crit. Ed. The Odyssey, Richard Lattimore translation Genesis: King James Bible The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera (PDF) The Book of Job, Edward Greenstein trans. digital or hardback The Trial, Franz Kafka, Breon Mitchell trans. “Sorrow Acre” Isak Dinesen (PDF) Homo Faber, Max Frisch Absalom, Absalom, William Faulkner Go Tell It on the Mountain, James Baldwin Beautiful Days, Joyce Carol Oates. Collected Fictions, Jorge Luis Borges, trans. by Andrew Hurley Sixty Stories of Donald Barthelme.

Professor Mark Jay Mirsky was the founding editor of the magazine Fiction in 1972, together with Donald Barthelme, and Max and Marianne Frisch. It still publishes from offices at The City College. Professor Mirsky is the author of five novels, Thou Worm Jacob, Proceedings of the Rabble , The Red Adam , Puddingstone , and Blue Hill Avenue (the last, listed among the 100 Essential Books of New England—by The Boston Globe.) He has published a collection of novellas, The Secret Table , as well as five books of criticism and journalism, My Search for the Messiah , The Absent Shakespeare , The Drama in Shakespeare’s Sonnets—”A Satire to Decay,” Dante, Eros and Kabbalah , and A Mother’s Steps in addition to numerous stories and articles. He is the editor of the Diaries of Robert Musil , co-editor of the two volume History of Pinsk (Stanford University Press), and Rabbinic Fantasies (Yale University Press). His essays and reviews have appeared in Partisan Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Washington Post, Book World, The Boston Globe , and elsewhere.

This course is also available as Literature.

B2046 Taste of the Archive: African American Literature and Oral History as Praxis

Prof. Janée Moses Thursdays 4:45 – 6:35pm Section 4RS (20994)

This seminar, which begins and ends with Brent Hayes Edwards’s essay, “The Taste of the Archive” bends genre with a simultaneous study of narrative, oral history, and archive to highlight aspects of the past that are “hard to pin down” or elusive. In the first part of the course, students will explore fiction and non-fiction texts in the African American literary canon that deal with issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, and belonging to highlight contradictory truths that “can’t quite be explained away,” and consider how methods of African American literature can be applied to narrative-based oral history projects that embrace, rather than bridle, complicated truths about our shared pasts. In the second part of the course, students will merge African American literary methods, archival practices, and oral history methods and theory to create their oral history projects. These projects will include the development of oral narratives that move from the realm of spoken word to polished manuscripts. In addition to the manuscript, students will analyze their oral history practice by writing methodology statements that expand the field of oral history. Janée Moses , Assistant Professor of English, specializes in African American Literature, 20th-century black expressive cultures, and oral history theory and methodology. Her current book project is an intertextual study of black women’s life writing and performances that combines extraordinary pursuits and ordinary experiences to highlight the fullness of their lives. Her writing appears in publications including  Rejoinder  and BOMB Magazine. An established oral historian, Moses serves as the Director of BOMB Magazine’s Oral History Project, preserving the narratives of black visual artists in America.

This course is also available as Creative Writing.

B1954 Race and Sexuality in the Narratives of James Baldwin

Prof. Gordon Thompson Wednesdays 6:45 – 8:35pm Section 3HJ (20584)

We will take a narrative or narratological approach to Baldwin’s various works. The class will explore how in his works seemingly private narrative tropes connect with larger or universal themes. This approach, in other words, is expected to reveal how patterns in the lives of the general reader of any demographic may connect with issues raised in Baldwin’s works even if, at first glance, such issues may appear limited to a single social group or individual.  We will look at one of Baldwin’s plays, a couple of short stories, and four of his early novels, from Go Tell it on the Mountain to If Beale Street Could Talk .  Questions of race, sexuality, and the pursuit of happiness will be discussed. 

Dr. Gordon E. Thompson , a Professor of English and African American cultural studies at the City College of New York/CUNY, has degrees in English, African American Studies, and American Studies, from, respectively, the City College of New York and Yale University. He has taught at institutions such as Stanford and LSU, publishing two books on African American literature, The Assimilationist Impulse in Four African American Narratives and Black Music, Black Poetry . Along with conference presentations, he has written articles for American Literature, Callaloo, CLA, and African American Review . In addition to his lectures on classic African American poetry, the art and culture of the Harlem Renaissance, American literature, and the great books of world literature, he is currently circulating a draft of an article on the life and fiction of James Baldwin.

B2021 Imagining the Queen: Race, Sex, and Empire in Elizabethan England

Prof. Elizabeth Mazzola Wednesdays 4:45 – 6:35pm Section 3FG (20995)

Elizabeth Tudor’s spectacular reign was also an incredibly fraught one, given the anxieties it raised about female authority as well as the longstanding presence of her cousin and rival Mary Stuart, under house arrest in England just miles away from Elizabeth’s throne. For nearly twenty years, a second queen shadowed the background as ongoing threat, pliant alternative, and constant rebuke to Elizabeth’s power.  This course will explore how Elizabeth curated ideas about herself and her authority in order to silence her critics and sidestep Mary Stuart’s challenge. But other issues will concern us, too: How did writers and artists participate in this curatorial activity and how did they subvert it? How did women writers in particular follow the Queen’s lead or ignore her example? And how did ideas about the West and whiteness, purity, and nation-building reflect (or shape) Elizabeth’s complicated figure?  Elizabeth Tudor arrives on the English stage as a prop and a riddle, showpiece and mash-up, because imagining her involves gorgeous, complicated, contradictory efforts—dressing her as nubile maiden or arming her for battle, queering her, deflowering her, idolizing her, bleaching her, loving her—even putting her body on a timetable to deploy ideas about childbirth, breast-feeding, and menopause. Involving medicine, politics, sexism, and racism, imagining the queen leaves traces in the works of William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser and clues in the writings of early modern women, just as eager to use (or deform) Elizabeth’s example for their own unusual projects. 

