carnegie mellon creative writing faculty

Majoring in English: The Five English Degree Options

How the curriculum is structured.

Double Counting

Transfer Courses

Recommended Curriculum Pathway: B.A. in Creative Writing

Recommended courses, recommended curriculum pathway: b.a. in film & visual media, recommended curriculum pathway: b.a. in literature & culture , recommended curriculum pathway: b.a. in professional writing, recommended curriculum pathway: b.s. in technical writing, completing an additional major in english, creative writing minor, humanities analytics minor, literature & culture minor, professional writing minor, technical writing minor, senior honors thesis, internship program, the accelerated ma in professional writing: mapw 4+1, course descriptions, undergraduate catalog, department of english.

Andreea Ritivoi, Department Head Location: Baker Hall 259 https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/

The Department of English at Carnegie Mellon engages students in the important study of reading and writing as intellectual activities embedded in historical, cultural, professional, technological, and literary practices. Working with experts in their areas, students become effective writers and analysts of various kinds of texts in a range of media, from traditional print documents to film, multimedia, and on-line texts. Faculty use distinctive methods of studying texts, but all share a deep commitment to working in small and intense workshops and seminars to help students learn to become experts in analyzing existing texts, and in producing original and distinctive work of their own.

The English Department offers the following degree programs:

• B.A. in Creative Writing
• B.A. in Film & Visual Media
• B.A. in Literature & Culture
• B.A. in Professional Writing
• B.S. in Technical Writing

All five majors are structured to allow students to balance liberal and professional interests. Students in the Creative Writing program focus on analyzing and learning to produce poetic and narrative forms. Students in the Film & Visual Media program focus on cultural analysis, writing, production, and digital media. Students in the  Literature & Culture program  focus on the production and interpretation of print texts and other media in their social and cultural contexts. Students in the Professional Writing program focus on analyzing and producing non-fiction for a variety of professional contexts. Students in the Technical Writing program focus on integrating writing with technical expertise in a chosen area of concentration ( Technical Communication or Science & Medical Communication ). In addition to the five majors, we offer five departmental minors as well as two interdisciplinary minors, and we strongly encourage non-majors in the campus community to join us in English courses, beginning with offerings at the 200-level.

Students also get involved in a range of complementary activities, including a reading series of distinguished writers of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction; publishing, editing, and marketing through involvement with The Oakland Review and The Carnegie Mellon University Press; writing and editorial positions on the student newspaper, The Tartan , and other campus publications. We also offer a strong internship program that places student writers in media, non-profit, arts, corporate, and technical internships before they graduate. The end of every year culminates in a gala event to celebrate our students and their writing achievements in literary, academic, and professional writing. For this event, known as the Pauline Adamson Awards, we invite a well-known writer to do a public reading and then present and celebrate student writing awards in over a dozen categories, all judged anonymously by writing professionals from outside the university.

The department of English offers students five degree options:

The B.A. in Creative Writing

The b.a. in film & visual media, the b.a. in literature & culture, the b.a. in professional writing, the b.s. in technical writing .

Students who wish to broaden their experience with English courses may do so by taking more than the minimum requirements for each major or by combining two of the majors within the department for an additional major in English. Common combinations include, but are not limited to, a B.A. in Professional Writing with an additional major in Creative Writing; a B.A. in Creative Writing with an additional major in Literature & Culture; or a B.A. in Literature & Culture with an additional major in Professional Writing. Due to significant course overlap, students are not permitted to major in both Professional Writing and Technical Writing together. Consult the English Department and the section on “Completing an Additional Major in English” for further detail. 

All of the English majors may be combined with majors and minors from other Carnegie Mellon departments and colleges. The English Department advisor can help you explore the available options so that you can choose a major or combination of programs that is appropriate for your interests and goals.

In addition to Dietrich College requirements, English majors complete 11 to 13 courses (99 to 117 units) specifically related to their chosen major within English and structured as indicated below. Please note that courses between majors/minors in the Department of English may not double count, with the exception of the Film & Visual Media major, due to its courses being pulled from multiple programs within English. A maximum of two courses may double count between Film & Visual Media and programs inside the Department of English. A maximum of two courses may double count for programs outside of the Department of English. 

Core Requirements for the Specific Major (7 to 10 courses, 63 to 84 units)

Complete seven to ten courses.

The Core Requirements differ for each major and are designed explicitly to provide both breadth and depth within the specific major the student has chosen.

English Electives (3 to 4 courses, 27 to 36 units)

Complete three to four elective courses.

Elective Electives for the majors are designed to add breadth to each student’s study within English and to provide experience with the range of approaches to reading and writing available within the department. Students in all English majors are encouraged to sample widely from the Department’s offerings.

Carnegie Mellon is one of only a few English departments in the country where undergraduates can major in Creative Writing (CW). In the CW major, students develop their talents in writing fiction, poetry, screenwriting, and creative nonfiction. While studying with faculty members who are writers, CW majors read widely in literature, explore the resources of their imaginations, sharpen their critical and verbal skills, and develop a professional attitude toward their writing. The extracurricular writing activities and a variety of writing internships available on and off campus provide Creative Writing majors with valuable experiences for planning their future.  After graduation, our Creative Writing majors go on to graduate writing programs and to careers in teaching, publishing, public relations, advertising, TV and film, freelance writing, and editing.

Students in the CW major are required to take two of the introductory genre writing courses: one in the spring of their first year, and one in the fall of their sophomore year. Choices include: 76-260 Introduction to Writing Fiction, 76-261 Introduction to Writing Creative Nonfiction, 76-265 Introduction to Writing Poetry, and 76-269 Introduction to Screenwriting. In order to proceed into the workshop courses, students must do well in these introductory courses (earn a grade of A or B). Creative Writing majors take four workshops in fiction, poetry, screenwriting, or nonfiction where the students’ work is critiqued and evaluated by peers and the faculty. They also take courses in literature, including a Readings in Forms course where they spend a semester reading extensively in one genre.

Opportunities

During their senior year, students may write a Senior Project or Honors Thesis (if they qualify for Dietrich College honors) under the supervision of a faculty member.

Carnegie Mellon also offers CW majors various extracurricular opportunities for professional development, including internships both on- and off-campus. For example, they may work as interns with the Carnegie Mellon University Press, which is housed in the English Department. The Press publishes scholarly works, as well as books of poetry and short stories by both new and established American writers.

Students may help edit and submit their work for publication to The Oakland Review, a Carnegie Mellon University sponsored and student-run annual journal. 

Students also have opportunities to read their works in a series of readings by student writers held in the Gladys Schmitt Creative Writing Center (also known as The Glad) and to hear nationally known authors as part of the Carnegie Mellon Visiting Writers series. Additionally, the English Department offers prizes for students each year in the writing of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and screenwriting. Student writers are celebrated during The Adamson Awards ceremony.  

In addition to satisfying all of the Dietrich College degree requirements for B.A. candidates, Creative Writing majors must complete 11 courses in the following areas:

Creative Writing Core (7 courses, 63 units)

Introductory genre writing courses* (2 courses, 18 units):.

* * A student must earn a grade of A or B in the introductory genre writing class in order to be eligible to enroll in a workshop of that same genre. A student who earns a grade of C in an introductory genre writing course may enroll in a related workshop only with the permission of the workshop professor. A student who earns a D or R in Survey of Forms may not take a workshop in that genre.

Reading in Forms (1 course, 9 units):

Four creative writing workshops (4 courses, 36 units).

Complete four Creative Writing workshops, at least two in a single genre. Workshops in all genres may be taken more than once for credit, except for Literary Journalism. Additionally, if a student has been accepted into the Dietrich College Senior Honors Program and is completing their thesis in the field of Creative Writing, they may use one semester of thesis credit ( 66-501 Dietrich College Senior Honors Thesis I  or 66-502 Dietrich College Senior Honors Thesis II ) to fulfill a workshop requirement. 

English Electives (4 courses, 36 units)

Complete four additional courses from the English Department’s offerings. Two of the four English Electives must be courses that are designated as fulfilling the literature requirement and focus on close reading of literary texts. Please consult the list of courses published each semester by the Department for current offerings. English Electives may include any course offered by the Department at the 200 level or above. Additionally, English Electives can include no more than one course at the 200 level. The remaining English Electives must be at the 300 or 400 level. In choosing Electives, students are encouraged to sample courses from across the Department.

Students may double count up to two courses with other programs outside of the Department of English. NOTE: courses being used for the Dietrich General Education requirements do not have a double-counting limit.

Students may transfer up to two courses from other non-CMU programs/institutions toward the primary or additional major in Creative Writing or the BHA in Creative Writing, with the exception of one of the two required Introductory Genre Writing courses. Other transfer courses will be considered for general education requirements and free electives for graduation. Please see the Dietrich College Advanced Standing and Transfer Credit Policy for more information.

This plan is the recommended pathway for completing the B.A. in Creative Writing in four years. While it is not required for students to follow this pathway precisely, it is highly recommended for students to do so, and we recommend students begin the major’s courses as early as possible. Students in Dietrich College may declare their primary major as early as the middle of their second semester. Students who have not declared their major in the Department of English may still take courses with us.

Students may also view the four-year plan (also known as a Pathway) for the B.A. in Creative Writing via the Stellic Degree Audit Application .

The Film & Visual Media major trains students through a combination of coursework in:

• visual media,
• film history and analysis,
• screenwriting,
• and production of film and other visual media.

This major offers a comprehensive education in film and visual media, from theoretical framing and historical-cultural contextualization to training skills in both creating and analyzing film, as well as the development of a complex blend of creative, professional and technical competencies.

CMU's Department of English is an ideal home for the Film & Visual Media major due to the department’s combination of creative writers, film and media studies scholars, film makers, digital humanities and visual communication researchers.

In additional to satisfying all of the Dietrich College degree requirements for B.A. candidates, Film & Visual Media majors must complete 12 courses in the following areas. Note: courses cannot double count between areas. For example, if you take 76-429 Introduction to Digital Humanities for the Digital Media area, you cannot also count that course for your Literature & Culture area.

Required introductory courses (2 courses, 18 units)

Production courses (2 courses, 18-21 units).

Students who have completed 76-239 Introduction to Film Studies  and/or 76-269 Introduction to Screenwriting will be given registration preference.

Screenwriting Courses (2 courses, 18 units)

Digital media courses (2 courses, 18-20 units), literature & cultural studies courses (2 courses, 18 units).

Course options include but are not limited to the following:

Topics in Film & Visual Media Studies Courses (2 courses, 18 units)

While not required, a few courses are recommended as a part of the curriculum. They include:

Students may transfer up to two advisor-approved courses from other programs outside of Carnegie Mellon University toward the primary or additional major in Film & Visual Media Studies, with the exception of 76-239 Introduction to Film Studies and  76-259 Film History Other transfer courses will be considered for general education requirements and free electives for graduation.   Please see the Dietrich College Advanced Standing and Transfer Credit Policy for more information.

This plan is the recommended pathway for completing the B.A. in Film & Visual Media in four years. While it is not required for students to follow this pathway precisely, it is highly recommended for students to do so, and we recommend students begin the major’s courses as early as possible. Students in Dietrich College may declare their primary major as early as the middle of their second semester. Students who have not declared their major in the Department of English may still take courses with us.

Students may also view the four-year plan (also known as a Pathway) for the B.A. in Film & Visual Media via the Stellic Degree Audit Application .

The Literature & Culture Major teaches students how to read, interpret and write persuasively about novels, poems, plays and other imaginative works across a variety of genres and media forms. Along with teaching students the analytical skills and methodological tools to interpret these works, this major teaches the importance of understanding imaginative works within their cultural and historical contexts. In addition, the major is designed to train students in strong professional and academic skills like critical thinking, inductive reasoning and persuasive argumentation that are applicable to other fields of study and a variety of career paths.

In additional to satisfying all of the Dietrich College degree requirements for B.A. candidates, Literature & Culture majors must complete 13 courses in the following areas:

Requirements

13 courses, 117.0 units total

Required Introductory Courses (3 courses, 27 units)

200-level literature & culture courses (2 courses, 18 units).

One course must cover the period of 1830 or before. NOTE: a single course cannot double count for both the Required Introductory Courses and the 200-Level Literature & Culture Courses. For example, you cannot count 76-245 Shakespeare: Tragedies & Histories as a Required Introductory Course as well as for the 200-Level Literature & Culture Course for the 1830 or Before requirement.

Options include but are not limited to:

​300-Level Literature & Culture Courses (2 Courses, 18 units)

Theory course (1 course, 9 units), rhetoric course (1 course, 9 units), 400-level capstone seminar course (1 course, 9 units).

Each semester, a 400-level course is designated as the Capstone Seminar. Literature & Culture majors are required to take this course in their final semester. Course options may include but are not limited to the following:

English Elective Courses (3 courses, 27 units)

Courses for the English Elective requirement can be fulfilled by choosing any of our 200- to 400-level courses. Students are encouraged to sample courses across our programs.

