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Columbia College Chicago

Illinois, united states.

Columbia College Chicago's undergraduate program in Creative Writing and MFA in Creative Writing program provide an extraordinary, collaborative learning environment. Our programs are led by nationally and internationally known faculty members who teach, live, and write in one of the most celebrated literary and artistic cities in the world. Each studio/academic program emphasizes students' own writing and craft (in workshops and craft seminars) along with possibilities for cross-genre writing, and each program is balanced with the study of literature, form, and theory.

We emphasize a small, intimate experience at the undergraduate and graduate levels, ensuring close attention from the faculty and a cohesive and supportive environment in which to grow as a writer. Undergraduate and graduate students at Columbia College Chicago are supported by an unusual richness of faculty resources and perspectives, including the opportunity to meet visiting writers who read for the Efroymson Creative Writing Reading Series, one of the most dynamic, cross-genre series in Chicago. The writers and poets who teach in our programs are well-published and professionally active, and they highly value mentoring both inside and outside the classroom. This characteristic of our program sets us apart from other arts-centered schools at which faculty are often part-time or visiting rather than permanent faculty. Our graduates consistently praise the cohesion, faculty support, and vibrant sense of community in the English and Creative Writing Department.

We offer a variety of funding opportunities to our incoming graduate students, which range from tuition discounts to full tuition awards. We also offer Graduate Assistantships that include valuable experience working with our faculty members. Thanks to our Graduate Student Instructorship (GSI) program, students may elect to take Teaching Methods and Pedagogies, a semester-long course offered every fall and taught by exceptionally dedicated full-time, tenured faculty. This course provides invaluable grounding in the theoretical and practical elements of teaching Writing and Rhetoric at the undergraduate level; students are mentored closely throughout the course and, as well, when they begin (on an optional basis, of course) teaching one section of Writing and Rhetoric the following semester. Students are paid to teach and may continue to teach during their time as graduate students, provided the Teaching Methods and Pedagogies course has been successfully completed. Continuing graduate students may apply for the Albert P. Weisman Award, the Diversity Award, the Graduate Opportunity Award, and the Nathan Breitling Poetry Fellowship.

Contact Information

Columbia College Chicago English and Creative Writing Department 600 S Michigan Ave Chicago Illinois, United States 60605-1996 Phone: 312-369-8119 Email: [email protected] www.colum.edu/ecw

Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing +

Undergraduate program director.

Creative Writing majors at Columbia College Chicago are encouraged to push boundaries and redefine borders. Understanding the important connection between aesthetic and professional concerns, the program is designed to prepare students for both a wide range of creative endeavors as well as careers where effective communication and creative problem-solving skills are crucial. All students are encouraged to bring their background to bear as they work with faculty to develop individual voice and vision. The program also fosters a strong sense of social awareness and commitment as it seeks to influence and contribute to the literary and cultural community locally, nationally, and internationally.

By choosing a concentration in fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, students are immersed in their preferred mode of writing while also doing work within all genres, developing skills that transfer across and bolster all forms of effective writing. Through the Writer’s Portfolio class and a capstone thesis project, students create a substantial manuscript and begin to identify opportunities for further study as well as career paths. The program’s Publishing Lab supplements the Creative Writing coursework by providing students with information about and access to the contemporary literary marketplace.

Creative Writing concentrations:

• Fiction: Students develop a wide-ranging creative practice in writing while engaging with classic and contemporary novels, short stories and experimental texts. They also develop critical reading and writing skills from the study of a variety of literary forms and genres. Workshops in popular genres such as Science Fiction, Fantasy, Graphic Storytelling, Young Adult and others exist for interested students, as well.

• Nonfiction: Students build a foundation on the history, forms, genres and techniques vital to producing nonfiction work, and are exposed to the evolving role of nonfiction writing in the literary landscape as they create a body of work.

• Poetry: Students discover their own voice as a poet as they develop their craft. Students’ creativity is grounded in the history of poetry, poetics and a wide range of writing approaches.

The program starts with two workshops, Foundations in Creative Writing and Beginning Workshop, which lay the groundwork for successful writing through experimentation with a number of different writing styles and forms. Literature and Craft and Process seminars build connections between effective reading and effective writing of a diverse body of published work. Elective courses throughout Columbia, in the visual and performing arts, new media, Liberal Arts and Sciences, and other areas, enhance student understanding of how writing informs a variety of art forms as well as contemporary conversations on social and cultural change.

The Creative Writing program also offers professional development opportunities through publishing, editing and production classes; editorial work on Columbia’s nationally distributed student publications; and writing related internships that can count toward major requirements. During their capstone semester, Creative Writing majors complete a substantial manuscript in the Thesis Workshop class, while continuing to take part in opportunities for further creative and professional development in publishing, writing related activities, and live readings and performances around campus.

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing +

Graduate program director, lisa fishman.

Lisa Fishman (Associate Professor—Poetry) is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently 24 Pages and other poems (Wave Books, 2015). Her earlier books are The Happiness Experiment; F L O W E R C A R T; Dear, Read (all on Ahsahta Press); Current (Parlor Press); and The Deep Heart's Core Is a Suitcase (New Issues Press). Her second book (Dear, Read) was chosen by Brenda Hillman in the Sawtooth Poetry Competition; Fishman has also published several chapbooks: At the same time as scattering (Albion Books), Lining (Boxwood Editions), KabbaLoom (Wyrd Press), and 'The Holy Spirit does not deal in synonimes': Elizabeth Barrett's Marginalia in Her Greek and Hebrew Bibles (Parcel Press). Fishman's recent work appears in The Chicago Review, Volt, 1913, Omniverse and elsewhere; she has been anthologized in Best American Experimental Writing (BAX) 2014 (Omnidawn), The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral (Ahsahta); The Ecopoetry Anthology (Trinity University Press); Poets on Teaching (University of Iowa Press); American Poetry: The Next Generation (Carnegie Mellon Poetry Series), and others. Lately Fishman has been presenting papers and leading discussions at such venues at "Poetics: (The Next) 25 Years" (SUNY Buffalo, 2016); "Form and Formation: Fall Convergence 2016" (University of Washington Bothell), and "Teaching Against Commodification" (Desert Poetry Gathering, Los Angeles, 2017). She is currently completing her seventh book and teaching a graduate craft seminar on Poetry and the Novel and an undergraduate class on Death & Dying. Fishman, who was Lorine Niedecker Poet in Residence on Blackhawk Island during her last sabbatical, will complete her yoga instruction certification by Fall, 2018; she is also active in a community theater devoted to performing uncut works by Shakespeare and Dickens in Madison, near her farm in Orfordville, Wisconsin.

colum.edu/ecw

Tony Trigilio

Tony Trigilio’s (Professor—Poetry) most recent collection of poetry is Inside the Walls of My Own House (BlazeVOX [books], 2016). He is the editor of Dispatches from the Body Politic: Interviews with Jan Beatty, Meg Day, and Douglas Kearney (Essay Press, 2016), a collection of interviews from his poetry podcast Radio Free Albion. His other books include, most recently, White Noise (Apostrophe Books, 2013), and, as editor, Elise Cowen: Poems and Fragments (Ahsahta Press, 2014). He also is the author of two books of criticism, Allen Ginsberg's Buddhist Poetics (Southern Illinois University Press, 2012) and Strange Prophecies Anew: Rereading Apocalypse in Blake, H.D., and Ginsberg (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2000). With Tim Prchal, he co-edited the anthology, Visions and Divisions: American Immigration Literature, 1870-1930 (Rutgers University Press, 2008). He chaired the Columbia College Chicago Creative Writing Department from 2015-17.

David Trinidad

David Trinidad (Professor—Poetry) is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry. His most recent collection is Swinging on a Star, published in the fall of 2017 by Turtle Point Press. His other titles include Notes on a Past Life (BlazeVOX [books], 2016), Peyton Place: A Haiku Soap Opera (Turtle Point Press, 2013), and Dear Prudence: New and Selected Poems (Turtle Point, 2011). His poems have been included in The Best American Poetry (2013, 2010, 1991), The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology, Readings in Contemporary Poetry: An Anthology of Poems Read at Dia 2010-2016, and many other anthologies. Trinidad has also published five collaborations with other poets. These include Descent of the Dolls: Part I with Jeffery Conway and Gillian McCain (BlazeVOX, 2017) and By Myself: An Autobiography with D.A. Powell (Turtle Point, 2009). He is the editor of A Fast Life: The Collected Poems of Tim Dlugos (Nightboat Books, 2011), which won a Lambda Literary Award. Trinidad’s most recent editorial project is Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World: The Poems and Notebooks of Ed Smith. His essays on Sylvia Plath and other topics have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Harriet (the Poetry Foundation’s blog), Tin House, and elsewhere. A film by John Bresland based on Trinidad’s Peyton Place: A Haiku Soap Opera was recently screened at the first annual Marfa Poetry Festival.

Don DeGrazia

Don De Grazia (Associate Professor—Fiction) is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, American Skin (Scribner/Jonathan Cape). His work has appeared in TriQuarterly, The Chicago Quarterly Review, The Prague Review, The Rumpus, The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Reader, Newcity, The Outlaw Bible of American Literature, The Italian American Reader, Fifth Wednesday, The Great Lakes Review, Make Magazine, and other publications. He is also a screenwriter in the Writers Guild of America (east) and co-founder/co-host of “Come Home Chicago,” a live event series dedicated to celebrating the Chicago storytelling tradition in all its forms. Creatives, a play written by De Grazia and Irvine Welsh, had its world premiere at The 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where it was shortlisted for the Music Theater Review Best Musical Award.

Eric Charles May (Associate Professor—Fiction) is the author of the novel Bedrock Faith, which was named a Notable African-American Title by Publishers Weekly, and a Top Ten Debut Novel for 2014 by Booklist Magazine. A 2015 recipient of the Chicago Public Library Foundation’s 21st Century Award, May is a former reporter for The Washington Post. His fiction has also appeared in Fish Stories, Solstice, Hypertext, Flyleaf Journal, F, and Criminal Class magazines, and in the anthology We Speak Chicagoese. In addition to his Post reporting, his nonfiction has appeared in Sport Literate, Chicago Tribune, and the personal essay anthology Briefly Knocked Unconscious By A Low-Flying Duck. He has taught at the Stonecoast, Solstice, Northwestern University, and Chicago writers’ conferences, and in Chicago he’s read personal essays with 2nd Story, That’s All She Wrote, and done oral tellings at the Grown Folks’ Stories and Here’s the Story personal essay programs.

