creative writing classes in chicago

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8 Best Creative Writing Classes in Chicago

Showing 8 courses that match your search.

Writing the Taboo with Suzanne Robert

Story Studio Chicago

In this generative class, we will be focusing on creative nonfiction and memoir–writing about the topics we have been encouraged not to bring up in “polite conversation.” Through a series of generative writing exercises, we will break through the secrecy and shame that too often accompany taboo subjects.

Website: https://www.storystudiochicago.org/classes/classes/writin...

Categories: Memoir and Nonfiction

Start date:

Prerequisites: No prerequisites

2024 Youth Summer Camp: Sci-Fi/Fantasy ONLINE

Over the course of one week, writers will generate their own science fiction and fantasy pieces and workshop them with the help of their peers. They will learn the differences between the genres and read the works of notable authors.

Website: https://www.storystudiochicago.org/classes/youth/2024-you...

Categories: Book and Fiction

Dialogue Workout with Joseph Scapellato

This one-session course will take you through a rigorous but playful back-to-the-basics study of dialogue in fiction. We’ll review seven basic forms of dialogue, practice “dialogue on a slant,” and consider the distinct phases of a sequence of dialogue within a larger passage.

Website: https://www.storystudiochicago.org/classes/classes/dialog...

Categories: Book, Fiction, and Short Story

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How to Get Published

Chicago Writing Workshop

This is a special one-day “How to Get Published” writing workshop on Saturday, June 22, 2024, at the Congress Plaza Hotel. In other words, it’s one day full of classes and advice designed to give you the best instruction concerning how to get your writing & books published. We’ll discuss your publishing opportunities today, how to write queries & pitches, how to market yourself and your books, what makes an agent/editor stop reading your manuscript, and more.

Website: https://chicagowritingworkshop.com/2023/12/03/the-2024-wr...

Categories: Publishing

Let's Just Write! An Uncommon Writers Conference

Chicago Writers Association

Scheduled for March 22-24, 2024, at the Warwick Allerton Hotel in Chicago, this event is a dynamic gathering for aspiring writers. It includes a welcome reception, two days of workshops, panels, pitch sessions, master classes, and more. The conference aims to inspire and educate, covering a range of topics for writers of all levels. Registration includes meals and a banquet dinner, with an option for agent/publisher pitch sessions.

Website: https://cwa12.wildapricot.org/event-5383207

Categories: Fiction, Essay, Poetry, Nonfiction, Short Story, and Book

Business Case Writing Classroom Training

VistaEduTech

This comprehensive course, offered in Chicago, IL by various organizations like Zillionventure America Inc and VistaEdutech, is designed for professionals aiming to enhance their business case writing skills. The training focuses on practical support and face-to-face instruction, ensuring participants can effectively articulate business strategies and visions through compelling written cases. The course is suitable for a range of dates and venues, with a price range of $495 - $795, making it accessible to a diverse group of professionals.

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/business-case-writing-classr...

Categories: Business

Open all year round

Business Writing with Positive Impact

Training Connection

In this dynamic 1-day workshop, participants will learn the art of impactful business writing. Guided by professional instructors, students will engage in hands-on activities to master writing informative, persuasive, and effective business communications. The workshop concludes with students equipped to craft clear and audience-targeted letters, proposals, and reports.

Website: https://www.nobledesktop.com/classes-near-me/schools/trai...

Business Writing Training

Academy for Professionals

This one-day, face-to-face training session offers a comprehensive overview of business writing. It covers a range of topics from basic writing concepts to creating various business documents. The course is designed for participants of all levels, with no formal prerequisites. Attendees receive a manual with slides, reference materials, and a course completion certificate​​​​​​​​​​.

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/business-writing-1-day-train...

So you’re looking for creative writing classes in Chicago

In the early twentieth century, critic H.L. Mencken made a case in The Nation that Chicago was the “literary capital of the United States of America.” Though many things have changed about this towering city since then, this aspect hasn’t: Chicago has inspired authors for decades, and will continue to do so in the future. So what better way to ride that wave than to take a writing class in Chicago?

This directory of the best writing courses in Chicago is meant to help you locate the right one for yourself.  We’ve included filters for price and genre so that you can quickly sort through the writing classes. And before you commit to any one writing class, consider the following questions:

• Who is the instructor?
• What is the price of the writing course?
• How far away is the writing course in Chicago? Is there a remote alternative?
• How long could the course last?

Got any questions about finding the right writing class in Chicago for you? Feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] . Good luck!

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“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.”

Jerry Cleaver’s

The Writers’ Loft

Chicago’s longest running and most successful writing workshop Featuring Mary Carter , Loft graduate & NY Times bestselling author

If you live in or near Albuquerque New Mexico and are interested in future in-person workshops email: [email protected] I've been teaching this wonderful workshop since 2011 in New York City, North Carolina, and Chicago. I've met amazing people, I've helped a few achieve their goals of finishing and even helped a few get published. I'm also in the fortunate position of being a working novelist and I need to take the Spring and Summer to work on a new project. I will be suspending this workshop until the Fall of 2021. A few things are in play that may alter the future of the workshop and I should have all the info I need by August of 2021. Please check back to this site for more details then. In the mean-time I'd recommend a copy of Immediate Fiction by Jerry Cleaver and just keep writing! If you want to be put on a waiting list for future workshops please email me at [email protected] . Cheers, Mary Carter aka Carlene O'Connor New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Coach/Owner The Writers Loft Chicago

You want to write but you have no time.

When you do find time, you just can't drag yourself to the desk.

If you do get going, your writing starts strong, but becomes such a mess you don't know whether to keep working or dump it all and start something new.

You write lots of bits and pieces, but none of them fit together into a meaningful whole.

You have training (workshops, college courses, or even a degree in creative writing) but little or nothing you write gets published.

You haven't taken a class because you're not sure where to turn or what to do first. One thing you do know is you want to get the right start so you don't waste a lot of time working on things that don't matter.

GET SOLUTIONS to these and any other writing problems.

Jerry in China

Jerry’s book, Immediate Fiction , is the bestselling writing book in China. Here’s the banner they used on his book tour to Beijing and Shanghai where he gave student seminars at the five major universities plus special professional writers and writing professors conferences and writing teachers' workshops.

Only one workshop (originated in Chicago) has mentored 40+ novels and 5 nonfiction titles into print by major publishers — plus an Emmy winner.

"Simply brilliant. Brilliantly simple." Donal Harding, winner of Paris Afton Bonds Screenplay Award

"I recommend it to everyone who writes." Linda Lael Miller, NY Times bestselling author, 12 million+ books in print

"Simply the best workshop ever." Nicole Hollander, nationally syndicated cartoonist, creator of Sylvia

"Proves there is method to this madness." Tim Kazurinsky, Saturday Night Live writer, screenwriter

"Better than all my writing classes combined." Donald Catherall, Back from the Brink (Bantam)

"The best storyman ever." Jane Leder, Brothers and Sisters (St. Martins), Dead Serious (Atheneum)

"A powerful motivator." Laura Caldwell, Burning the Map and A Clean Slate (Red Dress Ink)

"Demystifies the story process." Michele Fitzsimmons, winner of Illinois Arts Council Award

Taught by NY Times bestselling author Mary Carter, The Writers’ Loft gives writers of all levels the crucial skills that make every story and every writer a success. Learn everything you need to unlock your imagination and bring your ideas to life on the page, stage, or screen.

MORE THAN A WORKSHOP, The Writers’ Loft is a writer's community. It's a place for you to be with other writers, have your work presented, and get the support, guidance, and coaching you need to write successfully in all genres and all media, including novels, short stories, screenplays, stage plays, biography, memoir, nonfiction. Plus you get insider help and advice on how to market your work and how to make those all-important connections to agents, editors, and publishers.

Jerry Cleaver created The Writers’ Loft 20 years ago. It’s been turning out published authors ever since.

Jerry cleaver.

Teacher of Professional Fiction at Northwestern University for ten years.

Teacher of special seminars for Writer's Digest, published articles in the Writer's Digest Magazine, and featured in the Writer's Digest Yearbook.

Creator of the worldwide "Write Your Novel Now" online course (students in Alaska, New Zealand, Turkey, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Ireland, England, Canada, India).

Creator and leader of the Fiction Writing for Lawyers seminar series.

Very sadly, Jerry is no longer with us. He is greatly missed by his family, friends and students. (Read more here .)

At the request of Jerry and his family, writer and teacher Mary Carter has come to Chicago to carry on his work at the Writers’ Loft.

Author — published in various magazines, and ghostwritten for several books.

Mary Carter

I followed Jerry Cleaver’s unique course when I was writing my first novel, She'll Take It (Kensington Books). It was published in 2006 and since then I have published over 22 titles and have become a USA Today bestselling author under my pen name Carlene O'Connor. My work has been translated into 7 languages, and my anthologized novellas were New York Times bestsellers for several weeks in a row. You can read more about me at  marycarterbooks.com or carleneoconnor.net

I received personal training from Jerry in his Writers’ Loft workshop methods, and since then I have been leading successful workshops in New York and Wilmington, North Carolina. Jerry continued to train, coach and mentor me the whole time.

I am honored and thrilled to be chosen as the only person other than Jerry ever to teach at the Writers’ Loft. I feel a special responsibility to Jerry — and to Writers’ Loft students.

I follow Jerry's methods closely because I know from my own experience as a writer that they work. And I know from my experience as a teacher that they can work for you. That's why I strive to match the dedication, enthusiasm, empathy and insight that Jerry showed me — and every student.

Here's the thing — you can try The Writers’ Loft workshop with me for free. Just come to the first class and see what you think. You don't pay anything unless you return for the next class. So why not? To sign up, email me at [email protected] . Sessions fill up fast!

"After being stuck for years, I am now 150 pages into my first draft. Mary created just the right atmosphere." Martin Gavin, President of NYC's StarCom

"Mary Carter is a gifted writer and incredibly talented coach/mentor/instructor." Megan Cunningham, CEO/Founder of Magnet Media, Inc

"Mary efficiently revived my writing career." Craig Dixon, author of "Notes by a Nomad" and "Shorts"

Six 2 1/2 hour workshop sessions, plus all the help you need outside of class.

Each session meets from 7:00 PM to 9:30 PM. Each class consists of three things:

Specific story techniques presented and explored through examples and discussion.

Presentation of writing with feedback and coaching using Jerry's innovative feedback techniques. Mary reads your writing to the class, anonymously, so no one is put on the spot or forced to present their own writing.

In-class writing. The last half hour is committed to writing, using your own idea or one of the dramatic setups provided.

Each class ends with this half hour of writing to put you into the process of writing, get you loosened up, and create some momentum that will carry over to the outside. One Writers’ Loft student took a class exercise and expanded it into a novel ( The Leaving Summer by Donal Harding) that was published by William Morrow. Another student entered 21 pages of her in-class writing in the Illinois Arts Council Awards and won $7,000.

Sample the Course

A good story cannot be denied. Like falling in love, it's irresistible. It touches your heart before it reaches your head. You're drawn in — whether you want to be or not. And you're not asking yourself, "Is it good?" or "Is it real?" because you're part of the story, living and feeling it with the characters. That's the kind of story you'll learn to write in The Writers’ Loft. The craft and techniques you'll learn are those used by all great writers.

Fine. But how does it work?

A Touch of Craft

Here's an example that will give you a feel for the most critical story ingredient of them all. It's the single force that will turn any idea into a dramatic story every time. Without it no story, no matter how beautifully written, can succeed. I can do this in a couple of ways. I can give you a definition, a concept, a model. But, stories aren't ideas. They're not concepts or definitions. They're experience. So, rather than tell you how a story works, I'm going to show you—show you by giving you a little story to see how much of an experience I can cause you to have. Here's the story:

My wife and I have a friend named Larry who just went through a horrendous divorce. My wife ran into him at the mall. He looked terrible—sad and despondent. He sounded even worse than he looked, so she invited him over for dinner to try to cheer him up.

Larry's an old friend, so we know what he likes. My wife cooked his favorite food and I bought a bottle of his favorite scotch. We had a nice dinner and let Larry know we would be there for him whenever he needed us. He could call anytime night or day. No matter what, we would be there to help him through this. Larry felt better. We felt better. He went home happy. We went to bed happy. It was a great night, all around, for everybody. That's the end of the story.

How was it? Moving? Compelling? Dramatic? Did you identify? Were you gripped? Did you have the kind of experience you want from a story?

The answer, of course, is NO. You did not have an experience. You did not connect. You did not identify. You could not. The reason you could not was: I purposely gave you a dead story. So, the effect was boredom and maybe irritation. The cause was a dead story. I presented you with an experience that left you cold, with a mistake. Why? Because mistakes are what we start with.

We make mistakes, constantly. First drafts are loaded with them. Hemingway said, "The first draft is shit." If Hemingway's first drafts were shit, you shouldn't be expecting any better from yourself. Expecting too much is the surest way to get discouraged and blocked. The other reason I started with a mistake is: We learn more from our mistakes than our successes—not from the mistakes themselves, but from fixing them. Experiencing perfect writing will not teach you what you need to know. If it did, all you would have to do is read great writers and you'd be a great writer. I know people who read great literature all the time but can't write worth a damn.