Students may transfer up to two advisor-approved courses from other non-CMU programs/institutions toward the primary or additional major in Literature & Culture or the BHA in Literature & Culture, with the exception of the Required Introductory Courses. Other transfer courses will be considered for general education requirements and free electives for graduation. Please see the Dietrich College Advanced Standing and Transfer Credit Policy for more information.

This plan is the recommended pathway for completing the B.A. in Literature & Culture in four years. While it is not required for students to follow this pathway precisely, it is highly recommended for students to do so, and we recommend students begin the major’s courses as early as possible. Students in Dietrich College may declare their primary major as early as the middle of their second semester. Students who have not declared their major in the Department of English may still take courses with us.

Students may also view the four-year plan (also known as a Pathway) for the B.A. in Literature & Culture via the Stellic Degree Audit Application .

Professional Writing (PW) combines a professional education with a strong foundation in rhetorical studies. The major prepares students for successful careers as writers and communications specialists in a range of fields, including but not limited to: editing and publishing, government, law, journalism, the non-profit sector, education, public and media relations, corporate communications, advocacy writing, and the arts.

The PW major includes 13 courses: 10 PW Core Requirements + 3 English Electives. The 10 Core Requirements include foundations courses in genre studies, editing, and argument, a professional seminar, plus a cluster of advanced rhetoric and specialized writing courses, all designed to closely integrate analysis and production. Through special topics courses— journalism, web design, advocacy writing, document design for print, science writing, public relations and corporate communications, writing for multimedia — students can pursue specializations while working with faculty who are both experts and practicing professionals in these fields. The 3-unit professional seminar, 76-300 Professional Seminar , which meets weekly during the fall term, provides majors with the opportunity to meet and network with practicing professionals in a range of communications fields. PW majors also gain experience in working on team- and client-based projects and receive focused support to develop a portfolio of polished writing samples to use in applying for internships and employment. Through English Electives in Rhetoric, Creative Writing, and Literary and Cultural Studies, students gain additional practice in the careful reading, writing, and analysis of both literary and non-fictional texts and important insights into how texts function in their historical and contemporary contexts. As a capstone experience, senior PW majors have the opportunity to complete a Senior Project or, upon invitation from the college, a Senior Honors Thesis in Rhetoric or Professional Writing. PW students can also apply for research grants through the Undergraduate Research Office to work on independent research projects with faculty.

While the major appeals to students with strong professional interests, both core and elective requirements develop the broad intellectual background one expects from a university education and prepare students to either enter the workplace or pursue graduate study in fields as diverse as communications, law, business, and education. PW majors also have the opportunity to apply for the Department's accelerated MA in Professional Writing, the MAPW 4+1, which allows them to complete the degree in 2 semesters instead of the usual 3. Because the major in Professional Writing is deliberately structured as a flexible degree that allows a broad range of options, PW majors should consult closely with their English Department advisors on choosing both elective and required courses and in planning for internships and summer employment.Various opportunities for writers to gain professional experience and accumulate material for their writing portfolios are available through campus publications, department-sponsored internships for academic credit, and writing-related employment on and off campus.

PW majors also have the option of taking writing internships for academic credit during their junior or senior year and are also strongly encouraged to seek professional internships throughout their undergraduate years and during their summers. Opportunities in public and media relations, newspaper and magazine writing, healthcare communication, publishing, technical writing, public service organizations, and writing for the web and new media illustrate both internship possibilities and the kinds of employment that Professional Writing majors have taken after graduation.

In addition to satisfying all of the Dietrich College degree requirements for B.A. candidates, Professional Writing majors must fulfill 13 requirements in the following areas:

Professional Writing Core (10 courses, 84 units)

Departmental core requirement (1 courses, 9 units):, professional writing core requirements (4 courses, 30 units):, rhetoric/language studies requirement (1 course, 9 units):.

Complete one course from a set of varied offerings in Rhetoric/Language Studies as designated each term by the English Department. These courses focus explicitly on language and discourse as objects of study and emphasize the relationships of language, text structure, and meaning within specific contexts. Courses include but are not limited to the following:

Advanced Writing/Rhetoric Courses (4 courses, 36-42 units):

Complete four courses from a set of varied offerings in Advanced Writing/Rhetoric as designated each term by the English Department. Options include all courses that fulfill the Rhetoric requirement, plus additional courses in specialized areas of professional writing. Students should select courses in consultation with their English Department advisor or the Director of Professional Writing. Courses include but are not limited to the following:

English Electives (3 Courses, 27 Units)

Complete three courses from any of English Department’s offerings (exceptions include 76-270, which is designed for non-majors). One may be at the 200-level or above; the remaining two must be at the 300- or 400-level. Two must be courses designated as Text/Context Electives, which focus on the relationship between texts and their cultural and historical contexts.

Students may double count up to two courses with other programs outside of the Department of English. Note: courses being used for the Dietrich General Education requirements do not have a double-counting limit.

Students may transfer up to two advisor-approved courses from other non-CMU programs/institutions toward the primary or additional major in Professional Writing or the BHA in Professional Writing, with the exception of the Departmental Core Requirement course and the Professional Writing Core Requirement courses. Other transfer courses will be considered for general education requirements and free electives for graduation. Please see the Dietrich College Advanced Standing and Transfer Credit Policy for more information.

This plan is the recommended pathway for completing the B.A. in Professional Writing in four years. While it is not required for students to follow this pathway precisely, it is highly recommended for students to do so, and we recommend students begin the major’s courses as early as possible. Students in Dietrich College may declare their primary major as early as the middle of their second semester. Students who have not declared their major in the Department of English may still take courses with us.

Students may also view the four-year plan (also known as a Pathway) for the B.A. in Professional Writing via the Stellic Degree Audit Application .

The B.S. in Technical Writing (TW) is one of the oldest undergraduate technical communication degrees in the country with a history that stretches back to 1958. The degree is specifically designed to prepare students for successful careers involving scientific, technical, and computer-related communication, including writing and designing for digital media.

Today’s technical communicators have the strong backgrounds in technology, communication, and design needed to enter a broad range of information-based fields, and do work that both includes and goes well beyond writing documents for print distribution. The expanding range of options includes positions that involve organizing, managing, communicating, and facilitating the use of both technical and non-technical information in a range of fields and media.

Technical communicators develop and design web sites, explain science and technology to the public, develop print and multimedia materials, develop information management systems, design and deliver corporate training, and develop support systems for consumer products ranging from software for word processing or personal finances to complex data management systems.

The B.S. in TW recognizes the important changes taking place in communication-based careers and includes two distinctive “tracks,” one in Technical Communication (TC) and one in Scientific and Medical Communication (SMC). Both tracks begin with a common core of foundation courses in print and on-line communication as well as a shared set of prerequisites in math, statistics, and computer programming. The two tracks differ in the set of theory/specialization courses beyond the core, with each track including a specialized set appropriate to its focus.

In both tracks, TW students work on real projects for actual clients, learn group interaction and management skills, and develop a flexible repertoire of skills and strategies to keep up with advances in software and technology. Above all, they focus on developing structures and information strategies to solve a broad range of communication and information design problems.

TW students are able to draw on exceptional resources on and off campus to enhance their education. Most obvious are the course offerings of Carnegie Institute of Technology, the Mellon College of Science, and the School of Computer Science. Additional course offerings in business, organizational behavior, policy and management, psychology, history, and design are also encouraged. As a capstone experience, Seniors have the opportunity to complete a Senior Project or, upon invitation from the college, a Senior Honors Thesis. TW students can also apply for grants and fellowship through the Undergraduate Research Office to work on independent research projects with faculty.

While the major appeals to students with strong professional interests, both core and elective requirements develop the broad intellectual background one expects from a university education and prepare students to either enter the workplace upon graduation or pursue graduate study in fields as diverse as communications, business, instructional design, information design, education, and science and healthcare writing.

Various opportunities for writers to gain professional experience are available through campus publications, department-sponsored internships for academic credit, and writing-related employment on and off campus. TW students have the option of doing internships for academic credit during their junior or senior year and are encouraged to pursue a series of internships throughout their 4 years and during their summers.

All TW students are required to enroll in the English Department’s 3-unit course,  Professional Seminar ( 76-300 ) , which meets once a week during the fall term and provides majors with the opportunity to meet and network with practicing professionals in a range of communications fields.

The Technical Communication (TC) Track

The Technical Communication track (TC) prepares students for careers in the rapidly changing areas of software and digital media. Students learn the fundamentals of visual, verbal, and on-line communication as well as the technical skills needed to design, communicate, and evaluate complex communication systems and to manage the interdisciplinary teams needed to develop them. Students become fluent in both print-based and electronic media across a variety of information genres and learn to design information for a range of specialist and non-expert audiences. The TW/TC major can be pursued as a primary major within Dietrich College or as an additional major for students in other Colleges with an interest in combining their specialized subject matter knowledge with strong writing and communications skills. Graduates of this track are likely to follow in the footsteps of previous TW students from Carnegie Mellon who are currently employed as web designers, information specialists, technical writers, and information consultants in a range of technology and communication-based organizations including Salesforce, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Apple, and HP Vertica.

The Scientific and Medical Communication (SMC) Track

The Scientific and Medical Communication track (SMC) is designed for students who seek careers that focus on communication and information design problems in health, science, and medicine. It should appeal to students with interests in the health care professions, science and public policy, patient education, scientific journalism and related fields. Like the TC track, the SMC track is designed to provide both the technical and the communication skills needed to analyze and solve complex communication problems. Students learn the fundamentals of visual, verbal, and on-line communication as well as the technical skills needed to design, communicate, and evaluate complex information systems and to manage the interdisciplinary teams needed to develop them. Students become fluent in both print-based and electronic media across a variety of information genres and learn to design information for a range of specialist and non-expert audiences The TW/SMC major can be pursued as a primary major within Dietrich College or as a secondary major for students in other Colleges, such as MCS, with an interest in science or medicine.

All Technical Writing majors must satisfy the Dietrich College requirements for the B.S. degree, and a set of 3 to 4 prerequisite courses in calculus, statistics, and computer science. All prerequisites should be completed by the beginning of the fall semester, junior year. Prerequisites may double count toward Dietrich College Requirements or requirements for other majors or minors.

Mathematics Prerequisite (1 course, 10 units):

Statistics prerequisite (1 course, 9 units):, computer science prerequisites (1 - 2 courses*, 10 - 22 units):.

15-110 Principles of Computing is designed for students with little or no prior programming experience and is appropriate for students in both the SMC and TC tracks. 15-112 Fundamentals of Programming and Computer Science prepares students in the TC track for all other advanced Computer Science courses.

Beyond these prerequisites, students in both TC and SMC tracks take a common set of 5 TW Core Requirements in writing, communication, and information design. To complement these foundations courses, TW students take a set of 3 Theory/Specialization courses specific to either TC or SMC. In addition, students in the SMC track take a series of 3 courses in the natural sciences or engineering relevant to their areas of interest, while TC students take 3 electives in management, technology, and social issues.

DEPARTMENTAL CORE REQUIREMENT (1 COURSE, 9 UNITS):

Tw core requirements (5 courses, 45 units):.

*  prerequisite = 76-271 Introduction to Professional and Technical Writing **prerequisite = 76-271 Introduction to Professional and Technical Writing + 76-391 Document & Information Design

Theory/Specialization Courses (3 courses, 27 units):

Complete 3 courses to deepen your area of specialty and complement your chosen track (TC or SMC) in the major. One must be chosen from among courses designated as Recommended Options for TW majors. Theory/Specialization courses, including those marked as Recommended Options, are advertised by the English Department on a semester-by-semester basis. TW students should select courses in consultation with their academic advisor.

Electives (3 courses, 27 units):

TW majors take 3 courses outside of English to deepen their area of specialty in their track. Typically, students in the Technical Communication (TC) track select courses that focus on management, technology, and social issues. Students in the Science and Medical Communication (SMC) track select courses in the natural sciences, engineering, statistics or (for example) healthcare-related courses in the Heinz College. Students should work with their academic advisor and the Program Director to select courses that are meaningful for their track.

Students may double count up to two courses with other programs outside of the Department of English. NOTE: courses being used for the Dietrich General Education requirements do not have a double-counting limit. Also, the Mathematics and Computer Science prerequisite requirement courses for the Technical Writing major do not have a double-counting limit, nor do the Electives required for each specific track (TC track or SMC track).

Students may transfer up to two advisor-approved courses from other non-CMU programs/institutions toward the primary or additional major in Creative Writing or the BHA in Technical Writing, with the exception of the Introductory Genre Writing Course and Technical Writing Core Requirement Courses . Other transfer courses will be considered for general education requirements and free electives for graduation. Please see the Dietrich College Advanced Standing and Transfer Credit Policy for more information.

This plan is the recommended pathway for completing the B.S. in Technical Writing in four years. While it is not required for students to follow this pathway precisely, it is highly recommended for students to do so, and we recommend students begin the major’s courses as early as possible. Students in Dietrich College may declare their primary major as early as the middle of their second semester. Students who have not declared their major in the Department of English may still take courses with us.

