New Graduate Emphasis in Creative Writing

Becky Krause

Beginning in the fall of 2006, the English Department will offer a new graduate emphasis in Creative Writing. Currently the English Department offers a Master of Arts in English with emphases in Literature, Professional Writing and Rhetoric, or Teaching English in the Community College. At this time, there are twenty-one graduate students seeking a master's in English.

The Department initiated the process to add a Creative Writing emphasis to the master's program last fall. According to Laura Lee Washburn, Director of the Creative Writing Program, "Many of the English Department faculty had been considering the new emphasis (or hoping for it) for some time." Three new graduate courses have been added to support the Creative Writing emphasis: Graduate Writing Workshops in Poetry and Fiction, Theory of Poetry and Fiction, and Writing for the Profession in Creative Writing. Washburn, Dr. Kathleen De Grave, and new faculty member Karen Stolz will teach the graduate level creative writing courses.

New students can begin the new degree program in the fall of 2006, and some current graduate students have also expressed interest in switching to the Creative Writing emphasis. Washburn noted, "We have graduate students who are already interested in Creative Writing, and we have a vibrant undergraduate emphasis." Like the other emphases, the new emphasis can be completed in two years.