Fine. So where do we go from here? Well, if I'm right, if I know what I'm doing, I should be able to show you how to turn this mistake into an involving story. But, before I do, consider...

Next: Making It Happen

Making it happen.

What's needed to turn this dead story into something with some energy, some drama? Detail, dialogue, emotion? Well, I could give you reams of detail and keep it as dull as it is. Dialogue? I could have them talking all night and far into the next day and you would be even more bored than you were. Emotion? Well, it has emotion. We're happy, satisfied, fulfilled. How much more do you want of happy, happy, happy?

Before I give you my answer, why don't you work on one of your own. See what you can do to give this dead story some energy. Think about what you could do, or you can actually write it out. You can write the whole thing out or you can just jot down some general ideas about how it should go—plan it out without doing it word for word.

Here's another version of the same story. See if I can get you more involved. In this version...

I've got a touch of bronchitis or flu the day Larry is coming for dinner. I'm not feeling great, so I stay home to rest up so I won't let Larry down.

Now, the flu is a minor detail, but I want you to decide whether you want it in or out. You don't have to have a reason—just a feeling. A few people usually go for the flu, but not many. Remember, this is not flu we're talking about. This is story and in story, everything counts. Nothing is along for the ride. So, the flu is in.

Larry comes over. We have a few drinks. He and my wife are both smokers. Before we get to dinner, they run out of cigarettes. "I'll go get them," I say. "I want to get out of this haze and clear my lungs."

Smokers is the next element. Yes or no? A few more go for it than the flu.

OK, so I head out for the corner store to get their smokes. It's a nice walk. I get their cigarettes and head back, but instead of walking up the front walk, I decide to take the shortcut down the alley.

OK, next item: Alley in or out? Pretty much everybody goes for the alley. Why? The answer to that is at the very heart of successful storytelling. It's not alley, not flu, not smokers. It's story.

So, I'm walking down the alley, relaxing, breathing fresh air, looking at the yards. Now, our kitchen sticks out from the back of the house and has a window in which I can see Larry and my wife. As I come through the yard, I see they're having a rather intense conversation. My wife is especially lively. I haven't seen her that bubbly in months.

OK, what's on your mind right now? What are you thinking? Let me guess. You're thinking, hanky-panky, fooling around, touching, embracing, kissing, etc. Right? Not only are you thinking it, but you're wanting it. Oh, yes. Not only do you give me the flu, make me walk down the alley, but you throw my marriage into crisis by making my wife unfaithful. Maybe not in reality, but in story, we prefer cheating to loyalty—always. We want chemistry, passion, fireworks! You don't go to the amusement park to ride the merry-go-round. You go to ride the roller coaster.

Next: The Active Ingredient

< previous

The Active Ingredient

I knew what you were thinking, not because I read your mind, but because I know how people work and how stories work. I led you there—with story. I gave you an experience that hooked you in. Something you can learn to do every time by mastering the story craft.

Fine, so far, but where do we go from here? We left me standing there, watching my wife talking to Larry. What's next? Well, I've raised your expectations, so I have to give you what you want—or something better. Let's go with the kiss.

My wife says something. Larry laughs, opening his arms. They embrace and have a nice long kiss.

What now? She kisses Larry. End of story. Yes? No? Why not? I'm sure you know in your heart, it's not over. Your heart is a good guide. It might be enough for an obvious example like this—might be. But when it's not obvious, when it gets subtle and tricky, when you get lost, it's never enough. To be a successful storyteller, you have to know in story terms, why it's not over. So, what has to happen to complete this story, to give it a bang-up ending? How about this:

I figure, "Heck with it. What do I care? Everybody cheats. Look at Clinton." Then I go in, we have a nice dinner, pledge our friendship to Larry, and wind up good friends just like before.

A satisfying ending? Maybe the characters are satisfied, but we are not and no reader will be either. All right. If this story is going to hold someone, I have to care, to feel betrayed, and go in and do something about it. Stories are about doing, always. It could go like this:

"Hi, guys," I say happily as I come in. "Here's the smokes."

They thank me and both light up. Larry pours himself some scotch.

"How'd it go while I was gone?" I say, flopping into a kitchen chair.

"Fine," my wife says.

"How about you, Lar? Enjoy yourself in my absence?"

He glances at my wife. "I did," he says.

"Good. I was worried you might get lonely. But when I saw you through the window, I could see you didn't need me to entertain you."

"Well," Larry says. "We both missed you and we're glad you're back."

"That's right, honey," my wife says. "It's not the same without you."

"Of course not," I say. "Say, hand me the butcher knife, darling."

"Butcher knife, what for?"

"No reason. I just feel like holding it."

"Don't be silly," she says.

"No, really. Indulge me."

"Will you stop," she says.

"Stop what? You don't trust me with a knife? What is this: No sharp objects for the lunatic?"

"Very funny," she says.

Larry stares at me, smiling weakly.

"Afraid I'll hurt myself — slit my wrists — or my throat? What do you think, Lar? Can I be trusted with a knife in my own kitchen with my best friend and my loyal wife?"

"Of course, you can," Larry says flatly, then downs his scotch.

"Damn right. Hear that, angel? Larry trusts me. He trusts you. We all trust each other. So pass me the knife, sweets."

Next: The Crucial Difference

The crucial difference.

LIFEBLOOD OF EVERY STORY — AND EVERY WRITER

All right, let's stop here. The story's not over yet. It can go in many directions. Each writer will do it his or her own way. But no matter which way it goes it must fulfill the basic story requirements or it will fail.

For now, the question is: what's the difference between this last version and the first? Can you see it? It's not details. It's not dialogue. It's not emotion. I left it out when I raised this question earlier so you could experience it first. The first version — happy, happy, happy — left us cold. The last — trouble, trouble, trouble — got to us. What does that tell us?

It tells us that you must have conflict to create an engaging, compelling story. Conflict. We all know what conflict is, right? Your wife calls you an insensitive slob. You get run off the expressway on the way to work. Your boss tells you you'd better get your work up to par or you'll be out of a job. Your mother disinherits you.

Well, guess what, none of those is conflict, our kind of conflict — dramatic conflict. Oh, those examples are troubling, disturbing, upsetting, but none of them is what's needed to set a story in motion. They're false conflict. Trying to create a story from false conflict is like dragging a dead horse around a racetrack: You might get to the finish line, but you'll never win a race.

Even though every writing teacher and every writing book will tell you that conflict is the necessary ingredient, it remains the single, most misunderstood, most deceptive part of all storytelling. It's the reason why writers write as many duds as hits and why there are so many feeble stories limping around.

Conflict is deceptive because: All conflict is trouble but all trouble is not conflict. What we think of as conflict in everyday experience — disagreements, arguments, insults, shouting matches, even fistfights — are not dramatic conflict. They can be turned into dramatic conflict — anything can, once you know how — but dramatic conflict is a different creature entirely. Dramatic conflict is made up of several elements. Get one wrong, and no matter how brilliantly you write, your story will fall flat.

Because it is the source of everything that happens in story, understanding, creating, and using dramatic conflict is at the heart of The Writers’ Loft.

Conflict is critical but how your story is presented on the page is also critical. That brings us to our last example.

Next: You Can Do This

Experience vs. ideas.

If I said, Francesca was uncomfortable in her marriage especially when it came to sex, it might get your attention, but only because you'd want to know more. If that statement, that idea, were as far as it went, it wouldn't be very satisfying because it's an idea about her marriage and not the experience of it. If I wanted to give you the experience of her and her marriage, I would have to put it in Francesca's personal terms, give you her specific experience, which is what every successful story must do. Here's how one of my students did it:

Sex had never been Francesca's forte. In fact, she had to admit to her rather drab reflection in the bathroom mirror as she stood brushing her teeth, sex wasn't even her mediumte — if there were such a word. No. She paused in her brushing, listening for the sound of Jack's snoring, hoping for the snoring, waiting for the snoring.

No snoring.

Francesca began brushing again. No. The fact was she wasn't good at sex at all. Never had been. And, as she looked again at her reflection — gray hair mixed freely with the brown, lines fanning out from the corners of her eyes, the sag underneath her chin-she realized now that she was 43, she was never going to get good at it. She spit in the sink and listened again for the sound of snoring. In vain.

It wasn't that she wanted to be this way.

And hadn't she enjoyed Jack — his kisses, the warm feel of his body in bed, the simple touch of his hand with the swirled scar from the time he went over the handle bars of his bike at 12 and landed with a stick piercing his palm?

Yes, she had enjoyed Jack, at one time at least. But that had been, what? A year ago? Two? Maybe two and a half.

Maybe she just needed to adjust her attitude.

"Hey, what's going on in there? Did you drown yourself?" Jack called.

Yes, adjust her attitude — be positive. Maybe sex would be…nice for a change.

"Did you flush yourself down the toilet?" Jack called again. "I sure hope not 'cause big daddy is out here waiting for you."

Positive attitude. Francesca smiled to the mirror, flicked off the bathroom lights, and stepped into the bedroom.

"There you are," he said, looking up from the Outdoor Sportsman magazine he had in his hand.

"Here I am." Francesca kept smiling. He had already pushed all the covers down to the foot of the bed — the way she hated — and was lying on top of the top sheet in nothing but his boxers and round-framed glasses.

"Big daddy's ready for some fun." He smiled and wiggled his thin hips on the bed.

"I've told you I don't like it when you say that."

"Say what?" he grinned.

"What?" He patted the side of the bed next to him.

"Big daddy," Francesca said through her teeth. "It's really not a turn on." She walked around his scattered clothes — shirt, pants, half curled-up belt — on the floor.

"Big daddy," he said, smiling.

by A. C. Paterson

There you have it. Which hits home, the idea or the experience? (Notice also that there's conflict throughout.) Being able to create an experience in this way is another of the several essential tools you must master to succeed as a writer. All of them are at the heart of The Writers’ Loft.

You Can Do This

That's the most important thing to keep in mind. Storytelling is an acquired skill and not an inborn talent. You don't have to be brilliant or write a brilliant story. You just have to master enough craft to tell a good enough story. Plenty of writers of average intelligence are making lots of money writing mediocre stories. Look around. They're not hard to find. Unlike the other arts (music, painting, dance, etc.) where you must have an inborn ability, to be a successful storyteller, you have what you need already. You don't have to know how to play the piano or paint a portrait to get along in the world, but you'd better understand yourself, how people work, how the world works if you're going to make it in this life. In fact, if you've survived this long, you have at least 10 novels in you. You have a full set of emotions and plenty of dramatic, painful, and exciting experience to draw on. That doesn't mean you have to write about yourself. Even if you're creating Martians, it all comes from your imagination. They're your Martians and your Martians are unlike all others.

You have what you need already, but you must learn how to use it. That means developing the skills to get in touch with your imagination and to bring it to life on the page. So, it's not what you have, but learning how to use it. All you need is the desire. The Writers’ Loft gives you everything else.

Classes are now forming. To register or for more information please email me at [email protected] or call 206.618.3747.

You Also Get

Audio files that cover the critical elements of storytelling. Play them as you ride in your car or on your phone or iPod. The more you listen the more you learn. A great way to perfect your skills and technique while you're doing other things.

STORY HELP LINE. Call any time for help with any writing problem. Get the help you need when you need it. No need to wait until the next class. Call any time for personal help with any and every writing problem whether it's trouble with your story or yourself. Don't sit there and suffer. Remember no writing problem is too big to conquer and no problem is too small to disable you. This is Mary's specialty. Call any time and let Mary get you back on the track.

PERSONAL CONFERENCES. Unlimited personal conferences. Personalized help tailored to your needs of the moment and the future. Help finding your subject, setting your goals, and dealing with any other writing problems.

OUTSIDE WRITING HELP. Get feedback and coaching with outside writing. If you already have a story, you will get the coaching and guidance you need to get it into shape and off to market.

The first class is free. Any time you miss a class you are able to attend that class the next time it is presented.

FULL MARKETING STRATEGY. Taking one Writers’ Loft workshop entitles you to full marketing help and guidance - even if you're no longer in the workshop. Whenever you have a novel, short story, screenplay, or stage play ready, Mary will give you everything you need to market your work and help you short cut the submission process and get your story a serious read by agents, editors, and publishers.

How You Learn, What You Learn, and More

What You Learn

STORY CRAFT AND TECHNIQUE. Plot, character, dramatic momentum. The source of all drama. The few dramatic forces that will turn any idea into a compelling story.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS. Overcoming doubt, fear, and panic. Techniques to overcome resistance, stop fighting yourself, and get the flow going the moment you sit down.

SELF-COACHING AND SELF-EDITING. Learn to stop torturing yourself when it doesn't come out the way you wanted. Learn to trust your own emotional radar to find that dramatic potential that's always in your work and learn how to use it to bring your story to life on the page every time.

REWRITING TECHNIQUES. Turning drudgery into excitement and inspiration. Rewriting is the best part. Once you know how, rewriting becomes re-exciting.

