Core MFA Creative Writing Courses

See complete MFA courses at Admission & Course Requirements.

LIT-700 Advanced Fiction Workshop (3)

Typically offered fall and spring.

A graduate level writing workshop in which students produce and critique original fiction. The seminar is designed to enhance awareness of the possibilities and craft concerns of fiction through guided close reading, craft discussions, and workshop sessions in which students give and receive critical feedback. Fictional forms studied in a given semester may include flash fiction, short stories, the novella and the novel. Repeatable for credit. Grading: Pass/Fail only. 

LIT-701 Advanced Poetry Workshop (3)

Typically offered fall and spring.

A seminar run according to the workshop model in which students submit work weekly to be critiqued by professor and their peers. The workshop uses class visits, texts by contemporary poets and the analysis of poetic forms. An intensive approach to the techniques of writing verse, the graduate workshop represents the highest level of mastery of the writing of poetry. Usually offered every term. May be taken pass/fail only and may be repeated for credit. Repeatable for credit. Grading: Pass/Fail only.

LIT-704 Advanced Creative Nonfiction Workshop (3)

Typically offered fall and spring.

Topics vary by section. Intensive critical workshop in writing memoirs and personal essays, emphasizing the development of the first-person voice. Repeatable for credit with different topic. Repeatable for credit with different topic. Grading: Pass/Fail only

LIT-705 Seminar on Translation (3)

In this workshop course, students engage both in the act of translation and in the act of adaptation, which is itself a kind of translation from an earlier text. With weekly writing assignments, discussions of translated and adapted texts from across the world, readings and presentations from renowned translators, and one culminating final product, students apply current theories of translation and adaptation to their own creative writing. 

LIT-710 The Art of Literary Journalism (3)

A workshop in which fact-based stories are told using immersion reporting, research, and craft techniques of fiction. Clear narrative journalism is the aim, tied to established criteria and ethical considerations for sound critical approaches in the field. Pitching stories and contemporary nonfiction publishing are also examined. Repeatable for credit.

LIT-711 Advanced Studies in Literary Craft (3)

Topics vary by section. Past topics include The Novel, Young Adult Fiction, The Sentence and the Line, Micro and Short Forms, Literary Journalism, and Translation. This course offers craft-focused topics targeted to expand students' understanding of and facility in writing a particular prose or poetry genre and/or specific techniques and capacities within a genre. The course is writing intensive, offering multiple opportunities for practice in targeted exercises and is reading intensive from a craft perspective, requiring students to engage with contemporary and historical practitioners of the genre and inviting them to see their own work within the context of contemporary literary conversations, such as race and gender in point of view in fiction, ethical considerations in the memoir and personal essay, and questions of historical erasure in the persona poem.

Lit-730 Teaching Composition (3)

Typically offered each fall; recommended for second year.

An introduction to the field of composition studies as well as the theory and practices of teaching academic writing. Students wrestle with fundamental questions about writing and the personal, social, and cultural dimensions of literacy; explore the nature of written discourse, the composing process, and learning; and discuss issues and examine current approaches in teaching for contemporary composition classrooms.
Through extensive reading, writing, and discussion, students can expect to

• better understand the way individuals construct—and are constructed by—writing
• study the dynamics of written discourse, of learning, and of teaching
• become familiar with major theories of composing and approaches to teaching composition