Joe Meno (Professor—Fiction) is a fiction writer and playwright who lives in Chicago. He is the winner of the Nelson Algren Literary Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Great Lakes Book Award, and a finalist for the Story Prize. He is the author of several novels and short story collections including Marvel and A Wonder, Office Girl, The Great Perhaps, The Boy Detective Fails, and Hairstyles of the Damned. His nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times and Chicago Magazine. His plays have been produced in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and Paris, France. He is a professor in the Department of Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago.

www.joemeno.com/

Alexis Pride

Alexis Pride (Associate Professor—Fiction) is the author of the novel Where the River Ends, and received the Columbia University Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) Award for her short story "Fried Buffalo." She has served as former Director of Curriculum Planning at the Saturday Academy and was a consultant for the Chicago Public Schools through the Chicago Teachers Center at Northeastern Illinois University. She earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

Shawn Shiflett

Shawn Shiflett (Associate Professor—Fiction) is the author of the novel Hidden Place (Akashic Books), which has received rave reviews from newspapers, literary magazines, and Connie Martinson Talks Books, (national cable television, UK and Ireland).  Library Journal included Hidden Place in  “Summer Highs, Fall Firsts,” a 2004 list of most successful debuts. He received an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship for his work and was a three-time Finalist for the James novel-in-progress contest, sponsored by the Heekin Group Foundation. New City Newspaper elected Shiflett to their Chicago Lit 50 list, an annual ranking of top figures in the Chicago Literary scene. His essay, “The Importance of Reading to Your Writing” (Creative Writing Studies, UK) was published in 2013. His recently published novel, Hey, Liberal!, a story about a white boy going to a predominately African American high school in Chicago during the late 1960’s, has received rave reviews and acclaim from Booklist, The Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Review, Newcity Lit, Windy City Review, Mary Mitchell (Chicago Sun-Times), Rick Kogan (WGN Radio), and others.

https://www.shawnshiflett.com/

CM Burroughs

CM Burroughs (Assistant Professor—Poetry) is the author of The Vital System, and has been awarded fellowships and grants from organizations including Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, Djerassi Foundation, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Cave Canem Foundation. She has received commissions from the Studio Museum of Harlem and the Warhol Museum to create poetry in response to art installations. Her poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies including Poetry, Callaloo, jubilat, Ploughshares, VOLT, Bat City Review, The Golden Shovel Anthology, Revising The Psalm Anthology, and Best American Experimental Writing Anthology. Burroughs is a graduate of Sweet Briar College, and she earned her MFA from the University of Pittsburgh.

Aviya Kushner

Aviya Kushner (Associate Professor—Nonfiction) is the author of the book The Grammar of God: A Journey Into the Words and Worlds of the Bible (Spiegel & Grau). Her essays and stories have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Gulf Coast, Partisan Review, Poets & Writers, A Public Space, The Wilson Quarterly, and Zoetrope: All-Story. Her poems have appeared in Harvard Review, Literary Imagination, The Jerusalem Post, Poetry International, and Salamander. She is a contributing editor at A Public Space and a mentor for The National Yiddish Book Center.

aviyakushner.com/

Terence Brunk

Terence Brunk earned a Ph.D. in Literatures in English from Rutgers University, where he concentrated on Gothic fiction, gender studies, and literary and cultural theory. He joined the faculty at Columbia College Chicago in 1998. He currently serves as coordinator of the Literature Program in the English Department, and he participates in the interdisciplinary Cultural Studies program.Dr. Brunk is co-editor of the composition text Literacies (W.W. Norton, 2000). He has published and presented research on a broad range of issues in literature and culture from the early modern period to the present. Ongoing interests include constructions of gender and gender ideology; the operations of narrative in a variety of forms and historical contexts; and the promise and challenges of digital technologies for literature, education, civil liberties, and democratic culture.His frequently-taught courses include Introduction to Poetry, Shakespeare, Literature and the Culture of Cyberspace, Topics in the Novel, Romantic Poets, and Literature and Gaming.

Madhurima Chakraborty

Dr. Madhurima Chakraborty is Assistant Professor in the English literature and Cultural Studies programs at Columbia College Chicago. Her research and teaching interests include Postcolonial, Indian Diaspora, and British literature. She guest edited (with Dr. Umme Al-wazedi) a Special Issue of South Asian Review on Nation and Its Discontents, and her scholarly work has been published in Literature/Film Quarterly, South Asian Review, and Journal of Contemporary Literature. Degrees:

B.A., English University of Southern Mississippi 2001

M.A., English University of Florida 2003

Ph.D., English University of Minnesota- Twin Cities 2010

Dr. Daley received his Ph.D. from New York University in 1993. A teacher of literature, poetry, literary theory, composition and rhetoric at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, he was the recipient of the 1999 Outstanding Teaching Award from Ohio University’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Daley is a scholar of nineteenth century British literature and his recent publications include his 2001 book, The Rescue of Romanticism: Walter Pater and John Ruskin, as well as a number of scholarly articles, encyclopedia entries, and papers delivered at conferences in Canada, England, and the United States. Degrees:

B.A., Political Science University of Pennsylvania 1984

M.A., New York University 1987

Ph.D., English and American Literature New York University 1993

Jim DeRogatis

James DeRogatis is an American music critic and co- host of Sound Opinions. DeRogatis has written articles for magazines such as Spin, Guitar World and Modern Drummer, and for fifteen years was the pop music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. He joined Columbia College Chicago's English Department as a lecturer in the fall of 2010.

jimdero.com/

Ames Hawkins

Ames Hawkins is a transgenre writer, educator, and art activist. An Associate Professor and Interim Associate Chair in the Department of English at Columbia College Chicago, she teaches courses in the Writing and Rhetoric, and Cultural Studies, and Literature Programs. Ames earned a PhD in English Studies (Composition and Rhetoric) at Wayne State University, a Master’s in Popular Culture at Bowling Green State University, and a Bachelor’s degree in American Culture at The University of Michigan.

https://www.ameshawkins.com/

Matt McCurrie

Matthew Kilian McCurrie received his Ph.D. in English Studies from Illinois State University. Matt currently coordinates the Graduate Student Instructor program and teaches courses in the writing and literature programs. Matt’s research interests include writing pedagogy, biblical and religious rhetoric, and English Education. He has published in College Composition and Communication, Pedagogy, Journal of Basic Writing, English Education, Composition Forum, The Journal of Writing Teacher Education, The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society, and Journal of Expanded Perspectives on Learning. He has also published in edited collections on English teacher education and recently collaborated with other faculty to write a new first year writing textbook, Key Concepts in Writing and Rhetoric (2014). Among his recent and forthcoming publications are “When Shift Happens: Creating Adaptive, Reflective, and Confident Writers” in Teachers, Profs, Parents: Writers Who Care (forthcoming August 2015) and “Determining the Limits of Apology: The Sexual Abuse Crisis in Ireland’s Catholic Church” in The International Journal of Religion andSpirituality in Society (August 2013). Matt also regularly presents his research at NCTE, CCCC, and RSA conferences.

Tom Nawrocki

Tom Nawrocki has an M.A. from Loyola University and has taught at Columbia for nearly 25 years. As Coordinator of the Professional Writing Program from the late 1990s until Fall, 2004, he has been instrumental in coordinating the English Department's participation in such activities as Creative Nonfiction Week, held every fall. He has published articles and reviews in The Associated Writing Program Chronicle, Another Chicago Magazine, Hyphen and Shadowboxing. Tom teaches such courses as Careers in Writing, Expository Writing: The Personal Essay, and Literature of the Vietnam War. He has also participated in innovative team-teaching courses on the Vietnam War and the Beat Generation. Tom has recently been awarded grants to visit Vietnam as part of an ongoing cultural exchange. He is currently working on a book of nonfiction.

Jeanne Petrolle

Jeanne Petrolle, Ph.D. received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. Her first book, Women and Experimental Filmmaking (University of Illinois 2005), is an edited collection of essays exploring women’s contributions to the tradition of experimental filmmaking. Her second book, Religion without Belief: Contemporary Allegory and the Search for Postmodern Faith (SUNY, 2007), examines how virtual reality movies, feminist experimental novels, avant-garde feminist film, and Amerindian novels use allegory to entertain religious questions for a postmodern world. She has published articles and essays about post-1960s literature, film, and painting in such scholarly and literary journals as Journal of Modern Greek Studies, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Image: A Journal of Art and Religion, and Calyx, and to a variety of anthologies covering contemporary literature, film, and the teaching of writing.

Petrolle’s current book manuscript, “Dancing with Ophelia: Reconnecting Madness, Creativity, and Love,” is presently under review. An excerpt from the manuscript appeared in Hektoen: A Journal of The Medical Humanities. Petrolle’s current research contributes to the emerging field of the medical humanities, a transdisciplinary intellectual project that applies insights drawn from literature, philosophy, art, religion, and history to the study and practice of medicine. Combining feminist theory, Jungian psychoanalytics, and cross-cultural psychiatry with close reading and participant-observer ethnographic methodology, “Dancing with Ophelia” problematizes the medicalization of madness as “mental illness.” The manuscript seeks to enhance contemporary understanding and treatment of mental illness by exploring portrayals of madness in literature and art, focusing on the life and work of two artists who experienced psychiatric crises.

Petrolle teaches Introduction to Cultural Studies, Literature/Culture/Power, Literature and Visual Culture, Literature and Film, and a range of courses in women’s literature, twentieth century literature, and the Bible as Literature.

Doug Reichert Powell

Doug Reichert Powell has received degrees in English from Northeastern University (Ph.D. ’99), East Tennessee State University (M.A. ’92) and Washington and Lee University (B.A. ’90). His interest in social constructions of place and region (especially the southern Appalachian mountains) underwrites his research and writing in landscape, literature, popular culture, critical pedagogy. His publications and presentations cover subjects ranging from the 1998 manhunt for Eric Rudolph to the 1916 hanging of a circus elephant. Doug's book, Critical Regionalism: Connecting Politics and Culture in the American Landscape (University of North Carolina Press, 2007) has been read and cited across a broad interdisciplinary spectrum, from American Studies to Public Health to Arts Education to Geography. Composing Other Spaces, a collection of essays about place and writing pedagogy Doug co-edited with John Paul Tassoni, appeared in Hampton Press’s “Research and Teaching in Composition and Rhetoric” series in 2008. In addition to publishing essays and reviews in a variety of scholarly journals, he has served as co-editor (with Anthony Harkins and Katherine Ledford) of the Media section of The Encyclopedia of Appalachia (University of Tennessee Press, 2006). Doug is currently at work on a documentary writing project about commercial caverns (or "show caves," as they are known in the trade) in the valley-and-ridge province of the Appalachian Mountains.

Doug teaches literature courses such as the graduate seminar in Place, Space, and Landscape; Literature & Environment; Literature and Film; and The American Novel, as well as writing courses including Writing and Rhetoric I and II and Reviewing the Arts. In the Cultural Studies Program, Doug teaches Introduction to Cultural Studies and the Capstone seminar.