Students may also view the four-year plan (also known as a Pathway) for the B.S. in Technical Writing via the Stellic Degree Audit Application .

*These courses must be taken in the sequence indicated. 76-271 is offered all semesters and therefore can be taken fall or spring of sophomore year. 76-271 is a prerequisite for 76-391 , and 76-271 + 76-391 are the prerequisites for 76-487 . 76-391  is typically only offered in the fall semesters, and 76-487  is typically only offered in spring semesters.

For Students with a Primary Major in the English Department

Students with a primary major in the English Department who have interests that include more than one of the department's majors have the option of completing an additional major within the department. Students may combine any of the departmental majors with one another, with the exception of Professional Writing and Technical Writing. Students may not combine these two majors because so many of the courses overlap.

Students with a primary major in the English Department and one or more additional majors in the English Department must fulfill the Core Requirements for each of those majors. The Survey of Forms requirement, common to all 5 majors, needs to be taken only once, with the exception of Creative Writing, which requires two Survey of Forms courses. For the English Department majors that require English Electives, students must complete the number of English Electives required by the major with the higher number of Electives. For example, a student with a primary major in Creative Writing and an additional major in Professional Writing would take 4 English Electives, as Creative Writing requires 4 English Electives, and Professional Writing requires only 3 English Electives.

Because students are only required to take a minimum of one Survey of Forms course, with the exception of Creative Writing, which requires two Survey of Forms courses, as well as the number of English Electives that is greater between the primary and additonal major(s), students can generally add an additional major within the English Department by completing 6 to 9 additional courses.

An example:

A student who has fulfilled all 11 departmental requirements for the B.A. in Creative Writing can complete the additional major in Professional Writing by adding 9 courses: 4 courses of the PW Core ( 76-271 Introduction to Professional and Technical Writing , 76-300 Professional Seminar , 76-373 Argument , 76-390 Style ), one Rhetoric/Language Studies course, and 4 Advanced Writing/Rhetoric courses.

Because sequencing of courses can become an issue when doing multiple majors, students are strongly advised to consult closely with the English Department academic advisor about the sequence of their courses. The English Department academic advisor can also provide students with documents that clearly outline the requirements for additional majors based on their primary majors within the Department.

For Students with a Primary Major Outside of the English Department

Students in other departments who wish to complete an additional major in the English Department should contact the English Department's academic advisor. Additional majors in the five English programs are required to complete all requirements for the chosen major. The English Department will allow a maximum of two courses from the additional major to double count with the primary major requirements. (The types of courses that apply to this policy are predetermined by the Department of English. See the English Academic Advisor for more details.) The only exceptions to this rule are the Technical Communication Electives for the Technical Communication  concentration in the Technical Writing major and the Natural Science and Engineering Electives for the Science & Medical Communication  concentration in the Technical Writing major. All of those electives may double count with programs outside of the English Department. In planning schedules for an additional major, it is critically important that students consult with academic advisors in both departments in which they are majoring to be sure that all requirements for graduation can be met.

Minor in English

The English Department also offers minors in Creative Writing, Humanities Analytics, Literature & Culture, Professional Writing, and Technical Writing . We also house two Dietrich College interdisciplinary minors in Film and Media Studies and Gender Studies . All of these minors are available to all undergraduate students, including English majors.

Students who have a minor in English  as well as a primary and/or an additional major in English may not double count any English courses with that minor. (Please see the separate double counting rules for the interdisciplinary minors in Film and Media Studies and Gender Studies.) Otherwise, up to two courses from the minor may double count with programs outside of the English Department. Courses that meet the various requirements are advertised on a semester-by-semester basis. Full descriptions are available each semester on the Department's Courses web page. 

Students may transfer in a maximum of one advisor-approved course from an institution outside of Carnegie Mellon University, with the exception of the following courses , to count toward a minor:

• Creative Writing: 76-26x Introductory Genre Writing Course
• Humanities Analytics: 76-275 Introduction to Critical Writing and 76-380 Methods in Humanities Analytics
• Film & Visual Media: 76-239 Introduction to Film Studies
• Literature & Culture: 76-275 Introduction to Critical Writing , 76-245 Shakespeare: Tragedies & Histories , and 76-247 Shakespeare: Comedies and Romances
• Professional Writing: Required Intro Course and the Core Writing Courses
• Technical Writing: Required Intro Course and the Core Writing Courses

Courses that meet the various requirements are advertised on a semester-by-semester basis. Full descriptions are available each semester on the Department's Courses web page. 

Complete 6 courses and a minimum of 54 units, which includes First-Year Writing.

Course options include 76-101 , 76-102 , [ 76-106 and 76-107 ], [ 76-106 and 76-108 ], or [ 76-107 and 76-108 ].

A student must earn a grade of A or B in the Introductory Genre Writing course in order to be eligible to enroll in a workshop of that same genre. A student who earns a grade of C in an Introductory Genre Writing course may enroll in a related workshop only with the permission of his/her/their workshop professor. A student who earns a D or R in an Introductory Genre Writing course may not take a workshop in that same genre.

Course options include  76-260 ,  76-261 ,  76-265 , and  76-269 .

Tech CEOs and data scientists are increasingly calling for employees with more exposure to the humanities.  

At the same time, the human experience that is traditionally at the core of a humanities education is being dramatically transformed by the emergence of big data, digital platforms, computational thinking, and digital connectivity. 

Spurred by such developments, the minor in Humanities Analytics (HumAn) trains students in the processes involved in analyzing, digitizing, questioning, quantifying, and visualizing different types of humanities and cultural phenomena, such as printed books, fan fiction, manuscripts, historical records, art, music, and film.

The minor is open to students across multiple colleges and degree programs and enriches their education in distinct ways that complement their primary majors. For example, students with a primary major in a humanities or social science department will learn the foundational methods used in the computational analysis of text. Students with a primary major in a non-humanities field will use technology as a lens into cultural history and will develop skills for making humanities knowledge visible and appealing. The minor bridges divides not only between the "digital/technological" and the "humanistic," but also between the qualitative and quantitative, between theory and application, and between critiquing and making.

HumAn prepares students for careers in: 

Data Science

Data Journalism

Cultural Commentary

Natural Language Processing

Professional Writing

Required Courses 6 courses, 54 units minimum

Electives 2 courses, 15-24 units.

Choose two courses from the following categories. One course must come from List A, and one from List B. Additional courses not on List A or List B may also be approved as electives; please speak with the English Department academic advisor for more information.

Course is very mathematical and is therefore appropriate only to students with such a preparation.

This course has prerequisites.

Complete 6 courses and a minimum of 54 units, including First-Year Writing as a prerequisite.

Curriculum 

Required courses 6 courses, 54 units.

One course must cover the period of 1830 or before. For example, Course options include but are not limited to the following:

​300- or 400-Level Literature & Culture or Theory Courses (2 Courses, 18 units)

Complete 6 courses and a minimum of 54 units.

Seniors in all five majors in the English Department who meet the necessary requirements are invited by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (Dietrich College) to propose and complete a Senior Honors Thesis during their final year of study. The thesis may focus on research and/or original production in any of the areas offered as a major within the Department. To qualify for the Dietrich College Honors Program, students must have a cumulative Quality Point Average (QPA) of at least 3.50 in their major and 3.25 overall at the end of their junior year and be invited by Dietrich College to participate. Students then choose a thesis advisor within the Department and propose and get approval from Dietrich College for a Senior Honors Thesis. The Honors Thesis is completed over the two semesters of the senior year (9 units each semester) under the direction of the chosen advisor. By successfully completing the thesis, students earn 18 units of credit and qualify for graduation with “College Honors.”

Creative Writing majors participating in the Senior Honors Thesis program may petition to have one semester of their thesis work count as one of their Workshop course requirements. Students interested in this option should contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies.  

Qualified students in all five of the Department’s degree programs have the option of doing a professional internships for academic credit during their junior or senior years. These opportunities help students explore possible program-related careers as well as gain workplace experience. Each internship is arranged, approved, and overseen by the Department’s Internship Director. Particular attention is given to matching students to internship sites of specific interest to them. Students have interned in a wide variety of communications-related positions including placements at local radio, television, and print publications; museums, theaters, and cultural organizations; non-profit and public service organizations; public relations, advertising, and marketing firms; software and technology companies; new media organizations; and hospitals and healthcare communication organizations.

To be eligible for an internship, students must have a Quality Point Average (QPA) of 3.0 or better and credit for at least one writing course (including Survey of Forms) beyond First-Year Writing (e.g. 76-101 Interpretation and Argument). Internships generally carry 3-12 units of credit. A 9-unit internship is the standard and requires a minimum of 120-140 hours (8-10 hours per week over a 15-week term) of work at the internship site during the term. In addition, interns complete a reflective journal and a series of short research and writing assignments relevant to the specific internship. Students doing an internship for credit must be registered for the internship during the term (including summer) when they are working at the internship site. Majors in the Department may count one 9- to 12-unit internship for one of their major requirements, generally an English elective, but sometimes as an Advanced Writing requirement for Professional Writing majors.

Students may pursue additonal internships for credit, which may count toward their overall units for graduation. For details, see the Dietrich College's Academic Standards, Regulations, and Protocols in the current Undergraduate Catalog.  

The Master of Arts in Professional Writing (MAPW) 4+1 is an accelerated masters program under which Carnegie Mellon students (usually majors or minors in the English department or BHA or BHS students with relevant coursework) can qualify to complete the M.A. in Professional Writing in 2 semesters and a required full-time internship instead of the usual 3 semesters and a summer internship. Most 4+1 students complete their internship requirement during the summer after their graduation.

Students apply for admissions during their senior year (the GRE is not required) and, following admission and evaluation of their transcripts, may receive credit for up to four courses, or one full semester of work, toward their M.A. requirements. The degree provides the advantages of an M.A. degree in an accelerated time frame, features intensive work in writing and visual design for both print and new media, and prepares students for a range of communications careers.

The coursework and career options most commonly pursued by students in the degree include:

• Technical Writing
• Science and Healthcare Writing
• UX Writing/Content Design
• Information Architecture
• Public & Media Relations / Corporate Communications
• Nonprofit & Policy Communication
• Editing and Publishing

Students interested in applying to the 4+1 program should consult the Director of the MAPW program early in their junior year for further details and advice on shaping undergraduate coursework to qualify for this option. 

About Course Numbers:

Each Carnegie Mellon course number begins with a two-digit prefix that designates the department offering the course (i.e., 76-xxx courses are offered by the Department of English). Although each department maintains its own course numbering practices, typically, the first digit after the prefix indicates the class level: xx-1xx courses are freshmen-level, xx-2xx courses are sophomore level, etc. Depending on the department, xx-6xx courses may be either undergraduate senior-level or graduate-level, and xx-7xx courses and higher are graduate-level. Consult the Schedule of Classes each semester for course offerings and for any necessary pre-requisites or co-requisites.

MARIAN AGUIAR, Associate Professor of English – Ph.D., University of Massachusetts;

JANE BERNSTEIN, Professor of English – M.F.A., Columbia University;

DAVID BROWN, Associate Teaching Professor of English, Associate Director of First-Year Writing for Research and Assessment – Ph.D., Lancaster University;

GERALD P. COSTANZO, Professor of English – M.A., M.A.T., The Johns Hopkins University;

DOUG COULSON, Associate Professor of English – Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin;

JAMES DANIELS, Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing – M.F.A., Bowling Green State University;

SHARON DILWORTH, Associate Professor of English – M.F.A., University of Michigan;

JASON ENGLAND, Assistant Professor of English – M.F.A., Iowa Writers' Workshop;

LINDA FLOWER, Professor Emerita of English – Ph.D., Rutgers University;

KEVIN GONZÁLEZ, Assistant Professor of English – M.F.A., Iowa Writers’ Workshop;

SUSAN HAGAN, Assistant Teaching Professor, Liberal & Social Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar – Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University;

PAUL HOPPER, Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the Humanities, Rhetoric and Linguistics – Ph.D., University of Texas;

SARAH HAE-IN IDZIK, Assistant Professor of English – Ph.D., Northwestern University;

SUGURU ISHIZAKI, Professor of English, Director of Undergraduate Professional & Technical Writing Programs and Graduate Professional Writing Program (MAPW) – Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology;

BARBARA JOHNSTONE, Professor Emerita of English and Linguistics – Ph.D., University of Michigan;

DAVID S. KAUFER, Mellon Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English – Ph.D., University of Wisconsin;

ALAN KENNEDY, Professor Emeritus of English – Ph.D., University of Edinburgh;

JON KLANCHER, Professor Emeritus of English – Ph.D., University of California at Los Angeles;

PEGGY KNAPP, Professor Emerita of English – Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh;

STEPHANIE LARSON, Assistant Professor of English – Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison;

ATESEDE MAKONNEN, Assistant Professor of English – Ph.D., The Johns Hopkins University;

JANE MCCAFFERTY, Professor of English, Director of Creative Writing Program – M.F.A., University of Pittsburgh;

TOM MITCHELL, Assistant Teaching Professor, Liberal & Social Sciences; Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar – Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University;

