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The Undergraduate Writing Program in the Department of English and Comparative Literature is the home of the Writing Center and oversees all sections of University Writing . Learn more about the support we provide to thousands of Columbia undergraduate and graduate students while maintaining a thriving community of teachers, scholars, poets, fiction writers, playwrights, scientists, non-fiction writers: writers of all stripes.

> Writing Center

The Writing Center provides writing support to undergraduate and graduate students. In one-on-one consultations and workshops, our consultants offer feedback and strategies to help you improve at every stage of your writing, from brainstorming to final drafts.

> University Writing

Part of the Core Curriculum, this one-semester seminar is designed to facilitate students’ entry into the intellectual life of the university by teaching them to become more capable and independent academic readers and writers

> Meet our Staff

> applying to teach, > the morningside review, the core curriculum.

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Quarto is the official undergraduate literary magazine of Columbia University’s Creative Writing Department. It is a student-run magazine that publishes the best of Columbia’s undergraduate writers from all four of Columbia’s undergraduate colleges. The Creative Writing Department provides support and a faculty advisor to the magazine, though the editorial board has representatives from a variety of academic fields across campus.

The MFA in Creative Writing is a multi-faceted, interdisciplinary, multi-genre immersion into the literary arts. Writers may choose to focus on a primary genre, explore a secondary genre, or design their own multi-genre curriculum. The program embodies a creative-critical approach to the literary arts, incorporating literature seminars, workshops, courses in theory and craft, as well as interdisciplinary electives that can be taken accross graduate programs at the college, including travel abroad options. Students will be able to take courses in literary editing and production. A majority of our students also teach as Graduate Student Instructors. 

As a result of successfully completing the program requirements, students should be able to:

• engage critically across literary texts written in various genres;
• continue to generate creative work in their chosen genre(s) of study;
• articulate critical and theorectical approaches to their own creative work as well as the work of others, across genre and literary traditions;
• demonstrate knowledge of the current literary publishing landscape; and
• craft texts across media and genre or in a specific form that are informed by tradition, innovation, as well as the contemporary literary discourse

PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS - 35 credits required

Choose three of the following courses:

• CRWR 610 Advanced Graduate Fiction Workshop
• CRWR 625 MFA Poetry Workshop
• CRWR 640 Workshop: Open Genre
• CRWR 662 Graduate Workshop: Nonfiction

Thesis Workshop

Choose one of the following courses:

• CRWR 645 Thesis Development: Open Genre
• CRWR 650 Thesis Development: Fiction
• CRWR 655 Thesis Development: Poetry
• CRWR 665 Thesis Development: Nonfiction

Craft Seminars

Choose two of the following courses:

• CRWR 612A Graduate Critical Reading and Writing
• CRWR 612B Graduate Critical Reading and Writing
• CRWR 626 Graduate Poetics Seminar
• CRWR 630A Craft Seminar
• CRWR 630B Craft Seminar
• CRWR 661A Form and Theory of Nonfiction
• CRWR 661B Form and Theory of Nonfiction
• CRWR 663 Topics in Nonfiction
• CRWR 699A Topics in Creative Writing
• CRWR 699B Topics in Creative Writing

Literature Seminars

• LITR 675 History of the Essay
• LITR 679A Graduate Seminar in Literature
• LITR 679B Graduate Seminar in Literature

Thesis Advising

• CRWR 651 Thesis: Fiction - take twice for two credits 
• CRWR 656 Thesis: Poetry - take twice for two credits
• CRWR 660 Thesis: Nonfiction - take twice for two credits
• CRWR 515 Literary Magazine Editing
• CRWR 516 Literary Magazine Production
• CRWR 620 Critical Reading and Writing: Kafka and European Masters
• CRWR 670 Creative Writing: J-Term in Paris
• CRWR 672 Topics in Writing Abroad: Rome
• GRAD 610 Teaching Methods and Pedagogies

Summer 2024 & Fall 2024 applications are now open.

Columbia writing academy: summer.