Prior to joining the faculty of Columbia College Chicago English department, Doug was associate director of the University Writing Program at Duke University, and has also taught at Miami University of Ohio, Northeastern, East Tennessee State, and Northeast State Community College (Tenn.).

Brendan Riley

Brendan joined the English faculty in Fall, 2004. He teaches writing, new media, and cultural studies classes, as well as a j-session course called “Zombies in Popular Media.” He earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of Florida, where he studied film and media studies as well as rhetoric and composition. Brendan's research interests include: writing, new media, popular culture studies, detective fiction, and zombies, among others.

Brendan has written a number of essays for print and online publications on a variety of subjects, from superhero comics to rhetoric in the digital age. His latest work, a monograph, is forthcoming from McFarland press. He serves on the executive board of the Midwest Popular Culture Association, and serves as the Executive Director of Operations for the Popular Culture Association. On the creative side, Brendan is part of a game design collective called Rattlebox games, which successfully kickstarted its first game in November of 2015. He also dabbles in web application programming and content-management systems. He maintains a website at http://www.curragh-labs.org/

Hilary Sarat-St Peter

B.A., Psychology Saint Mary's College 2002

Ph.D., English Wayne State University 2012

Jeff Schiff

Jeff Schiff holds a PhD in English from SUNY Binghamton (1983). He has taught creative and professional writing, literature, and oral communications at Columbia College, Northern Arizona University, Purdue University, McNeese State University, Binghamton University, and the University of Texas at El Paso.

Jeff is the author of That hum to go by (MAMMOTH books, 2012), Mixed Diction (MAMMOTH books, 2009), Burro Heart (MAMMOTH books, 2004), Rats of Patzcuaro (Poetry Link, 2003), The Homily of Infinitude (Pennsylvania English, 1999), Resources for Writing About Literature (HarperCollins, 1991), and Anywhere in this Country (MAMMOTH Press, 1981). His poetry and prose have also appeared in numerous periodicals—including Grand Street, The Ohio Review, Poet & Critic, The Louisville Review, Tendril, Pembroke Magazine, Carolina Review, Chicago Review, Hawaii Review, Southern Humanities Review, River City, Indiana Review, and The Southwest Review.

During his tenure at Columbia, Jeff has also served as the Director of the Composition program, Director of Graduate Studies in English, Coordinator of Technology in English, College-wide Graduate/Undergraduate Director of Outcomes Assessment, and Director of Technology for the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Jeff teaches such courses as Writing for New Media, Writing for the Workplace, Writing Digital Content, Introduction to Poetry, and Introduction to Short Story.

Although I was born in Alabama, I moved to Taiwan at the age of five and lived there for eighteen years. I am fluent in Mandarin and English and intermediate in Japanese and French. This rich mix of culture and language has driven me to pursue academic degrees, affiliate with English Education and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) educational organizations, and engage in a scholarly career related to teaching and learning in TESOL. These academic and cultural experiences have driven me to become an educator of Writing and Rhetoric, Applied Linguistics, Oral Expression Learning, and a mentor of pre-service language teachers; conduct research and teach in the field of ESL/EFL curriculum; continue to be an activist-academic and link research, theory, and practice in the field of Writing and Rhetoric programs; have various experiences in teaching, advising, and collaborating with undergraduate and graduate students; and have knowledge and am also qualified to develop curriculum and instruction in multilingual writing and teacher training programs. I am confident to provide leadership within the department on issues related to the education of not only traditional students, but also ESL students in First-Year Writing courses and Writing Center programs.

I earned a bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature and a bachelor’s degree in Psychology at Soochow University in Taiwan with a cumulative GPA of 3.8. I earned a Master’s degree in Learning and Instruction, specializing in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at the State University of New York at Buffalo with a cumulative GPA of 3.9. My strong academic enthusiasm encouraged me to pursue a doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction in the Department of Teacher Education, specializing in Second Language Education and TESOL at Ohio University. I graduated from the doctoral degree with a GPA of 3.9. I currently serve as a director of English as an Additional Language Program at English Department in Columbia College Chicago.

Publications & Presses +

Visiting writers program +.

Creative Writing Reading Series Readers have included Mary Gaitskill, T.J. Jarrett, Camille T. Dungy, Sharon Solwitz, Desiree Cooper, Ishion Hutchinson, Dan Chaon, Duriel Harris, Mickey Hess, Meg Day, Halimah Marcus and Jac Jemc (Publishing Colloquium), Kate Greenstreet, Richard Meier, Carmen Giménez Smith, Shanna Compton, Nick Twemlow, Charles D’Ambrosio, Chad Sweeney, Peter Davis, Mary Ruefle, Peggy Shinner, R. Erica Doyle, Molly Haskell, D.J. Waldie, Ronaldo Wilson, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Nina Revoyr, John Gallaher, Joshua Clover, Adam Johnson, Brigid Hughes, Jesmyn Ward, Kelly Link, Ladan Osman, Tarfia Faizullah, Tobias Wolff, Tracy K. Smith, Jennifer Moxley, Sarah Manguso, among others.

Reading Series +

The Efroymson Creative Writing Reading Series ( https://www.colum.edu/academics/initiatives/creative-writing-reading-series )

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Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago

Go directly to any of the following sections:

• Available Degrees
• Student Demographics

Creative Writing Degrees Available at Columbia

• Bachelor’s Degree in Creative Writing
• Master’s Degree in Creative Writing

Columbia Creative Writing Rankings

The bachelor's program at Columbia was ranked #144 on College Factual's Best Schools for creative writing list . It is also ranked #8 in Illinois .

Popularity of Creative Writing at Columbia

During the 2020-2021 academic year, Columbia College Chicago handed out 50 bachelor's degrees in creative writing. Last year, the same number of degrees were handed out.

In 2021, 19 students received their master’s degree in creative writing from Columbia. This makes it the #44 most popular school for creative writing master’s degree candidates in the country.

Columbia Creative Writing Students

Take a look at the following statistics related to the make-up of the creative writing majors at Columbia College Chicago.

Columbia Creative Writing Bachelor’s Program

Of the 50 students who earned a bachelor's degree in Creative Writing from Columbia in 2020-2021, 22% were men and 78% were women.

The majority of the students with this major are white. About 60% of 2021 graduates were in this category.

The following table and chart show the ethnic background for students who recently graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a bachelor's in creative writing.

Columbia Creative Writing Master’s Program

During the 2020-2021 academic year, 19 students graduated with a bachelor's degree in creative writing from Columbia. About 32% were men and 68% were women.

The majority of the students with this major are white. About 53% of 2021 graduates were in this category.

The following table and chart show the ethnic background for students who recently graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a master's in creative writing.

• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online
• Image Credit: By Beyond My Ken under License

More about our data sources and methodologies .

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Creative Writing

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Online Writing Communities & Social Networking

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• Figment Founded by former and current New Yorker editorial staff, Figment is a community where you can share your writing, connect with other people who love to read, and discover new stories and authors.
• Writer's Digest Writers can connect with other writers on the forum, visit the blogs, and sign up for a free weekly e-newsletter.
• Study Hall A media newsletter & online support network for media workers.
• National Novel Writing Month Although National Novel Writing Month is in November, NaNoWriMo supports young writers year-round with resources that help writers develop, track, and share progress. Specific to writing novel-length works.
• Binders Full of Writing Jobs A Facebook group for women and gender non-conforming writers of all backgrounds to share freelance, part-time, and full-time paid opportunities for writers/editors.
• London Writers' Salon Offers free daily writing session, Monday to Friday, in various time zones.
• Association for Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) AWP provides community, opportunities, ideas, news, and advocacy for writers and teachers. We support over 34,000 writers, 500 college and university creative writing programs, and 100 writers' conferences and centers.
• Lambda Literary Foundation An American LGBTQ literary organization whose mission is to nurture and advocate for LGBTQ writers.
• The American Society of Journalist and Authors ASJA is the professional association of independent nonfiction writers. Since 1948 we've been giving freelance writers the confidence and connections to prosper.
• The Authors Guild This organization helps writers learn about publishing, self-publishing, finances, publicity, and other aspects of the industry you might not know about.
• Lit Hub Daily Features links to essays across the Lit Hub website, including author interviews, podcast episodes, reading lists, cultural criticism, and more.
• Electric Literature's Newsletter Highlights from Electric Lit, sent on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
• Agents and Books From Kate McKean, a writer and vice president at the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency.
• Memoir Monday "A weekly curation of the best personal essays from around the web."
• Essay Camp A free, nonfiction write-along workshop, from Summer Brennan.
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Columbia College Chicago’s English and Creative Writing Department

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Columbia College’s MFA Creative Writing program hosts reading series, lectures, talks, and panel discussions throughout the school year. They host the Efroymson Creative Writing Reading Series, a series that attracts prestigious, award-winning fiction writers, poets, and nonfiction writers.

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Creative Writing

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Undergraduate Creative Writing Program Office: 609 Kent; 212-854-3774 http://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate

Director of Undergraduate Studies: Prof. Anelise Chen, Fiction, Nonfiction, 609 Kent; 212-854-3774; [email protected]

Undergraduate Executive Committee:

• Prof. Anelise Chen, Fiction, Nonfiction, 609 Kent; 212-854-3774; [email protected]
• Prof. Heidi Julavits, Fiction, 609 Kent; 212-854-3774; [email protected]
• Prof. Dorothea Lasky, Poetry, 609 Kent; 212-854-3774; [email protected]
• Prof. Timothy Donnelly, Poetry, 415 Dodge; 212-854-4391; [email protected]
• Prof. Margo Jefferson, Nonfiction, 609 Kent; 212-854-3774; [email protected]
• Prof. Sam Lipsyte, Fiction, 609 Kent; 212-854-3774; [email protected]
• Prof. Deborah Paredez, Poetry, 609 Kent, [email protected]
• Prof. Alan Ziegler, Fiction, 415 Dodge; 212-854-4391; [email protected]

The Creative Writing Program in The School of the Arts combines intensive writing workshops with seminars that study literature from a writer's perspective. Students develop and hone their literary technique in workshops. The seminars (which explore literary technique and history) broaden their sense of possibility by exposing them to various ways that language has been used to make art. Related courses are drawn from departments such as English, comparative literature and society, philosophy, history, and anthropology, among others.

Students consult with faculty advisers to determine the related courses that best inform their creative work. For details on the major, see the Creative Writing website: http://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate .

