CREATIVE WRITING

Degrees Offered: B.A. in English with concentration in Creative Writing;  M.S. in English; M.A. with concentrations in Creative Writing (fiction, poetry).

Required Course of Study: 
Bachelor of Arts--30 s/hrs in English, including 12 s/hrs of workshops, 18 s/hrs of literature.

Master of Arts--33 s/hrs, including 9 s/hrs workshop, 12 s/hrs literature and elective courses (with option of further workshops), 3 s/hrs of Research Methods and Critical Theory (ENG 517), 3 s/hrs in early English language or literature, 6 s/hrs for creative thesis.

Master of Science--33 s/hrs, same as M.A. except 12-18 s/hrs in English studies and 9 s/hrs in cognate electives.

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Southern offers a B.A. and an M.A. in English with concentrations in creative writing.  The M.A. program is small and provides close contact with the faculty and other graduate students.  The current sequence of creative writing courses includes workshops in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and the writing of the novel; additional seminars are offered in narrative theory, poetics, literary publishing. and other special topics.

Southern's Creative Writing Program focuses primarily on helping each student to explore and develop his or her own interests.  Our students are an unusually diverse group, many of whom have returned to school to study writing after establishing careers in other fields.  New Haven boasts a strong writing community, with many opportunities for involvement in a variety of other activities.  Southern's tuition is markedly lower than that of comparable private universities; a few graduate teaching assistantships are awarded to students already enrolled in the program; adjunct teaching positions are also awarded to select graduate students with appropriate credentials.  We have a solid record of sending students on to prestigious M.F.A. programs, including those at Iowa, Montana, Penn State, Emerson, and Massachusetts.

Southern is the home to the Connecticut Review, edited by Professor Vivian Shipley, winner of the 1997 Phoenix Award for Distinguished Editorial Achievement from the Council of Editors for Learned Journals.  Poems from CR  have been selected for both Best American Poetry, 1998 and Pushcart Prizes, XXIII.  Furthermore, students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels contribute to and staff the campus literary magazine, Folio, and are able to work closely with Jeff Mock, long-time assistant editor of the Gettysburg Review.

Our program provides numerous opportunities for participation in student readings, and all writing students are encouraged to attend the program's series of readings by writers from outside the school.  Over the past several years the readers series has brought to campus John Edgar Wideman, Kevin Canty, Rita Ciresi, Joan Connor, Marilyn Nelson, Sydney Lea, Katharine Weber, Brad Watson, Nanci Kincaid, Buck Downs, Leo Connellan, Moira Crone, Colette Inez, Stewart O'Nan, and numerous other writers.

The faculty in the Creative Writing Program includes Vivian Shipley, poetry (Devil's Lane, Poems Out of Harlan County, and Jack Tales);  Megan Macomber, fiction; Jeff Mock, poetry (Evening Travelers, You Can Write Poetry); and Tim Parrish, fiction (Red Stick Men).

For further information, contact Tim Parrish or Jeff Mock, directors, Creative Writing Program, Department of English, at (203) 392-6745 or by email at  parrisht1@southernct.edu or mockj1@southernct.edu.