CHRISTINE NEUWIRTH, Professor Emerita of English and Human Computer Interaction – Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University;

KATHY M. NEWMAN, Associate Professor of English and Director of Graduate Studies – Ph.D., Yale University;

JOHN J. ODDO, Associate Professor of English – Ph.D., Kent State University;

SILVIA PESSOA, Associate Teaching Professor, Liberal & Social Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar – Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University;

CAMILLE RANKINE, Assistant Professor of English – M.F.A., Columbia University;

DUDLEY REYNOLDS, Teaching Professor, Liberal & Social Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar – Ph.D., Indiana University, Bloomington;

ANDREEA DECIU RITIVOI, William S. Dietrich Professor of English, Department Head – Ph.D., University of Minnesota;

KAREN SCHNAKENBERG, Teaching Professor Emerita of English – Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University;

LAUREN SHAPIRO, Associate Professor of English – M.F.A., Iowa Writers' Workshop;

DAVID R. SHUMWAY, Professor of English, Director of Literary and Cultural Studies Program – Ph.D., Indiana University;

KRISTINA STRAUB, Professor Emerita of English – Ph.D., Emory University;

CHRISTOPHER WARREN, Professor of English and Associate Department Head with a Courtesy Appointment in History – D. Phil., University of Oxford;

MARIAM WASSIF, Assistant Professor of English – Ph.D., Cornell University;

DANIELLE WETZEL, Teaching Professor; Director of Writing & Communication Program – Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University;

JEFFREY WILLIAMS, Professor of English – Ph.D., Stony Brook University;

STEPHEN WITTEK, Associate Professor of English – Ph.D., McGill University;

JOANNA WOLFE, Teaching Professor of English – Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin;

JAMES WYNN, Associate Professor of English, Director of Rhetoric Program – Ph.D., University of Maryland;

Special Faculty

KEELY AUSTIN

MARIO CASTAGNARO, Special Faculty

ANDREW GORDON

MEGAN HEISE

ALAN HOUSER

CHRISTOPHER MAGGIO

KORRYN MOZISEK

JULIE PAL-AGRAWAL

JULIA SALEHZADEH

BRIAN STASZEL

ISABELLE STROLLO

STEVE TWEDT

RALPH VITUCCIO, Assistant Teaching Professor in the Entertainment Technology Center

Visiting Faculty

KOEL BANERJEE, Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow of English – Ph.D., University of Minnesota;

JANINE CARLOCK, Visiting Lecturer, Writing & Communication

BARBARA GEORGE

JEFFREY HINKELMAN, Senior Lecturer and Director of the Film & Visual Media Program

ALAN KOHLER, Lecturer, Writing & Communication

PETER ZARAGOZA MAYSHLE, Lecturer, Writing & Communication

COURTNEY NOVOSAT, Lecturer, Writing & Communication

JEREMY ROSSELOT-MERRITT, Lecturer, Writing & Communication

REBECCA WIGGINTON, Lecturer, Writing & Communication

HEIDI WRIGHT, Senior Lecturer, Writing & Communication – Course Lead, ENG 76-100,

JUNGWAN YOON, Lecturer, Writing & Communication

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Undergraduate Admission

This is where bookworms and brainiacs turn phrases and pages.

"I truly could not think of anywhere else where I, an English major, could be integrating both Technology and Business into my coursework regularly. There is truly no place like CMU."

Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences

It takes a broad understanding of the written word to write the story of a better world. In the Department of English, you’ll delve into layers of meaning, engage in the creative process, and rigorously research everything from ancient texts to modern masterpieces. You’ll learn to think more deeply and live more empathetically, and you’ll explore the critical questions with the complexity and creativity they require. Above all, you’ll experience the richness of the written language, gaining a firm grasp on what it takes to become an accomplished writer in fields such as film, journalism, publishing and more.

English Majors and Minors

Choose the path that fits you best. Browse all current English curriculums and courses.

Creative Writing

Bachelor of Arts Minor

In this program, you’ll develop talents in writing fiction, poetry, screenplays and creative nonfiction. While studying with faculty members who are skilled writers themselves, you’ll read a wide range of literature and genres, sharpen your critical and verbal skills, better explore the resources and potential of imagination and develop a professional attitude towards writing. Extracurricular activities and a variety of internships available on and off campus will give you valuable experiences for planning both your professional and academic futures. After graduation, you might join the many other creative writing majors who go on to graduate writing programs, or to careers in teaching, publishing, public relations, advertising, TV and film, or freelance writing and editing.

Film and Visual Media

This program allows for a complex blend of creative, professional and technical competencies. You’ll take courses in all things related to film and visual media, from theoretical framing and historical-cultural contextualization, to training skills in creating, analyzing, and developing film. You’ll find the Department of English to be an ideal home for the film and visual media major, due to its diverse complement of creative writers, film and media scholars, filmmakers, digital humanities instructors, and visual communication researchers.

Literature and Culture

This undergraduate program trains agile interpreters of and writers about literature and culture, teaching you skills that you can apply to a wide range of situations in your professional life and beyond. In pursuing this degree, you’ll learn how to read, interpret and write persuasively about novels, poems, plays and other imaginative works across a variety of genres and media. Along with analytical and methodological tools for interpreting literature, you’ll learn to delve deeper into these works, in order to better understand their cultural and historical contexts. Plus, you’ll get better at critical thinking, inductive reasoning and persuasive argumentation, all of which will serve you well in any career you choose to pursue.

Professional Writing

Our most flexible program focuses on the analysis, production and research of written, oral and visual communication that is clear and effective. As a professional writing scholar, you’ll undertake rigorous study in rhetoric, argument, genre studies and plain language — learning how to make your words more powerful by putting your audience and your purpose at the center of your communication strategies. Ultimately, you’ll gain the skills you’ll need for a wide range of careers in writing, communications and information design, as well as in fields like law, medicine and nonprofit advocacy.

Technical Writing

Bachelor of Science Minor

If your interests lie in both writing and STEM fields — or if you want to strengthen your STEM major with the communication skills expected of team members and managers — you’re a perfect fit for this program. It blends coursework in writing, document design and user experience with additional work in computer science, mathematics and statistics, teaching you how to make complex, technical information accessible and navigable to both users and stakeholders. The skills you gain will make you a highly sought-after professional in fields like instructional design, medicine, insurance, engineering and government.

Additional Minor Options

• Humanities Analytics
• Gender Studies

Department of English

English Website

Classes of 2022, Six Months After Graduation

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High School Course Requirements

**Three years of mathematics should include at least algebra, geometry, trigonometry, analytic geometry, elementary functions as well as pre-calculus. Advanced mathematics courses are encouraged.

Submit your application for the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Get Started

You’re not just one thing. You’re a scientist. An artist. A technologist. A maker. A writer. Carnegie Mellon has been mixing it up for decades, and whatever you want to pursue, we’ve got the right mix for you.

The CMU Experience

How to Major in Mixing-It-Up

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Creative Writing at Carnegie Mellon University

Go directly to any of the following sections:

• Available Degrees
• Student Demographics
• Related Majors

Creative Writing Degrees Available at Carnegie Mellon

• Bachelor’s Degree in Creative Writing

Carnegie Mellon Creative Writing Rankings

Ranked at #3 in College Factual's most recent rankings , Carnegie Mellon is in the top 1% of the country for creative writing students pursuing a bachelor's degree. It is also ranked #2 in Pennsylvania .

During the 2020-2021 academic year, Carnegie Mellon University handed out 18 bachelor's degrees in creative writing. This is an increase of 13% over the previous year when 16 degrees were handed out.

Creative Writing Student Diversity at Carnegie Mellon

Take a look at the following statistics related to the make-up of the creative writing majors at Carnegie Mellon University.

Carnegie Mellon Creative Writing Bachelor’s Program

During the 2020-2021 academic year, 18 creative writing majors earned their bachelor's degree from Carnegie Mellon. Of these graduates, 22% were men and 78% were women.

The following table and chart show the ethnic background for students who recently graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a bachelor's in creative writing.

Majors Similar to Creative Writing

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Faculty of the Creative Writing Certificate, Northwestern University School of Professional Studies - Northwestern School of Professional Studies

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Creative Writing

Christine Sneed

Faculty Director

Contact Information

• [email protected]
• christinesneed.com

Christine Sneed is the author of three novels, most recently Please Be Advised: A Novel in Memos and Paris, He Said , and three short story collections, Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry , The Virginity of Famous Men , and Direct Sunlight . She is the editor of the short fiction anthology Love in the Time of Time's Up , and has received the Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, the Chicago Public Library Foundation's 21st Century Award, the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award, twice, the Society of Midland Authors Award, Ploughshares ' Zacharis Award, an O. Henry Prize, among other honors. She has also been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and her novel Little Known Facts was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice selection. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Best American Short Stories , O. Henry Prize Stories , New England Review , The Southern Review , Boulevard , ZYZZYVA , Story , New York Times , Chicago Tribune , San Francisco Chronicle , O Magazine , Electric Literature , and various other publications. www.christinesneed.com is her author website.

Indiana University-Bloomington, MFA in Creative Writing Georgetown University, B.S., French Language and Literature

Relevant Work

Faculty Director and Fiction Faculty, Northwestern University, School of Professional Studies, 2016 - present (Faculty Director); 2012 - present (Fiction Faculty) Regis University, Fiction Faculty, Low-residency MFA in Creative Writing, 2017 - present University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, Visiting Assistant Professor, 2015-2016 DePaul University, English Department, Visiting Assistant Professor (2009 - 2014)

Recognition

21st Century Award, Chicago Public Library Foundation Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction Book of the Year Award (two-time recipient), Chicago Writers Association Society of Midland Authors Award - Best Adult Fiction Los Angeles Times Book Prize - First-fiction category, Finalist O. Henry Prize in Short Fiction Best New Book by a Local Author - Chicago Magazine Chicago Review of Books - Fiction Prize, Finalist Fiction Workshop, The Publishing Industry, Poetry for Prose Writers

Recent Courses

MCW 575-DL : The Publishing Industry - Book Publishers and Literary Journals

Paula Carter

• [email protected]

Paula Carter Carter is the author of the flash memoir collection No Relation. Her award-winning essays have appeared in The New York Times , USA Today , Kenyon Review , The Southern Review , Prairie Schooner , Creative Nonfiction , Fourth Genre , The Offing and elsewhere. She was an Administrative Staff Fellow at the Bread Loaf Environmental Conference in 2022 and 2023 and her work has been supported by Ragdale and the Shannaghe Artists Residency. She serves on the organizing committee for the Washington Island Literary Festival and holds an M.F.A. from Indiana University, Bloomington.

MCW 490-0 : Special Topics: Writing About Migration — One's Own and That of Others

Gioia Diliberto

• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• gioiadiliberto.com

Gioia Diliberto is the author of three novels, four biographies and a play. Her work, which centers on the lives of women, has been praised for combining rich storytelling with deep research to bring alive worlds as varied as Jazz Age Paris, nineteenth century Chicago, Belle Epoque Paris and disco era Manhattan. Gioia’s articles and reviews have appeared in many publications, including the New York Times , the Wall Street Journal , the Chicago Tribune , the Los Angeles Times , Smithsonian , and Vanity Fair . Her most recent novel, Coco at the Ritz , is inspired by the arrest and interrogation of Coco Chanel during World War II on charges of treason to France. In her eighth book, Firebrands , forthcoming in October, she returns to nonfiction with the story of four extraordinary women who warred over Prohibition.

Selected Publications

Coco at the Ritz, Paris Without End, I Am Madame X, The Collection, Debutante, A Useful Woman, DVF: A Life Unwrapped

MCW 413-0 : Fiction Writing Workshop

Charles Finch

[email protected]

Charles Finch  is the USA Today-bestselling author of the Charles Lenox mysteries, including the most recent,  The Vanishing Man  (February 2019). His first work of literary fiction,  The Last Enchantments , is also available from St. Martin's Press. Finch received the 2017 Nona Balakian Citation, for excellence in reviewing, from the National Book Critics Circle. His reviews and essays regularly appear in the  New York Times, Slate, The Guardian, USA Today, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post , and elsewhere.

Gina Frangello

• [email protected]
• ginafrangello.com

Gina Frangello ’s fifth book, the memoir Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason (Counterpoint), has been selected as a New York Times Editor’s Choice, received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly , Library Journal , and BookPage , and has been included on numerous “Best of 2021” lists including at Lithub , BookPage , and The Chicago Review of Books . Her sixth book, on Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet, is forthcoming from IG Publishing’s “Bookmarked” series. Gina is also the author of four books of fiction, including A Life in Men and Every Kind of Wanting , which was included on several “Best of 2016” lists, including at Chicago Magazine ’s and The Chicago Review of Books . Now a lead editor at Row House Publishing, she also brings more than two decades of experience as an editor, having founded both the independent press Other Voices Books and the fiction section of the popular online literary community The Nervous Breakdown. She has also served as the Sunday editor for The Rumpus, the faculty editor for both TriQuarterly Online and The Coachella Review , and the Creative Nonfiction Editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books . Her column, “Not the Norm,” runs on the Psychology Today blog, and she runs Circe Consulting , a full-service company for writers, with the writer Emily Rapp Black. Gina can be found at www.ginafrangello.org .