Margo L. Jefferson

Phillip Lopate

• Benjamin Marcus
• Alan Ziegler

Associate Professors

• Susan Bernofsky
• Timothy Donnelly
• Heidi Julavits
• Dorothea Lasky
• Victor LaValle
• Sam Lipsyte
• Deborah Paredez

Assistant Professors

• Anelise Chen

Adjunct Professors

• Halle Butler
• Frances Cha
• Bonnie Chau
• Dennard Dayle
• Alex Dimitrov
• Joseph Fasano
• Elizabeth Greenwood
• Jared Jackson
• Katrine Øgaard Jensen
• Marie Myung-Ok Lee
• Hilary Leichter
• Madelaine Lucas
• Patricia Marx
• Molly McGhee
• Mallika Rao
• Nina Sharma
• Christine Smallwood
• John Vincler
• Madeleine Watts
• Samantha Zighelboim

Graduate Faculty Fellows

• Aamir Azhar
• Naomi Bernstein
• Rose Demaris
• Alex Kapsidelis
• Kai-Lilly Karpman
• Christian Kennedy
• Rebecca Levey
• James McGowan
• Wyonia McLaurin
• Sabrina Qiao
• Rachel Raiola
• Rhoni Blankenhorn
• Sophie Dess
• Nicholas Gambini
• Kayla Heisler
• Benn Jeffries
• Hannah Kaplan
• Emmett Lewis
• Frances Lindemann
• Halley McDonough
• Kellina Moore
• Ashley Porras
• Cory Scarola
• Jacob Schultz

Major in Creative Writing

The major in creative writing requires a minimum of 36 points: five workshops, four seminars, and three related courses.

Workshop Curriculum (15 points)

Students in the workshops produce original works of fiction, poetry, or nonfiction, and submit them to their classmates and instructor for a close critical analysis. Workshop critiques (which include detailed written reports and thorough line-edits) assess the mechanics and merits of the writing pieces. Individual instructor conferences distill the critiques into a direct plan of action to improve the work. Student writers develop by practicing the craft under the diligent critical attention of their peers and instructor, which guides them toward new levels of creative endeavor.

Creative writing majors select 15 points within the division in the following courses. One workshop must be in a genre other than the primary focus. For instance, a fiction writer might take four fiction workshops and one poetry workshop.

Seminar Curriculum (12 points)

The creative writing seminars form the intellectual ballast of our program.  Our seminars offer a close examination of literary techniques such as plot, point of view, tone, and voice.  They seek to inform and inspire students by exposing them to a wide variety of approaches in their chosen genre.  Our curriculum, via these seminars, actively responds not only to historical literary concerns, but to contemporary ones as well.  Extensive readings are required, along with short critical papers and/or creative exercises.  By closely analyzing diverse works of literature and participating in roundtable discussions, writers build the resources necessary to produce their own accomplished creative work. 

Creative writing majors select 12 points within the division. Any 4 seminars will fulfill the requirement, no matter the student's chosen genre concentration.  Below is a sampling of our seminars.  The list of seminars currently being offered can be found in the "Courses" section. 

Related Courses (9 points)

Drawn from various departments, these courses provide concentrated intellectual and creative stimulation, as well as exposure to ideas that enrich students' artistic instincts. Courses may be different for each student writer. Students should consult with faculty advisers to determine the related courses that best inform their creative work.

Fiction Workshops

WRIT UN1100 BEGINNING FICTION WORKSHOP. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. The beginning workshop in fiction is designed for students with little or no experience writing literary texts in fiction. Students are introduced to a range of technical and imaginative concerns through exercises and discussions, and they eventually produce their own writing for the critical analysis of the class. The focus of the course is on the rudiments of voice, character, setting, point of view, plot, and lyrical use of language. Students will begin to develop the critical skills that will allow them to read like writers and understand, on a technical level, how accomplished creative writing is produced. Outside readings of a wide range of fiction supplement and inform the exercises and longer written projects

WRIT UN2100 INTERMEDIATE FICTION WORKSHOP. 3.00 points .

Intermediate workshops are for students with some experience with creative writing, and whose prior work merits admission to the class (as judged by the professor). Intermediate workshops present a higher creative standard than beginning workshops, and increased expectations to produce finished work. By the end of the semester, each student will have produced at least seventy pages of original fiction. Students are additionally expected to write extensive critiques of the work of their peers. Please visit https://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate for information about registration procedures

WRIT UN3100 ADVANCED FICTION WORKSHOP. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: The department's permission required through writing sample. Please go to 609 Kent for submission schedule and registration guidelines or see http://www.arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate. Building on the work of the Intermediate Workshop, Advanced Workshops are reserved for the most accomplished creative writing students. A significant body of writing must be produced and revised. Particular attention will be paid to the components of fiction: voice, perspective, characterization, and form. Students will be expected to finish several short stories, executing a total artistic vision on a piece of writing. The critical focus of the class will include an examination of endings and formal wholeness, sustaining narrative arcs, compelling a reader's interest for the duration of the text, and generating a sense of urgency and drama in the work. Please visit https://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate for information about registration procedures

WRIT UN3101 SENIOR FICTION WORKSHOP,Senior Fiction Workshop. 4.00,4 points .

Prerequisites: The department's permission required through writing sample. Please go to 609 Kent for submission schedule and registration guidelines or see http://www.arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate. Prerequisites: The department's permission required through writing sample. Please go to 609 Kent for submission schedule and registration guidelines or see http://www.arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate. Seniors who are majors in creative writing are given priority for this course. Enrollment is limited, and is by permission of the professor. The senior workshop offers students the opportunity to work exclusively with classmates who are at the same high level of accomplishment in the major. Students in the senior workshops will produce and revise a new and substantial body of work. In-class critiques and conferences with the professor will be tailored to needs of each student.,

Seniors who are majors in creative writing are given priority for this course.  Enrollment is limited, and is by permission of the professor.  The senior workshop offers students the opportunity to work exclusively with classmates who are at the same high level of accomplishment in the major.  Students in the senior workshops will produce and revise a new and substantial body of work.  In-class critiques and conferences with the professor will be tailored to needs of each student.

Fiction Seminars

WRIT UN2110 APPROACHES TO THE SHORT STORY. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. The modern short story has gone through many transformations, and the innovations of its practitioners have often pointed the way for prose fiction as a whole. The short story has been seized upon and refreshed by diverse cultures and aesthetic affiliations, so that perhaps the only stable definition of the form remains the famous one advanced by Poe, one of its early masters, as a work of fiction that can be read in one sitting. Still, common elements of the form have emerged over the last century and this course will study them, including Point of View, Plot, Character, Setting and Theme. John Hawkes once famously called these last four elements the "enemies of the novel," and many short story writers have seen them as hindrances as well. Hawkes later recanted, though some writers would still agree with his earlier assessment, and this course will examine the successful strategies of great writers across the spectrum of short story practice, from traditional approaches to more radical solutions, keeping in mind how one period's revolution -Hemingway, for example - becomes a later era's mainstream or "commonsense" storytelling mode. By reading the work of major writers from a writer's perspective, we will examine the myriad techniques employed for what is finally a common goal: to make readers feel. Short writing exercises will help us explore the exhilarating subtleties of these elements and how the effects created by their manipulation or even outright absence power our most compelling fictions

WRIT UN3111 EXERCISES IN STYLE. 3.00 points .

WRIT UN3127 Time Moves Both Ways. 3 points .

What is time travel, really? We can use a machine or walk through a secret door. Take a pill or fall asleep and wake up in the future. But when we talk about magic machines and slipstreams and Rip Van Winkle, we are also talking about memory, chronology, and narrative. In this seminar, we will approach time travel as a way of understanding "the Fourth Dimension" in fiction. Readings will range from the speculative to the strange, to the realism of timelines, flashbacks, and shifts in perspective. Coursework will include short, bi-weekly writing assignments, a completed short story, and a time inflected adaptation. 

WRIT UN3128 How to Write Funny. 3.00 points .

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die." --Mel Brooks "Comedy has to be based on truth. You take the truth and you put a little curlicue at the End." --Sid Caesar "Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it." --E.B. White "What is comedy? Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke." --Steve Martin "Patty Marx is the best teacher at Columbia University." --Patty Marx One of the above quotations is false. Find out which one in this humor-writing workshop, where you will read, listen to, and watch comedic samples from well-known and lesser-known humorists. How could you not have fun in a class where we watch and critique the sketches of Monty Python, Nichols and May, Mr. Show, Mitchell ＆ Webb, Key and Peele, French and Saunders, Derrick Comedy, Beyond the Fringe, Dave Chappelle, Bob and Ray, Mel Brooks, Amy Schumer, and SNL, to name just a few? The crux of our time, though, will be devoted to writing. Students will be expected to complete weekly writing assignments; additionally, there will be in-class assignments geared to strategies for crafting surprise (the kind that results in a laugh as opposed to, say, a heart attack or divorce). Toward this end, we will study the use of irony, irreverence, hyperbole, misdirection, subtext, wordplay, formulas such as the rule of three and paraprosdokians (look it up), and repetition, and repetition

WRIT UN3125 APOCALYPSES NOW. 3.00 points .

From ancient myths of the world’s destruction to cinematic works that envision a post-apocalyptic reality, zealots of all kinds have sought an understanding of “the end of the world as we know it.”  But while apocalyptic predictions have, so far, failed to deliver a real glimpse of that end, in fiction they abound.  In this course, we will explore the narrative mechanisms by which post-apocalyptic works create projections of our own world that are believably imperiled, realistically degraded, and designed to move us to feel differently and act differently within the world we inhabit.  We will consider ways in which which authors craft immersive storylines that maintain a vital allegorical relationship to the problems of the present, and discuss recent trends in contemporary post-apocalyptic fiction.  How has the genre responded to our changing conception of peril?  Is literary apocalyptic fiction effective as a vehicle for persuasion and for showing threats in a new light?  Ultimately, we will inquire into the possibility of thinking beyond our present moment and, by doing so, altering our fate.

WRIT UN3129 Writing Nature in the Age of Climate Change. 3.00 points .

This class aims to look seriously at how we write literature about the environment, landscape, plants, animals, and the weather in an age of worsening climate change. What genres, forms, and structures can we use to creatively respond to and depict the conditions of the anthropocene? How can we use time to capture the simultaneous tedium and terror of the emergency? Can we write about the individual as well as the collective? Is it possible to write about climate change not as something that is coming, but as a phenomenon that’s already a part of our lives? In answering these questions, students will determine how best to address these issues in their own creative work. While this is a fiction class, we will take our lessons from writers working across many different formats. We will read novels and short stories, but also poetry, creative non-fiction, journalism, and theory. Through writing exercises, field journals, critical essays, and their own creative pieces, students will work through, and with, the despair and radical imaginative changes wrought on all our lives by the anthropocene

WRIT UN3130 The Punchline. 3.00 points .