THE ESSENCE OF CHARACTER. What's needed to bring characters to life in all their depth and complexity. How to make the deepest, most personal connection to your characters.

SHORT STORY TO NOVEL, STAGE PLAY OR SCREENPLAY. How to turn any short story or story idea into the longer form without stressing, straining, or padding. Plus the easiest (and hardest) kind of novel to write and the easiest (and hardest) kind of novel to sell. What makes literature literature (exactly what it takes to write literary fiction.) How to write a bestseller. And how to write down-and-dirty, commercial fiction with the least pain and most pleasure in the least amount of time if that's your goal.

UNIVERSAL PLOT FORMS. Aristotle, quoted in nearly every writing book and by every writing teacher, said there were six fundamental plots. Learn what even Aristotle didn't know — but Shakespeare did and so did Tolstoy, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald and many, many others. Learn how simple and easy it is to create compelling plots.

ORIGINALITY. What is it? Do you have it? (In a word: Yes. It's already there inside you. All you need are the tools to uncover it.) You're full of original ideas. You'll see how originality, this often intimidating concern, is easily achieved when you learn how to unlock your imagination and turn it loose on the page.

WORK METHODS. How to approach your story idea. (Should you outline, know the end first, write straight through before revising, have a plan, just jump in and go, write from a premise, have a theme in mind, etc). What you need to know before you start and what you don't.

MANAGING TIME. Where to find it (yes, it's there) and how to use it. Learn how you can write the first draft of a novel in just minutes a day in one year, regardless of your busy schedule and have fun doing it.

POINT OF VIEW. The ins and outs of this often confused and poorly explained story dimension made simple.

DEAD-WEIGHT. Learn the things that sound good but only serve to confuse, impede, or even disable you. Advice and misconceptions that many writers hold dear and struggle against that you need to be aware of and ignore.

Next: How You Learn

How you learn.

LECTURE AND DISCUSSION. In the first part of each workshop session, a specific technique is presented using concrete, clear-cut examples so you can see and apply these techniques directly to your writing. This approach demystifies the process, eliminates the guesswork, and puts the pleasure and satisfaction back in.

IN-CLASS WRITING. We end each session by writing for the last half-hour. Putting words on the page is what it's all about so we end by putting you in the process to get you loosened up and create some momentum that will carry over to the outside. This is your time to write anything you want, but a number of dramatic, provocative scene and story setups are given each time to help you get going if you need them.

WORKSHOP OF THE WRITING. It's not just feedback. The single, best way to master the story craft. Special techniques for actually practicing your craft and developing your skills and your ideas while considering some one else's work even though you're not putting words on the page. You will not be required or pressured to present your own work. All writing is presented by Jerry and is presented anonymously so the members can be relaxed and focus on the craft. Emphasis is on your own immediate, spontaneous response, which is where every story lives or dies. Like falling in love, you shouldn't have to be mulling it over or asking yourself, Is it working? Again, it's all about learning to trust your emotional radar and use it to turn any idea into a dramatic, compelling story.

STORY HELP LINE. Mary is a full time writer and workshop leader. She's around all the time, which means you can call any time and get the help you need without waiting until the next class. Getting the help when you need it is a great catalyst in developing your skills.

PERSONAL CONFERENCES In-person conferences about any and all writing problems. Get help with picking ideas, setting goals, scheduling, etc, to make sure you're not working against yourself and setting yourself up for failure with unrealistic expectations.

Next: Do You Have What It Takes?

Do you have what it takes.

What does it take to be a successful writer? Two things: motivation + story craft. I know you've heard about talent and of course it does exist but you don't need it to be successful, even very successful, in this art. Unlike the other arts (music, painting, dance, etc.) where you must have a special inborn talent to succeed, no special talent is needed to be a successful writer. How can that be? That's because the very skills you need to get along in the world are exactly what you need to be a successful storyteller. You don't have to know how to play the guitar or paint a landscape to survive, but you must know how people work, how you work, and how the world works. If you didn't, you wouldn't have made it this far. And because you've made it this far, you've got at least ten novels in you. You may not feel it. But trust me, they're there.

They're there because you have a full set of emotions, plenty of dramatic and exciting experience, and a rich imagination. Getting in touch with what you have is what The Writers’ Loft workshops are all about. Your emotions, your experience, your imagination, and the desire to write are all you need to create successful novels, short stories, screenplays, stage plays, biographies, memoirs, and nonfiction - plus one more critical skill. Story craft and technique. That's what you get at The Writers’ Loft in the quickest, easiest, most enjoyable way possible.

Now I'm not knocking talent. It does exist and if you have it, it's a bonus. But talent alone, talent without craft, will never do the job. I've had many talented, gifted writers who don't take the time to master the story craft and because they don't, they never bring their ideas to life on the page and they never get published. Beautiful writing will not save a dead story. A beautiful corpse is still a dead body. No matter how pretty you make it, it's never going rise up and do something exciting.

And of course talent comes into play if you're trying to win a Pulitzer Prize or the National Book Award. But few writers win those prizes - just as few actors ever win an Oscar but still go on to make fortunes in the movies.

Also, you may have noticed when you read novels or go to movies, there are plenty of average writers writing mediocre stories and making lots of money doing it. The competition isn't that tough. You can do it. You have what you need already. Come to the Writers Loft and get the skills to unlock your imagination and bring your ideas to life on the page, stage, or screen.

Next: Philosophy

It's not just a philosophy but a method — a method that works. A method that has produced many successful, prize-winning writers. At the heart of this method is the understanding that there is no such thing as a bad idea. Every idea has potential and dramatic possibilities. How can that be true? It's true because any and every idea can be shaped, reshaped, added to, subtracted from until it becomes dramatic and compelling.

If you don't believe me, Sample the Course for a demonstration of exactly how it's done. Also, to survive (to do your best work and have a good time doing it), you must cultivate a state of mind in which you're always looking for the possibilities and potential in your writing and not beating yourself up because it didn't come out the way you wanted. You must address the weaknesses, but the question must always be "What do I have and what can it become" "How do I make this work?"

In Printers' Row, just south of the Loop.

Important update: due to the current covid-19 pandemic all classes will be held over zoom meeting.

New Address. The Writers Loft is now located in Printers Row in downtown Chicago.

The Pope Building 633 South Plymouth Court #1002 (10th Floor) Chicago, 60605

Close to all train lines at Harold Washington Library stop at State/Van Buren and close to the Harrison Red line stop. Also close to the Metra. Parking lot across the street or metered street parking. Ask Mary for more details.

And guess what? It really does meet in a loft!

The Writers Loft has moved out of Chicago, but don’t fret, I will be starting Zoom workshops!

See yellow box for next date and email [email protected] to register. First class free to try, for those continuing the tuition is $575. Six consecutive weeks.

Can’t wait?

The Writers Loft Workshop—Solo

Do The Writers Loft program solo through pre-recorded videos Take as long as you want through it up to one year Zoom meetings as necessary to check-in and answer questions Unlimited e-mail contact Assignments with critique 10-page critique at the end Same cost of $575—1st workshop is free

Story problem consult via Zoom—The “Writers Couch” $95 40 min Zoom, let’s talk it out

10-page critique $95

Query letter critique $15

The best measure of a workshop is the success of its students.

Loft Successes: more than 40 novels*, 5 nonfiction titles*, plus an Emmy winner *All major publishers. Self publishing doesn’t count at the Loft.

How do you judge a workshop?

You may have never had a workshop and may have little or no idea what to look for. Or you may have had a workshop or two or even a bunch and still not be sure what you need and what works. Or you may feel you know what you need, but how can you tell if that's what you'll get from any particular workshop?

What is the best way to choose? What's the best measure of a workshop's effectiveness?

If your goal is to be a successful writer, then only one thing matters: Results. Learning the right skills to get you there as quickly and as painlessly as possible. And that can only be measured by the accomplishments of the students who have studied at that workshop.

Here is what a few of those who have studied at The Writers’ Loft have to say:

I recommend it to everyone who writes." Linda Lael Miller, author of eight New York Times bestsellers. Over 12 million books in print.

"The best there is." Michael Harvey, Emmy winner, writer for Academy Award nominated documentary Eyewitness , novelist.

"Without Jerry I never would have published at all." Josh Landsman, playwright, author of Frank Talk About Matters Big and Small (Organic Theatre, Chicago).

"A powerful motivator." Laura Caldwell, author of Burning the Map and A Clean Slate (Red Dress Ink), The Year of Living Famously (November, 2004), Look Closely (June, 2005).

"Simply brilliant. Brilliantly simple." Donal Harding, author of The Leaving Summer (Wm Morrow) and winner of the Paris Afton Bonds Screenplay Award.

"The best storyman ever." Jane Leder, author of Brothers and Sisters (St. Martins - nonfiction) and Dead Serious (Atheneum - nonfiction - rated one of the top ten books of the year by The National Library Board).

"Demystifies the story process." Michele Fitzsimmons, winner of $7,000 Illinois Arts Council Award for 21 pages of The Writers’ Loft in-class writing.

"Better than all my English and writing classes combined." Donald Catherall, author of Back from the Brink (Bantam).

"Simply the best workshop ever." Nicole Hollander, nationally syndicated cartoonist, creator of Sylvia .

Here are some endorsements from those who have the expertise to know:

"Plainly gifted." C. Michael Curtis, senior editor of The Atlantic Monthly .

"A true story master." Bernard Sabath, Broadway playwright, author of The Boys in Autumn , starring George C. Scott and John Cullum.

"Proves there is method to this madness." Tim Kazurinsky, Saturday Night Live writer and performer, screenwriter for About Last Night (Tri Star), For Keeps (Tri Star), and The Cherokee Kid , HBO special.

"Stretches your limits." Bob Condor, Columnist, Chicago Tribune .

We meet on Zoom. The cost for the entire course is $575.  You can put it on a charge card if you want.  If you charge it, you can spread the payments out over five months.  Five payments bring it down to $115 a month.  If you were to take a course like this at Northwestern or another university, the cost would be over $6,000.

The right coaching and guidance is critical to your writing success. So, come try it and see. You have nothing to lose and much to gain.

To try the first class for free, email [email protected] or call Mary Carter at 206.618.3747.

Creative Writing

A haven for writers of all genres and ambitions

*Flexible payment available

ENROLL NOW TO RECEIVE A 5% TUITION REDUCTION

Imbue your writing with imagination and range.

Craft writing that is distinct and well-developed..

Stories are timeless and eternal. They are touchstones, formed by time and place, which reflect upon the human experience. Creative writing is an asset in all professional fields throughout diverse positions. The ability to craft intriguing, memorable prose remains one of the most enduring forms of human expression. Learn to conceive and develop integral elements of a story, including plotline, characters, symbolism, setting, and atmosphere.

Our Approach to Online Learning

Optimize your time with a mode of study that allows you to explore content and complete tasks at your own pace.

Interactive

Our interactive content includes videos from instructors at the University of Chicago as well as materials that enable you to learn through real-world examples.

Personalized

Throughout the program, the teaching assistant will serve as a valuable resource to clarify any questions and provide feedback on your work.

Meet Your Instructor

Sarah Terez Rosenblum, MFA

Sarah Terez Rosenblum’s work has appeared in literary magazines such as The Normal School, Prairie Schooner (shortlisted for the publication’s Summer 2020 Creative Nonfiction Prize), Diagram , Brevity, Third Coast , and Carve. In 2022, Rosenblum was shortlisted for StoryQuarterly ’s annual fiction contest. She has written for sites that include Salon, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Satirist, and Pop Matters .

Pushcart Prize-nominated, she earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Rosenblum is a creative coach and developmental editor. She also teaches creative writing at Story Studio, where she was voted 2022 Teacher of the Year, and at the University of Chicago Writer’s Studio. Rosenblum’s novel, Herself When She’s Missing , was called “poetic and heartrending” by Booklist . 

Unique Program Features

Live sessions and workshops.

Engage in live sessions and workshops that provide the opportunity to pose questions and exchange ideas.

Practical application

Practice specific craft points and explore the drafting process through weekly writing exercises.

Personalized guidance

Receive feedback from your instructors about the development of your writing.

Learning Outcomes

• Reveal character through action.
• Establish setting through characters’ physicality.
• Write dynamic scenes.
• Create dialogue that reveals character and furthers plot.
• Recognize and use imagery and symbolic language.