MCW 461-0 : Nonfiction Writing Workshop

Rebecca Morgan Frank

• [email protected]
• @poetmorgan

Rebecca Morgan Frank is the author of four collections of poems, including Oh You Robot Saints! (Carnegie Mellon UP, 2021), one of New York Public Library's Best Books of 2021, and Little Murders Everywhere (Salmon Poetry, 2012), a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Her poems and stories have appeared in such places as The New Yorker , American Poetry Review , The Kenyon Review , Ploughshares , Catapult , Joyland , and the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, and her collaborations with composers have been exhibited and performed widely. She is the recipient of such honors as a Meier Achievement Award and the Poetry Society of America's Alice Fay di Castagnola Award. She received her PhD from the University of Cincinnati and her MFA from Emerson College, and her recent teaching positions include Jacob Ziskind Poet-in-Residence at Brandeis University, Distinguished Visiting Writer at Bowling Green State University, and Visiting Poet in the graduate program at UC Irvine. She is co-founder and editor of the online magazine Memorious and a reviewer for the Poetry Foundation's Harriet Books. She serves on the board of the National Book Critics Circle.

PhD University of Cincinnati MFA Emerson College BA Vassar College

Distinguished Visiting Writer, OSU Cascades low-residency MFA Program Distinguished Visiting Writer, Bowling Green State University Jacob Ziskind Visiting Poet-in-Residence, Brandeis University Assistant Professor, University of Southern Mississippi's Center for Writers

Oh You Robot Saints! (Carnegie Mellon UP, 2021) Sometimes We’re All Living in a Foreign Country (Carnegie Mellon, 2017) The Spokes of Venus (Carnegie Mellon 2016) Little Murders Everywhere (Salmon Poetry, 2012)

Writer-in-Residence, Hemingway Foundation Poetry Society of America's Alice Fay di Castagnola Award Mississippi Arts Commission Poetry Fellowship Residency, Ragdale Foundation R esidency fellowship, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency fellowship, Catwalk Tennessee Williams Fellow, Sewanee Writers' Conference Theodore and Jane Norman Fund Award for Faculty Research, Brandeis University

MCW 411-DL : Poetry Workshop

Kate Harding

• [email protected]
• www.kateharding.info  

Current Research Interests

Creative Nonfiction

Personal Essay

Educational Background

PhD, Creative Nonfiction, Bath Spa University, 2019

MFA, Fiction, Vermont College of Fine Arts, 2005

BA, English Literature, University of Toronto, 1997

Laurie Lawlor

• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• laurielawlor.com

Laurie Lawlor is the author of 43 works of award-winning fiction and nonfiction for children and young adults. Environmental advocacy inspired 2023 nonfiction Restoring Prairie, Woods, and Pond: How a Small Trail Can Make a Big Difference (Holiday House), highlighted with Kirkus starred review and recipient of the 2023 Society of Midland Authors Honor Award for Children's Nonfiction. Other nonfiction includes What Music! The 50-Year Friendship between Beethoven and Nannette Streicher, Who Built His Pianos (2023) and Fearless World Traveler, Adventures of Marianne North, Botanical Artist (Holiday House, 2021), which received the Society of Midland Authors Honor Award for Nonfiction and was named Junior Guild Gold Standard Selection. Super Women: Six Scientists Who Changed the World (Holiday House), middle grade nonfiction, profiles remarkable pioneers in fields ranging from astronomy and mathematics to cartography and biochemistry. Published in 2017, Super Women received a Booklist starred review and was named 2018 Outstanding Science Trade Book by Children’s Book Council (CBC) and NSTA. Big Tree Down! (Holiday House), a lively picture book released in spring 2018, celebrates cooperation during a community emergency. Lawlor was awarded the 2012 John Burroughs Riverby Award for Excellence in Nature Writing for Rachel Carson and Her Book that Changed the World , featured on the ALA Amelia Bloomer Award List. She has taught creative writing at Northwestern University, and writing workshops throughout the Midwest.

MAT, National-Louis University 1992 BSJ, Northwestern University, Medill 1975

Teacher, lecturer, writing workshop leader Northwestern University, Columbia College of Chicago, National-Louis University Writer of published fiction and nonfiction since 1986 Environmental advocate and organizer, Wisconsin, Mukwonago River Initiative

See website, www.laurielawlor.com for complete listing

Carl Sandburg Award, Golden Kite Honor Book Award John Burroughs Riverby Award for Excellence in Nature Writing

MCW 417-DL : Popular Fiction Workshop

billy lombardo

• [email protected]  

Rebecca Makkai

• [email protected]  
• [email protected]
• RebeccaMakkai.com

MA in English Literature, Middlebury College

MCW 413-0 : Fiction Workshop

Juan Martinez

• [email protected]
• fulmerford.com
• @fulmerford

Juan Martinez is the author of the collection Best Worst American (2017) and the novel Extended Stay (2023). His work has appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, including Ecotone , NIGHTMARE , The Morning Transport , Glimmer Train , Huizache , McSweeney's , TriQuarterly , Conjunctions , Small Odysseys , National Public Radio's Selected Shorts , Norton's Sudden Fiction Latino and Flash Fiction America , and elsewhere. He is an associate professor at Northwestern University and lives near Chicago.

PhD, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Associate Professor, 2020-current, Northwestern University Assistant Professor, 2013-2020, Northwestern University Assistant Professor, 2012-2013, Lebanon Valley College Visiting Assistant Professor, 2011-2012, Whitman College

Best Worst American (Small Beer Press)

Faisal Mohyuddin

• [email protected]
• www.faisalmohyuddin.com

Faisal Mohyuddin ’s debut full-length poetry collection,   The Displaced Children of Displaced Children   (Eyewear 2018), won the 2017 Sexton Prize for Poetry, was selected as a 2018 Summer Recommendation of the Poetry Book Society, and was named a “highly commended” book of 2018 by the Forward Arts Foundation. Also the author of the chapbook   The Riddle of Longing   (Backbone 2017), he is the recipient of the Edward Stanley Award from  Prairie Schooner   and a Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award. He serves as an   educator   adviser to Narrative 4, a global not-for-profit dedicated to fostering empathy through the exchange of stories, and teaches English at Highland Park High School in Illinois.  

Natalie Moore

• [email protected]

Natalie Moore   is WBEZ's South Side Reporter where she covers segregation and inequality.

Her enterprise reporting has tackled race, housing, economic development, food injustice and violence. Natalie’s work has been broadcast on the BBC, Marketplace and NPR’s Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition. Natalie is the author of   The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation , winner of the 2016 Chicago Review of Books award for nonfiction and a Buzzfeed best nonfiction book of 2016. She is also co-author of   The Almighty Black P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of an American Gang   and   Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation . 

Natalie writes a monthly column for the Chicago Sun-Times. Her work has been published in Essence , Ebony , the Chicago Reporter , Bitch , In These Times , the Chicago Tribune , the New York Times , the Washington Post and the Guardian . She is the 2017 recipient of Chicago Library Foundation’s 21st Century Award. In 2010, she received the Studs Terkel Community Media Award for reporting on Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods. In 2009, she was a fellow at Columbia College’s Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, which allowed her to take a reporting trip to Libya. Natalie has won several journalism awards, including a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism. Other honors are from the Radio Television Digital News Association (Edward R. Murrow), Public Radio News Directors Incorporated, National Association of Black Journalists, Illinois Associated Press and Chicago Headline Club. The Chicago Reader named her best journalist in 2017.

Prior to joining WBEZ staff in 2007, Natalie was a city hall reporter for the Detroit News. She has also been an education reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and a reporter for the Associated Press in Jerusalem.

Natalie has an M.S.J. in Newspaper Management from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and a B.A. in Journalism from Howard University. She has taught at Columbia College and Medill. Natalie and her husband Rodney live in Hyde Park with their four daughters.

Simone Muench

• simonemuench.com

Simone Muench is the recipient of an NEA Poetry Fellowship and the Meier Foundation for the Arts Award as well as residency fellowships to Yaddo, Artsmith, VCCA, and VSC. She is the author of seven full-length books including Wolf Centos and Orange Crush from Sarabande. She also co-edited They Said: A Multi-Genre Anthology of Contemporary Collaborative Writing (Black Lawrence, 2018), and her recent collection, The Under Hum , co-written with Jackie K. White, is forthcoming from Black Lawrence in 2024. She serves as a poetry editor for Tupelo Quarterly , faculty advisor for Jet Fuel Review , and poetry editor for JackLeg Press, as well as being the creator of the Hungry Brain Sunday Reading Series. She received her PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago and directs the writing program at Lewis University where she teaches creative writing and film studies.

• [email protected]
• naeemmurr.com

Naeem Murr is the author of three novels, The Boy , which won a Lambda Literary Award and was a New York Times Notable Book, The Genius of the Sea , and most recently The Perfect Man , which won The Commonwealth Writersʼ Prize for the Best Book of Europe and South Asia and was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. His work has been translated into numerous languages. His other awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship and a PEN Beyond Margins Award. He has been a writer-in-residence at the University of Missouri and Western Michigan University, among others, and received a distinguished teaching award from Northwestern University School of Professional Studies in 2019.

Lori Rader-Day

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• LoriRaderDay.com
• @LoriRaderDay

Lori Rader-Day is the author of the crime novels The Death of Us , Death at Greenway , The Lucky One , Under a Dark Sky , The Day I Died , Little Pretty Things , and The Black Hour . Her books have won the Mary Higgins Clark Award, the Agatha Award, and three Anthony Awards, and have been nominated for several other crime fiction awards, including the Edgar Award from Mystery Writers of America. She is also a past recipient of the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Author Award. Rader-Day is co-chair of the crime fiction readers’ conference Midwest Mystery Conference and a former national president of Sisters in Crime, a 4,500-member writers’ and readers’ association. Rader-Day has previously taught at Ball State University, Roosevelt University, Yale University, Midwest Writers Workshop, and StoryStudio Chicago, among others. She received an MA in creative nonfiction from Ball State University and an MFA in creative writing from Roosevelt University.

MFA, Roosevelt University MA, Ball State University BS, Ball State University

National President, Sisters in Crime, Inc. Director of Communications, Northwestern University School of Communication

Death at Greenway The Lucky One Under a Dark Sky The Day I Died Little Pretty Things The Black Hour

2019 Edgar Award nominee 2021 Mary Higgins Clark Award nominee 2021 Agatha Award nominee 2021 Anthony Award nominee 2017 Indiana Author Award recipient

Ed Roberson

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• Ed Roberson, Poetry Foundation

Ed Roberson is the author of seven volumes of poetry, including Voices Cast Out to Talk Us In , winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize; Just In: Word of Navigational Change: New and Selected Work ; Atmosphere Conditions , a National Poetry Series winner; and his most recent, City Eclogue . Roberson received the 2008 Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. He has also received a Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Writer's Award.

Donna Seaman

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Donna Seaman is the Editor for Adult Books at Booklist; a member of the Content Leadership Team and National Advisory Council for the American Writers Museum, and a recipient of the James Friend Memorial Award for Literary Criticism and the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award. Seaman has written for the Chicago Tribune , the Los Angeles Times , and other publications, and contributed biocritical essays to the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature and American Writers. Seaman has been a writer-in-residence for Columbia College Chicago and has taught at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. She created the anthology In Our Nature: Stories of Wildness ; her author interviews are collected in Writers on the Air: Conversations about Books , and she is the author of Identity Unknown: Rediscovering Seven American Women Artists .

Shauna Seliy

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Shauna Seliy is the author of the novel When We Get There , published in the UK under the title The Trials and Tribulations of Lucas Lessar . Her work has appeared in The New York Times , The Kenyon Review , Jubilat , Other Voices , and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. Her MFA is from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Megan Stielstra

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• [email protected]
• www.meganstielstra.com  

Megan Stielstra is the author of three collections: Everyone Remain Calm , Once I Was Cool , and The Wrong Way to Save Your Life . Her work appears in Best American Essays , New York Times , Poets & Writers , The Believer , Longreads, Tin House , and elsewhere. A longtime company member with 2nd Story, she has told stories for National Public Radio, Museum of Contemporary Art, Goodman Theatre, and regularly with the Paper Machete live news magazine at the Green Mill. She serves as the Senior Editor of Regional Titles at Northwestern University Press, where she acquires literary work that centers the Midwest in all its complexities.

MFA in Creative Writing, Columbia College

Creative Nonfiction faculty at Northwestern University; MFA in Prose & Poetry and the The Litowitz Creative Writing Graduate Program. Creative Nonfiction faculty at Catapult. Creative Nonfiction faculty at StoryStudio. Mentor Editor at The Op Ed Project. Associate Director of the Center for Innovation in Teaching Excellence at Columbia College Director of Story Development at 2nd Story.

