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.

We offer a major in Professional and Creative Writing Major.

Creative Writing students at Goucher choose from a broad selection of courses:

WRT 108 Introduction to Creative Writing: Mixed Genres

WRT 120 Introduction to Creative Writing: Fiction Writing

WRT 202 Short Story Writing

WRT 205 Introduction to Poetry Workshop

WRT 207 Creative Screenwriting

WRT 208 Journalism Workshop

WRT 226 Creative Nonfiction

WRT 305 Intermediate Poetry Workshop

WRT 306 Intermediate Fiction Workshop

WRT 307 Intermediate Creative Nonfiction Workshop

WRT 317 Screenplay Adaptation

WRT 414 Advanced Creative Nonfiction Workshop

WRT 415 Advanced Poetry Workshop

WRT 416 Advanced 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.

Bill U’Ren (fiction, screenwriting) Winter in Tirane (as Jiri Kajane), 1296 Hits, Tortilla Flat (film adaptation) and more.

Edgar Kunz (poetry), author of Fixer, Tap Out.

Sarah Pinsker (fiction, science fiction), Nebula and Hugo Award Winner.

Websites:
http://blogs.goucher.edu/kratz/
http://blogs.goucher.edu/creativewriting/
http://blogs.goucher.edu/creativewriting/workshop-sampler/