Levity’s worth taking seriously. This seminar examines satire in several forms, including polemics from the late Roman Empire, stand-up from the late British Empire, and novels from the healthy and indestructible American Empire. We’ll explore satirical reactions to historic disasters, and how to apply those techniques during the next one. We’ll see satire flourish on bathroom walls and street signs (my specialty, admittedly). We’ll learn why every subculture has their own version of The Onion. Finally, we’ll apply lessons from the above to develop our own writing with creative responses, in-class exercises, and a final project. Anyone can be a satirist. Dealing with reality is the hard part

WRIT UN3131 NEW WORLDS IN WRIT ＆ VR. 3.00 points .

Creating New Worlds in Writing and in VR is a generative, exploratory fiction seminar where we will read, analyze, and experiment with the process of building new worlds. We will ask, What are the narrative possibilities that unfold within these environments? What are the conventions of sci-fi and fantasy and how can they be used to critique and scrutinize our lives on earth, particularly, experiences of violence, environmental degradation, and racial, sexual, and gender-based oppression? We will use VR technology to help us model our own invented spaces. We will examine how to incorporate traditional literary elements, such as character and dialogue, into these dynamic environments

Nonfiction Workshops

WRIT UN1200 BEGINNING NONFICTION WORKSHOP. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. The beginning workshop in nonfiction is designed for students with little or no experience in writing literary nonfiction. Students are introduced to a range of technical and imaginative concerns through exercises and discussions, and they eventually submit their own writing for the critical analysis of the class. Outside readings supplement and inform the exercises and longer written projects

WRIT UN2200 INTERMEDIATE NONFICTION WRKSHP. 3.00 points .

The intermediate workshop in nonfiction is designed for students with some experience in writing literary nonfiction. Intermediate workshops present a higher creative standard than beginning workshops and an expectation that students will produce finished work. Outside readings supplement and inform the exercises and longer written projects. By the end of the semester, students will have produced thirty to forty pages of original work in at least two traditions of literary nonfiction. Please visit https://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate for information about registration procedures

WRIT UN3200 ADVANCED NONFICTION WORKSHOP. 3.00 points .

Advanced Nonfiction Workshop is for students with significant narrative and/or critical experience. Students will produce original literary nonfiction for the workshop. This workshop is reserved for accomplished nonfiction writers and maintains the highest level of creative and critical expectations. Among the many forms that creative nonfiction might assume, students may work in the following nonfiction genres: memoir, personal essay, journalism, travel writing, science writing, and/or others. In addition, students may be asked to consider the following: ethical considerations in nonfiction writing, social and cultural awareness, narrative structure, detail and description, point of view, voice, and editing and revision among other aspects of praxis. A portfolio of nonficiton will be written and revised with the critical input of the instructor and the workshop. Please visit https://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate for information about registration procedures

WRIT UN3201 SENIOR NONFICTION WORKSHOP. 4.00 points .

Nonfiction Seminars

WRIT UN2211 TRADITIONS IN NONFICTION. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. The seminar provides exposure to the varieties of nonfiction with readings in its principal genres: reportage, criticism and commentary, biography and history, and memoir and the personal essay. A highly plastic medium, nonfiction allows authors to portray real events and experiences through narrative, analysis, polemic or any combination thereof. Free to invent everything but the facts, great practitioners of nonfiction are faithful to reality while writing with a voice and a vision distinctively their own. To show how nonfiction is conceived and constructed, class discussions will emphasize the relationship of content to form and style, techniques for creating plot and character under the factual constraints imposed by nonfiction, the defining characteristics of each authors voice, the authors subjectivity and presence, the role of imagination and emotion, the uses of humor, and the importance of speculation and attitude. Written assignments will be opportunities to experiment in several nonfiction genres and styles

WRIT UN3214 HYBRID NONFICTION FORMS. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. Creative nonfiction is a frustratingly vague term. How do we give it real literary meaning; examine its compositional aims and techniques, its achievements and especially its aspirations? This course will focus on works that we might call visionary - works that combine art forms, genres and styles in striking ways. Works in which image and text combine to create a third interactive language for the reader. Works still termed fiction history or journalism that join fact and fiction to interrogate their uses and implications. Certain memoirs that are deliberately anti-autobiographical, turning from personal narrative to the sounds, sight, impressions and ideas of the writers milieu. Certain essays that join personal reflection to arts and cultural criticism, drawing on research and imagination, the vernacular and the formal, even prose and poetry. The assemblage or collage that, created from notebook entries, lists, quotations, footnotes and indexes achieves its coherence through fragments and associations, found and original texts

WRIT UN3224 Writing the Sixties. 3.00 points .

In this seminar, we will target nonfiction from the 1960s—the decade that saw an avalanche of new forms, new awareness, new freedoms, and new conflicts, as well as the beginnings of social movements and cultural preoccupations that continue to frame our lives, as writers and as citizens, in the 21st century: civil rights, feminism, environmentalism, LGBTQ rights, pop culture, and the rise of mass media. We will look back more than a half century to examine the development of modern criticism, memoir, reporting, and profile-writing, and the ways they entwine. Along the way, we will ask questions about these classic nonfiction forms: How do reporters, essayists, and critics make sense of the new? How do they create work as rich as the best novels and short stories? Can criticism rise to the level of art? What roles do voice, point-of-view, character, dialogue, and plot—the traditional elements of fiction—play? As we go, we will witness the unfolding of arguably the most transitional decade in American history—with such events as the Kennedy assassination, the Watts Riots, the Human Be In, and the Vietnam War, along with the rise of Pop art, rock ‘n’ roll, and a new era of moviemaking—as it was documented in real time by writers at The New Yorker, New Journalists at Esquire, and critics at Partisan Review and Harper’s, among other publications. Some writers we will consider: James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Susan Sontag, Rachel Carson, Dwight Macdonald, Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote, Pauline Kael, Nik Cohn, Joseph Mitchell, Lillian Ross, Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, Thomas Pynchon, John Updike, Michael Herr, Martha Gellhorn, John McPhee, and Betty Friedan. We will be joined by guest speakers

WRIT UN3225 LIFE STORIES. 3.00 points .

In this seminar, we will target nonfiction that tells stories about lives: profiles, memoirs, and biographies. We will examine how the practice of this kind of nonfiction, and ideas about it, have evolved over the past 150 years. Along the way, we will ask questions about these nonfiction forms: How do reporters, memoirists, biographers, and critics make sense of their subjects? How do they create work as rich as the best novels and short stories? Can criticism explicate the inner life of a human subject? What roles do voice, point-of-view, character, dialogue, and plot—the traditional elements of fiction—play? Along the way, we’ll engage in issues of identity and race, memory and self, real persons and invented characters and we’ll get glimpses of such key publications as The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper’s, and The New York Review of Books. Some writers we will consider: Frederick Douglass, Louisa May Alcott, Walt Whitman, Henry Adams, Joseph Mitchell, Lillian Ross, James Agee, John Hersey, Edmund Wilson, Gore Vidal, Gay Talese, James Baldwin, Vladimir Nabokov, Janet Malcolm, Robert Caro, Joyce Carol Oates, Toni Morrison, Joan Didion, and Henry Louis Gates Jr. The course regularly welcomes guest speakers

WRIT UN3226 NONFICTION-ISH. 3.00 points .

This cross-genre craft seminar aims to uncover daring and unusual approaches to literature informed by nonfiction (and nonfiction-adjacent) practices. In this course we will closely read and analyze a diverse set of works, including Svetlana Alexievich’s oral history of women and war, Lydia Davis’s “found” microfictions, Theresa Hak Cha’s genre-exploding “auto-enthnography,” Alejandro Zambra’s unabashedly literary narratives, Sigrid Nunez’s memoir “of” Susan Sontag, Emmanuel Carrére’s “nonfiction novel,” John Keene’s bold counternarratives, W. G. Sebald’s saturnine essay-portraits, Saidiya Hartman’s melding of history and literary imagination, Annie Ernaux’s collective autobiography, Sheila Heti’s alphabetized diary, Ben Mauk’s oral history about Xinjiang detention camps, and Edward St. Aubyn’s autobiographical novel about the British aristocracy and childhood trauma, among other texts. We will also examine Sharon Mashihi’s one-woman autofiction podcasts about Iranian Jewish American family. What we learn in this course we will apply to our own work, which will consist of two creative writing responses and a creative final project. Students will also learn to keep a daily writing journal

WRIT UN3227 TRUE CRIME. 3.00 points .

The explosion of true crime programming in the past few years—from podcasts to documentaries to online communities sleuthing cold cases—would make you think that poring over real-life atrocities is a recent phenomenon. But in fact, our obsession with death, destruction, duplicity, and antisocial behavior is as old as humanity itself. In this class, we will trace the origins of true crime in nonfiction literature in the United States from Puritanism to the present. We will see how the genre has developed and how its preoccupations reflect the zeitgeist. We will consider how race, gender, class, and other identities shape narratives around victims and victors, guilt and innocence. We will think broadly about what, exactly, crime is, not limiting ourselves to the obvious. We will also look at corruption, fraud, systemic discrimination. Once (and sometimes still) considered a trash genre, we will read elevated works that turn that notion on its head. We will host guest speakers from the multifaceted perspectives true crime writing touches: victims, law enforcement, journalists, and convicts themselves. Since recent true crime reporting is such an expansive field that we can only begin to scratch the surface of in this class, students will present and analyze true crime artifacts to the class. The centerpiece of the semester will be students reporting and writing on a real crime themselves. It is all too easy to critique the work of others at a comfortable distance when one has not entered the thorny fray oneself. Students will craft their own true crime writing project, interrogate their own motivations and interest, and present their findings to the class. The subject matter of this class is disturbing in nature, and we will be looking at all manner of crimes from violent to white collar to sexual to social. Consider this a blanket trigger warning for each and every class. We will cultivate a safe space to think and feel through the crimes we examine and share ways to take care of ourselves. I am here as a resource and to help students navigate university resources as appropriate

Poetry Workshops

WRIT UN1300 BEGINNING POETRY WORKSHOP. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. The beginning poetry workshop is designed for students who have a serious interest in poetry writing but who lack a significant background in the rudiments of the craft and/or have had little or no previous poetry workshop experience. Students will be assigned weekly writing exercises emphasizing such aspects of verse composition as the poetic line, the image, rhyme and other sound devices, verse forms, repetition, tone, irony, and others. Students will also read an extensive variety of exemplary work in verse, submit brief critical analyses of poems, and critique each others original work

WRIT UN2300 INTERMEDIATE POETRY WORKSHOP. 3.00 points .