"The Wrong Way to Save Your Life, essay collection, 2017 Nonfiction Book of the Year Award from the Chicago Review of Books, Harper Perennial Once I Was Cool, essay collection, rereleased from Northwestern University Press, August 2021 Everyone Remain Calm, story collection, rereleased from Northwestern University Press, August 2021 ""An Axe for the Frozen Sea,"" The Believer, 2019 Story of the Year Award from the Chicago Review of Books ""Channel B,"" The Rumpus, included in the Best American Essays 2013 and recorded for National Public Radio ""Here is My Heart,"" Longreads ""We Make Homes,"" Gay Magazine ""On Awareness,"" Tin House ""What Would You Grab in a Fire?,"" New York Times"

2021-2022 Senior Media Fellow/2020-2021 Civic Media Fellow, MacArthur Foundation via the Annenberg Innovation lab at the University of Southern California 2021-2022 Senior Media Fellow/2020-2021 Civic Media Fellow, MacArthur Foundation via the Annenberg Innovation lab at the University of Southern California2020 Shearing Fellow in Creative Nonfiction, Black Mountain Institute Lit 50 list of “movers & shakers in Chicago Literature,” Newcity Magazine, 2020, 2018, 2016, 2014, 2011 Faculty Honor Roll as selected by the undergraduate student body, Northwestern University, 2019-2020 2019 Story of the Year Award, Chicago Review of Books, December 2019 Ragdale Arts Foundation Fellow, 2019, 2015 & 2012 2017 Book of the Year Award in Nonfiction, Chicago Review of Books, December 2017 Selected, Best American Essays 2013, ed. Cheryl Strayed, October 2013

MCW 461-0 : Creative Nonfiction Workshop

Rachel Jamison Webster

• [email protected]
• racheljamisonwebster.com
• @racheljamisonwebster

Rachel Jamison Webster is the author of Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family , (Henry Holt 2023), as well as four books of poetry and cross-genre writing: Mary is a River which was a finalist for the 2014 National Poetry Series; September, The Endless Unbegun ; and The Sea Came Up & Drowned , which includes erasure poetry and Rachel’s visual art. Rachel’s poems and essays often appear in anthologies and journals, including Poetry , Tin House , and The Yale Review . Rachel is Professor of Creative Writing in the English Department of Northwestern University. She has received a Weinberg College Alumni Teaching Award for her Creative Writing instruction, a Hewlett Fellowship for her design and implementation of diversities and social inequities curriculum, and an American Association of University Women Award. Rachel has been a Fellow in the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities; an Op-Ed Public Voices Fellow; and is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society.

MFA, Warren Wilson Program for Writers

Associate Professor of Instruction, Northwestern University

Reunion, a book of Creative Nonfiction forthcoming from Henry Holt, 2023 September: Poems. Northwestern University Press, 2013. The Endless Unbegun. Twelve Winters Press, 2015. Mary is a River, Kelsay Books, 2017. The Sea Came Up & Drowned, Raw Books, 2020. Selected Essays: https://yalereview.yale.edu/history-another-word-trauma https://tinhouse.com/to-vanquish-the-patriarchy/ https://parhelionliterary.com/rachel-jamison-webster/ Selected Poetry: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rachel-webster https://poets.org/poet/rachel-jamison-webster"

Reinventing the Memoir Cross-Genre Experiments Poetry Independent Studies Literature of Coming Out

Michael Zapata

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• @michael_zapata01

Michael Zapata is a founding editor of MAKE Literary Magazine and the author of the novel The Lost Book of Adana Moreau , winner of the 2020 Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction, finalist for the 2020 Heartland Booksellers Award in Fiction, and a Best Book of the Year for NPR, the A.V. Club, Los Angeles Public Library, and BookPage, among others. He is the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Award for Fiction and the City of Chicago DCASE Individual Artist Program Award. He is on the core faculty of StoryStudio Chicago and the MFA faculty of Northwestern University. As a public-school educator, he taught literature and writing in high schools servicing drop out students. He currently lives in Chicago with his family.

Core Faculty at StoryStudio Chicago

Co-Founder and Co-Publisher (est. 2004), Fiction Editor (2004 –2009), President of the Board (2009–2017), Member of the Board (current) MAKE Literary Magazine & MAKE Literary Productions NFP

The Lost Book of Adana Moreau (Hanover Square Press/HarperCollins) "Unstable Reality: Latin America’s Genre-Bending Traditions,” Tor.com “10 Books That Were Almost Lost to History,” Electric Literature

The Lost Book of Adana Moreau : Winner of the 2020 Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction, finalist for the 2020 Heartland Booksellers Award in Fiction, and a Best Book of the Year for NPR, the A.V. Club, Los Angeles Public Library, and BookPage, among others.

The Lost Book of Adana Moreau : Reviews in The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus Review, BookPage (Starred), Booklist (Starred), Library Journal (Starred), Salon, Jewish Book Council, Literary Hub, Newcity, Tor, Somos en Escrito, among others.

Newcity’s Lit 50, 2020

Latino Stories 2020 Top Ten "New" Latinx Authors

2021 Instructor of the Year Award: StoryStudio

Illinois Arts Council Individual Artist Support Grant, 2020

City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events Individual Artists Program Grant, 2019

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Expanding Creative Horizons

How a cmu scholarship opened doors for an aspiring graphic novelist.

Zeja Z. Copes wears many hats — researcher, artist, writer, leader and thriving CMU scholar.

“My time here at CMU has pushed me forward as a critical thinker in ways I couldn’t have expected,” she says.

Zeja received the Ethel Murdock Kirk and Mary F. Murdock (A 1921) Scholarship, which paved the way for her to study  art  and  creative writing  at CMU. Without this support, Zeja says Carnegie Mellon would have been out of reach for her family.

“It’s hard to put into words just how important this scholarship has been to me,” Zeja says.

This year, Zeja also received a summer undergraduate research apprenticeship from CMU’s  Undergraduate Research Office . The program provided course credit for her to write and illustrate an original fantasy graphic novel set during the Cold War.

“Working on this project allowed me to bridge my art and creative writing practices,” she says. “My research advisor, Jeff Hinkelman, is an excellent resource and has granted me a lot of freedom and autonomy over the course of this project.”

Beyond her research project, Zeja has been expanding her creative horizons at CMU by studying art history for the first time and discovering a new love of oil painting.

Zeja takes her education one step further by engaging with programs that support other students, shaping their experience at CMU. She serves as a member of the Basic Needs Working Group, which established the  CMU Pantry  and is improving emergency aid practices at the university.

She’ll also be a mentor this fall for  Tartan Scholars , a new program that empowers high-achieving first-year students from low-income backgrounds to excel at CMU.

“I wish I’d had a program like this as a freshman transitioning to college,” she says. “I’m deeply excited to connect with incoming students and share my experience with them so they can be successful here, too.”

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Eastern Washington University’s MFA program in Creative Writing is a vibrant and active community of writers and educators diverse enough to engage writers of all styles and small enough to provide the individual attention which truly nurtures great writing. The faculty are highly educated and widely published; students interact in classrooms, at readings, and elsewhere. Part of the EWU MFA experience is learning to live the writer’s life, and the program brings in a variety of visitors to help students explore that life.

Recent guests include  Amy Tan,   Susan Choi, Morgan Talty , Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, Dana Johnson, Bonnie Nadzam, Paul Harding, Lily Hoang, Krys Lee, William Finnegan, Albert Goldbarth, Thomas Lynch, Peter Everwine, Patricia Hampl, Linda Bierds, Thomas Lux, Alison Baker, James Tate, Dorianne Laux, Yusek Komunyakaa, Phillip Lopate, Lan Samantha Chang, Marilynne Robinson, Stuart Dybek, Jane Smiley, and many more.

See our Visiting Writers  page for more.

Gregory Spatz

Gregory Spatz is the author of the collection of linked stories and novellas, What Could Be Saved , and the novels Inukshuk ,  Fiddler’s Dream , and  No One But Us , and the short story collections Half as Happy  and  Wonderful Tricks . His stories have appeared in many publications, including The New Yorker , Glimmer Train Stories , Shenandoah , Epoch , Kenyon Review , and New England Review . The recipient of a Michener Fellowship, an Iowa Arts Fellowship, a Washington State Book Award, and an NEA Fellowship in literature, he teaches at Eastern Washington University in Spokane. Spatz also plays the fiddle in the twice Juno-nominated bluegrass band John Reischman and the Jaybirds.

When not on the road with the Jaybirds or busy at work teaching and writing, he enjoys playing music with his wife, Caridwen, also a fiddler.

Read Greg’s article in Poets & Writers: “The Teachable Talent:  Why Creative Writing Can Be Taught”

Check out Greg’s interview with The Rumpus ,  the  Los Angeles Review of Books , and an interview with Kenyon Review.

Listen to Greg talk about MFA programs and the application process on Jared McCormack’s podcast: MFA Applications: Faculty Edition .

To learn more about Greg’s work, visit his website .

Teaching Philosophy

In my experience, becoming a good constructive critic/editor of other people’s fiction is the first step to becoming a useful critic of your own work. It is the quickest way I know of, anyway, to begin understanding how to dismantle a piece of your own fiction and put it back together so it works better. Too, I’ve noticed that focusing more on constructive criticism than esthetic judgment in workshop tends to engender a working environment where students feel challenged and free to take risks. So, in all of my writing workshops, one thing I try to stress is this distinction between judgment and constructive criticism. Easy enough to look at a piece of fiction and draw conclusions based around your (mostly) esthetic reactions to it: this is trite and boring, I hate stories about teenagers, I hate voice-driven work, first person sucks…. In itself this sort of judgment does have limited value: it helps you to define your own esthetic; we all do it and it’s a legitimate response to any piece of art. However, it’s not so much use to the author of the piece whose work you’re judging. Constructive criticism, on the other hand, is criticism which focuses first on articulating a given story’s own best possible potential, despite all flaws and inconsistencies; it involves an effort to see past your esthetic preferences so you may face a story on its own terms, whether or not you like it. Then, bearing in mind the text’s best interests, it attempts to offer strategies for revision and editing.

Program Statement

What I like best about teaching at the MFA at EWU is the sense of community. Maybe because of the genuine collegiality modeled by the faculty, there is a sense here that students support each other without any of the rancor or infighting so commonly present at writing programs. Not to say that our students don’t push each other to succeed. They do. Only rarely does it feel as if one student’s success or victory is perceived in the community as another student’s loss or failure. It’s a great, positive and challenging environment for learning—one I wish I’d known about as a grad student myself.

Lisa Denker

Polly buckingham.

Polly Buckingham is the author of one book of poetry,  The River People  (Lost Horse Press 2020), two books of fiction,  The Expense of a View  (Katherine Anne Porter Award, UNT Press 2016) and  A Year of Silence  (Jeanne Leiby Memorial Chapbook Award, Florida Review Press 2015), and of the forthcoming book  The Stolen Child and Other Stories  (Betty Books). She is the recipient of a 2014 Washington Artists Trust Fellowship. Polly is the editor of  Willow Springs  magazine and the series editor for The Katherine Anne Porter Award. Her work appears in  The Gettysburg Review , Threepenny Review , Alaska Quarterly Review , Sugar House , The Poetry Review , North American Review , Conduit , Spillway , The Moth  and elsewhere.

Jonathan Johnson

Jonathan Johnson’s poems have been anthologized in Best American Poetry, published in recent issues of Ploughshares , Southern Review , Witness , Prairie Schooner , Poetry Northwest , New Ohio Review , Missouri Review and Gettysburg Review , and read on NPR’s Writer’s Almanac . His books include the poetry collections Mastodon, 80% Complete (Carnegie Mellon, 2001), I n the Land We Imagined Ourselves (Carnegie Mellon 2010), and May Is an Island (Carnegie Mellon 2018); and the memoirs, Hannah and the Mountain (Nebraska, 2005) and The Desk on the Sea (Wayne State, 2019). Ode, his play about John Keats and Fanny Brawne, was produced as part of the GetLit! Literary Festival, and his fiction has appeared recently in Ploughshares , Bellevue Literary Review , and Missouri Review . Johnson migrates between the Northwest; his hometown of Marquette, Michigan; and his ancestral village of Glenelg in the Scottish Highland where his cousins are still crofters.

In addition to his regular course load, Jonathan teaches a unique summer writing class from Yellowstone National Park. All students in previous sections of this course have watched wolves. Other observations have included wild trout, grizzly bears, falcons, mountain goats, and bison (lots and lots of bison). The course is designed to be a peak life experience that inspires writers to observe their world closely, to conduct field research, and to write from their own experiences for years to come.