After completing the course, you will be able to:

Create a strategy for your organization that makes use of AI to accomplish business goals

Build a team for success in an AI world

Choose the best areas for early-stage development and understand how to scale AI solutions

Earn a certificate of completion from the University of Chicago and become part of the UChicago network

Course Modules

Introduction to Writing and Crafting Character

• Things to Consider Before Writing
• Introduction to Character
• Description
• Internal Response

Point of View

• Introduction to Point of View
• First Person
• Third Person
• Less Common Points of View: Second Person
• Less Common Points of View: First Person Plural
• Focalization
• Writing Practice

Setting and Mood

• Starting with Setting
• Creating Setting
• Analysis of Setting in The Road
• Introduction to Workshop
• Introduction to Plot
• Basic Plot Arcs
• Denouement and Resolution
• Conflict and Tension
• Change and Imagery
• The Hero’s Journey
• Introduction to Dialogue
• Dialogue and Action
• Creating Tension with Dialogue
• Dialogue and Subtext
• Issues in Dialogue

Voice and Tone

• Introduction to Tone and Voice
• Authorial Voice and Character Voice
• Finding Your Voice
• Strong Story Starts
• Writing Practice: Drafting

Imagery, Symbolism, and Theme

• Introduction to Imagery and Theme
• Figurative Language
• Systems of Imagery: “In the White Night”
• Building Your Own Systems of Imagery
• Writing Practicen

Time Movement and Literary Magazines

• Simple Scene Movement
• Introduction to Flashbacks
• The Mechanics of Flashbacks
• Writing Practice: Submitting Your Work
• Writing Practice: Beyond this Course

This course is designed for:

Individuals with diverse aspirations, backgrounds, and skills interested in exploring writing in an easily accessible way

Learners from all walks of life with curiosity and enthusiasm toward writing, communication, literature, and the art of crafting a story

Experienced writers looking to hone their skills and elevate their expression.

Participant Experiences

Flexible payment options available.

PROGRAM FEE

Any discounts will be applied at checkout.

Pay in Full

Pay in 2 installments.

The Writing Place

Resources for writers in the chicago-area, greater chicago plays host to numerous events, workshops, services, and spaces for writers of all types. below is an annotated list of some of our favorites..

If you are aware of other Chicago-area resources you’d like us to highlight, email us at [email protected] .

Literary Organizations & Writers’ Workshops

Chicago dramatists  .

Through workshops, residencies, and classes, Chicago Dramatists assist aspiring playwrights and producers to develop and hone their craft. And for those who just love going to the theatre, their  Saturday Reading Series  is open to the public.

The Chicago Writers Association

The Chicago Writers Association is made up of both published and amateur writers of all types and is open to anyone who wishes to join. Members can participate in the CWA’s annual speakers bureau, enter the association’s Book of the Year contest, and may be published in the  Write City e-zine  or  Windy City Writer’s blog . Members are also able to interact in the CWA’s e-group to share publishing and marketing materials or in one of its critique groups.

Evanston Writers Workshop

The Evanston Writers Workshop sponsors events and workshops for a diverse array of writers. Their workshops include prompt and critique workshops, as well as an annual “In the Trenches” conference, where attendees can learn quickly about the ins and outs of writing and publishing in various genres and arenas. Members in the Evanston Writers Workshop receive priority admission to conferences and events, as well as promotion and marketing of their writing and other literary events.

Guild Literary Complex

The Guild Literary Complex sponsors writing programs featuring diverse writers and subjects. Past events have included bilingual poetry nights and marathon readings of Illinois-native Gwendolyn Brooks’ work. They solicit open submissions for their Annual Prose Award in both fiction and non-fiction categories, and sponsor several other contests throughout the year.

The Newberry Library

This world-renowned research library is open to the public. And, in addition to its extensive historic and literary resources, the Library also sponsors  writing workshops and series  on topics as diverse as memoir writing or writing childrens’ books.

The Poetry Center of Chicago

The Poetry Centerof Chicago is one of the nation’s largest promoters of poetry through readings, workshops, residencies, and arts education. Their  workshop series  are competitively priced, and aspiring poets can also work with the organization as volunteers or interns.

Story Studio Chicago

With locations in both Chicago and Winnetka, Story Studio offers classes in both creative and business writing. Additionally, they offer one-day workshops and write-ins to accommodate the schedules and needs of writers of all types. Check their current list of  classes and events  (some free) to sign up.

Writing Meetups and Work Spaces

Colab evanston.

Located on Chicago avenue near the Main El, CoLab Evanston provides shared workspace for individuals and groups. Full-time, part-time, and “floater” memberships are available, all of which come with discounts to on-site networking events.

Just Write Chicago

Just Write Chicago is a meetup group of writers who meet in several locales around the city several days a week to write together. With a focus on the writing process, not its product, they work together to inspire and motivate regular writing. There are currently over 1000 writers in the group, it costs nothing to join, and you can RSVP to attend a meetup whenever the time and place is convenient for your schedule.

The Writers Workspace

Located between Edgewater and Rogers Park, The Writers WorkSpace provides writers with a comfortable environment where they can write away from the distractions of their home or office. Both part- and full-time memberships are available.

Courses & Certificate Programs

The graham school.

The University of Chicago’s Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies offers certificate programs in creative writing, as well as professional development courses in writing and speaking for business professionals. They also offer several open-enrollment creative writing courses that don’t require advance application or registration to participate.

Oakton Community College

For international students hoping to improve their English writing and speaking, Oakton Community College offers both credit and non-credit ESL courses on their Skokie campuses. Many courses meet in the evening to accommodate students who have other responsibilities during the day.

Editing and Proofreading Services

Mb writing and editorial services.

Run by a Medill grad, this editing service has extensive experience copy editing doctoral dissertations and other academic work.

• Majors & Programs

Creative Writing

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• Learn more about English and Creative Writing
• View Courses & Requirements

Creative Writing (BA)

You’re a writer, and you want to write. In the Creative Writing bachelor’s degree program at Columbia College Chicago, you’ll write from day one, immediately discovering your creative process as you craft stories, poems, essays, and hybrid texts.

Diversity: it’s the name of the game in creative writing at Columbia, where we push boundaries and redefine borders. During your time here, you’ll study works by writers from many different cultures, and you’ll develop your own writing alongside a diverse group of students and faculty members. You’ll choose a concentration in fiction, nonfiction, or poetry to focus on your favorite literary form. But you’ll work within all genres, developing transferrable skills that will help you become a more effective writer. And through our Writer’s Portfolio class and a thesis project, you’ll begin to identify career opportunities as you create a substantial manuscript.

Concentrations

As a Creative Writing major at Columbia College Chicago, you’ll choose from one of three concentrations:

Flex your storytelling muscles as you build a wide-ranging creative practice in writing. You’ll study classic and contemporary novels and short stories as well as experimental texts. By studying a diverse range of authors, you’ll develop critical reading and writing skills.

Learn the history, forms, genres, and techniques of nonfiction writing. As you create your own body of work, you will study the evolving role of nonfiction writing in literature.

Discover your poetic voice and develop your craft as you write the poems that are meaningful to you. By the time you graduate, you’ll be grounded in the history of poetry and poetics and will have mastered a variety of writing techniques.

In the Classroom

Your First Year

Your introduction to the Creative Writing bachelor’s degree program at Columbia College Chicago starts with two courses: Foundations in Creative Writing and Beginning Workshop. Here, you’ll lay the groundwork for successful writing by experimenting with a number of different writing styles and forms. And it’s not just about writing. Critical reading in literature courses informs your creative work and helps you become a more effective writer. 

Other Courses You’ll Take

As a Creative Writing major, you’ll take 18 hours of core workshop courses and at least 12 of those will be in your chosen concentration. In the Writer’s Portfolio, a required junior-year course, you’ll reflect on the body of work you’ve created at Columbia. 

In your capstone courses, you’ll learn what to do with the body of work you’ve made so far. You’ll complete a substantial manuscript in your Thesis Workshop class and use what you have learned in professional development courses to prepare for careers that interest you.

Along the way, you’ll have opportunities to take elective classes in the visual and performing arts, in new media, and in other areas. Combined with your writing workshops, these electives will open your eyes to the many ways writing enables you to participate in contemporary conversations on social and cultural change. 

Program Snapshot

Creative Writing Program from Columbia College Chicago on Vimeo .

Like our students, our faculty members are diverse in every sense of the word. They are practicing, publishing writers; they are artists who teach.

Combining different literary backgrounds and experiences with a willingness to experiment, faculty members encourage you to produce your best work, no matter where you fit into the literary scene.

View Department Faculty

Publications

You can work on Columbia’s literary journal, Allium , A Journal of Poetry & Prose. Not only can you submit your own work, you can take classes that provide hands-on experience with editing and producing this nationally distributed professional publication.

You’ll also gain the skills needed to create reading series, journals, or presses of your own.

Outside the Classroom

As a student, you’ll have a front-row seat for the prestigious The Efroymson Creative Writing Reading Series , which gives students the chance to interact with award-winning writers of different genres.

You can also participate in the Writers at Lunch program, which strengthens Columbia’s writing community by bringing together undergraduate students from all disciplines for readings, panel discussions, and meetings with professionals in the field.

Internships

Employers in many fields look for strong communicators. The Creative Writing bachelor’s degree program at Columbia College Chicago can help you land internships at newspapers, marketing agencies, trade magazines, publishing houses, personnel firms, legal firms, education providers, television companies, advertising agencies, nonprofit organizations, and more. Companies and organizations get your strong writing skills, and you make professional contacts and create a portfolio of real-world work at places like The Daily Show, Disney, Pitchfork, and Time Out Chicago .

Learn more about how Columbia’s Career Center can help you find the right internship.

Our Creative Writing alumni know that they write the story of their own success, taking what they’ve learned and creating a place for themselves in the real writing world. Here are just a few of our successful alumni:

• Christine Mangan ’04 published a book, Tangerine , which, according to Entertainment Weekly , sold to HarperCollins for more than $1 million and was optioned for a film by George Clooney. 
• Jacob Saenz ’05 has been awarded the 2018 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize for his manuscript Throwing the Crown . This year’s guest judge, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gregory Pardlo, selected Saenz’s manuscript from more than 800 submissions.
• Bailey Heille ’17 was accepted to Columbia University’s prestigious MFA program.

Chicago: A Thriving Live Lit Scene

Living and studying in Chicago means you’ll have many opportunities to participate in the literary community here. The city has one of the country’s best live literary scenes, with a diverse range of styles and genres and a welcoming environment for new writers.

Related Programs

Creative writing minor.

With a Creative Writing minor , you can combine your major field of study with workshop classes and writing courses that will improve your reading, writing, listening, speaking, and problem-solving skills—a natural boost for any creative professional. You’ll enjoy all the benefits available to Creative Writing majors: experienced resident and visiting instructors, the ability to work on student-produced literary magazines, and other special programs. 

Professional Writing Minor

The Profesional Writing minor offers a wide range of literature courses. You will gain valuable career skills in research, critical thinking, idea development, and analytical writing. You will also study the relationships between literature and the diverse aesthetic, historical, and cultural contexts in which it is written and read. The flexible curriculum allows you to tailor the minor to your interests.

Complementary Minors for the Creative Writing, BA Program

• Creative Advertising
• Interactive Media Development and Entrepreneurship
• Live and Performing Arts Management
• Theatre Directing
• Writing for Performance

The Program in Creative Writing is part of the Department of English Language & Literature at the University of Chicago. Students at UChicago pursue creative writing within the larger context of academic study. While the purpose of the program is, above all, to give students a rigorous background in the fundamentals of creative work by providing them with the opportunity to study with established poets and prose writers, it differs from creative writing programs at other universities in seeing itself as an integral part of the university’s intellectual life, and most particularly in providing opportunities for interdisciplinary work. The program offers an undergraduate major in Creative Writing; a joint minor in English and Creative Writing that includes a creative portfolio; and a formal Creative Writing Option through the Master of Arts Program in the Humanities .

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Contacts | Major in Creative Writing | Program Requirements | Optional BA Thesis | Program Honors | Summary of Requirements | Advising | Courses Outside the Department Taken for Program Credit | Double Majors in English Language and Literature and Creative Writing | Grading | Sample Plan of Study for the Major | Minor in English and Creative Writing | Summary of Requirements for the Minor Program in English and Creative Writing | Minor to Major | Sample Plan of Study for the Minor | Enrolling in Creative Writing Courses | Faculty and Visiting Lecturers | Creative Writing Courses

Department Website: http://creativewriting.uchicago.edu

The Program in Creative Writing takes a comprehensive approach to the study of contemporary literature, criticism, and theory from a writer’s perspective. In our courses, students work with established poets and prose writers to explore the fundamental practices of creative writing. The program is committed to interdisciplinary inquiry, academic rigor, and study of the elements of creative writing that underlie all genres.

The Program in Creative Writing offers workshops and seminars in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, as well as a number of translation workshops. The major seminars—including technical seminars and fundamentals in creative writing—are designed to build a critical and aesthetic foundation for students working in each genre. Students can pursue their creative writing interests within the formal requirements of the major or through a minor in English and Creative Writing. (The minor is open to undergraduate students not majoring in English language and literature.) Students who do not wish to pursue a formal degree plan in creative writing will have access to courses that satisfy the general education requirement in the arts and open-entry "beginning" workshops. Our workshops and technical seminars are cross-listed with graduate numbers and are open to students in the graduate and professional schools.

Major in Creative Writing

Students who graduate with a bachelor of arts in creative writing will be skilled writers in a major literary genre and have a theoretically informed understanding of the aesthetic, historical, social, and political context of a range of contemporary writing. Students in the major will focus their studies in fiction, poetry, or nonfiction.