Elizabeth Mazzola has been teaching at CCNY for thirty years. She has written five books and more than 40 articles or book chapters exploring Shakespeare, Spenser, and early modern women writers, including an essay on Margaret Cavendish which just appeared in Textual Practice, and an essay on faces in Macbeth , forthcoming in Philosophy and Literature . She has just started a project exploring representations of conception, gestation, and delivery in the work of women writers; another project considers how Shakespeare describes fetal life and alternate ontologies in The Sonnets and Romeo and Juliet . 

B2140 Immigration Literature: Place ­– Language – Identity

Prof. Grazyna Drabik Tuesdays 6:45 – 8:35pm Section 2TU (21431)

The immigrant experience has been well represented in American literature since the beginning of the 20 th c. Numerous narratives, in fiction and non-fiction, chart the dynamics, variations, and stages of the migration experience. They tend to highlight the Ur-concept of the “American Dream” and the process of “assimilation/ acculturation” by which immigrants “become Americans,” espousing the promise of a new life. The leading themes of the immigration literature are clashes of culture; forging new individual and communal identities; conflicting loyalties that shape lives led between the adopted homeland and country of origin; redefinition of gender roles and of inter-generational relations; and the transformative role of education. Important writers such as Willa Cather, Claude McKay, Frank McCourt, Paule Marshall, Sandra Cisneros, and Julie Otsuko have contested and enriched the American literary canon in significant ways addressing these important themes. Our graduate seminar recognizes the riches of this classic ethnic-based (or place of origin-based) approach but also notes the need to extend the discussion further, in an open-ended and exploratory manner.  The course will focus on the dialectics of place, language, and identity, as highlighted by the writers, our contemporaries, who speak with the “forked-tongue,” writing from the perspective of a bi-cultural, marginal, and/or transnational experience. They are particularly attuned to the impact of massive displacement and to contradictions of ongoing cultural transformations. Their novels and short stories, plays, poems and personal essays do not fit comfortably within established versions of national histories, as they confront the complexity of cross-cultural encounters and the importance of transnational ties. Our readings include novels by Cristina García, Stuart Dybek and Teju Cole; a play by Martyna Majok; short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri; and selection of poems and essays by Dunya Mikhail, Maxine Hong Kingston, Czeslaw Milosz, Edwidge Danticat and Aleksander Hemon. The seminar is demanding in terms of the amount and diversity of reading materials, but leaves space for individual special interests, offering a wide range of choices for the term project.

Grazyna Drabik  teaches World Humanities & Immigration Literature at City College and a seminar on Arts in New York at Macaulay Honors College, CUNY. Her areas of special interest are cross-cultural exchanges and challenges of literary translation. She has recently published the translation of Andrzej Bobkowski’s  Wartime Notebooks: France, 1940- 1944  (Yale University Press, 2018) and is currently preparing a large selection of poems by Brazilian poet Adélia Prado, to be published in Polish.

C0910 The Short Story in the Americas and Beyond

Prof. Lyn Di Iorio Tuesdays 4:45 – 6:35pm Section 2RS (20987)

In this course we explore the modern short story, a beautiful yet highly underrated form. Our approach focuses on both the genre tendencies of the short story since it began in the 19th century in the Americas and its technical aspects. We will follow the idea that there have been two genre tendencies in short story practice. The first involves uncanny, mysterious, magical and haunted happenings. The first modern short stories by Americas-based authors, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe, were in this mysterious-haunted category. In Latin America, Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar adapted that tendency. Mariana Enriquez and Carmen Maria Machado are contemporary pursuers of it. We will read these writers and others in this category. The other genre tendency is decidedly non-magical. These realist pieces often focus on the psychology of characters who are outsiders because of class, race, gender, queerness, youth, identity or psychic bent. Practitioners of this tendency include Anton Chekhov, Ernest Hemingway, Junot Díaz, and Otessa Moshfegh. We will also have to contend with the fact that some authors seem to write in both categories. Lauren Groff and Bryan Washington come to mind and of course we will read them. In discussing the short story, we must also address its technical aspects. Among other elements, we will consider protagonists and their desire lines; the way story conflict escalates; the importance of good endings; and the use of sensuous and precise details. I will also probably devote class days to discussions about violence, animals, and children in the short story. The main writing assignments will be a final research paper about stories read in class and an essay delivered as an oral report about a short story to be discussed in class. But we will also have extra fun with one or two creative writing exercises. I urge creative writers to write a short story as their final project!

Lyn Sandín Di Iorio is a fiction writer and scholar. She is a recent recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fiction Fellowship and a Rifkind Center Faculty Fellowship for her book-in-progress:  Hurricanes and Other Stories . Her short fiction has appeared most recently in  The Kenyon Review  and  Big Other :  Puerto Rican Writers Folio: A Hauntology  and a story was named “Distinguished Story” in  Best American Short Stories 2021 . She also wrote  Outside the Bones , a finalist for the 2012 John Gardner Fiction Prize and  Killing Spanish , a book about Latinx literature and identity. She graduated from Harvard University and Stanford University’s Creative Writing Program, and received her Ph.D. from UC-Berkeley. She teaches creative writing and literature classes at CCNY and CUNY Graduate Center.

Language and Literacy

B8109 digital literacies.

Prof. Missy Watson Wednesdays 6:45 – 8:35pm Section 3HJ (20990) ONLINE

What are digital literacies and what does it mean to be “digitally literate” in the 21st century? What are our personal relationships and histories with digital writing tools and spaces, and how do our experiences influence our individualized learning? How is our teaching shaped by the digital, and how might we best support students in developing digital literacies? In this course, students will examine these and other questions pertaining to digital literacy. Assigned readings will provide theories on how digital technologies alter the ways in which we compose, reach audiences, and teach composition today. But students will also have ample opportunities to research their own interests in digital literacies. Additionally, students will experiment composing across digital genres, such as through creating a digital writing/teaching portfolio, exploring free software like Google Drive and Canva, engaging social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter, utilizing teaching and presentation technologies like Screencastify and Prezi, and making GIFs, TikTok videos, memes, infographics, and more. No experience necessary! We will celebrate risk-taking, compositional failures, and technological blunders alongside applauding our successes and individualized advancements with digital composing. Practicing writing across platforms, genres, purposes, and rhetorical modes, we will aim to develop the technical skills and rhetorical dexterity needed for writing and teaching in the so-called Digital Age.