Interviews with Johnson can be read at:  http://www.theswampmagazine.com/jonathan-johnson-interview   and http://www.towncreekpoetry.com/SPR10/JJ_INTERVIEW.htm

I believe the most important quality a teacher of writing can possess is the ability to imaginatively inhabit a student’s work, to read and consider and comment on it as if from the inside. I try to let each piece I read teach itself to me, show me its methods and aesthetic. Only then do I attempt to comprehend and articulate its potentials—realized and unrealized—and offer my comments. This sort of reading often requires the ability and willingness to set aside much of my own literary agenda and taste and adopt, at least partly, the agenda and taste of the student. I think of myself much less as an editor of students’ writing then as a guide, taking them through their own words, helping them make discoveries and decisions. And as I see it, an ideal workshop environment is one in which the entire group is far less interested in making this or that piece better and far more interested in deep, careful and enlightening exploration of the work at hand. Thus, the ultimate goal of a writing workshop should not be however many pages of improved writing—which tends to happen anyway—but the fostering of each writers’ long-term capacity to create and skillfully refine his or her own, wholly unique art.

The MFA at EWU is a wonderful place to teach because we’ve specifically designed every element of the program to contribute to the artistic development of the students. One of my personal favorites of these elements is our literature requirement. These courses are a delight to teach because we read and study the literature not primarily as scholars or critics, but as fellow artists, looking for models, inspiration, and contexts for our own work. Then in the workshops our discussions and debates are informed by this reading, made richer and more helpful by the coordinates and common artistic vernacular we’ve established.

Spokane itself is lively and vibrant and our program is at the center of its active literary scene. But it’s the magnificent surrounding landscape in which I feel most at home. Several times a week I run through the sage and pine on the trails of Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge where I frequently see elk and coyotes. And the Silkirk Mountains, which extend north from just outside Spokane, is the only mountain range in the lower forty-eight states not to lose any animal to extinction in the last ten thousand years. Wolves, lynx, grizzlies, even caribou are all still there. Glimpsing that wild high country on the horizon, knowing it’s always there, is like living day in and day out with the muse.

Summer Yellowstone Class

The purpose of this course is to foster the development of new work though field observations, note-taking, and discussion. Days will begin very early with wildlife observation and filed note-taking. We will be staying at an historic log lodge, to which we’ll return at mid-day (time dependent upon our success at wildlife observations) for rest and writing. Late afternoons will include group discussion and instruction. After dinner we will head into the field once again for more wildlife observation. Our main focus will be on attempting to observe wolves using spotting scopes, but we will also attempt to observe bison, elk, antelope, grizzly bears, trout, and birds. Note will also be made of the geology and botany of the area.

All students in previous sections of this course have watched wolves. Other observations have included wild trout spawning in mountain streams, wolves hunting elk and killing bison, wolf pups emerging from the den to play and howl, and grizzly cubs playing beside their mother. Students form close bonds by traveling, cooking and conducting flora and fauna observations together. These close bonds allow students with widely varying levels of writing experience to understand and trust one another’s insights on the composition process. The course is designed to be a peak life experience that inspires writers to observe their world closely, to conduct research based on and to aid that observation, and to write from their own experiences for years to come.

Leyna Krow is the author of the short story collection I’m Fine, But You Appear To Be Sinking (Featherproof Books 2017) and the novel Fire Season (Viking 2022), which was nominated for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her second story collection Sinkhole & Other Inexplicable Voids (Viking) is forthcoming in 2024. She lives in Spokane, WA with her husband and two children.

Find out more on her website: www.leynakrow.com .

Natalie Kusz

Natalie Kusz is the author of the memoir  Road Song , and has published essays and reviews in  Harper’s, Threepenny Review, McCall’s, Real Simple ,  The New York Times Book Review ,  and other periodicals. Her work has earned, among other honors, a Whiting Writer’s Award, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the NEA, the Bush Foundation, and the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College.

A former faculty member of Bethel College and of Harvard University, she now teaches in the MFA program at Eastern Washington University.

Samuel Ligon

Samuel Ligon is the author of two novels— Among the Dead and Dreaming and Safe in Heaven Dead —and two collections of stories, Wonderland , illustrated by Stephen Knezovich, and Drift and Swerve . He’s co-editor, with Kate Lebo, of Pie & Whiskey: Writers Under the Influence of Butter and Booze . His short fiction has appeared in Georgia Review , Prairie Schooner , New England Review , The Quarterly , and elsewhere. Ligon serves as the Artistic Director of the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference.

In the classroom, we use critical language to approach and discuss writing, as if it were rational. And it is, on many levels. But the rendering of who people are and how they behave and what connects us as humans transcends the merely rational. What we’re really after, it seems, as writers and readers, is something we recognize first in our guts, which must then be struggled with intellectually while still resonating in the guts. As writers, readers, and editors, we use our critical minds to rationally approach any piece of writing; but this critical sensibility, and, certainly our writer’s sensibility, is informed by an evolving irrational and instinctive understanding of what makes a line or story powerful and true. I think it’s crucial to recognize the enormous depth of what we don’t know, what nobody knows, what we have to constantly struggle to learn, which is how to write a line, a story, a novel that reveals to the reader, viscerally and intellectually, something about what it means to be human. My goal as a teacher is to promote conscious exploration and understanding of elements of craft, while also emphasizing the importance of the irrational, provoking and promoting, then, both rational and irrational—conscious and unconscious—approaches to line, character, voice, story, and all the problems that come with trying to make something that matters.

My favorite aspect of this program is that most of my interaction with students takes place outside the classroom: during weekly editorial meetings for Willow Springs; in one on one thesis advising; at dinners with visiting writers before they read and at the parties that follow; at student and faculty readings; at GetLit! events in Spokane; at the AWP conference, where I take students every year; at regional book festivals in Seattle, Missoula, and Portland; and in a variety of other social and professional settings in which faculty, students, and other local artists interact. The Inland Northwest Center for Writers is the heart of a thriving community of writers in Spokane. I think one of the most important elements of an MFA program is that students have the opportunity to completely devote two years of their lives to writing and reading, surrounded, encouraged, and provoked by peers and teachers similarly devoted and engaged, similarly immersed in writing and reading. In her essay, “Writing Short Stories,” Flannery O’Connor writes that “Art is the habit of the artist; and habits have to be rooted deep in the whole personality. They have to be cultivated like any other habit…, and teaching any kind of writing is largely a matter of helping the student develop the habit of art.” Spokane’s community of writers, readers, and editors cultivates that “habit of art” in students and teachers alike.

For more information, visit Sam’s website .

Rachel Toor

Rachel Toor is the author of five books of creative nonfiction: Write Your Way In (Chicago, 2016); Misunderstood (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015); Personal Record  (Nebraska, 2008); The Pig and I  (Penguin, 2005; Nebraska, 2009) and  Admissions Confidential (St. Martin’s, 2001). Her first novel,  On the Road to Find Out , was published in 2014 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. She writes a monthly column on issues in writing and publishing for  The Chronicle of Higher Education  and “Everything is Copy,” which appears monthly in the Spokesman-Review. She was a longtime contributor to Running Times and in 2012 she was given an award for journalistic excellence by the Road Runners of America . Her work has appeared in  The New York Times, Ploughshares , SB Nation, Glamour , Inside Higher Ed,  Reader ’ s Digest, The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) ,  The LA Times , and other various and diverse publications. Three times she has had essays listed as Notable in Best American Sports Writing, and once in Best American Essays, and in 2017 she received a Special Mention for the Pushcart Prize. She’s been sponsored by Athleta and SkirtSports.

After graduating from Yale, Rachel spent a dozen years as an acquisitions editor at Oxford and Duke University Presses. She has an MFA from the University of Montana.

Teaching Philosophy After a dozen years in scholarly publishing, I came to see my role in terms of what an ex-President called “The Vision Thing.” As an acquisitions editor, I had to suss out which manuscripts could be turned into books that would make important contributions to their fields; once I signed them up, I had to help the authors get to where they wanted to go. The process was about seeing something not only for what it was, but for what it could be—an act of creative insight. It required suppression of the ego and an outward focus. Teaching has been similar for me: finding what is possible lurking within each student and working to bring that to the fore. The most important thing for me, and it’s obvious, is to establish with my students bonds of trust and respect. I do not worry about maintaining authority in the classroom; instead I think about how to open myself up to students in a way that invites them to share their ideas and experiences, to take intellectual risks, and to be unafraid to claim their own ignorance.

Program Statement I figured out that if you keep a big bowl of candy (with lots of chocolate) in your office, people will drop by with delightful frequency. The faculty and students in this program are a remarkable and eclectic group—people you want to work with, people you want to visit with.

For more information visit Rachel’s website .

Shawn Vestal

Shawn Vestal is the author of the novel,  Daredevils , published in spring 2016 by Penguin Press. Daredevils was named the winner of the Washington State Book Award. It was published in the U.K. by Pushkin Press, as well as in France and in Germany.

Vestal’s collection of short stories,  Godforsaken Idaho , published by New Harvest in April 2013, was named the winner of the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, which honors a debut book that “represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise.” He also published  A.K.A. Charles Abbott , a short memoir, as a Kindle Single in 2013.

Vestal’s short stories have appeared in  Tin House , McSweeney’s , Ecotone , The Southern Review , The Iowa Review , Zyzzyva , Cutbank , Florida Review  and other journals. His story “Teamwork” was published in  The Sewanee Review  in its Summer 2019 issue. It was later named the winner of the magazine’s Andrew Lytle Prize, honoring the best fiction published in 2019.

He lives in Spokane, Washington, where he is a columnist at The Spokesman-Review newspaper.

Emeritus Faculty

Christopher howell.

Christopher Howell’s  Light’s Ladder   won the Washington State Book Award in 2005. His poems, essays, and translations have also appeared in a number of anthologies and journals, including  Antioch Review ,  Colorado Review ,  Crazy Horse ,  Denver Quarterly ,  Field ,  Gettysburg Review ,  Harper’s ,  Hudson Review ,  Iowa Review ,  Northwest Review ,  Poetry Northwest ,  Southern Review  and  Volt . He has been the recipient of three Pushcart Prizes and two National Endowment fellowships, as well as a number of other awards.

Mailing Address

The MFA at EWU C/O Eastern Washington University CAT 400 601 East Riverside Ave. Spokane, WA 99202

We welcome comments and encourage questions from prospective and incoming students. Feel free to write, call, or email us with queries about the program, application process, or moving to Spokane (definitely check out our  Frequently Asked Questions , too).

M.F.A. in Creative Writing

The Master of Fine Arts at West Virginia University is a three-year program that combines work in a primary genre and at least one other genre with course offerings in literature, pedagogy and professional writing and editing. Genres include fiction, nonfiction and poetry. All Master of Fine Arts students receive a full tuition waiver and an assistantship, which includes a stipend valued at $16,750. 

Our alumni have gone on to further graduate study in English, to careers in editing and publishing and to positions in academia. They have received awards such as the Olive B. O’Connor Fellowship at Colgate and the Emory University Creative Writing Fellowship, won national prizes like the Iowa Award for Poetry and the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Prize for Nonfiction and published books with Autumn House Press, Carnegie Mellon University, 42 Miles Press, Ohio University Press, University of Georgia Press, University Press of New England and William Morrow/Harper Collins, among others.

WVU’s MFA graduates have published in hundreds of literary journals, including prestigious venues such as  AGNI ,  Southern Review ,  Gettysburg Review ,  Field ,  Prairie Schooner ,  Tar River Poetry ,  Ninth Letter ,  Northwest Review ,  Missouri Review ,  Hayden’s Ferry Review ,  Sewanee Review,   The Journal ,  32 Poems ,  Georgetown Review ,  Controlled Burn ,  Colorado Review, Pank, Malahat Review ,  Mid-American Review ,  The New York Times, Paste, Times,  Chelsea ,  Washington Square ,  Laurel Review ,  Slant ,  New Orleans Review , and in the anthology   Layers of Possibility: Healing Poetry . Recent MFA students have won Intro Prizes sponsored by the Association of Writers and Writing Programs and the GreenTower Press’s chapbook prize and have published book-length collections of poetry and fiction. Recent graduates have won honors such as the Iowa Poetry Prize and the Walt Whitman Award.  

GET INVOLVED

  All MFA students in creative writing are fully funded and teach composition, with opportunities to teach creative writing in the third year. Our students engage in community outreach through the Appalachian Prison Book Project, a program that provides incarcerated people with reading materials; edit the  Cheat River Review , a national literary journal; assist with the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop; and help maintain WVU's Council of Writers. They also participate in our monthly reading series, MFA@123 (pictured above). Our program hosts readings by recognized writers, including Jayne Anne Phillips, Camille Rankine, Elizabeth Graver and Geffrey Davis. We also conduct the annual Sturm Writer-in-Residence program, a week-long program that hosts an author at WVU to give a reading and lead workshops with graduate students. Recent Sturm Writers-in-Residence have included Claire Vaye Watkins, Valerie Sayers, Oliver de la Paz, Paul Lisicky and Susan Straight.