July 15–25, 2024 Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays | 7:00 p.m.–8:15 p.m. ET

Columbia Writing Academy: Writing the College Admissions Essay 

As many colleges place less emphasis on standardized test scores, the admissions essay has taken a larger role in the application process. The Columbia Writing Academy is a two-week online course created and designed by Dr. Nancy Sommers to help students develop their own personal voice and style, and use those skills to craft a unique and impressive college admissions essay. 

Students will explore each stage in the essay-writing process—brainstorming, drafting, revising—and will receive in-depth feedback from the teaching team throughout the process. Due to the importance of small-group workshops and 1:1 tutorials, this course is intended for students highly motivated to perfect their personal statement.

This course gave me the space, constructive feedback, and tools I needed to start, and learn how to write a powerful admissions essay." – Chanel M.

Course Dates

July 15-25, 2024  

Online    Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays     7:00 p.m.–8:15 p.m.

Format and Expected Workload

The Columbia Writing Academy will be a lively, stimulating two-week online course that requires six to eight hours of work each week, including reading, writing, 1:1 tutorials, and participating in three weekly Zoom workshops. Tutorials and workshops will be led by Seminar Leaders following Dr. Sommers' course design and syllabus. Sessions will be held on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, 7:00 p.m.–8:15 p.m. ET.

Student Experience and College Preparation

By the end of the two-week course, students will have written an essay that personalizes their college application, captivates readers, and shows colleges why they should accept them. Students are also encouraged to join the following online co-curricular activities, workshops, and events to further prepare themselves for the college application process: 

• Finding the Right College for You
• Putting Your Best Foot Forward on a College Application
• Insider Tips for the Common App

Registration Details

The Columbia Writing Academy is offered as a course within the 2-Week Online Summer program; be sure to select this program when applying. Due to the importance of focused time with individual students, the admissions committee looks for exceptional students eager to contribute original ideas and a spirit of intellectual curiosity to a community of enthusiastic learners.

Program Costs

Program costs are subject to Board of Trustee approval and may change. The costs below are for Summer 2023. Summer 2024 costs will be available in Spring 2024.  

Program Cost: $3,960 per session (single course registration) 

The amount above includes the fee for the program itself along with activity, health services, and technology fees. The Columbia Writing Academy is offered as a course within the 2-Week Online Summer program. Please visit the Academic Enrichment Cost and Fees page for cost details; costs align with the costs listed under "Online Summer (2-Weeks)" program. 

The non-refundable $1,000 deposit, due upon notification of acceptance to the program, is credited toward this cost. Not included are the application fee ($80). Students are advised to budget at least $50 toward course materials, such as textbooks and supplies.

View Cost Details

Pondering the application process? Curious about commuting? Just wondering what to wear? Visit our Frequently Asked Questions to find Many Helpful Answers.

Compare Programs

With so many options, it can be hard to decide which program is right for you. Narrow your search with customized filters to explore only the programs that match what you’re looking for.

Start Your Application

If you would like to be part of the Columbia Writing Academy, be sure to select the course when applying for the Online Summer Program.

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Frights and Fiction: How Columbia Teaches Horror in Creative Writing

With the work of early trail-blazing authors such as Bram Stroker, Mary Shelley, and more recently Stephen King, the horror genre has carved its own path in the literary world for centuries. “Even though horror writing is sometimes dismissed as so-called ‘genre writing,’ we know at Columbia that when it’s done well, horror writing can be just as literary as any other kind of writing,” says Tony Trigilio , Professor of English and Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago. 

We asked some of our faculty about the importance of horror in Columbia’s curriculum, and for some of their frightening favorites. 

Kathie Bergquist , adjunct faculty, English & Creative Writing  

"I'm glad Columbia embraces genre writing such as horror; writing and reading horror stories tunes developing writers into the use of pacing, narrative tensions, and suspense, which are useful for all prose (and script) writers. It doesn't hurt that there's also a seemingly insatiable appetite for scary stories in books, movies, and television. When it comes to reading scary stuff, I love the eerie and uncanny more than slasher or shock horror. 