B8118 Basic Writing in the 21 st Century: Scholars, Teachers, Learners

Prof. Barbara Gleason Tuesdays 6:45 – 8:35pm Section 2TU (20989) HYBRID

BW students write the way they do not because they are slow or nonverbal, indifferent to or incapable of academic excellence, but because they are beginners. Mina Shaughnessy, Errors & Expectations , 1977

[G]iven sufficient time and support, students who start at basic writing levels can and do succeed. Marilyn Sternglass, “Students Deserve Enough Time to Prove That They Can Succeed,” Journal of Basic Writing , 1999

This course will introduce graduate students to basic writing studies, a field inspired by CUNY’s 1970 Open Admissions policy and still thriving in 2024. Despite basic writing course closures and academic controversies, colleges and universities continue to admit students needing academic support and sufficient time to achieve their goals. These students are often first-generation college students, immigrants, Gen 1.5 students, and working adults. Their motivations, experiences, and needs continue to serve as catalysts for innovative research and instruction, even as public college budgets are stretched to their limits. Among the legacy scholars whose work we’ll read are Mina Shaughnessy, Marilyn Sternglass, Victor Villanueva, Min-Zhan Lu, Mike Rose, Peter Dow Adams, and Keith Gilyard. Course participants will learn about the Council of Basic Writing, a professional organization that supports instructors, and they will survey scholarship published in edited books and in periodicals, e.g., Journal of Basic Writing, Basic Writing e-Journal , Composition Studies , and WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship. Emerging issues, instructional sites, and perspectives that we’ll explore include (1) translingual approaches to writing instruction; (2) multilingualism and multiliteracies; (3) remote teaching and digital learning; (4) alternative basic writing course structures; (5) writing curricula and pedagogy. We will pay very close attention to understanding why and how some students enroll in basic writing classes while other students do not. And, since most basic writing classes are offered at community colleges, writing course offerings in community colleges will be considered in depth.

Barbara Gleason is a CCNY English Department professor and Director of the MA in Language and Literacy. Her scholarship focuses on basic writing, adult learners, writing course curricula, and program evaluation. She published The Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Adult Learners with Kimme Nuckles in 2014 (Bedford St. Martin’s Series in Macmillan). With Laura Gray-Rosendale, Barbara has recently edited a collection of 33 original essays for a book titled Basic Writing in the 21st Century (Peter Lang, forthcoming in 2024).

C0862 Practicum – Introduction to Teaching Composition

Prof. Missy Watson Thursdays 4:45 – 6:35pm Section 4RS (20988)

This course prepares graduate students to teach introductory college writing and humanities classes. We will study and practice approaches to teaching composition, course design, instructional strategies, writing assignments, writing assessment, classroom management. We also explore a range of approaches and technologies for teaching and learning in online environments, and we will examine print and online resources for college writing instructors. Additionally, we will consider how to tailor our teaching to best support a wide variety of students—with variable needs, motivations, abilities, and cultural, linguistic, racial, educational, and social backgrounds.

Dr. Missy Watson  is Associate Professor in the CCNY English Department. She serves as the Director of First-Year Writing Program, and she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in composition, pedagogy, language, and literacy. Her research lies at the intersection of composition and second-language writing and revolves around seeking social and racial justice. Recent publications of Dr. Watson include the following:  “Translingual Approaches in Basic Writing: Resisting the Legacy of Assimilationism.”  Basic Writing in the 21st Century: Legacies, Learners, Landscapes and Future Possibilities , edited by Laura Gray-Rosendale and Barbara Gleason. Peter Lang, forthcoming. (Co-authored with Rachael Shapiro). “Translingual Praxis: From Theorizing Language to Antiracist and Decolonial Pedagogy.”  College Composition and Communication , vol. 74, no. 2, 2022, pp. 292-321. (Co-authored with Rachael Shapiro).  Literacy and Learning in Times of Crisis: Emergent Teaching Through Emergencies . Peter Lang, 2022 (Co-edited with Sara P. Alvarez, Yana Kuchirko, Mark McBeth, and Meghmala Tarafdar). “Averting Colorblind Translingualism.”  Racing Translingualism in Composition: Toward a Race-Conscious Translingualism , edited by Tom Do and Karen Rowan. Utah State University Press, 2021. (Co-authored with Rachael Shapiro).  “Engaging (the Politics of) Language Difference in the Writing Classroom: A Multipronged Translingual Approach.”  Plurilingual Pedagogies , edited by Kay Losey and Gail Shuck. University of Michigan Press, 2021. “The Inevitable Mess of Translingualism: Its –ism and the Schism of Cross-Disciplinary Conflict.”  Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture , vol. 20, no. 3, 2021, pp. 83-107. 

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The Creative Writing minor emphasizes the production of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and other forms of creative writing. It is designed as a complementary program of study, intended to add opportunities for creative activity onto students’ other academic interests. Students minoring in Creative Writing acquire a basic familiarity with literary history, study modern or contemporary literature and complete beginning, intermediate and advanced courses in the art and craft of creative writing.

When selecting courses, students should consult a faculty adviser in the Department of English, Comparative Literature and Linguistics. A “C” (2.0) or better is required in all courses applied to the minor.

Required Courses (9 units)

• ENGL 105 - Introduction to Creative Writing (3)
• ENGL 306 - Intermediate Creative Writing (3)
• ENGL 404T - Advanced Creative Writing (3)

Analysis of Literary Forms or Survey Course (3 units)

• CPLT 324 - World Literature to 1650 (3)
• CPLT 325 - World Literature from 1650 (3)
• ENGL 211 - British Literature to 1760 (3)
• ENGL 212 - British Literature from 1760 (3)
• ENGL 221 - American Literature to 1865 (3)
• ENGL 222 - American Literature from 1865 (3)
• ENGL 300 - Analysis of Literary Forms (3)

Modern or Contemporary Literature Course (3 units)

• ENGL 462 - Modern British and American Fiction (3)
• ENGL 463 - Contemporary Fiction in English (3)
• ENGL 464 - Modern British and American Drama (3)
• ENGL 465 - Contemporary Drama in English (3)
• ENGL 466 - Modern British and American Poetry (3)
• ENGL 467 - Contemporary Poetry in English (3)

Electives (6 units)

• two 300-level or higher Compartive Literature or English courses not used to fulfill the requirements above

Total (21 units)

What are you looking for?