The organization of the major recognizes the value of workshop courses but incorporates that model into a comprehensive educational architecture. The creative writing major furthers students’ knowledge of historical and contemporary literary practice, introduces them to aesthetic and literary theory, sharpens their critical attention, and fosters their creative enthusiasm. Students are prepared to succeed in a range of fields within the public and private sectors through a multi-faceted, forward-thinking pedagogy centered on peer critique and craft.

Program Requirements

The Program in Creative Writing requires a total of 12 courses (1200 units) as described below. Students planning to complete the major must meet with the director of undergraduate studies or the student affairs administrator to file a major worksheet by the end of Autumn Quarter of their third year.

Students contemplating a major or minor in creative writing may choose to take one or two creative writing courses toward the general education requirement in the arts. These courses will not count toward major requirements, but they offer an opportunity for students to consider the program while satisfying a general education requirement. See  Enrolling in Creative Writing Courses  for additional details.

Primary Genre

Students are asked to declare a primary genre track either when they first declare the major or immediately following completion of the Fundamentals course. The primary genre track options include Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry. Students should complete a beginning workshop, two technical seminars, an advanced workshop, and one literary genre course. Students may also complete an optional thesis workshop within the primary genre. Students may change the genre track at any time by notifying the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

One (1) Fundamentals in Creative Writing Course  CRWR 17000 to CRWR 17999

Fundamentals in Creative Writing is a cross-genre, one-quarter seminar taken by all students in the major and minor. Every section of the course focuses on a current debate relevant to all forms of literary practice, such as mimesis, empathy, and testimony. This course introduces students to a group of core texts from each major literary genre. Fundamentals courses are restricted to students who have declared the major or minor, as they aim to develop cohort solidarity, promote a culture of articulate exchange, and induct students into a reflection on practice that will serve their artistic and professional development. Majors should take Fundamentals in Creative Writing and Beginning Workshop before enrolling in an Advanced Workshop. 

One (1) Beginning Workshop Fiction: CRWR 10206; Poetry: CRWR 10306; Nonfiction: CRWR 10406

Students in the major must complete one beginning workshop in the student’s primary genre. Successful completion of a beginning workshop is a prerequisite for enrollment in an advanced workshop in the same genre. Students may enroll in more than one beginning workshop. However, students who complete a beginning workshop in one genre and then complete a beginning workshop in another genre may count only the beginning workshop in their primary genre towards the major. Beginning workshops are intended for students who may or may not have previous writing experience, but are interested in gaining experience in a particular genre. These workshops focus on the fundamentals of craft and feature workshops of student writing.

Two (2) Technical Seminars Fiction: CRWR 20200 to CRWR 20299; Poetry: CRWR 20301 to CRWR 20399; Nonfiction: CRWR 20400 to CRWR 20499; Hybrid: CRWR 20701 to CRWR 20799

Students in the major must take two technical seminars in their primary genre (fiction, poetry, or nonfiction); during some quarters, the program may also offer hybrid technical seminars. Majors may petition to substitute one technical seminar in their primary genre with a technical seminar in a different genre, or with a hybrid technical seminar. Students should reach out to the director of undergraduate studies or student affairs administrator with questions on this petition process or hybrid technical seminars. 

The aim of technical seminars is to expand students’ technical resources through analysis of contemporary literature and practice-based training in elements of craft. Students submit papers that address technical questions, chiefly with reference to contemporary texts. For example, poetry students may write on “the line,” where fiction students write on “point of view.” Technical seminars may also count as electives in the minor.

Two (2) Advanced Workshops Fiction: CRWR 22100 to CRWR 22299; Poetry: CRWR 23100 to CRWR 23299; Nonfiction: CRWR 24001 to CRWR 24199; Hybrid: CRWR 27300 to 27499

Students in the major must complete two advanced workshops, at least one of which must be in the student’s primary genre. Majors may petition to substitute one advanced workshop in their primary genre with a hybrid advanced workshop when applicable. Students should reach out to the director of undergraduate studies or student affairs administrator with questions on this petition process or hybrid advanced workshops.

The advanced workshop is a critical pedagogical instrument of creative writing as an academic discipline. Workshop practice relies on a mutual exchange and understanding dedicated to improving students’ writing, rather than unconditional approval. Critique is the core value and activity of the workshop, and students will practice it under the guidance of the workshop instructor. Although advanced workshops begin with attention to exemplary texts, they typically focus on original student work. 

Four (4) Literature Requirements

Creative writing majors are required to take four literature courses offered by other departments. These courses can be focused on the literature of any language, but one must focus on the student’s primary genre; one must center on literary theory; one must involve the study of literature written before the twentieth century; and the final one can be any general literature course. 

The literary genre course should serve as an introduction to key texts and debates in the history of the student’s chosen genre. This requirement can be met by an English language and literature course or a comparable course in another department. Courses such as  ENGL 10403  Genre Fundamentals: Poetry: Rhythm and Myth,  CMST 27207 Film Criticism , or  ENGL 11004  History of the Novel may be eligible. 

The director of undergraduate studies will offer guidance and approve all qualifying courses. Specific courses that satisfy the distribution element of this requirement will be listed at  creativewriting.uchicago.edu . A literature course can potentially satisfy more than one requirement, e.g., both theory and literary genre, but a student can only use the course to fulfill one of the requirements.

Two (2) Background Electives

Students should take two courses outside of the Program in Creative Writing to support their creative projects or theses. Depending on a student's interests, elective courses can be offered by programs ranging from cinema and media studies to biological sciences. One creative writing translation workshop may also be approved as a background elective. Students may not use the same course to fulfill a background elective and a literature requirement. 

Optional BA Thesis

Students have the option to complete a BA thesis/project in their fourth year and should declare intent by the end of Winter Quarter of their third year. Majors who complete a BA thesis/project and meet GPA requirements are eligible for consideration for honors. In Spring Quarter of the third year, students who opt into the BA thesis/project will be assigned a writing and research advisor who will mentor student reading and research throughout the completion of the creative writing thesis. Students, in conversation with the writing and research advisors, will complete a preliminary project proposal during the Spring Quarter of their third year. The preliminary proposal will then be submitted to the student affairs administrator.

Over the Summer Quarter students will craft a reading journal centered on a field list of readings; chosen texts will be based upon work, conversations, etc., students will have begun with their writing and research advisors. In Autumn Quarter, students and writing and research advisors will work together to adapt the reading journal into an annotated bibliography, a focus reading list, and a précis/project plan (summary of student writing plan and goals for the BA thesis/project).

In Winter Quarter, students will continue meeting with their writing and research advisor and must also enroll in the appropriate thesis/major projects workshop in their primary genre ( CRWR 29200 Thesis/Major Projects: Fiction ,  CRWR 29300 Thesis/Major Projects: Poetry , CRWR 29400 Thesis/Major Projects: Nonfiction , or CRWR 29500 Thesis/Major Projects: Fiction/Nonfiction ). The thesis/major projects workshop is only offered during Winter Quarter. Students must complete the thesis/major projects workshop to submit a thesis project for consideration for honors.

The instructor for the thesis/major projects workshop will also serve as the faculty advisor for the BA thesis.

Students writing a BA thesis/project will work closely with their faculty advisor and peers in their thesis/major projects workshop and will receive course credit as well as a final grade for the course. In consultation with their faculty advisor and writing and research advisor, students will revise and submit a near-final draft of the BA thesis by the end of the second week of Spring Quarter. Students will submit the final version of their BA thesis to their writing and research advisor, faculty advisor, student affairs administrator, and the director of undergraduate studies by the beginning of the fifth week of Spring Quarter. 

Students graduating in other quarters must consult with the director of undergraduate studies about an appropriate timeline before the end of Autumn Quarter of their third year. 

Program Honors

The faculty in the program will award program honors based on their assessment of BA theses and the assessment of writing and research advisors. Students must complete all assignments set by writing and research advisors to be considered for honors. To be eligible, students must have a major GPA of at least 3.6 and overall GPA of 3.25. Honors will be awarded only to exceptional projects from a given cohort.

Summary of Requirements

Students considering the major should email the director of undergraduate studies or student affairs administrator as early as possible to discuss program requirements and individual plans of study. To declare the major and receive priority in application-based CRWR courses, students must confer with the director of undergraduate studies or student affairs administrator to file a major worksheet with the Program in Creative Writing. Declaration of the major will then be formalized through  my.uchicago.edu . To join the major, students must officially declare via a worksheet on file with the program before the end of Autumn Quarter of the third year of study. Students will need to regularly provide documentation of any approvals for the major to their academic advisors.

Courses Outside the Department Taken for Program Credit

Students double majoring in creative writing and another major (with the exception of English language and literature) can count a maximum of three courses towards both majors (pending approval from both departments). Ordinarily, two of these courses will be background electives. Substitutions for a further course will be subject to approval, but students may not substitute non-literature courses to meet a literature requirement. 

Double Majors in English Language and Literature and Creative Writing

Students who pursue a double major in creative writing and English language and literature, may count up to four courses towards both majors. These four courses typically include the four literature requirements, but in some cases one of the slots might be filled by a creative writing course (with director of undergraduate studies approval). However, the two required background electives should be taken outside of the Department of English Language and Literature. 

English language and literature majors may count up to four creative writing courses towards the major in English as electives without a petition. However, when students are pursuing a double major in English language and literature and creative writing, they must observe the shared four-course maximum. Double majors must then count any eligible creative writing courses beyond the four-course cap towards their English language and literature major.

Students in the program must receive quality grades (not pass/fail) in all courses counting toward the major or minor. Non-majors and non-minors may take creative writing courses for pass/fail grading with consent of the instructor. Students must request this consent by the end of week three of the quarter; otherwise pass/fail must be approved by the program director. 

Sample Plan of Study for the Major

Minor in english and creative writing.

Students who are not English language and literature or creative writing majors may complete a minor in English and Creative Writing. The minor requires six courses (600 units). At least three of the required courses must be creative writing courses, with at least one being a beginning workshop, at least one being an advanced workshop, and at least one being a fundamentals course. Three of the remaining required courses may be taken in either the Department of English Language and Literature or the Program in Creative Writing; these courses may include technical seminars or arts general education courses. General education courses cannot be used for the minor if they are already counted toward the general education requirement in the arts. In some cases, literature courses outside of English language and literature and creative writing may count towards the minor, subject to the director of undergraduate studies’ approval. 

Students who elect the minor program in English and Creative Writing must meet with the student affairs administrator for creative writing before the end of Spring Quarter of their third year to declare their intention to complete the minor. Students choose courses in consultation with the administrator. The administrator's approval for the minor program should be submitted to a student's academic advisor on the Consent to Complete a Minor Program form, available from the College adviser or online, by the deadline above.

Students completing the minor will be given enrollment preference for advanced workshops and some priority for technical seminars. They must follow all relevant admission procedures described at the  Creative Writing  website. For details, see  Enrolling in Creative Writing Courses .

Courses in the minor (1) may not be double counted with the student's major(s) or with other minors and (2) may not be counted toward general education requirements. Courses in the minor must be taken for quality grades (not pass/fail) and bear University of Chicago course numbers.

Summary of Requirements for the Minor Program in English and Creative Writing

Minor to major.

Student circumstances change, and a transfer between the major and minor programs may be desirable to students who begin a course of study in either program. Workshop courses and a fundamentals course may count toward the minor. Students should consult with their academic advisor if considering such a transfer and must update their planned program of study with the student affairs administrator or director of undergraduate studies in creative writing.

Sample Plan of Study for the Minor

Enrolling in creative writing courses.

General education courses and beginning workshops are open to all students via the standard pre-registration process. Our consent-based courses prioritize students in the major, the minor, and the Creative Writing Option of the Master of Arts Program in the Humanities (MAPH). Note: Students who have not yet met with the director of undergraduate studies or student affairs administrator to begin a worksheet are not considered formally declared and therefore are not guaranteed priority in course enrollment.

For more information on creative writing courses and opportunities, visit the  Creative Writing  website.

Creative Writing Courses for the General Education Requirement in the Arts

These multi-genre courses are introductions to topics in creative writing and satisfy the general education requirement in the arts in the College. General education courses are generally taught under two headings—"Reading as a Writer" and "Intro to Genres"—and will feature class critiques of students’ creative work. They are open to all undergraduate students during pre-registration. These courses do not count towards the major in creative writing, but students may use these courses to satisfy the creative writing minor’s elective requirements if they are not already counted toward the students' general education requirement in the arts.

Fundamentals in Creative Writing Courses

These courses focus on a current debate relevant to all forms of literary practice and aim to develop cohort solidarity, promote a culture of exchange, and induct students into a reflection on practice that will service their artistic and professional development. They are open to declared majors only, except in circumstances approved by the director of undergraduate studies. Majors should take a Fundamentals course and a Beginning Workshop before enrolling in Advanced Workshops. 

Beginning Workshops

These courses are intended for students who may or may not have writing experience, but are interested in gaining experience in a particular genre. Courses will focus on the fundamentals of craft and feature workshops of student writing. Open to all undergraduate students during pre-registration.

Technical Seminars

The aim of the technical seminars is to expand students’ technical resources through analysis of contemporary literature and practice-based training in elements of craft. 