A good haunted house story will get me every time, which is why I strongly recommended Jac Jemc's creepy novel, 'The Grip of It,' which is as much a contemporary psychological thriller as it is a classic haunted house story in the tradition of Shirley Jackson."

Richard Chwedyk , adjunct faculty, English & Creative Writing  

"Horror is an important element of our education because if we know ourselves fully, we must recognize and acknowledge what we fear. I get closest to this topic in my teaching when my classes discuss something like 'Beowulf.' We may not know much about Anglo-Saxons who lived 1,500 years ago, but we know what they were afraid of — monsters, like Grendel, attacking the heart and social center of their world. In 'Frankenstein' the monster is a reflection of Victor's inner turmoil, his alienation and abandonment, manifest in the form of a creature. We shall know these people by their monsters, as they would know us by ours. Literature and the arts allow us to examine this aspect of human experience without risking (usually) being torn from limb to limb."

Devon Polderman, adjunct faculty, English & Creative Writing  

"A couple of more contemporary writers who are bringing some new ideas to short story horror include Kelly Link and Maria Carmen Machado — both write outside of horror, too. Also, and I'm thinking of him because he just passed, Peter Straub's 'Ghost Story' is an excellent horror novel, published in 1979."

Polderman says Columbia's horror writing class is a popular choice among students every spring semester, as are most of the college's commercial fiction classes, such as Fantasy Writing, Young Adult Fiction, and Science Fiction Writing.

Katrina Kemble, adjunct faculty, English & Creative Writing  

"One of my favorite novels to read and discuss at Columbia College is Mary Shelley’s 'Frankenstein.' Frankenstein explores feelings of loneliness, loss, grief, and fear and helps us come to understand some of these emotions within ourselves. Gothic literature offers us an opportunity to explore some of the darker emotions we may feel and allows us to connect more deeply with the human experience."

Tony Trigilio , Professor, English & Creative Writing  

"I’m very happy that we give serious attention at Columbia to the horror genre. Even though horror writing is sometimes dismissed as so-called 'genre writing,' we know at Columbia that when it’s done well, horror writing can be just as literary as any other kind of writing. I’m proud that our curriculum is open-minded enough to welcome horror writing alongside all other kinds of literary writing in our creative writing workshops. Good writing is good writing—no matter what the genre. I know that not all schools approach writing this way, but I’m grateful that we do."

Trigilio is in the process of finishing book four of a multi-volume, hybrid poetry/prose experiment in autobiography based on the 1966–1971 ABC gothic soap opera,  Dark Shadows . His series, published by BlazeVOX Books , is crafted into verse or literary prose, with one sentence for each of the 1,225 episodes of the show.

Brendan Riley , Associate Professor, English & Creative Writing  

"Horror gives us room to tangle with the dark side of life, to ask questions about who we are, and thrill at the subversive. It also gives us crucial information about how to recognize and fend off vampires, werewolves, and zombies. 

Teaching about horror at Columbia has been a treat! As we examine and discuss popular texts like zombie films, we open doors to conversations about philosophy, art, ethics, community, and life itself. We also get a bit of insight into who we might be when the undead come knocking."

Riley's five horror recommendations: 

• The Boys from County Hell (Irish vampire movie with really interesting vampires) 
• “The Autumnal” (horror comic about a malevolent forest spirit) 
• Slaxx (low budget comedy horror movie about demonic jeans) 
• “Lake of Darkness” (1920s Chicago serial killer novel w/ a hint of Lovecrafty goodness) 
• [REC] (Spanish found-footage zombie movie that's pretty dang scary) 

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Covering Columbia’s Student Protests Gave Me Hope About Journalism’s Future

I t was 2:30 in the morning and our smaller newsroom up on the fifth floor of Pulitzer Hall—the esteemed Graduate School of Journalism building at Columbia University—was pulsating with the sounds of Camp Rock’s “Can’t Back Down.” Jude Taha, a Palestinian journalist in the program, was leading the charge in rallying everyone to sing it with her. The stench of bitter instant coffee wafted throughout the room. Nestled in the corner, Edward Lopez, a photo journalism student, fought valiantly against sleep. He crouched next to his camera, which was perched on a tripod to capture a perfect vantage of our Morningside campus where roughly 70 colorful tents had been sprung up by students to protest Columbia University’s investment in companies profiting from Israel’s military operations in Gaza. In my drowsy haze of half-slumber, the temptation to surrender was strong.