Suggested search.

Genre: poetry

Aria Aber was born and raised in Germany and is currently based in Los Angeles, California. Her debut book Hard Damage won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry and was published in September 2019. Her poems are forthcoming or have appeared in The New Yorker, New Republic, The Yale Review, Poem-A-Day, Narrative, POETRY, and elsewhere. A graduate of the NYU MFA in Creative Writing, she holds awards and fellowships from Kundiman, the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing, and the Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. She is the recipient of a 2020 Whiting Award in Poetry.

Website: https://www.ariaaber.com/

Amelia Ada is a trans poet and essayist. She holds an MFA in poetry from Vanderbilt University, and she graduated with honors from both the undergraduate journalism and creative writing programs at Northwestern University. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including  ZYZZYVA,   Denver Quarterly, Boston Review, Southwest Review , and  West Branch.  Her first book manuscript was a finalist for the 2020 National Poetry Series Open Competition. She lives in Los Angeles and co-hosts the podcast  You Shouldn’t Let Poets Lie To You .

Website: https://amelia-ada.com/

Akhim Alexis

Genre: fiction

Akhim Alexis is a writer from Trinidad and Tobago. He received his BA and MA from The University of the West Indies. He is the winner of the Brooklyn Caribbean Lit Fest Elizabeth Nunez Award for Writers in the Caribbean. He was also a finalist for the Barry Hannah Prize in Fiction, the Grist Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors Contest and the Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize for poetry. His writing has appeared in The Massachusetts Review , Electric Literature , The Rumpus , and elsewhere.

Taneum Bambrick

Taneum Bambrick is the author of Intimacies, Received ( Copper Canyon Press 2022), and Vantage ( American Poetry Review /Honickman First Book Award 2019). A 2020 Stegner fellow, their work can be found in the New Yorker , The Nation , American Poetry Review, PEN,  and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, Sewanee Writers Conference, and a scholarship from Bread Loaf Writers Conference.

Remy Barnes

Remy Barnes’s fiction has appeared in The Iowa Review, Mississippi Review, The Southampton Review, Southern Humanities Review and elsewhere. He received his MFA from Cornell University where he taught courses on fiction, poetry and film. He is at work on a novel.

Website: www.remybarnes.org

Mayookh Barua

Genre: nonfiction

Mayookh Barua is a writer belonging to the Ahom community in Northeast India. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in nonfiction in the Creative Writing and Literature Department at USC and holds an MFA in Fiction from North Carolina State University. His work explores sexuality, art, mythology, education and family through a queer South-Asian voice. A 2023 Roots.Wounds.Words Non-Fiction fellow, MOZAIK Philanthropy’s 2023 Future Art Writers Award winner, and a Dorianne Laux Poetry Prize 2023 Finalist, his works appear in The Audacity by Roxane Gay, The Gay & Lesbian Review , Litro Magazine , Espace Art Actuel , The Third Eye , Mezosfera Magazine and elsewhere.

Damien Belliveau

Damien Belliveau is a fiction fellow at the University of Southern California. As a creative writer, he has two dissertation projects: one creative, the other critical. The creative project is an autobiographical coming-of-age story inspired by his time serving as a medic in the U.S. Army during the mid-90s. The critical project examines book-to-film adaptations where he explores the editorial strategies employed to translate literature to cinema. Damien’s been a reality television editor for nearly two decades; his credits range from “The Real World” to “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” to “Bill Nye Saves the World.” He’s directed episodes of reality TV, but in the non-scripted space, he prefers the power of the edit bay. A PEN Emerging Voices Fellow, his work has appeared in  The Los Angeles Review of Books ,  Epiphany Magazine ,  The Spectacle , and more.

Website: www.damienbelliveau.com

Ben Bush is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, a 2017-2018 Fulbright Fellow to Bulgaria, and a Dornsife Fellow at the University of Southern California creative writing PhD program. His fiction has appeared in  The Iowa Review, The Literary Review, Yeti, The Fanzine , and  Vol. 1 Brooklyn . His non-fiction and interviews have appeared in  Bookforum, The Believer, Poets & Writers, San Francisco Chronicle, Salon, Bitch , and the  Los Angeles Review of Books . He has received fellowships and scholarships from the Truman Capote Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Wesleyan Writers Conference, Kimmel Harding Nelson, Sozopol Fiction Seminars, and Key West Literary Seminars. He is a former managing editor of the Organist podcast from McSweeney’s and KCRW and has taught creative writing in Morocco, Bulgaria, and at the University of Iowa.

Bryan Byrdlong

Bryan Byrdlong is a Black poet from Chicago, Illinois. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the Helen Zell Writers Program. He has been published in Guernica Magazine , The Kenyon Review , and Poetry Magazine , among others. Bryan received a 2021 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. He is currently a PhD student in Creative Writing at USC in Los Angeles.

Website: https://bryanbyrdlong.com/

Amanda Choo Quan

Amanda Choo Quan is a Trinidadian/Jamaican writer. Though she writes in all genres, her concentration at USC is in nonfiction. Previously, she attended the University of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica, where she was a valedictorian nominee, and CalArts, where she was a Truman Capote Fellow. She’s former UN staff as well as a journalist who has published in Harper’s , Teen Vogue , NYLON , and Caribbean Beat . Most recently, she was a correspondent for NY, London, Paris and Milan Fashion Weeks. Her interests are eclectic: race, culture, aesthetics, humour, and the psychologies of the above. She’s always rooting for everybody Black. She tweets at @amandachooquan.

Ariel Chu is a PhD student in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Southern California. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University, where she was awarded the Shirley Jackson Prize in Fiction. Ariel’s work has been published by The Rumpus , Black Warrior Review , and The Common , among others. Her writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net Award, and Best Short Fictions Anthology, and she has received support from Kundiman, the Steinbeck Fellowship, the Luce Scholars Program, and the P.D. Soros Fellowship for New Americans.