Advanced Workshops

These workshops are intended for students with experience in a particular genre. Advanced workshops will focus on class critiques of student writing with accompanying readings from exemplary literary texts. Priority is given to students in the major, minor, or the MAPH Creative Writing Option . 

Optional Thesis/Major Projects

The thesis/major projects course is optional for minors. While it is not required to complete the minor, students are welcome to opt in to the course. This course will revolve around workshops of student writing and concentrate on the larger form students have chosen for their creative thesis. Priority is given to students in the major, minor, or the MAPH Creative Writing Option .

Faculty and Visiting Lecturers

For a current listing of Creative Writing faculty, visit the  Creative Writing  website.

Creative Writing Courses

CRWR 10206. Beginning Fiction Workshop. 100 Units.

Beginning Workshops are intended for students who may or may not have previous writing experience, but are interested in gaining experience in a particular genre. These workshops focus on the fundamentals of craft and feature workshops of student writing. See the course description for this particular workshop section in the notes below.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter Prerequisite(s): During pre-registration, this course is open only to declared Creative Writing Majors and declared Minors in English and Creative Writing, as well as graduate students. During add/drop the course will be instructor consent and open to all students in the College. Please contact the instructor to be added to the waitlist for the option to enroll during add/drop. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 30206

CRWR 10306. Beginning Poetry Workshop. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter Prerequisite(s): During pre-registration, this course is open only to declared Creative Writing Majors and declared Minors in English and Creative Writing, as well as graduate students. During add/drop the course will be instructor consent and open to all students in the College. Please contact the instructor to be added to the waitlist for the option to enroll during add/drop. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 30306

CRWR 10406. Beginning Nonfiction Workshop. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter Prerequisite(s): During pre-registration, this course is open only to declared Creative Writing Majors and declared Minors in English and Creative Writing, as well as graduate students. During add/drop the course will be instructor consent and open to all students in the College. Please contact the instructor to be added to the waitlist for the option to enroll during add/drop. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 30406

CRWR 10606. Beginning Translation Workshop. 100 Units.

Beginning Workshops are intended for students who may or may not have previous experience, but are interested in gaining experience in translation. See the course description for this particular workshop section in the notes below.

Instructor(s): Jason Grunebaum     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. To participate in this class, students should have intermediate proficiency in a foreign language. Note(s): Beginning Translation Workshop: It’s been said that in an ideal world, all writers would be translators, and all translators would be writers. In addition to the joy of enlarging the conversation of literature by bringing new voices into another language, the practice of literary translation forces us as writers to examine the materials and tools of our craft. In this workshop, we will critique each other’s translations of prose, poetry, or drama into English, as well as explore various creative strategies and approaches to translation by a variety of practitioners that touch on various aspects of the "radical recontextualization" that constitute the decision-making work of literary translation. Through these processes, you will formulate your own strategies to both literary translation and creative writing. We will also have the opportunity to have conversations via Zoom with some of the translators we’ll be reading. Students should have at least an intermediate proficiency in a foreign language to take this workshop. Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 30606, CRWR 30606, SALC 30706, SALC 10606, GRMN 10606

CRWR 12124. Reading as a Writer: Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty. 100 Units.

In this core course, students will investigate the complicated relationship between truth and art by reading and writing works "based on a true story." In poetry and prose, we will explore the lines between fiction and nonfiction, beauty and horror, as well as utterance and silence. Writers will develop critical responses to course readings, then explore those perspectives through creative work of their own. Readings include work by Jeffery Renard Allen, Ari Banias, Scott Blackwood, Brenda Hillman, Harold Pinter, and Claudia Rankine.

Instructor(s): Garin Cycholl     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through classes.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Note(s): This course meets the general education requirement in the arts.

CRWR 12133. Intro to Genres: Writing and Social Change. 100 Units.

In this course, we will explore the embattled, yet perpetually alive relationship between writing and activism by reading canonical and emergent works of fiction, narrative prose, and poetry that not only represent social ills, but seek to address and even spur social justice in some way. Students will be encouraged to choose an issue that they feel passionate about on which to research and respond for the entire quarter-and will be asked to produce short works in a range of genres in relation to that issue. Works studied will include the poetry of Percy Shelley, the short stories of John Keene, the essays of Anne Boyer, the graphic novels of Nick Drnaso, and the document-based poetry of Layli Long Soldier.

Instructor(s): Jennifer Scappettone     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.UChicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Satisfies the College Arts Core requirement.

CRWR 12138. Intro to Genres: Evil Incarnate. 100 Units.

Some of the most compelling pieces of writing across all genre deal with, and often feature, deeply problematic central adversarial characters without which the poem, story, or essay would have no forward motion, and no cause to exist. From Capote's In Cold Blood to Milton's Paradise Lost, from Bulgakov's Master and Margarita to Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem and Sabato's The Tunnel, literature returns again and again to the question of evil and the concept of opposition. This course is designed to explore this question alongside authors who have devoted their lives to understanding the role of evil in literature, its necessity, its appeal, its frivolity and its betrayal. The course will be divided into three section, each section devoted to a specific genre during which two to three texts will be explored, discussed and analyzed in class, and at the end of which one brief analysis paper will be due. One creative piece, in any of the three major genres, exploring the said topic will be due at the end of the course.

Instructor(s): Lina Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins; contact the instructor for a spot in the class or on the waiting list. Note(s): Satisfies the College Arts/Music/Drama Core requirement.

CRWR 12141. Intro to Genres: Drawing on Graphic Novels. 100 Units.

Like film, comics are a language, and there's much to be learned from studying them, even if we have no intention of 'writing' them. Comics tell two or more stories simultaneously, one via image, the other via text, and these parallel stories can not only complement but also contradict one another, creating subtexts and effects that words alone can't. Or can they? Our goal will be to draw, both literally and metaphorically, on the structures and techniques of the form. While it's aimed at the aspiring graphic novelist (or graphic essayist, or poet), it's equally appropriate for those of us who work strictly with words (or images). What comics techniques can any artist emulate, approximate, or otherwise aspire to, and how can these lead us to a deeper understanding of the possibilities of point of view, tone, structure and style? We'll learn the basics of the medium via Ivan Brunetti's book Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice, as well as Syllabus, by Lynda Barry. Readings include the scholar David Kunzle on the origins of the form, the first avant-garde of George Herriman, Frank King, and Lyonel Feininger, finishing with contemporaries like Chris Ware, Emil Ferris and Alison Bechdel. Assignments include weekly creative and critical assignments, culminating in a final portfolio and paper.

Instructor(s): Dan Raeburn     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): MAAD 22141

CRWR 12143. Reading as a Writer: Embodied Language. 100 Units.

Embodied Language. This course studies how writers engage the senses to shape language into something actually felt and not just comprehended. We'll track the sensual life of words-what they do to the mouth, to the ear, their musical kinships with one another-and learn how these qualities combine to generate mood and atmosphere. Alongside writing that renders embodiment and the physical world, we'll read writing that makes abstraction feel concrete. Our weekly readings will guide our ongoing inquiry into questions such as: what constitutes an image? How does writing enact feeling? How do the sensory elements of a piece intensify or erode or expand its subject, and to what end? Texts will include poetry and prose by Sei Shōnagon, Francis Ponge, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Gwendolyn Brooks, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Wanda Coleman, Vasko Popa, Lorine Niedecker, Ai, Durga Chew-Bose, Shane McCrae, Jenny Zhang, Justin Torres, James Baldwin, Deborah Eisenberg, and many others. Each member of the class will be asked to write weekly critical and creative responses, to give one presentation, and to produce a final project at the end of the quarter.

Instructor(s): Margaret Ross      Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins; contact the instructor for a spot in the class or on the waiting list. Note(s): This course meets the general education requirement in the arts.

CRWR 12145. Reading as a Writer: Re-Vision. 100 Units.

To revise a piece of writing isn't merely to polish it. Revision is transformation and yields an alternate reality. A new view, a re-vision. This course will start by tracking compositional process, looking at brilliant and disastrous drafts to compare the aesthetic and political consequences of different choices on the page. We'll then study poems, essays, and stories that refute themselves and self-revise as they unfold, dramatizing mixed feelings and changing minds. We'll end by considering erasure poetry as a form of critical revision. Our conversations will inspire weekly writing exercises and invite you to experiment with various creative revision strategies. Students will be asked to lead one presentation and to share their writing for group discussion.

Instructor(s): Margaret Ross      Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory.

CRWR 12146. London vs. Nature: Writing Utopia and Dystopia in the Urban Landscape [Creative Writing Arts Core: R. 100 Units.

In this Arts Core course, students will be introduced to a range of the utopian and dystopian fantasies that writers have produced in response to the metropolis of London as the imperial epicenter of manufactured ecologies, from the late nineteenth century through the present day. They will study early responses to modernism and modernization in the city by figures like William Blake, Frederick Engels, Henry James, Ezra Pound, and Virginia Woolf before moving on to contemporary writers such as R. Murray Schafer, who apprehends the city through "earwitnessing" of noise pollution, and Bhanu Kapil, who recalls the race riots of the 1970s against the backdrop of the Nestle factory on the site of King Henry VIII's hunting grounds. Students will be exposed first-hand to how London is read by writers confronting planetary and political crisis through meetings with living publishers, authors, and art collectives like the Museum of Walking, grappling with the continual metamorphosis of the landscape-and through a sequence of on-site visits and psychogeographical experiments, they will have the opportunity to respond to the city in their own writing across a range of genres. (Arts Core)

Instructor(s): Jennifer Scappettone     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Acceptance to the London Study Abroad Program. Equivalent Course(s): ARCH 14146

CRWR 12147. Intro to Genres: The River's Running Course. 100 Units.

Rivers move--over land, through history, among peoples--and they make: landscapes and civilizations. They are the boundaries on our maps, the dividers of nations, of families, of the living and the dead, but they are also the arteries that connect us. They are meditative, meandering journeys and implacable, surging power. They are metaphors but also so plainly, corporeally themselves. In this course, we will encounter creative work about rivers, real and imaginary, from the Styx to the Amazon. Through poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama, we will consider what rivers are, what they mean to us, and how they are represented in art and literature. Rivers will be the topic and inspiration for our own creative writing, too. The goal for this course is to further your understanding of creative writing genres and the techniques that creative writers employ to produce meaningful work in each of those genres. You will also practice those techniques yourselves as write your own creative work in each genre. Our weekly sessions will involve a mixture of discussions, brief lectures, student presentations, mini-workshops and in-class exercises. Most weeks, you will be responsible for a creative and/or critical response (300-500 words) to the reading, and the quarter will culminate in a final project (7-10 pages) in the genre of your choice, inspired by the Chicago River.

Instructor(s): Stephanie Soileau     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): ENST 22147, CHST 12147

CRWR 12148. Intro to Genres: Speculative Women. 100 Units.

Intro to Genres: Speculative Women Despite common misconceptions, women have been at the forefront of the speculative genre from its earliest inceptions. They have not merely defied the limitations and restraints of literature as defined by their contemporary society, but invented whole worlds and genres which continue to influence writers and writing as a whole today-from Mary Shelley's 1818 publication of "Frankenstein" to Virginia Woolf's 1928 publication of "Orlando," and even Margaret Cavendish's 1666 novel, "The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World." This course will be a brief foray into the strange and yet familiar worlds of various women across the history of speculative writing, ranging from Mary Shelley to Ursula K. Leguin, from Lady Cavendish to Margaret Atwood, from Alice Walker to Octavia E. Butler.

Instructor(s): Lina Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins; contact the instructor for a spot in the class or on the waiting list. Note(s): Satisfies the College Arts/Music/Drama Core requirement. Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 22148

CRWR 12150. Intro to Genres: Writing for TV: The Writers' Room. 100 Units.

In this course, you'll learn the craft of writing for television by collaboratively developing a pilot script for an original television series set in the South Side of Chicago. Modeled on the "writers' room," we'll research and develop the concept, characters, the outline, and create a plan for the series. In addition to being introduced to the fundamentals of storytelling through lectures, discussions, screenings, and script analysis, you'll also learn to work collaboratively with a team, constructing a daily agenda, brainstorming, researching, pitching, discussing ideas, and composing in screenwriting format. By the end of this hands-on course, you will be armed with a set of techniques and skills that will support your professional development as a writer.

Instructor(s): Julie Iromuanya     Terms Offered: Summer TBD. September Term 2022

CRWR 12151. Intro to Genres: The Gothic Lens. 100 Units.