Then, I remembered something one of my mentors had taught me earlier in my first class at journalism school. He had said that many of us will make a career out of making up for all the mistakes those before us have made. And that in those dark moments when outrage becomes a friend, “it [will] be journalism, and your integrity, that helps you soldier on.”

In his 1970 poem, American singer and poet Gil Scott-Heron said that the revolution would never be televised. My colleagues and I bore witness to that revolution. On April 18, Columbia’s J-school students—and many other journalism students around the country—found themselves right in the middle of what had quickly become an escalating and fast-moving breaking news story . For the next two weeks, we became dedicated to documenting the mobilization of pro-Palestinian students on our campus. We were a group of writers, filmmakers, photographers, and data journalists. We worked tirelessly. As some of us rested, others took turns reporting and venturing out to document the encampment on the lawn. We made makeshift beds on the floor, huddled in lightweight sleeping bags, and were sustained by chicken-flavored ramen noodles, dates dipped in chocolate, and stale tortilla chips. But our clarity was resolute: nothing held more significance to us than accurately portraying the truth about why the students' anti-war protests were happening and the core purpose of the encampment’s demands.

It’s no coincidence that the Pulitzer building stands toweringly atop the West lawn, where a perfect view of the encampment was visible at all hours of the day. The crackdown of campus security meant limited access to outside press, and what’s more, many students in the encampment harbored valid fears that their words would be twisted, misrepresented, or worse, cherry picked for a sound bite if they had spoken to the press. So they relied on us to tell their stories—accurately and with empathy.

Read More: What America’s Student Photojournalists Saw at the Campus Protests

I watched as my colleagues Gaia Caramazza, Carla Mende, and Kira Gologorsky, student filmmakers in the documentary program, carried their equipment back and forth, tirelessly shooting the reactions of students, many of whom they had built lasting connections with.

Many of us understood the importance of dedicating hours to engaging with the campers, understanding their stories and embracing their rhythms of life—the usual meal times, music breaks, and downtime routines—and discerning the subtle cues that would foretell impending trouble.

“Please do let the world know,” a Jewish student, speaking on conditions of anonymity, said to me following a Shabbat service in the encampment. “Show them how much love exists here.” Minutes later Muslim students held their evening prayer service. On day eight, I listened as a Palestinian storyteller shared his poetry which concluded with the words: “I have never felt harmony the way I have this past week, here in this camp, united by a shared love for a group of people that many are so desperately trying to erase.”

Slowly, the encampment also became a close-knit community for many of my colleagues and me. The call to prayer reminded Caramazza of her childhood spent in Jordan. The communal food station set up in the corner closest to Butler Library felt like the physical manifestation of the Arabic saying "beity beitak" (my home is your home) for Samaa Khullar, a Palestinian journalist and colleague in the program. For me, it was playing soccer with other students in the encampment, a traditional sport that united almost every community in the Arab world regardless of their background. I came to realize that I had fostered deep care for the encampment’s affiliates. On cold nights, I worried if they had enough blankets to keep them warm. I worried about their families, some of whom were based in Gaza, and the messages they might wake up to the following morning. It was only natural for me as I immersed myself in their shoes, to reflect on the kind of support and compassion communities crave during times of grief. I approached them with an open mind and heart—one that involved dismantling my own barriers to really understand a community that was rupturing and reshaping history in real time. And as much as I thought I knew, there was so much more I didn’t—and would have remained oblivious to—had I failed to build the level of trust these protestors deserved.