Ariel is currently writing a collection of short stories about queer suburban hauntings. She also serves as the fiction editor of Nat. Brut and translates contemporary queer Taiwanese fiction into English. Her research interests include queer Taiwanese and Taiwanese American literature, hybrid Asian American writing, and experimental fiction.

Website: ariel-chu.com

James Ciano

James Ciano holds an MFA from New York University. His poetry  appears in  Prairie Schooner ,  The Literary Review ,  Poetry Northwest ,  Bennington Review ,  Greensboro Review , and  Alaska Quarterly Review , among others. His reviews and writings on poetry have appeared in  The Adroit Journal ,  Poetry Northwest , and  Los Angeles Review of Books . Originally from New York, he lives in Los Angeles, California where he is currently a Provost Fellow and PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California.

Website: https://jamesciano.com/

Marcus Clayton

Marcus Clayton is a multigenre Afrolatino writer from South Gate, CA, with an M.F.A. in Poetry from CSU Long Beach. Currently, he pursues a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California, focusing his creative work on genre-bent nonfiction, and his critical work on the intersections between Latinx literature, Black literature, Decolonization, and Punk Rock. He has a poetry chapbook,  Nurture the Open Wounds , through Glass Poetry Press, and will be releasing a full-length book of mixed-genre prose titled  ¡PÓNK! with Nightboat Books. A few other publications include the Los Angeles Review of Books , Joyland Magazine , Indiana Review , Apogee Journal , Passages North , Black Punk Now! , and  The Oxford Handbook of Punk Rock. In his free time, he also screams and plays guitar for local LA punk band, tudors.

Website: https://marcus-clayton.com/

Antonia Crane

Genre: nonfictoin

Antonia Crane is a queer sex worker, activist, and filmmaker. She’s the author of the memoir, Spent (Rare Bird Lit/Barnacle Books). She was awarded the Outstanding Community Service & Activism Award from Antioch University Alumni Association in 2018. PRISM International magazine named Antonia the grand prize winner of their 2019 creative nonfiction contest. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, Quartz:  Atlantic Media, CNN.com, Buzzfeed, N+1 , Playboy, Los Angeleno, Cosmopolitan, Salon.com, The Huffington Post, DAME, The Los Angeles Review, Bustle , and lots of other places. Most recently, her work has appeared in the anthologies: Whorephobia: Strippers on Art, Work and Life , edited by Lizzie Borden, and Voices of a People’s History of the United States in the 21 st Century: Documents of Hope and Resistance, edited by Anthony Arnove & Haley Pessin. She lives in Los Angeles.

Website: https://www.antoniacrane.com/

Ashley Dailey

Ashley Dailey (she/her) is a writer and multimedia artist from Sargent, Georgia. She mostly writes about family and the cultural legacies of the American South. Her work has received support from the Academy of American Poets and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and is published or forthcoming in Sonora Review ,  Tupelo Quarterly ,  Waxwing , Breakwater Review , New Delta Review , Plume Poetry , The Florida Review , and elsewhere. She was a 2021 Best of the Net nominee and a finalist for the 2021 Peseroff Poetry Prize. Her work has also been featured on Ada Limón’s podcast The Slowdown . She received her MFA from the University of Tennessee, where she served as the Poetry Editor for Grist , volume 14, and hosted the interdisciplinary reading series Chiasmus. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Website: https://www.ashleydaileypoetry.com/

Michael Deagler

Michael Deagler is the author of the novel Early Sobrieties (Astra House, 2024). His short fiction has appeared Harper’s , McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern , and Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading . Originally from Bucks County, PA, he received his BA from Temple University and an MFA from Rutgers University-Camden.

Website: michaeldeagler.com

Joseph De La Torre

Joseph is a fiction writer from Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

Darren Donate

Darren Donate is a Mexican American writer. He previously received an MFA in poetry at the University of New Mexico where he taught courses in creative writing and technical communication. He is interested in the intersections of race and labor. You can find his work in Berkeley Poetry Review, the minnesota review, ANMLY  and others.

Cyrus Dunham

Cyrus Dunham is the author of  A Year Without a Name  (2020), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards. His writing on grassroots anti-prison organizing and trans politics has appeared in  The New Yorker , Granta , and The Intercept , among other publications and anthologies. He is a co-founder and editor of Deluge Books.

Kyle Edwards

Kyle Edwards grew up on the Lake Manitoba First Nation in Manitoba. A graduate of Ryerson University, he has worked as a journalist for Native News Online , ProPublica and Maclean’s , and has been a Nieman Visiting Fellow at Harvard University and a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. He is a Provost Fellow at the University of Southern California, where he is pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature. His debut novel is forthcoming from Pantheon in spring 2025.

Jonathan Escoffery

Jonathan Escoffery is a Jamaican American writer from Miami. He is the recipient of the 2020 Plimpton Prize for Fiction, a 2020 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) fellowship, and the 2020 National Magazine Award for Fiction from the American Society of Magazine Editors. His writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Paris Review, American Short Fiction, Electric Literature, Prairie Schooner, Passages North, ZYZZYVA, AGNI, Pleiades, The Best American Magazine Writing 2020, Creative Nonfiction , and elsewhere. He has received fellowships and support from Aspen Words, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico, Kimbilio Fiction, the Anderson Center, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and elsewhere. Jonathan earned his MFA in Fiction from the University of Minnesota, and attends the University of Southern California’s Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature Program as a Provost Fellow.

Website: https://jonathanescoffery.com/

Lessa Fenderson

Leesa Fenderson’s work has appeared in Callaloo Journal , Uptown Magazine , Moko Magazine , and she was a Finalist in Paper Darts’ Short Fiction contest. Leesa completed her MFA at Columbia University. She is an attorney, a teacher, and a Jamaican immigrant who hails from New York. She currently writes in Los Angeles where she is a PhD fellow in USC’s Writing and Literature Program.