The Gothic is arguably the most evocative of all storytelling genres. As haunting as it is seductive in its ambiguities and luridly symbolic tropes, no form more powerfully captures our encounters with the irrational and the inexplicable, whether in nature, in others, or in ourselves. In this Arts Core course, we will approach the genre through all its forbidding yet intimate qualities. As we read Gothic fiction from different eras and cultures, from both a reader's perspective and a writer's perspective (the why/how/who of the author's decisions), we'll cover concepts like the sublime, the uncanny, and abjection, examining the work's sociopolitical layers but aiming our brightest light on its psychological underpinnings. We'll ask ourselves: in what ways does the Gothic mirror the most vulnerable and obscure aspects of the self? What might these extraordinary stories of transgression, violence, or supernatural conflict reveal about the horrors of ordinary life, the vagaries of our hidden desires, anxieties, and pathologies? Our focus on the psychological and evocative nature of the genre, especially from a writer's point of view, will also help us write our Gothic Scenes, where everyone will apply their own intimate "gothic lens" to memorable encounters from their recent past. (Arts Core)

Instructor(s): Vu Tran     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Note(s): This course meets the general education requirement in the arts.

CRWR 12153. Reading as a Writer: The Walker in the City. 100 Units.

Flâneur: from French, "to stroll, loaf, saunter"; probably from Old Norse flana, "to wander aimlessly"; Norwegian flana, "to gad about. The image of the poet as flâneur -- a metropolitan artist in motion -- emerged as an archetype of romantic and modernist literature. We will consider the walking poet in interaction with race, mobility and disability, gender and queerness, class, migration, ecology, and other embodied experiences. Texts will include work by Kathy Ferguson, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Walter Benjamin, William Blake, Judith Butler, Sunaura Taylor, June Jordan, Walt Whitman, and others. Students will lead one presentation during the quarter and keep a notebook/sketchbook.

Instructor(s): Anna Torres     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Acceptance to the London Study Abroad Program

CRWR 12154. Reading as a Writer: Brevity. 100 Units.

This course will consider brevity as an artistic mode curiously capable of articulating the unspeakable, the abyssal, the endless. Reading very brief works from a long list of writers, we will ask: when is less more? When is less less? What is minimalism? What is the impact of the fragment? Can a sentence be a narrative? Can a word comprise a poem? Our readings will include short poems, short essays, and short short stories by Yannis Ritsos, francine j. harris, Aram Saroyan, Richard Wright, Cecilia Vicuña, Kobayashi Issa, Renee Gladman, Robert Creeley, Alejandra Pizarnik, Lucille Clifton, Lydia Davis, Jamaica Kincaid, Yi Sang, Anne Carson, Franz Kafka, Prageeta Sharma, Venita Blackburn, Jorge Luis Borges, Samuel Beckett, and others. Students will be asked to lead one presentation and to write critical and creative responses for group discussion.

Instructor(s): Margaret Ross     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory.

CRWR 12156. Fundamentals: A Gathering of Flowers: The Anthology. 100 Units.

In 1925, The New Negro: An Interpretation, a collection of poems, short stories, and essays was published-it ushered a new era, what was then called the New Negro Renaissance. An artistic and literary movement with the objective to subvert what Alain Locke called the "Old Negro," by providing a corrective and aspirational image of contemporary Negro life, was borne. Around forty years later, Black Arts: An Anthology galvanized the Black Arts Movement, what Larry Neal called the "aesthetic and spiritual sister" of the Black Power Movement. The Best American Short Stories and the Norton Anthology of Literature by Women are two more examples of anthologies, one to cultivate the genre and the other to recover the literature of marginalized women writers. In this course, we'll examine anthologies, a word derived from the Greek for "a gathering of flowers." As we study these "flowers," we'll discern the objectives that shape their construction, as well as what was put in and what was left out. In short essays and exercises, we'll also investigate the social, cultural, and political contexts that influenced these objectives, as well as the resultant literary and cultural implications. For your final, you'll design your own literary anthology.

Instructor(s): Julie Iromuanya     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through classes.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory.

CRWR 12159. Reading as a Writer: The Bad Girls Club. 100 Units.

Jezebels, witches, femme fatales, nasty women, sirens, madwomen, and murderesses: the world over, these women of many names-whom we'll collectively refer to as the Bad Girls Club-have alternately inspired the disdain and delight of multitudes. Whether jailed, expelled, excommunicated, or burned at the stake, their (anti)heroic antics have challenged, critiqued, or, some might say, corrupted the laws, mores, and sensibilities of societies. If it is true that polite, well-behaved women rarely make history, then what do impolite, badly-behaved women teach us about the construction of (his) story? In this course, we'll examine literature from around the world featuring members of the Bad Girls Club, who in opposing complimentary constructions of femininity, femaleness, and power invite introspection on the gendered nature of story and storytelling. In short critical papers, we'll analyze the tropes, features, and conventions of literature featuring these bad characters, and in short exercises, you'll write stories, poems, and essays inspired by them.

Instructor(s): Julie Iromuanya     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 12159

CRWR 12160. Reading as a Writer: Exploring the Weird. 100 Units.

In 1917 the Russian critic Viktor Shklovsky coined the word 'ostranenie,'-translating roughly as 'defamiliarization'-to illustrate a concept that asks the writer or artist to see the everyday in new and unfamiliar ways. In fiction writing this means avoiding cliché while cultivating elements of surprise, the unexpected, the strange. It means the author offering a new perspective on something familiar, something surprising and, often, yes, a little weird. So what does it mean to follow the weird as a fiction or creative non-fiction writer? As a poet? How can we indulge that strange, uncanny, often suppressed side of ourselves in a way that not only serves a work of literary art but opens it up to new possibilities? This class will look at ways writers use defamiliarization and other techniques to create unexpected and sometimes jarring effects and will encourage students to take similar risks in their own writing. Students will view read various works of fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, view films, and read critical and craft- oriented texts. They will write short weekly reading responses and some creative exercises as well. Each student will also be expected to make a brief presentation and turn in a final paper for the class.

Instructor(s): Augustus Rose     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list.

CRWR 12163. Reading as a Writer: Obscenities. 100 Units.

Obscenity" is a term for what is repulsive, abhorrent, excessive, or taboo in a society; and yet many artworks once considered to be obscene are now celebrated as landmarks of world literature, from the ancient poetry of Sappho to modern novels like Ulysses. In this course, we will study literary works that have been banned or censored as "obscene" to examine our own perspectives, attitudes, and assumptions as literary artists. How does obscenity shape our understanding of gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, or public and private speech? What are the uses of obscenity in constructing new possibilities for literary expression? Authors studied will include Toni Morrison, Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, Vladimir Nabokov, Hilda Hilst, and Allen Ginsburg; and we will supplement these readings with works of literary theory, psychoanalysis, and case law. Students will produce their own original poetry, fiction, and nonfiction to reimagine what is permissible-and possible-in language and society for contemporary literary artists.

Instructor(s): Chicu Reddy     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): PARR 33000

CRWR 12164. Reading as a Writer: Good Translation. 100 Units.

The past few years have seen a proliferation of major awards for works of contemporary world literature that have been translated into English (among them the International Booker Prize, the National Book Award for Translated Literature, and the National Book Critics Circle Book in Translation Prize). While such awards certainly elevate translation as a mode of writing comparable to that of other literary arts, they also raise important questions about the production, circulation, and reception of translated literature in the Anglosphere. In this course, we will read a number of recent award-winning books in English translation (both poetry and prose), considering how these books traveled from origin to translation, and how we as readers engage with them - as translations and as literary texts. How are translations made? How do we evaluate books that have two writers: author and translator? What larger forces (social, aesthetic, commercial, political) are at work when deciding which translated books will hold value for Anglophone readers? We'll explore these questions through weekly readings and discussions, student presentations, critical analyses and creative responses. As a final project, students will develop their own evaluative rubrics from which to award a prize to one of the translations we've read.

Instructor(s): Annie Janusch     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins.

CRWR 12165. Intro to Genres: Short Form Screenwriting. 100 Units.

This course explores short form screenwriting, as distinct from feature-length or episodic screenwriting. In addition to studying the essential elements of a screenplay, we will read, view, and discuss approaches to scripting brief documentary, poetic, and fictional time-based works. This work will prepare us for in- and out-of-class writing exercises in these modes, which students will often discuss in a workshop environment. Students will respond in creative and critical ways to the screenings and readings; present on a specific time-based work or creator; and write in the short screenwriting formats under study, culminating in a final creative project.

Instructor(s): Nick Twemlow     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Note(s): This course meets the general education requirement in the arts.

CRWR 17003. Fundamentals in Creative Writing: Truth. 100 Units.

In this class we'll study how writers define and make use of truth--whatever that is. In some cases it's the truth, singular; in others a truth, only one among many. Some writers tell it straight, others slant. Some, like Tim O'Brien, advocate story-truth, the idea that fiction tells deeper truths than facts. To get at the heart of these and other unanswerable questions we'll read writers who've written about one event in two or more modes. Nick Flynn's poems about his father, for example, which he's also set down as comic strips as well as in prose. Jeanette Winterson's first novel as well as her memoir, sixteen years later, about what she'd been too afraid to say in it. Karl Marlantes' novel about the Vietnam war, then his essays about the events he'd fictionalized. Through weekly responses, creative exercises, and longer analytic essays you'll begin to figure out your own writerly truths, as well as the differences-and intersections-between them.

Instructor(s): Dan Raeburn     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): This is class is restricted to students who have declared a major in Creative Writing or a minor in English and Creative Writing. Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins.

CRWR 17007. Fundamentals in Creative Writing: The Grammar of Narrative. 100 Units.

Storytelling goes nearly as far back as human consciousness, while the ways in which we tell stories has been expanding ever since. This class will look at several different forms of narrative-fiction, creative non-fiction, narrative poetry, and film-and explore the "grammar" of these different genres, what they share and where they differ and how their particular strengths influence the ways in which they most effectively communicate. How does film (a visual medium) tell a story differently than does fiction (which asks us to project our own imagined version of the story), differently than creative non-fiction, (which must always rely on facts), differently than poetry (which condenses the story to its essences)? How do these different genres and mediums influence the stories they tell and the effects they achieve? Readings will include primary texts as well as critical and fundamentals texts in each genre. Students will complete weekly reading responses, as well as creative exercises. A paper focusing on a specific element derived from the class will be due at the end of the course.

Instructor(s): Augustus Rose     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Students must be a declared Creative Writing major or Minor in English and Creative Writing to enroll. Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins.

CRWR 17012. Fundamentals in Creative Writing: Creative Research/The Numinous Particulars. 100 Units.

According to Philip Gerard, "Creative research is both a process and a habit of mind, an alertness to the human story as it lurks in unlikely places." Creative writers may lean on research to sharpen the authenticity of their work; to liberate themselves from the confines of their personal experience; to mine existing stories and histories for details, plot, settings, characters; to generate new ideas and approaches to language, theme and story. The creative writer/researcher is on the hunt for the numinous particulars, the mysteries and human stories lurking in the finest grains of detail. In this course, we will explore the research methods used by creative writers and consider questions that range from the logistical (eg. How do I find what I need in an archive?) to the ethical (eg. How do I conscientiously write from a point of view outside my own experience?) to the aesthetic (eg. How do I incorporate all these researched details without waterlogging the poem/story/essay?). We will read poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction that relies heavily on research and hear from established writers about the challenges of conducting and writing from research. Assignments will include reading responses, creative writing and research exercises, short essays and presentations.

Instructor(s): Stephanie Soileau     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Students must be a declared Creative Writing major or Minor in English and Creative Writing to enroll. Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory.

CRWR 17013. Fundamentals in Creative Writing: Touchstones. 100 Units.

Most passionate readers and writers have literary touchstones --those texts we return to again and again for personal or aesthetic influence and inspiration. When we are asked what book we would want with us if we were stranded on a desert isle, our touchstones are the ones that leap immediately to mind. Some texts are fairly ubiquitous touchstones: The Great Gatsby, Harry Potter and the [take your pick], The Bell Jar, Little Women, Letters to a Young Poet, Leaves of Grass. Others are quirkier, more idiosyncratic. What -- if any -- qualities do these touchstones share, within and across genres? What lessons about writing craft can be drawn from them? In this course, we'll read texts that are commonly cited as touchstones, along with fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction that students bring to the table -- their own literary touchstones. In that sense, our reading list will be collaborative, and students will be expected to contribute content as well as an analytical presentation on the craft issues raised by their selections. Our assignments will include reading responses, creative writing exercises, short essays and presentations.

Instructor(s): Stephanie Soileau     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Students must be a declared Creative Writing major to enroll during preregistration. Contact instructor to be added to the waitlist. Attendance on the first day is mandatory.

CRWR 17014. Fundamentals in Creative Writing: A Gathering of Flowers. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): Julie Iromuanya     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Students must be a declared Creative Writing major to enroll during preregistration. Contact instructor to be added to the waitlist. Attendance on the first day is mandatory.

CRWR 17015. Fundamentals in Creative Writing: Sincerity (and Irony) 100 Units.

What does it mean for a piece of writing to be "sincere"? How do we know a (character, poem, "I," essay) is "sincere"? What does it mean to make that judgment, and what does it commit us to? How does that judgment change a reader's orientation to the object? We will approach these questions obliquely first, by thinking about how irony works. Are irony and sincerity opposites? We'll look at a range of contemporary and historical objects in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. This will include essays by Kierkegaard, Oscar Wilde, Wayne Booth, Jonathan Swift, and R. Magill Jr., fiction by Vladimir Nabokov, Joanna Ruocco, and Kathy Acker, and poetry by Chelsey Minnis, Jenny Zhang, Amiri Baraka, and others. We'll also consider certain internet objects and think about their relationship to sincerity (and irony). This course will give students a more nuanced and historically grounded handle on these questions, and will help them develop a style of writing that's able to more intentionally (and interestingly) choose its tonal legibilities.