My colleagues and I, many of us who had grown up abroad and reported on international communities for much of our time at Columbia, spent days discussing the significance of capturing this moment in history just as it was, and of bearing witness to the daily movements and experiences of those in the encampment. The protestors were not required to allow us into the encampment; that was not a responsibility they needed to shoulder. But just as any good, trauma-informed reporter knows, to tell a story honestly means to establish safe spaces for people to tell their stories at their own pace, a byproduct only made possible through deep listening.

What so many of my J-school colleagues and I yearned to translate to those encroaching upon our turf was that in order to really know what the movement was about, one had to engage with the students by approaching the stories that focused more on the underlying causes and motivations of the encampment, rather than arbitrary violence. For weeks on end, the encampment's residents found themselves at the intersection of both visibility and vulnerability. Students wanted to spotlight the injustices transpiring in Gaza—instead, they became the faces behind a national news story. I watched as their identities and lived experiences quickly became eclipsed by many sensationalist headlines when the reality was far from it.  

Ray (their last name has been kept private for anonymity), for instance, an artist and undergraduate student at Barnard whom I encountered a week into the encampment, dedicated her afternoons to painting portraits of Palestinians in Gaza. Her canvases pulsated with brown hues, chromes, and crimson applied through watercolor ink to stroke the urgency of the situation in Gaza. Ray had just celebrated Passover in the encampment a few days earlier and mentioned the bizarre moment she woke up to find a camera in her face, snapping pictures inside her unzipped tent: “The least they can do is ask, or try to get to know me first.”

It was impossible to have witnessed and reported on the mobilization of students so passionately dedicated to anti-war and liberation efforts, and not be affected by it. The movement demanded a response from each and every one of us of in the student body, And everyone in our newsroom felt it. Our newsroom came to multiple breaking points, but it was also our saving grace. ​​I was of two worlds as both a student and journalist. I knew just how deeply these students were hurting, but I also knew what we had to do in the spirit of journalistic responsibility. And while I have often been told that compassion stands in the way of good journalism, recent weeks have shown me that it is the lack of compassion that gets in the way of real storytelling.

Read More: My Writing Students Were Arrested at Columbia. Their Voices Have Never Been More Essential

Despite the narrative of journalism's decline or saturation with misinformation, watching my J-school colleagues’ collective conscience rise up and solemnly agree to do right by a community so stained by tragedy has reaffirmed to me that there still exists an enduring power of keeping one another safe in this industry. It was all around me when I searched for it. We knew how and where to draw the line of truth versus hysteria that is breached in journalism with little regard, even and most especially, as we reported on our own peers.

Years from now, when the next generation of young journalists are tasked with a duty this arduous (and they will), I trust that they will hold on to the hope and camaraderie that I witnessed firsthand: a spirit of journalism that models the empathy and dignity Gaza’s victims and all vulnerable communities deserved. A journalism that speaks honestly and meaningfully, with context and sensitivity. The type of journalism that does not involve reporting on a community, but rather with and for them.

The encampment is now cleared. Hamilton Hall has been “restored,” and the N.Y.P.D are now stationed at every corner of our campus. The students may not have won, in the traditional sense. But they achieved something much more powerful than that: They globalized the Palestinian saying “Lan Nerhal” (we will not leave). For the first time, students felt they could proudly stride campus walkways wearing the keffiyeh. For the first time, the true depth of the Palestinian struggle was thrust onto the mainstream stage. And my J-school peers made certain that the encampment and its’ cause were not to be covered as a passing trend, but as one steadfast community’s call for immediate action in the face of the destruction in Gaza—one of the most harrowing atrocities many of us have ever seen in our lifetime.

In less than a week, my J-school colleagues and I are graduating. Reflecting on what I learned while covering the encampment, I’ve observed that the best way to tell a story isn’t to parachute in and out of it. Instead, it is to always have a stake in it. Only, then, can we truly understand the crushing impact that our words have on the communities we write about.

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