Intermediate poetry workshops are for students with some prior instruction in the rudiments of poetry writing and prior poetry workshop experience. Intermediate poetry workshops pose greater challenges to students and maintain higher critical standards than beginning workshops. Students will be instructed in more complex aspects of the craft, including the poetic persona, the prose poem, the collage, open-field composition, and others. They will also be assigned more challenging verse forms such as the villanelle and also non-European verse forms such as the pantoum. They will read extensively, submit brief critical analyses, and put their instruction into regular practice by composing original work that will be critiqued by their peers. By the end of the semester each student will have assembled a substantial portfolio of finished work. Please visit https://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate for information about registration procedures

WRIT UN3300 ADVANCED POETRY WORKSHOP. 3.00 points .

This poetry workshop is reserved for accomplished poetry writers and maintains the highest level of creative and critical expectations. Students will be encouraged to develop their strengths and to cultivate a distinctive poetic vision and voice but must also demonstrate a willingness to broaden their range and experiment with new forms and notions of the poem. A portfolio of poetry will be written and revised with the critical input of the instructor and the workshop. Please visit https://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate for information about registration procedures

WRIT UN3301 SENIOR POETRY WORKSHOP. 4.00 points .

Prerequisites: The department's permission required through writing sample. Please go to 609 Kent for submission schedule and registration guidelines or see http://www.arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate. Seniors who are majors in creative writing are given priority for this course. Enrollment is limited, and is by permission of the professor. The senior workshop offers students the opportunity to work exclusively with classmates who are at the same high level of accomplishment in the major. Students in the senior workshops will produce and revise a new and substantial body of work. In-class critiques and conferences with the professor will be tailored to needs of each student. Please visit https://arts.columbia.edu/writing/undergraduate for information about registration procedures

Poetry Seminars

WRIT UN2311 TRADITIONS IN POETRY. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. “For those, in dark, who find their own way by the light of others’ eyes.” —Lucie Brock-Broido The avenues of poetic tradition open to today’s poets are more numerous, more invigorating, and perhaps even more baffling than ever before. The routes we chose for our writing lead to destinations of our own making, and we take them at our own risk—necessarily so, as the pursuit of poetry asks each of us to light a pilgrim’s candle and follow it into the moors and lowlands, through wastes and prairies, crossing waters as we go. Go after the marshlights, the will-o-wisps who call to you in a voice you’ve longed for your whole life. These routes have been forged by those who came before you, but for that reason, none of them can hope to keep you on it entirely. You must take your steps away, brick by brick, heading confidently into the hinterland of your own distinct achievement. For the purpose of this class, we will walk these roads together, examining the works of classic and contemporary exemplars of the craft. By companioning poets from a large spread of time, we will be able to more diversely immerse ourselves in what a poetic “tradition” truly means. We will read works by Edmund Spencer, Dante, and Goethe, the Romantics—especially Keats—Dickinson, who is mother to us all, Modernists, and the great sweep of contemporary poetry that is too vast to individuate. While it is the imperative of this class to equip you with the knowledge necessary to advance in the field of poetry, this task shall be done in a Columbian manner. Consider this class an initiation, of sorts, into the vocabulary which distinguishes the writers who work under our flag, each of us bound by this language that must be passed on, and therefore changed, to you who inherit it. As I have learned the words, I have changed them, and I give them now to you so that you may pave your own way into your own ways, inspired with the first breath that brought you here, which may excite and—hopefully—frighten you. You must be troubled. This is essential

WRIT UN3315 POETIC METER AND FORM. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. This course will investigate the uses of rhythmic order and disorder in English-language poetry, with a particular emphasis on formal elements in free verse. Through a close analysis of poems, well examine the possibilities of qualitative meter, and students will write original creative work within (and in response to) various formal traditions. Analytical texts and poetic manifestos will accompany our reading of exemplary poems. Each week, well study interesting examples of metrical writing, and Ill ask you to write in reponse to those examples. Our topics will include stress meter, syllable-stress meter, double and triple meter, rising and falling rhythms, promotion, demotion, inversion, elision, and foot scansion. Our study will include a greate range of pre-modern and modern writers, from Keats to W.D. Snodgrass, Shakespeare to Denise Levertov, Blake to James Dickey, Whitman to Louise Gluck etc. As writers, well always be thinking about how the formal choices of a poem are appropriate or inappropriate for the poems content. Well also read prose by poets describing their metrical craft

WRIT UN3320 Provocations in Twentieth-Century Poetics. 3.00 points .

This is a class about poetry and revolt. In a century of wars, unchecked proliferation of industrial and market systems in the continued legacy of settler-colonialism and the consolidation of state powers, does language still conduct with revolutionary possibilities? In this class, we will read manifestos, philosophical treatises, political tracts, literary polemics, poems, scores, and so on, as we consider poetry’s long-standing commitment to visionary practices that seek to liberate consciousness from the many and various structures of oppression. The term “poetry” is not limited to itself but becomes, in our readings, an open invitation to all adjacent experiments with and in the language arts. As such, we will look at the emergence of the international avant-gardes as well as a few student movements that populate and complicate the explorations of radical politics in the twentieth-century. In addition to our readings, students will be asked to produce creative responses for class discussion. Final projects will be provocations of their own design. Required Texts: Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Genealogy of Morality Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: The Communist Manifesto Aimé Césaire: Notebook of A Return to the Native Land Hilda Hilst: The Obscene Madame D Marguerite Duras: Hiroshima Mon Amour Guy Debord: Society of the Spectacle

WRIT UN3316 WEST TO EAST. 3.00 points .

This course examines two central movements in post World War II American poetry, The San Francisco Renaissance and The New York School, and uncovers their aesthetic impacts on language and cultural production, as well as the relationship to the city as a defining agent in the poetic imagination

WRIT UN3319 POETICS OF PLACE:AMERICAN LANDSCAPES, VO. 3.00 points .

When the American Poet Larry Levis left his home in California’s San Joaquin Valley, “all [he] needed to do,” he wrote, “was to describe [home] exactly as it had been. That [he] could not do, for that [is] impossible. And that is where poetry might begin. This course will consider how place shapes a poet’s self and work. Together we will consider a diverse range of poets and the places they write out of and into: from Philip Levines Detroit to Whitmans Manhattan, from Robert Lowells New England to James Wrights Ohio, from the Kentucky of Joe Bolton and Crystal Wilkinson to the California of Robin Blaser and Allen Ginsberg, from the Ozarks of Frank Stanford to the New Jersey of Amiri Baraka, from the Pacific Northwest of Robinson Jeffers to the Alaska of Mary Tallmountain. We will consider the debate between T. S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams about global versus local approaches to the poem, and together we will ask complex questions: Why is it, for example, that Jack Gilbert finds his Pittsburgh when he leaves it, while Gerald Stern finds his Pittsburgh when he keeps it close? Does something sing because you leave it or because you hold it close? Do you come to a place to find where you belong in it? Do you leave a place to find where it belongs in you? As Carolyn Kizer writes in Running Away from Home, Its never over, old church of our claustrophobia! And of course home can give us the first freedom of wanting to leave, the first prison and freedom of want. In our reflections on each “place,” we will reflect on its varied histories, its native peoples, and its inheritance of violent conquest. Our syllabus will consist, in addition to poems, of manifestos and prose writings about place, from Richard Hugos Triggering Town to Sandra Beasleys Prioritizing Place. You will be encouraged to think about everything from dialect to economics, from collectivism to individualism in poems that root themselves in particular places, and you will be encouraged to consider how those poems “transcend” their origins. You will write response papers, analytical papers, and creative pieces, and you will complete a final project that reflects on your own relationship to place

WRIT UN3321 Ecopoetics. 3.00 points .

“There are things / We live among ‘and to see them / Is to know ourselves.’” George Oppen, “Of Being Numerous” In this class we will read poetry like writers that inhabit an imperiled planet, understanding our poems as being in direct conversation both with the environment as well as writers past and present with similar concerns and techniques. Given the imminent ecological crises we are facing, the poems we read will center themes of place, ecology, interspecies dependence, the role of humans in the destruction of the planet, and the “necropastoral” (to borrow a term from Joyelle McSweeney), among others. We will read works by poets and writers such as (but not limited to) John Ashbery, Harryette Mullen, Asiya Wadud, Wendy Xu, Ross Gay, Simone Kearney, Kim Hyesoon, Marcella Durand, Arthur Rimbaud, Geoffrey G. O’Brien, Muriel Rukeyser, George Oppen, Terrance Hayes, Juliana Spahr, and W.S. Merwin—reading several full collections as well as individual poems and essays by scholars in the field. Through close readings, in-class exercises, discussions, and creative/critical writings, we will invest in and investigate facets of the dynamic lyric that is aware of its environs (sound, image, line), while also exploring traditional poetic forms like the Haibun, ode, prose poem, and elegy. Additionally, we will seek inspiration in outside mediums such as film, visual art, and music, as well as, of course, the natural world. As a class, we will explore the highly individual nature of writing processes and talk about building writing practices that are generative as well as sustainable

Cross Genre Seminars

WRIT UN3011 TRANSLATION SEMINAR. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Students do not need to demonstrate bilingual ability to take this course. Department approval NOT needed. Corequisites: This course is open to undergraduate & graduate students. Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Students do not need to demonstrate bilingual ability to take this course. Department approval NOT needed. Corequisites: This course is open to undergraduate ＆ graduate students. This course will explore broad-ranging questions pertaining to the historical, cultural, and political significance of translation while analyzing the various challenges confronted by the arts foremost practitioners. We will read and discuss texts by writers and theorists such as Benjamin, Derrida, Borges, Steiner, Dryden, Nabokov, Schleiermacher, Goethe, Spivak, Jakobson, and Venuti. As readers and practitioners of translation, we will train our ears to detect the visibility of invisibility of the translators craft; through short writing experiments, we will discover how to identify and capture the nuances that traverse literary styles, historical periods and cultures. The course will culminate in a final project that may either be a critical analysis or an original translation accompanied by a translators note of introduction

WRIT UN3010 SHORT PROSE FORMS. 3.00 points .

Note: This seminar has a workshop component.

Prerequisites: No Prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. Prerequisites: No Prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. Flash fiction, micro-naratives and the short-short have become exciting areas of exploration for contemporary writers. This course will examine how these literary fragments have captured the imagination of writers internationally and at home. The larger question the class seeks to answer, both on a collective and individual level, is: How can we craft a working definition of those elements endemic to short prose as a genre? Does the form exceed classification? What aspects of both crafts -- prose and poetry -- does this genre inhabit, expand upon, reinvent, reject, subvert? Short Prose Forms incorporates aspects of both literary seminar and the creative workshop. Class-time will be devoted alternatingly to examinations of published pieces and modified discussions of student work. Our reading chart the course from the genres emergence, examining the prose poem in 19th-century France through the works of Mallarme, Baudelaire, Max Jacob and Rimbaud. Well examine aspects of poetry -- the attention to the lyrical, the use of compression, musicality, sonic resonances and wit -- and attempt to understand how these writers took, as Russell Edson describes, experience [and] made it into an artifact with the logic of a dream. The class will conclude with a portfolio at the end of the term, in which students will submit a compendium of final drafts of three of four short prose pieces, samples of several exercises, selescted responses to readings, and a short personal manifesto on the short prose form

WRIT UN3016 WALKING. 3.00 points .