Instructor(s): Kirsten Ihns     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): This is class is restricted to students who have declared a major in Creative Writing or a minor in English and Creative Writing. Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins.

CRWR 17016. Fundamentals in Creative Writing: The Frame Narrative. 100 Units.

In this course, students will engage in a close examination of the various permutations of the frame narrative device across time and genre. From A Thousand and One Nights, to Hamlet, to the "Call of Cthulhu" and Watchmen, the "story within a story" construction is one of the oldest and most employed literary devices-one which can either elevate or imperil the work wherein it is utilized. Students will respond to the material in both critical and creative manners, culminating in a final analytical and creative piece that employs the craft elements discussed and unpacked in class.

Instructor(s): Lina Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas     Terms Offered: Spring Note(s): During pre-registration, this course is open only to declared Creative Writing Majors and declared Minors in English and Creative Writing

CRWR 17017. Fundamentals in Creative Writing: Haunted Craft, the Art of the Spectral Metaphor. 100 Units.

This course will be a close examination of the use of spectral imagery as a craft element in narratives across genre and time. From Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" to Emily Carrol's A Guest in the House, to Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and Octavia Butler's Fledgling, the supernatural metaphor presents a unique stage upon which to play out questions of gender autonomy, mental health, repressed sexuality, racism and more. Students in this course will be expected to put the fantastical metaphor under a microscope and explore its potential through both creative and critical work of their own.

CRWR 20203. Technical Seminar in Fiction: Research and World-Building. 100 Units.

Writing fiction is in large part a matter of convincing worldbuilding, no matter what genre you write in. And convincing worldbuilding is about creating a seamless reality within the elements of that world: from setting, to social systems, to character dynamics, to the story or novel's conceptual conceit. And whether it be within a genre of science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, or even contemporary realism, building a convincing world takes a good deal of research. So while we look closely at the tools and methods of successful worldbuilding, we will also dig into the process of research. From how and where to mine the right details, to what to look for. We will also focus on how research can make a fertile ground for harvesting ideas and even story. Students will read various works of long and short fiction with an eye to its worldbuilding, as well as critical and craft texts. They will write short weekly reading responses and some creative exercises as well. Each student will also be expected to make a brief presentation and turn in a final paper for the class.

Instructor(s): Augustus Rose     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): During pre-registration, this course is open only to declared Creative Writing Majors and declared Minors in English and Creative Writing, as well as graduate students. During add/drop the course will be instructor consent and open to all students in the College. Please contact the instructor to be added to the waitlist for the option to enroll during add/drop. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40203

CRWR 20209. Technical Seminar in Fiction: Scenes & Seeing. 100 Units.

At the core of literary storytelling is dramatization, which enables a reader to "see" the world, characters, and incidents at play and to vicariously experience their emotional and psychological consequences in the story. The primary vehicle for dramatization in a story is the scene, which consists of many crucial parts: characterization, setting and imagery, dialogue and action, tone and atmosphere, subtext and thematic development. In this course we'll break down all these parts and examine how they can function on their own as well as interact to bring a moment or event to life. Where and how should a particular scene begin and end? How should information be organized? How might we determine a scene's goals in isolation and in support of the larger narrative of a short story, novella, or novel? And ultimately, beyond characters talking, acting, and reacting, how might we expand our traditional notions of what a scene is and what it can do? We'll consider such questions as we discuss exceptionally crafted scenes from short stories, novels, plays, and even film, TV, and podcasts, with an eye also on the differences in scene craft from genre to genre and what that can teach us specifically as fiction writers. Course assignments will include reading responses, writing exercises, short essays, and student presentations.

Instructor(s): Vu Tran     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40209

CRWR 20217. Technical Seminar in Fiction: Elements of Style. 100 Units.

What we call style is more than literary flourish. Control of a story begins with a writer's characteristic approach to the line. Style dictates and shapes immersive and impactful worlds of our creation. It's also indicative of a work's larger themes, philosophies, and aesthetic sensibility. In this class, we'll examine fiction by wordsmiths such as James Baldwin, Gabriel García Márquez, Toni Morrison, and Marguerite Duras in order to contemplate the influence that elements such as diction, syntax, rhythm, and punctuation have on a writer's style.

Instructor(s): Julie Iromuanya     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40217

CRWR 20221. Technical Seminar in Fiction: Detail. 100 Units.

John Gardner said that the writer's task is to create "a vivid and continuous fictional dream." This technical seminar will focus on the role of detail in maintaining this dream. In this course we will deconstruct and rebuild our understanding of concepts like simile, showing vs. telling, and symbolism, asking what these tools do and what purpose they serve. Drawing from fiction and essays from Ottessa Moshfegh, Barbara Comyns, Zadie Smith, and others, students will practice noticing, seeing anew, and finding fresh and unexpected ways of describing. We will also examine what is worthy of detail in the first place, how detail functions outside of traditional scene, and the merits and limits of specificity, mimesis, and verisimilitude. Finally we will consider what it means to travel across a landscape of vagueness and euphemism as we search for the quality of "thisness" that James Wood claims all great details possess. In addition to assigned readings, students will be responsible for reading responses, short craft analyses, vigorous class participation, and several creative exercises and peer critiques applying these lessons.

Instructor(s): Benjamin Hoffman     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40221

CRWR 20224. Technical Seminar in Fiction: Narrative Tempo. 100 Units.

At certain moments," writes Italo Calvino of his early literary efforts, "I felt that the entire world was turning into stone." Slowness and speed govern not just the experience of writing but also the texture of our fictional worlds. And this is something we can control. Sublimely slow writers like Sebald or Duras can make time melt; spritely magicians like Aira and Rushdie seem to shuffle planes of reality with a snap of their fingers. This seminar gathers fictions that pulse on eclectic wavelengths, asking in each case how narrative tempo embodies a fiction's character. Our exercises will play with the dial of compositional speed, testing writing quick and slow; alternately, we'll try to recreate the effects of signature texts. Weekly creative and critical responses will culminate in a final project.

Instructor(s): Benjamin Lytal     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40224

CRWR 20232. Technical Seminar in Fiction: Narrative Influence. 100 Units.

T. S. Eliot once said that "good writers borrow, great writers steal." In this class we will look at modeling as a springboard for original creativity. What makes a piece of writing original? Is it possible to borrow a famous writer's story structure, theme, or even attempt their voice, yet produce something wholly original? How specifically are writers influenced and then inspired? Readings will pair writers with the influences they've talked or written about, such as Yiyun Li and Anton Chekhov; Edward P. Jones and Alice Walker; Sigrid Nunez and Elizabeth Hardwick, and George Saunders and Nikolai Gogol. Writing exercises will experiment with aspects of voice, narrative structure, point of view, tone, and use of dialog. While this is not a workshop course, come prepared to write and share work in class. Students will pursue both creative work and critical papers.

Instructor(s): Sharon Pomerantz     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40232

CRWR 20233. Technical Seminar in Fiction: Who Sees and Who Speaks? 100 Units.

Who Sees and Who Speaks? What is the nature of the encounter between a narrator and a character, and how do elements of character and plot play out in narrative points of view? Drawing on the narratological work of theorists such as Gérard Genette and Monika Fludernik and of critics such as James Wood, this technical seminar considers what point of view, perspective, and focalization can do or make possible. Readings may include stories by Jorge Luis Borges, Jamaica Kincaid, Haruki Murakami, Jenny Zhang, William Faulkner, Lorrie Moore, Jamil Jan Kochai, Italo Calvino, Ursula K. Le Guin, Gabriel García Márquez, Edith Wharton, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, Edwidge Danticat, Jhumpa Lahiri, Lesley Nneka Arimah, and Virginia Woolf, among others, and will introduce instances of first-person-plural and second-person narrative, as well as modes of representing speech and thought such as free indirect discourse. Over the course of the quarter, students will write short analyses and creative exercises, culminating in a final project.

Instructor(s): Sophia Veltfort     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): During pre-registration, this course is open only to declared Creative Writing Majors and declared Minors in English and Creative Writing, as well as graduate students. During add/drop the course will be instructor consent and open to all students in the College. Please contact the instructor to be added to the waitlist for the option to enroll during add/drop. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40233

CRWR 20236. Technical Seminar in Fiction: Alternative Points of View. 100 Units.

Point of view is one of our most powerful narrative tools, controlling voice, perspective, and level of access to every bit of information a reader receives. When writers are first finding their way into new fiction projects, however, it is easy to default to the two points of view we are most commonly exposed to: a traditional first person or third person that behaves predictably. In this Technical Seminar, we will mine the work of Julie Otsuka, Carmen Maria Machado, Robert Coover, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, and other writers for strategic usage of alternative points of view, including second person, first person plural, free indirect discourse, and deliberate shifts from one point of view into another. Assignments will include short critical and creative responses, a final fiction assignment, and a final presentation.

Instructor(s): Meghan Lamb     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40236

CRWR 20309. Technical Seminar in Poetry: Generative Genres. 100 Units.

From ancient Sumerian temple hymns to 7th-century Japanese death poems to avant-garde ekphrasis in the 21st century, the history of poetry is as rich in genres as it is in forms. Why does it feel so good to write a curse? What is an ode and how is it different from an aubade? In this technical seminar we will study the origins, transcultural functions, and evolving conventions of some of the oldest-living genres of lyric poetry - the ode, the elegy, the love poem, the curse, to name a few. We will read living writers such as Alice Oswald, Danez Smith, Kim Hyesoon, and Natalie Diaz alongside historical forerunners including Aesop, Sei Shonagon, John Keats. Federico Garcia Lorca, Sylvia Plath, and Paul Celan. Students will write weekly experiments of their own in response to our readings, and for a final project they will edit a mini-anthology of a genre of their choice, including a short critical introduction.

Instructor(s): Suzanne Buffam     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40309

CRWR 20312. Technical Seminar in Poetry: Prosody. 100 Units.

PROSODY This course will be a deep dive into prosody. What is prosody? Merriam-Webster describes it as "the rhythmic and intonational aspect of language" - we might also describe it as the way poems move, and how they move their reader. Arguably one of the most important (and least visible) aspects of poetic composition, prosody can teach you to see and write differently. We'll begin with an introduction to historical metrics (the boring but necessary part), and then move on to studying more contemporary models. Readings will include a bit of scholarly work on prosody by Rosemary Gates and Boris Maslov, but mostly we'll read poems, from the 12th century to the 21st, that foreground prosody and rhythmic structure. This will be a practice-intensive class-you will be asked to produce several exercises a week, in addition to a final paper or project.

Instructor(s): Kirsten Ihns     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): During pre-registration, this course is open only to declared Creative Writing Majors and declared Minors in English and Creative Writing, as well as graduate students. During add/drop the course will be instructor consent and open to all students in the College. Please contact the instructor to be added to the waitlist for the option to enroll during add/drop. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40312

CRWR 20404. Technical Seminar in Nonfiction: Forms of the Essay. 100 Units.

The essay, derived from the French term essayer meaning "to try" or "to attempt," is not only a beloved sub-genre of creative nonfiction, but a form that yields many kinds of stories, thus many kinds of structures. Araceli Arroyo writes that the essay can "reach its height in the form of a lyric, expand in digression, coil into a list, delve into memoir, or spring into the spire of the question itself all with grace and unexhausted energy." In this course, we will analyze the essay's continuum, marked by traditional, linear narratives on one end, and at the other, everything else. In our class, we will investigate the relationship between content and form. What does it mean to be scene-driven? What happens when a narrative abandons chronology and event, propelled instead by language and image? What is gained through gaps and white space? You will leave this class with a strong grasp of content's relationship to form, prepared to participate effectively in creative writing workshops. You will also create a portfolio of short writings that can be expanded into longer pieces. Readings will include: Nox by Anne Carson; A Bestiary by Lily Hoang; Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions by Valeria Luiselli; Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine; Essayists on the Essay edited by Ned Stuckey-French

Instructor(s): Kathleen Blackburn     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40404

CRWR 20410. Technical Seminar in Nonfiction: Epistolary Form. 100 Units.

When does a body of writing become "literary"? What stories might be found inside the hastily scrawled lines of a postcard buried in the attic or an incomplete to-do list drifting down the sidewalk? Beginning with the modern epistle and epistolary novel, this cross-genre seminar orbits the space where non-literary documents give way to artistic compositions that a given set of experts would otherwise neatly categorize and deposit somewhere literature is supposed to belong. As we practice the interplay of research and imagination toward the realization of a final project, we'll examine how writers of nonfiction and documentary poetics have used everything from blueprints of a prison cell to vaudeville ephemera to frame, develop, and heighten true stories. We'll consider ethics of authority such as information access, authentication, and journalistic objectivity alongside rhetorical matters of credibility, emotional truth, and the serviceability of facts. