Welcome
Since the early 1980s, Goucher College’s undergraduate Creative Writing Program has helped to launch careers for many students and alumnae/i, e.g. Darcey Steinke, Jenn Crowell, John McManus, Talley English, and Laura Tims. We are determined to do all we can to help those students who have the talent and drive to get their first foothold in the profession. Students who want to experiment with creative writing for personal growth and better understanding of other human beings are equally well served by our program—and the skills they acquire have a very broad application in the outside world.
Creative Writing Program Alumnae/i
Our offerings at 100 and 200-level are devoted to basic craft training, but with considerable freedom for students to choose their own subjects and approaches. At 300-level students are encouraged to work on longer projects: novels, story cycles, poetry collections, as well as to refine individual poems, essays, and short stories. Goucher’s faculty is unusually generous with independent study opportunities for advanced students—these one-on-one relationships are likely to be editorial as much as tutorial and usually involve professional counseling as well as advice on publication. The bar for thesis is set high; a creative writing thesis director must be reasonably confident that a book of publishable quality will be completed.
Goucher English Majors can elect the Concentration in Creative Writing to get the full benefit of this program. Our Creative Writing Minor makes the entire four year-program accessible to students in any major (not only Theater, Philosophy, Psychology, and Art but also Physics and Mathematics). The program is also easily adaptable for interdisciplinary programs of study. A Professional Writing Minor is also available.
A formalized Professional and Creative Writing Major has just been approved, and will be in place in time for students entering Goucher in Fall 2019 to elect it.
Creative Writing students at Goucher choose from a broad selection of courses:
WRT 107 Introductory Screenwriting
WRT 108 Introductory Mixed Genre Creative Writing
WRT 120 Introductory Fiction Writing
WRT 202 Fiction Workshop
WRT 205 Poetry Workshop
WRT 208 Journalism Workshop
WRT 217 Adaptation Screenwriting
WRT 226 Creative Nonfiction.
WRT 305 Advanced Poetry Workshop
WRT 306 Advanced Fiction Workshop
WRT 307 Advanced Creative Nonfiction Workshop
WRT 414 Keystone Creative Nonfiction Workshop
WRT 415 Keystone Poetry Workshop
WRT 416 Keystone Fiction Workshop
WRT 420 Fiction Workshop with Kratz Center Writer in Residence
Qualified students may continue with WRT 499, independent study; and/or WRT 495, honors thesis.
Goucher’s Kratz Center for Creative Writing provides various kinds of support to creative writing students, including funding for writing-related summer projects.
Faculty:
Elizabeth Spires (poetry, children’s literature) author of Wavemaker, The Mouse of Amherst, and many more.
Madison Smartt Bell (fiction, nonfiction, biography) author of All Souls’ Rising, The Color of Night, and many more.
Kathy Flann (fiction) author of Get a Grip, Smoky Ordinary, and more.
Bill U’Ren (fiction, screenwriting) Winter in Tirane (as Jiri Kajane), 1296 Hits, Tortilla Flat (film adaptation) and more.
Phaye Poliakoff-Chen (fiction, professional writing) The Art of Work.
Edgar Kunz (poetry, fiction).
Websites:
http://blogs.goucher.edu/creativewriting/
http://blogs.goucher.edu/creativewriting/workshop-sampler/
http://blogs.goucher.edu/kratz/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/GoucherKratz/