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. As Walter Benjamin notes in The Arcades Project: Basic to flanerie, among other things, is the idea that the fruits of idleness are more precious than the fruits of labor. The flaneur, as is well known, makes studies. This course will encourage you to make studies -- poems, essays, stories, or multimedia pieces -- based on your walks. We will read depictions of walking from multiple disciplines, including philosophy, poetry, history, religion, visual art, and urban planning. Occasionally we will walk together. An important point of the course is to develop mobile forms of writing. How can writing emerge from, and document, a walks encounters, observations, and reflections? What advantages does mobility bring to our work? Each week you will write a short piece (1-3 pages) that engages your walks while responding to close readings of the assigned material

WRIT UN3027 Science Fiction Poetics. 3.00 points .

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." —Carl Sagan "Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming." —David Bowie "I grew up reading science fiction." —Jeff Bezos Science fiction is the literature of the human species encountering change. It is the literature of the Other, of philosophy and ideas, of innovation and experimentation. This seminar will examine how poets and writers from around the world have imagined alternate realities and futures, linguistic inventions, and new poetic expressions inspired by science. We will discuss what these imaginings might tell us about the cultural and political presents in which they were conceived, as well as what the extreme conditions offered by science fiction might teach us about writing into the unknown. Topics will include astroecology and apocalyptic ecopoetics, extraterrestrial aphrodites, monstrous bodyscapes, space exploration and colonization, future creoles and the evolution of language, bio-poetics and crystalline formations, immortal texts, and global futurisms—from the European Futurists of the early 20th century to Afrofuturism, as well as recent figurations such as Gulf Futurism and Arabfuturism. Course reading will include work by Aase Berg, Etel Adnan, Chen Qiufan, Johannes Heldén, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Velimir Khlebnikov, Hao Jingfang, Eve L. Ewing, Sun Ra, Ursula K. Le Guin, Italo Calvino, Anaïs Duplan, Ursula Andkjær Olsen, Dempow Torishima, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Octavia E. Butler, Tracy K. Smith, Cathy Park Hong, and others

WRIT UN3028 LOST ＆ FOUND IN THE ANTHROPOCENE. 3.00 points .

We are living through a time of unprecedented change. This change is characterized by “solastalgia,” a word that describes a response to environmental loss in our daily lives which encompasses both pain and solace. In this course we will think seriously about the imperative to notice, pay attention, and remember that which is changing or disappearing. How might we work through and with loss, and how might we harness attention and awareness to envision different futures and new creative approaches? Students will consider the ways writers and other artists are working with losing and finding in a posthuman world across different forms, genres, and cultures. Will take an imaginative and interdisciplinary attitude to these questions, studying literary work alongside visual art, anthropology, psychology, literary theory, and science. We will consider extinction, elegy, landscape, geological temporalities, fragments, trash, and ghosts. In his call to arms, The Great Derangement, author Amitav Ghosh writes that climate change resists so many of the literary and artistic forms we currently possess. As such, he calls for an embrace of hybrid genres. Through reflections, critical essays, and their own creative work, students will think seriously about hybridity and the imaginative challenge of being alive in the world today

WRIT UN3031 INTRO TO AUDIO STORYTELLING. 3.00 points .

It’s one thing to tell a story with the pen. It’s another to transfix your audience with your voice. In this class, we will explore principles of audio narrative. Oral storytellers arguably understand suspense, humor and showmanship in ways only a live performer can. Even if you are a diehard writer of visually-consumed text, you may find, once the class is over, that you have learned techniques that can translate across borders: your written work may benefit. Alternatively, you may discover that audio is the medium for you. We will consider sound from the ground up – from folkloric oral traditions, to raw, naturally captured sound stories, to seemingly straightforward radio news segments, to highly polished narrative podcasts. While this class involves a fair amount of reading, much of what we will be studying and discussing is audio material. Some is as lo-fi as can be, and some is operatic in scope, benefitting from large production budgets and teams of artists. At the same time that we study these works, each student will also complete small audio production exercises of their own; as a final project, students will be expected to produce a trailer, or “sizzle” for a hypothetical multi-episode show. This class is meant for beginners to the audio tradition. There are some tech requirements: a recording device (most phones will suffice), workable set of headphones, and computer. You’ll also need to download the free audio editing software Audacity

WRIT UN3032 IT'S COMPLICATED: WRITING AS A RELATIONSHIP. 3.00 points .

In this cross-genre class, we’ll explore writing process as relationship, one that reflects how we relate to both ourselves and the world. How do we bring the public back to the private space of the writing desk? How do our social, cultural, and political realities and histories influence our writing process? How is our relationship with our audience informed by our relationship with language? How can we be at play in structures of grammar and narrative without assimilating to what seems otherwise unrelatable? Seeing the sentence as a set of relationships, one tied to our human relations, we will write and revise with the hope of fostering an enduring relationship with the page. Coursework will include in-class writing exercises and 3 short (3-6 page) pieces

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My Columbia Writing Students Must Be Able to Tell the Truth

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O n April 30, 56 years after Columbia sent the police in to arrest student protesters who had taken over Hamilton Hall in protest of the Vietnam War—protests the school loves to promote—I was walking my 12-year-old daughter home after her choir performance. We had gone an extra stop on the subway because the stop at 116th, Columbia’s stop, was closed. Instead, we had to walk back to our apartment from the 125th stop. When we got within sight of Columbia, a line of dozens of police blocked our path. I asked them to let us through; I pointed to our apartment building and said we lived there. As a Columbia professor, I live in Columbia housing.

“I have my orders,” the cop in charge said.

“I live right there,” I said. “It’s my daughter’s bedtime.”

“I have my orders,” he said again.

“I’m just trying to get home,” I said.

We were forced to walk back the way we came from and circle around from another block. Luckily, our building has an entrance through the bodega in the basement. This is how I took my daughter up to her room and sent her to bed.

Read More: Columbia's Relationship With Student Protesters Has Long Been Fraught

A week earlier, I had brought some food for the students camping out on Columbia’s West Lawn and had met with similar resistance. Security guards asked whether I was really faculty; I had already swiped my faculty badge that should have confirmed my identity. They asked to take my badge, then they said I hadn’t swiped it, which I had, two seconds earlier, as they watched. They said their professors had never brought food to them before. I didn’t know what to say to this—“I’m sorry that your professors never brought you food?” They called someone and told them the number on my badge. Finally, they were forced to let me through. They said again that their professors had never brought them food. “OK,” I said, and walked into campus. I reported their behavior and never received a reply.

On April 30, after I had got my daughter to bed, my partner and I took the dog down to pee. We watched the protesters call, “Shame!” as the police went in and out of the blockade that stretched 10 blocks around campus. Earlier that day, we had seen police collecting barricades—it seemed like there would be a bit of peace. As soon as it got dark, they must have used those barricades and more to block off the 10 blocks. There were reports on campus that journalists were not allowed out of Pulitzer Hall, including Columbia’s own student journalists and the dean of the School of Journalism, under threat of arrest. Faculty and students who did not live on campus had been forbidden access to campus in the morning. There was no one around to witness. My partner and I had to use social media to see the hundreds of police in full riot gear, guns out, infiltrate Columbia’s Hamilton Hall, where protesters had holed up , mirroring the 1968 protests that had occupied the same building.

In the next few days, I was in meeting after meeting. Internally, we were told that the arrests had been peaceful and careful, with no student injuries. The same thing was repeated by Mayor Adams and CNN . Meanwhile, president Minouche Shafik had violated faculty governance and the university bylaws that she consult the executive committee before calling police onto campus. (The committee voted unanimously against police intervention .)

Read More: Columbia Cancels Main Commencement Following Weeks of Pro-Palestinian Protests

Then, Saturday morning, I got an email from a couple of writing students that they had been released from jail. I hadn’t heard that any of our students had been involved. They told me they hadn’t gotten food or water, or even their meds, for 24 hours. They had watched their friends bleed, kicked in the face by police. They said they had been careful not to damage university property. At least one cop busted into a locked office and fired a gun , threatened by what my students called “unarmed students in pajamas.”

In the mainstream media, the story was very different. The vandalism was blamed on students. Police showed off one of Oxford Press’s Terrorism: A Very Short Introduction . (This series of books offers scholarly introductions that help students prepare for classes, not how-to pamphlets teaching them to do terrorism.)

“I feel like I’m being gaslit,” one of my students said.

I teach creative writing, and I am the author of a book about teaching creative writing and the origins of creative-writing programs in the early 20th century. The oldest MFA program in the country, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, was funded by special-interest groups like the Rockefeller Foundation and, famously, the CIA, and was explicitly described by director Paul Engle as a tool to spread American values.

Read More: 'Why Are Police in Riot Gear?' Inside Columbia and City College's Darkest Night

The way we teach creative writing is essential because it shapes what kinds of narratives will be seen as valuable, pleasurable, and convincing. Today’s writing students will record how our current events become history. One of the strategies Columbia took with its police invasion was to block access of faculty, students, and press to the truth. It didn’t want any witnesses. It wanted to control the story.

For weeks, Columbia administration and the mainstream media has painted student protesters as violent and disruptive—and though there have been incidents of antisemitism, racism, and anti-Muslim hatred, including a chemical attack on pro-Palestine protesters , I visited the encampment multiple times and saw a place of joy, love, and community that included explicit teach-ins on antisemitism and explicit rules against any hateful language and action. Students of different faiths protected each other’s right to prayer. Meanwhile, wary of surveillance and the potential use of facial recognition to identify them, they covered their faces. Faculty have become afraid to use university email addresses to discuss ways to protect their students. At one point, the administration circulated documents they wanted students to sign, agreeing to self-identify their involvement and leave the encampment by a 2 p.m. deadline or face suspension or worse. In the end, student radio WKCR reported that even students who did leave the encampment were suspended.

In a recent statement in the Guardian and an oral history in New York Magazine , and through the remarkable coverage of WKCR, Columbia students have sought to take back the narrative. They have detailed the widespread support on campus for student protesters; the peaceful nature of the demonstrations; widespread student wishes to divest financially from Israel, cancel the Tel Aviv Global Center, and end Columbia’s dual-degree program with Tel Aviv University; and the administration’s lack of good faith in negotiations. As part of the Guardian statement, the student body says that multiple news outlets refused to print it. They emphasize their desire to tell their own story.