Graduate Catalog Description   Graduate Student Handbook

WVU’s MFA faculty members, Mark Brazaitis, Mary Ann Samyn, Glenn Taylor, Christa Parravani, Jenny Johnson and Brian Broome, have published more than 25 books and have won many prestigious prizes and honors:  

• National Endowment for the Arts Literary Fellowship 
• MacDowell Fellowship 
• Whiting Award 
• Kirkus Prize 
• National Book Critics Circle Award (finalist)  
• Iowa Short Fiction Award  
• Yaddo Fellowship 
• Field Poetry Prize 
• Hodder Fellowship 
• Lambda Literary Award 
• 42 Miles Press Poetry Prize 
• Richard Sullivan Prize 
• Devil's Kitchen Reading Award in Prose 
• Gival Press Novel Award 
• Pushcart Prize 
• Distinguished stories and essays in  Best American  anthologies 
• Autumn House Press Full-Length Fiction Prize 
• Juniper Prize 
• George Garrett Fiction Award  
• The Journal Prize  
• Kent State University Press/Wick Chapbook Prize    
• Books for a Better Life (nominee) 
• Amazon Spotlight Pick 
• New York Times  Editor’s Choice 
• NEH-National Endowment for the Humanities  

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Communications Specialist - School of Computer Science

• Bachelor’s degree in Communications or similar field required.
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• Katy, Texas, United States

Alma College has released the Dean’s List for those students who achieved outstanding academic performance during the 2024 Winter Term. Students who achieve a 3.5 or better grade point average

Your Journey Starts Here

Jim Daniels

MFA Faculty Member

MFA - Creative Writing

As a writer, Jim Daniels has authored 30 collections of poetry, seven collections of fiction and four produced screenplays. His most recent books include “The Luck of the Fall , ” fiction, Michigan State University Press, 2023; and “The Human Engine at Dawn,” Wolfson Press, 2022, and “Comment Card,” Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2024, both poetry. He has also edited or coedited six anthologies of writing. He is a recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and two from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His books have won three Michigan Notable Book Awards, the Brittingham Prize for Poetry, the Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry, the Tillie Olsen Creative Writing Award, the Milton Kessler Award and three Gold Medals in the Independent Publisher Book Awards, among others, and his films have won many awards in film festivals around the world. His work has been published in “The Best American Poetry” and “Pushcart Prize” volumes. He has read his poetry on Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion,” and his poems have been frequently featured on Keillor’s “Writer’s Almanac.” Poet laureates Billy Collins, Ted Kooser and Tracy K. Smith have all showcased his writing as part of their work to bring poetry to average Americans: in Collins’ “Poetry 180” anthologies, Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry” series and on Smith’s poetry podcast, “The Slowdown.” During his long career, he has warmed up for singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams at the Three Rivers Arts Festival, read poems at a Jamestown Jammers AA baseball game, had his poem “Factory Love” displayed on a race car and is sending poetry to the moon soon as part of the Moon Arts Project. A native of Detroit, he currently lives in Pittsburgh, where he is the Thomas Stockham Baker University Professor Emeritus of English. At Carnegie Mellon, he received the Ryan Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Elliott Dunlap Smith Award for Teaching and Educational Service, the Mark Gelfand Service Award for Educational Outreach and the Faculty Service Award from the Alumni Association.

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School News

Class of 2024: a letter from head of school charlie white.

Posted on May 13, 2024

Dear School of Art Community,

I’m thrilled to be writing this after such a special weekend for our School, as we celebrated a most incredible and accomplished group of students, the class of 2024, together on Saturday. 

I had the pleasure of presiding over the School of Art Diploma Ceremony, and as I shared in my remarks, part of what makes the 2024 cohort truly exceptional is how it began its journey: through the hurdles of the pandemic, bringing creativity and resilience to inconceivable times. Their ability to build connection in the absence of common spaces — to test the boundaries of what is possible and forge meaning — truly sets them apart, and it’s a testament to the strength of our community.

That defining spirit is present at this very moment, in an academic year marked by both challenges and triumphs. Our truly international community, with students hailing from six continents, is built on a foundation where every voice is embraced, and I am continually inspired by the power of our incredible artists and creative thinkers coming together. In moments like this weekend, as we witnessed our students’ families, friends, and loved ones gathered in celebration, I am encouraged by the profound strength of our shared bonds. No matter the hurdle, there will always be moments of incredible joy, opportunities for close community, and periods for progress and deeper understanding.

To that end, I also want to take a moment to recognize the many achievements of this academic year and highlight just a few of the standout accomplishments from our global community. 

Thanks to the generosity of CMU alumnus Francis Collins and his wife, Erin, we saw the direct impact of the Collins Family Fund on our first-year students. Exposure to all mediums is an essential part of our curriculum, and I am so proud that our first-year students are receiving full support for tools and materials throughout their foundational courses. Also on campus, the reopening of The Frame , following a major renovation, reintroduced a vital student-run gallery to showcase the work of our undergraduate students. CMU added two multi-paneled works from past and current students to its permanent installations: Angelica Bonilla “A.B.” Fominaya’s (BCSA `23) “In the Footsteps of a Stranger” invites us to embrace hospitality and kindness in Posner Hall, and first-year student Bella Alt’s wonderfully chromatic “Four Birds” now hangs in Wean Hall. Lastly, our seniors brought their collective explorations to this year’s culminating show, “Resonance,” filling all three floors of the Miller ICA. 

Furthering our goal to create equitable access, I am particularly proud of our announcement that the School will now provide full tuition funding for all MFA students. This significant change will deeply impact the lives of our current and future cohorts, marking a transformative step forward for the program. Among our graduate students, Inbar Hagai was selected for a virtual realm residency with the Media Under Dystopia Foundation, while Sobia Ahmad and Anisha Baid presented work here in Pittsburgh in a multi-site exhibition downtown and at the city’s 820 Gallery, respectively. We also caught up with MFA alumna Shana Moulton about her site-specific installation at the Museum of Modern Art, titled “Meta/Physical Therapy,” which is the latest chapter in her two-decade exploration of a semi-autobiographical alter ego she first developed at CMU.

Our faculty received several prestigious honors this year. Professor and Director of our MFA program Katherine Hubbard was awarded a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship , and Professor and Director of the Miller ICA Elizabeth Chodos was named the Johnson Family Public Art Curator , honoring the generous contribution from CMU alumni Cindy and Tod Johnson to support public art on our campus and the future ICA Pittsburgh. Two faculty members — Professor Isla Hansen and Professor Britt Ransom — and an alumna, Rebecca Shapass (MFA `23), each received The Heinz Endowments’ Creative Development Awards . If you’re in Pittsburgh, be sure to see Hansen’s commissioned exhibition at the Mattress Factory Museum on view through March 2025.

After more than 25 years at the School of Art, we’re saying goodbye to Professor James Duesing as he retires this year, culminating his tenure as the longest serving faculty member in the Electronic and Time-Based Media (ETB) area. His vision, energy, and passion for progress will always be a part of who we are! Another integral part of our community for the last several years, Alisha B. Wormsley will join us in the fall as a new tenure-track assistant professor in the area of Social Practice. Professor Jongwoo Jeremy Kim published his newest book Male Bodies Unmade: Picturing Queer Selfhood , and Professor Lyndon Barrois Jr. will head to London for the next academic year for The Starr Fellowship, an artist residency at the prestigious Royal Academy of Arts. Lastly, I want to wish our long-serving marketing and communications leader Andy Ptaschinski all the best on his new chapter in Denver and thank him for everything that he’s accomplished for the School over the years, as we also welcome our new Marketing and Communications Manager, Phillip Crook , to our staff.

In closing, I want to again extend my heartfelt congratulations to the class of 2024 and to all members of our community on another successful academic year! I wish you all a rejuvenating summer.

Charlie White Regina and Marlin Miller Head of School School of Art Professor of Art Carnegie Mellon University

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By April Hunt  May 8, 2024

Emory political scientist Bernard Fraga will be researching and writing a book examining the link between political polarization and nonvoting.

The prestigious recognition includes a $200,000 stipend that will allow Fraga, an associate professor of political science at Emory College of Arts and Sciences, to devote significant time to researching and writing a new book in time for the 2026 election.

Tentatively titled “Why We Won’t Vote: Polarization, Non-Voting and the Future of American Democracy,” the proposed book will lay out Fraga’s research showing the link between rising polarization and the alienation that keeps potential voters from the polls. The research details a self-replicating cycle, incentivizing politicians on all levels to ignore the wishes of non-voters and cater to voter anger at political opponents.

The Carnegie Corporation established its fellows program in 2015 to provide philanthropic support to extraordinary scholars and writers for high-caliber research in the humanities and social sciences. In 2023, the program announced that it would focus on political polarization in the United States, committing up to $6 million annually for at least the next three years.

“Dr. Fraga’s research reminds us that a healthy democracy depends on engaged citizens. I’m delighted to see the Carnegie Foundation support this rigorous and cutting-edge research on political polarization,” says Emory College Dean Barbara Krauthamer.

Selected from more than 360 applications, Fraga’s Carnegie Fellow project will build on his first book, “ The Turnout Gap, ” which identified and discussed why racial and ethnic disparities in voter turnout persist.

The new book will combine more than a decade’s worth of individual voter turnout records, detailed in Census data, and information from new political science surveys to create a more accurate picture of who has not voted in recent American elections. The research will include chronic nonvoters who skip all elections and those who vote only in presidential years.

For instance, 80 million potential voters did not cast ballots in the 2020 election. Half of eligible 18- to 29-year-olds did not turn out, along with nearly half of Latinos, the nation’s largest racial/ethnic minority group.

Fraga will also include undergraduate research from the Mellon Foundation-funded Imagining Democracy Lab he runs with Emory historian Carol Anderson , the Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies.

Students in the lab conduct qualitative research, interviewing voters and nonvoters alike, to determine what they want to see from their elected officials — and what they are not getting.

Fraga expects some of those stories will illustrate the trends the data reveals.

“Folks who aren’t voting oftentimes have surprisingly moderate viewpoints relative to voters from the same demographic categories,” Fraga says. “Young people who don’t vote, for instance, oftentimes understand politics pretty well and have nuanced views on a number of issues. But they feel like neither party is advancing policies they favor or really listening to their concerns.”

Pairing the data with narratives from non-voters will help Fraga go further into the research and discuss specific tactics and techniques that candidates and campaigns can take to move beyond the current polarized environment.

To get a better picture of what Americans want to see from the democratic process, Fraga has been working with undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral researchers to gather and analyze ongoing voter file and survey data.

He will continue that work with the 2024 election, creating a tight turnaround for the book to be published in time for the midterm election.

“Emory has created an environment where I can work with fantastic students who care deeply about enhancing our democracy, not just nationally but in Georgia and Atlanta,” he says. “I’m grateful Carnegie is supporting those efforts by providing time to take that research to the next level.”

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Civil and Environmental Engineering

Undergraduate degree options.

As an undergraduate in either our BS in Environmental Engineering or BS in Civil Engineering programs, you will complete approximately two years of math and science and two years of engineering coursework. Students from both programs will work together in four hands-on project courses, one each fall. Taking advantage of free elective courses can also allow you to pursue an additional major or a minor from a variety of areas of study. Recent graduates have completed additional majors in Engineering and Public Policy, Psychology, and Technical Writing and minors in Architecture, Computer Science, and Business.

Some of our students also choose an additonal major or minor with our I ntegrative  De sign,  A rts and  Te chnology Network (IDeATe). This unique program connects diverse strengths across Carnegie Mellon University to advance education, research, and creative practice in domains that merge technology and arts expertise.

Motivated students who want to gain a competitive edge in their career can get a jump start with our Integrated BS/MS program. This program gives you an accelerated path to earn your master's degree seamlessly with your bachelor's degree.

Bachelor of Science (BS)

Civil engineering.

Our Bachelor of Science program in Civil Engineering  is an accredited and widely recognized degree program for entry into the civil engineering profession.

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Environmental Engineering

The new Bachelor of Science program in Environmental Engineering  integrates computing and data analytics with a traditional environmental engineering course of study. 

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Minor: Environmental and Sustainability Studies

The minor in Environmental and Sustainability Studies  offers an interdisciplinary approach to environmental and sustainability issues beyond a traditional engineering major degree program.

Six courses are required with offerings from a wide range of disciplines, including architecture, business, engineering and public policy, english, history, and philosophy.

Minor: Global Engineering

The  Global Engineering minor  prepares you to join an international community. Courses are designed to increase global awareness and international experiences.

Requirements include coursework in international management, ethics, modern language, as well as a study or work abroad experience.

• Visit the Undergraduate Course Catalog for ideas for other double majors and minors.

Concentrations and Minor: Interactive Design, Arts & Technology Network (IDeATe)

The  I ntegrative  De sign,  A rts and  Te chnology Network (IDeATe) connects diverse strengths across Carnegie Mellon University to advance education, research, and creative practice in domains that merge technology and arts expertise. IDeATe concentrations and minors  provide the opportunity for you to choose from creative industry themes such as intelligent environments, physical computing, and media design. Courses are focused on hands-on collaborative learning and are structured to combine students from many different disciplines.

IDeATe supports eight interrelated undergraduate concentration areas, all of which can also be taken as minors. The themes of these areas integrate knowledge in technology and arts: Game Design, Animation and Special Effects, Media Design, Sound Design, Learning Media, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Intelligent Environments, and Physical Computing.

Concentrations are completed by taking four courses, while minors require five courses.

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