Website: https://www.leesafenderson.com/

Seth Fischer

Seth Fischer is a Los Angeles-based writer and editor. His work has twice been listed as notable in  The Best American Essays , and his publications have appeared in Guernica, Zocalo Public Square, Slate, Buzzfeed, and elsewhere. He’s been an editor at The Rumpus, Gold Line Press, Air/Light, and The Nervous Breakdown, and he’s been awarded fellowships and residencies by, among others, Ucross, Disquiet, the Jean Piaget Archives, Lambda Literary, Jentel, and Ragdale. Prior to starting the PhD program in Creative Writing and Literature at USC, he taught at UCLA-Extension Writer’s Program and Antioch University Los Angeles, where he also received his MFA.

Website: https://www.seth-fischer.com/

Emily Geminder

Emily Geminder is the author of  Dead Girls and Other Stories , winner of the Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Prize. Her work has appeared in  AGNI, American Short Fiction, Conjunctions, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, Tin House,  and elsewhere. She is currently a Stegner Fellow in fiction at Stanford University.

Website: emilygeminder.com

Carrie Guss

Carrie Guss is a Canadian writer and artist. She has worked with clients including Dzanc Books, The Baltimore Review , CBC shortDOCS, the Florida Writers Festival, Persea Books, Quarter After Eight , Lucky Peach , and AOL News, and held editorial positions at Subtropics and Ricochet Editions. Her fiction has been shortlisted for the MASH Stories Prize, longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize, and has appeared most recently in Nat. Brut , NANO Fiction , and The Collagist . She has been awarded two Writers’ Reserve Grants by the Ontario Arts Council, and was honored on the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Top Prospects List. She holds a BA in Politics from Pomona College, an MFA in Fiction from the University of Florida, and is currently a doctoral candidate in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Southern California.

Alexandria Hall

Alexandria Hall is the author of Field Music (Ecco, 2020), a National Poetry Series winner. She holds an MFA from NYU and is currently a PhD candidate in Creative Writing and Literature at USC. She is a founding editor of Tele- and co-host of You Shouldn’t Let Poets Lie to You . Her poetry and prose have appeared in The Yale Review , Bennington Review , LARB Quarterly Journal , No Tokens , and other publications.

Website: https://www.alexandria-hall.com/

David Haydon

David Haydon (they/them) is essayist and poet originally from Springfield, KY. They are a student in the Creative Writing and Literature PhD program at the University of Southern California and completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Western Kentucky University. Their writing has appeared in Taunt magazine and is anthologized in Once a City Said: An Anthology of Louisville Poets (Sarabande). They are the nonfiction editor for Gold Line Press.

Stephanie Horvath

Stephanie Horvath’s poems have appeared in Gulf Coast , Poetry Northwest , Bennington Review , and Denver Quarterly , among other journals. She completed her MFA at Indiana University, where she was awarded the Yusef Komunyakaa Fellowship in poetry. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California.

Lucas Iberico Lozada

Lucas Iberico Lozada is a PhD candidate (ABD) in nonfiction writing. He is working on a book about the many tombs of Christopher Columbus. His reporting—from Brazil, Peru, and across the US—and essays have appeared in magazines and newspapers including the  Virginia Quarterly Review, the New York Times , The Nation , and Dissent. 

Victor Imko

Victor Imko is an essayist from Charleston, SC. They studied queer theory and literature as a Mellon Fellow at Northwestern University. They’ve taught classes in composition and creative writing at the University of Florida and Trident Technical College. Today they live in LA, writing as a Dornsife Fellow at the University of Southern California.

Mitchell Jacobs

Mitchell Jacobs is a poet and fiction writer from Minnesota. He earned an MFA from Purdue University, where he served as managing editor of Sycamore Review . Currently, he is a PhD candidate in literature and creative writing at the University of Southern California, where he serves on the editorial board of Ricochet Editions. His work has appeared in journals such as the Cincinnati Review , Massachusetts Review , Ploughshares , and Southern Review , as well as the Best New Poets anthology and The Slowdown podcast through American Public Media.

Website: mitchellbjacobs.com

Jane Kalu’s work has been featured or is forthcoming in American Short Fiction , Boston Review , The Hopkins Review , Isele Magazine , Munyori Journal , and elsewhere. She’s a graduate of the MFA program at the University of New Mexico, where she was the recipient of the Joseph Badal Prize and the Hillerman/McGarrity Prize. Other awards include residencies and fellowships from StoryKnife and American short fiction. She is at work on a novel and a collection of short stories.

Website: https://janekalu.com/

Rebecca Kantor

Rebecca Kantor is a writer from Plano, Texas. She taught English in Madrid, Spain, for two years, then received her MFA in fiction from Vanderbilt University. Her fiction often deals with themes of girlhood and hauntings. She is currently at work on a novel.

Matt Kessler

Matt Kessler grew up in Mobile, Alabama and has since called many places home, including Chicago, Oxford and the Hudson Valley. His writing has appeared in  The Guardian, The Atlantic, MTV News, Dazed and Confused, Pitchfork, Candy, Vice  &  The Rumpus . His radio work has been broadcast on  Mississippi Public Broadcasting  &  Illinois Public Media . He holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Mississippi, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Literature & Creative Writing at the University of Southern California.

Website: www.matt-kessler.com

Victoria Kornick

Victoria Kornick is a writer from Virginia. Her creative nonfiction and poetry appear in  American Chordata ,  Copper Nickel ,  The Greensboro Review ,  No Tokens Journal , and  The Yale Review , among other publications. She holds an MFA from New York University, where she was a Rona Jaffe and Goldwater Hospital fellow. She has received support from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, the Community of Writers, and the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. Victoria lives in Los Angeles, where she is a PhD candidate at the University of Southern California.

Website: victoriakornick.com

Cameron Lange

Cameron Lange is a British-Iranian writer from London. His work has appeared in Roads & Kingdoms, Zócalo Public Square, and Lodestars Anthology . He holds an MSc in Social Anthropology from the London School of Economics. He currently lives in Los Angeles.

Brian Lin is a doctoral candidate in Creative Writing and Literature. He has attended the Tin House Summer Workshop, the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, and the VONA Summer Workshop. He was a resident at Ragdale and The Cabins and a fellow at the Community of Writers Workshop and the Writing by Writers Workshop. His stories and essays can be found in  Electric Literature ,  The Rumpus ,  The Margins ,  Lambda Literary ,   Hyphen Magazine , and the  Los Angeles Review of Books . Brian is working on a novel and other books of prose.