In a time of mass misinformation, writers who tell the truth and who are there to witness the truth firsthand are essential and must be protected. My students in Columbia’s writing program who have been arrested and face expulsion for wanting the university to disclose and divest, and the many other student protesters, represent the remarkable energy and skepticism of the younger generation who are committed not only to witnessing but participating in the making of a better world. Truth has power, but only if there are people around to tell the truth. We must protect their right to do so, whether or not the truth serves our beliefs. It is the next generation of writers who understand this best and are fighting for both their right and ours to be heard.

Contact us at [email protected] .

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College protest live updates: Nearly 300 arrested at Columbia and CUNY, UCLA cancels classes, as campus demonstrations intensify

Live updates of the college protests underway across the United States.

Columbia University protest photos: Police break up protest at Hamilton Hall

A large number of police descended at Hamilton Hall at Columbia University Tuesday night to clear protesters who had occupied the building.

Why are students protesting at Columbia University?

Tensions have flared during protests at Columbia University and elsewhere across the country. The demonstrators have made it clear they're against Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza, but what do they specifically want? Here's a look at what protesters are really demanding.

Photos show week of antiwar protests at USC, Columbia, Emerson and other schools across U.S.

Protests are currently happening at college campuses around the country as students show support for Palestinians in Gaza.

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Google launches Firebase Genkit, a new open source framework for building AI-powered apps

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Android's Circle to Search can now help students solve math and physics homework

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Reddit introduces new tools for ‘Ask Me Anything,’ its Q&A feature

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LearnLM is Google's new family of AI models for education

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Patreon and Grammarly are already experimenting with Gemini Nano, says Google

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Study tries to assess average driver's fuel cost over a lifetime

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Ippei Mizuhara, former interpreter of Shohei Ohtani, pleads not guilty as formality in part of negotiated deal with federal prosecutors

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Google's generative AI can now analyze hours of video

Gemini, Google’s family of generative AI models, can now analyze longer documents, codebases, videos and audio recordings than before. During a keynote at the Google I/O 2024 developer conference Tuesday, Google announced the private preview of a new version of Gemini 1.5 Pro, the company’s current flagship model, that can take in up to 2 million tokens. Beyond being able to analyze large files, models that can take in more tokens can sometimes achieve improved performance.

The minor in Creative Writing is designed to allow students to combine their major fields of study with a sequence of creative writing workshops and elective writing courses that will improve reading, writing, storytelling, listening, speaking, and creative problem-solving skills. The minor in Creative Writing is of interest to students who realize the great importance of writing and story in all arts and media disciplines, as well as most careers.

As a result of successfully completing the Creative Writing Minor requirements, students should be able to:

• demonstrate a familiarity with the common language of the discipline of creative writing;
• use a variety of narrative techniques, written forms, and revision strategies to create effective creative writing;
• demonstrate a familiarity with how open creative writing is to new modes of expression;
• demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between effective reading and effective writing;
• perform reasonably close readings of works of creative writing by 1) analyzing relevant literary elements (narrative techniques, themes, forms/subgenres, stylistic choices, or other literary devices common to creative writing), and 2) making appropriate reference to relevant texts and contexts;
• demonstrate a meaningful ability to participate in contemporary conversations on social and cultural change;
• demonstrate knowledge of the literary marketplace and processes crucial to publishing their creative writing; and
• apply creative problem-solving, effective written and oral communications, and critical thinking to their preparation for graduate studies, writing-related careers, and other professions.

PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS - 18 credits required

• CRWR 110 Foundations in Creative Writing

Complete 6 credits from the following courses:

• CRWR 101 Explorations in Creative Writing
• CRWR 105 Story Across Culture and Media
• CRWR 112 Tutoring Fiction Writing Skills
• CRWR 120A Craft and Process Seminar in Fiction: Topics
• CRWR 121 Craft and Process Seminar in Fiction: First Novels
• CRWR 122 Craft and Process Seminar in Fiction: Gender and Difference
• CRWR 123 Craft and Process Seminar in Fiction: The Novel in Stories
• CRWR 127 Craft and Process Seminar in Fiction: American Voices
• CRWR 129 Craft and Process Seminar in Fiction: Autobiographical Fiction
• CRWR 130 Craft and Process Seminar in Fiction: Crime & Story
• CRWR 132 Story in Fiction and Film: International
• CRWR 133 Story in Graphic Forms
• CRWR 134 Young Adult Fiction
• CRWR 135 Dreams and Fiction Writing
• CRWR 138 Science Fiction Writing
• CRWR 140 Story and Journal
• CRWR 141 Fantasy Writing Workshop
• CRWR 143 Journal and Sketchbook: Ways of Seeing
• CRWR 144A Topics in Fiction Writing
• CRWR 199A Topics in Creative Writing
• CRWR 215 Freelance Applications of Creative Writing Training
• CRWR 216 Small Press Publishing
• CRWR 220 Craft and Process Seminar in Fiction: Novelists
• CRWR 221 Craft and Process Seminar in Fiction: Short Story
• CRWR 222 Craft and Process Seminar in Fiction: Women Writers
• CRWR 223 Craft and Process Seminar in Fiction: Fiction Writers and Censorship
• CRWR 233 Researching and Writing Historical Fiction
• CRWR 239 Dialects and Fiction Writing
• CRWR 242A Topics in Nonfiction
• CRWR 249 Nonfiction Film As Literature
• CRWR 288 Practice Teaching: Tutor Training
• CRWR 315 Creative Writers and Publishing
• CRWR 316 Writer’s Portfolio
• CRWR 320 Craft and Process Seminar in Fiction: Kafka and European Masters
• CRWR 326A Craft and Process Seminar in Nonfiction
• CRWR 357A Craft and Process Seminar in Poetry
• CRWR 370 Creative Writing: J-Term in Paris
• CRWR 372 Topics in Writing Abroad: Rome
• CRWR 415 Literary Magazine Editing
• CRWR 416 Literary Magazine Production
• CRWR 450 Fiction Workshop: Thesis
• CRWR 455 Poetry Workshop: Thesis
• CRWR 460 Creative Nonfiction Workshop: Thesis
• CRWR 490 Internship: Creative Writing
• CRWR 495 Directed Study: Creative Writing
• CRWR 496 Independent Project: Creative Writing
• LITR 103 Introduction to Literary Interpretation
• LITR 386A Seminar in Literary Interpretation
• LITR 386B Seminar in Literary Interpretation
• LITR 386C Seminar in Literary Interpretation

AREAS OF STUDY

Complete one area of study.

• CRWR 150 Fiction Workshop: Beginning
• CRWR 250 Fiction Workshop: Intermediate
• CRWR 350 Fiction Workshop: Advanced
• CRWR 160 Creative Nonfiction Workshop: Beginning
• CRWR 260 Creative Nonfiction Workshop: Intermediate
• CRWR 360 Creative Nonfiction Workshop: Advanced
• CRWR 155 Poetry Workshop: Beginning
• CRWR 255 Poetry Workshop: Intermediate
• CRWR 355 Poetry Workshop: Advanced

• Majors & Programs

Request Info

• Learn more about English and Creative Writing
• View Courses & Requirements

Get In Touch

A graduate admissions representative is ready to answer your questions about this program. Email   David Marts today.

Fiction (MFA)

Time to degree: three years (38 credits) part-time options are available.

Think of this as an open invitation to experiment. Columbia College Chicago’s Master of Fine Arts in Fiction program not only accepts different aesthetic styles, it demands them. You’ll push your boundaries and grow as a writer with the help of faculty members and peers. 

You’ll build an awareness of the overall traditional literary conversation, and you’ll be encouraged to forge your own path as a writer. If you choose, you’ll work as a graduate school instructor or teaching assistant and take advantage of publishing and portfolio opportunities. 

Quick Links

See application requirements  |  View required courses  |  View program costs (PDF)

In the Classroom

During your first year in the MFA program, you’ll immerse yourself in writing workshops with fellow students and have professional publishing and teaching opportunities. You’ll take a hard look at writers who inspire you, studying their creative processes as you work on your craft in a structured environment. 

As you study the form and theory of fiction, you’ll work with students and faculty members in both Nonfiction and Poetry. As you finish your MFA program, you’ll build on your work from previous classes to create a substantial thesis with the help of a faculty member.

But there’s so much more:

• Take advantage of opportunities in teaching as a graduate student instructor or teaching assistant.
• Increase your exposure to professional opportunities through an internship.
• Participate in the student-run 33 Reading Series, which features readings by MFA students in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry.
• Create reading series, journals, or presses of your own.

English and Creative Writing Professor Joe Meno

As a student in Columbia College Chicago’s Fiction MFA program, you’ll foster close working relationships with our award-winning faculty members in a small, intimate community of writers.

You’ll find a home at Columbia if you’re looking for a program that emphasizes discipline and process, exposure to a broad literary conversation, and guidance in publishing. Our faculty members will support you as you stretch yourself. As artistic role models, they’ll encourage and inspire you to take risks—because they’ve been taking risks for years.

Our faculty includes award-winning fiction writers:

• Don De Grazia
• Garnett Kilberg Cohen
• Patricia Ann McNair
• Alexis Pride
• Sam Weller 

See all English and Creative Writing Faculty

Opportunities for Graduate Students

Columbia College Chicago offers several opportunities for graduate students, including scholarships, assistantships, and instructing opportunities. 

See More Information

Alumni Success

Columbia College Chicago’s Fiction MFA alumni write their own success stories. Many of our alumni publish their own books, move on to teaching positions at prominent institutions, or get PhDs. Others put their writing skills to work for major corporations and industries around the country. 

Here are just a few of our alumni who have created names for themselves in the writing world:

Jessie Ann Foley MFA ’12

Jessie Ann Foley's first novel, "The Carnival at Bray," launched her career as an award-winning writer.

Chris Terry MFA ’12

Chris Terry learned the benefits of producing as much work as possible while studying at Columbia.

Chicago: A Literary City

Living and studying in Chicago means you’ll have opportunities to participate in the literary community here. The city has one of the country’s best live literary scenes, with a diverse range of styles and genres and a welcoming environment for new writers. 

Creative Writing Reading Series

The Creative Writing Reading Series at Columbia College Chicago is one of the most dynamic, aesthetically diverse events of its kind in the city. Hosted by the English and Creative Writing Department, the series attracts prestigious, award-winning writers. 

As a graduate student in the Fiction MFA program, you’ll have a front row seat to these shows and may even have an opportunity to read your own work.

See upcoming visiting writers