Website: https://www.brianlinlit.com

Erin Marie Lynch is the author of Removal Acts (Graywolf Press, 2023). Her writing appears in POETRY, New England Review, DIAGRAM, Narrative , Best New Poets , and other publications. She has received awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, Indigenous Nations Poets, and the Wurlitzer Foundation. She lives in Los Angeles.

Website: http://www.erinmarielynch.com

Stephanie Mullings

Stephanie Mullings is a fiction writer from Chicago and a graduate of Boston University’s MFA program. She is a 2021 First Pages Prize winner and a finalist of the 2021 Arkansas International Emerging Writer’s Prize and CRAFT’s 2022 Short Fiction Prize. A PEN/O. Henry Prize nominee, her stories have appeared in Boulevard , Catapult , the Los Angeles Review , Ninth Letter , The Rumpus , Swamp Pink , Wigleaf , and elsewhere.

Charlie Napolitano

Charlie Napolitano was raised in Florida and received their MFA from the University of Central Florida. Their short story “Cobra” won the 2016 AWP Intro Journal Awards. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, Quarterly West ,  The Florida Review , and elsewhere. Currently, they are a Ph.D. student in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Southern California.

Rose Nguyễn

Rose Nguyễn is a writer from Honolulu, HI. She holds a BA from Princeton University and an MA in Literature from UC Berkeley. Her criticism has appeared in The Drift , and her essay in the Indiana Review, which won their 2021 Creative Nonfiction Prize, is a notable essay in Best American Essays 2023 . She is currently based in Los Angeles.

JoAnna Novak

JoAnna Novak’s debut memoir  Contradiction Days: An Artist on the Verge of Motherhood  was published in July. Her fourth book of poetry,  Domestirexia , will be published by Soft Skull in 2024. She is the author of the novel  I Must Have You  and  Meaningful Work: Stories. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review , and other publications.

Website: https://www.joannanovak.com/

Katharine Ogle

Katharine Ogle is a Provost Fellow at the University of Southern California, where she is pursuing a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing. She holds a BA with distinction from the University of Virginia and an MFA in poetry from the University of Washington. She has worked as an Associate Editor of  Poetry Northwest , as a writer-in-residence for Seattle Arts & Lectures, and as a lecturer for the University of Washington’s creative writing programs at Friday Harbor Laboratories and at the UW Rome Center. Her work has been published in Pleiades, Five Points, Poetry Northwest, by The Broad Museum in Los Angeles, and at a public bus stop in Seattle, among other places.

Michelle Orsi

Michelle Orsi is a writer from Spokane, Washington. She currently lives in Los Angeles, where she is pursuing her PhD in Creative Writing & Literature at the University of Southern California. She received her MFA in Poetry from the University of Houston, where she was an Inprint Jesse H. and Mary Gibbs Jones Fellow and worked as Poetry Editor for Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts. She was recently awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to teach in Argentina in 2020.

Catherine Pond

Catherine Pond is the author of Fieldglass (Southern Illinois University Press 2021), winner of the Crab Orchard First Book Prize and a finalist for the National Poetry Series. Her poems have appeared in Best New Poets, Best American Nonrequired Reading, AGNI, Salmagundi, The Adroit Journal, Narrative , and other publications. Pond is a PhD candidate (ABD) in Literature & Creative Writing at the University of Southern California.

Crystal Powell

Before devoting her time to writing, Crystal Powell was the VP of Production & Development for Electric City Entertainment and Silverwood Films, where she developed, co-produced, and associate-produced several features, including Matt Ross’s Captain Fantastic starring Viggo Mortensen and Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond The Pines , starring Bradley Cooper, Ryan Gosling, and Eva Mendes. Crystal was also a production executive on Tim Burton’s Big Eyes. She went on to study creative writing as a Lillian Vernon MFA Fellow at New York University. After graduating, she was a Center for Fiction NYC Emerging Writers Fellow, a Jack Jones Literary Arts Fellow, and a fiction finalist for both the Disquiet Prize and a New York Foundation For The Arts Fellowship. She’s working on her first novel while pursuing a PhD in creative writing and literature at the University of Southern California.

Jianan Qian

Jianan Qian writes in both Chinese and English. In her native language Chinese, she has published a story collection, a novel, an essay collection, and a letter collection. In English, she is a staff writer at The Millions and her works have appeared in The New York Times , Granta , Guernica Magazine , Gulf Coast , and elsewhere. She received her MFA in fiction from The Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Currently, she is a Ph.D. student in English Literature and Creative Writing at The University of Southern California.

Thomas Renjilian

Thomas Renjilian is a fiction writer and poet originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania. He received his BA from Vassar College and MFA from Oregon State University. His stories and poems appear in  The Missouri Review, Gulf Coast, Kenyon Review, Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM,  and other publications. He is the editor-in-chief of Gold Line Press and a fiction editor for  Joyland Magazine . He previously served as managing editor of Ricochet Editions. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a PhD candidate in Literature & Creative Writing at the University of Southern California.

Website: https://www.thomasrenjilian.com

Laura Roque

Laura Roque is the daughter of Cuban exiles and was raised in Hialeah, Florida. In 2018, she won Kenyon Review’s Short Fiction Contest and Glimmer Train’s Fiction Open Contest. She is currently a Wallis Annenberg fellow at the University of Southern California and a PhD candidate in their creative writing program. Her novel-in-progress, Aguanta, Diana, has received support from the American Association of University Women and was awarded a dissertation fellowship for the 2023-2024 academic year, as a project important to advances in equity for women and girls.

Website: lauraroque.com

Austen Leah Rose

Austen Leah Rose’s debut book of poems Once, This Forest Belonged to a Storm was the 2022 winner of the Juniper Prize and published by the University of Massachusetts Press. Her poetry has appeared in Zyzzyva, AGNI, The Southern Review, Narrative, The Adroit Journal,  and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from Hedgebrook, Bread Loaf, and Djerassi. In 2018, she was awarded the Walter Sullivan Award from The Sewanee Review. She holds an MFA from Columbia University.

Website: https://austenleahrose.com/

Lindsey Skillen

Lindsey Skillen is currently pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing (Fiction) & Literature at the University of Southern California, where she has taught in the honors writing program, directed the Association of English Graduate Students, and served on the editorial board of Ricochet Editions .  Her most recent publications can be found in -tele and  Cosmonauts Avenue,  where she was long-listed for a prize judged by Ottessa Moshfegh. She was the recipient of the Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation Scholarship for the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley workshop, and the Vaclav Havel Scholarship for the Prague Summer Program for writers, and had also received support from Tin House Summer and Winter workshops and the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. She received an MFA in Fiction from New York University, where she was a Goldwater Fellow, Managing Editor of  Washington Square Review , and a Provost Visiting Graduate Student Fellow at the NYU Global Research Institutes in London and Prague. She’s read at the LA Times Book Festival, the NYU Emerging Writers reading series at KGB Bar in NYC, and The Wooly and Broken Shelves in Gainesville, FL. As an undergraduate at the University of Florida her work was featured in  Prairie,  The Fine Print ,  and  Tea Literary Magazine ,  where it was awarded the Palmetto Prize for Fiction. Her story “A Sunny Place for Shady People” was selected for publication in  plain china ,  a national anthology of the best undergraduate writing. She was hand-selected by Joyce Carol Oates for participation in her Master Class and spent a summer reading for The Book Group Literary Agency. She has volunteered her time with Still Waters in a Storm, Women Who Submit, and as a mentor with WriteGirl.

Sophia Stid

Sophia Stid is a poet from California. She is the author of the chapbooks But For I Am a Woman , winner of the 2022 Host Publications Chapbook Prize, and Whistler’s Mother , published by Bull City Press in 2021. A graduate of the MFA program at Vanderbilt University, Sophia has also received fellowships and support from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Collegeville Institute, and Georgetown University’s Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice. She is the winner of the 2021 Barthelme Prize from Gulf Coast ; recent poems and essays can be found in Best New Poets , Poetry Daily, and the Kenyon Review .

Website: https://www.sophiastid.com/

Essy Stone is a PhD student in poetry at the University of Southern California. She holds an MFA from the University of Miami, and recently completed a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. Her work has been published in the New Yorker , 32 Poems , and Prairie Schooner . Her first book, What It Done to Us , was awarded the Idaho Prize in Poetry and was published by Lost Horse Press in 2017.

Leah Tieger

A recipient of support from the Vermont Studio Center and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Leah Tieger is a doctoral candidate in the University of Southern California’s Literature and Creative Writing program. As a 2023 Wrigley Institute fellow, her ecopoetic practice led to a qualitative study of communities surrounding the Santa Susana Field Lab. Recent related work appears in Poetry Northwest, Waxwing, Blackbird, and Tupelo Quarterly . Her manuscript, Disaster Tourist, is a 2023 National Poetry Series finalist.

Website: https://leahtieger.com/

Clancy Tripp

Clancy Tripp is a queer Midwestern writer, graphic artist, and humorist. Her work has appeared in Black Warrior Review , Catapult , december magazine , Electric Literature , The Florida Review , The Greensboro Review , Indiana Review , Ninth Letter , Slice , The Rumpus , McSweeney’s Internet Tendency , Reductress , and elsewhere. She won the 2020 Iowa Review Award in Nonfiction (selected by Leslie Jamison), the 2021 Witness Literary Award in Nonfiction (selected by Cinelle Barnes), and the 2023 Spring Flash Fiction contest at F(r)iction. She has an MFA from the Ohio State University and an MA from Columbia University.

Website: www.ClancyTripp.com

Katrin Tschirgi

Katrin Tschirgi is a PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing. Her work has appeared in journals such as The Literary Review, Washington Square Review,  Quarterly West, and The Normal School. She is from Boise, Idaho.

Website: https://www.katrintschirgi.com/

Vanessa Villarreal

Vanessa Angélica Villarreal was born in the Rio Grande Valley to formerly undocumented Mexican immigrants. She is the author of the poetry collection Beast Meridian (Noemi Press, Akrilica Series 2017), recipient of a 2019 Whiting Award, a Kate Tufts Discovery Award nomination,  and winner of the John A. Robertson Award for Best First Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine’s The Cut, Harper’s Bazaar, Oxford American, Paris Review, Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere. She is a recipient of a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship, and a doctoral candidate in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she is working on a poetry and an essay collection while raising her son in Los Angeles.

Website: https://vanessaangelicavillarreal.com/

Jorrell Watkins

Jorrell Watkins is from Richmond, VA. He received fellowships from the Smithsonian Institution, Fulbright Japan, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. His chapbook, If Only the Sharks Would Bite , won the inaugural Desert Pavilion Chapbook Series in Poetry and his debut full-length collection, PlayHouse: poems, is forthcoming in 2024 with Northwestern University Press.

Website: https://jorrellwatkins.com/

Thalia Williamson

Thalia Williamson is an essayist, fiction writer, and poet. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Joyland Magazine , The Audacity , Longreads , BRINK , The Masters Review , and the Los Angeles Review of Books .

She was a finalist for the 2023 BRINK Literary Journal Award for Hybrid Writing and a semifinalist for the 2022 Sewanee Review Fiction Contest. Her work has received support from the Tin House Scholarship for Trans Writers, the Marius DeBrabant Fund, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Sewanee Tennessee Williams Scholarship.

She was born in London and now lives in Los Angeles, where she is completing a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Southern California. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from UC Riverside and a BA in Philosophy from King’s College London.

Website: thaliaw.com

Joliange Wright

Joliange Wright’s short stories have appeared in Lunch Ticket , Midwestern Gothic , and  Consequence Magazine . She has an MFA from The Bennington Writing Seminars, where she was editor of The End of the World , June 2017. She is currently a PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California, where she holds a Wallis Annenberg Fellowship. She volunteers for 826LA and InsideOut Writers.

Ph.D. in Creative Writing & Literature

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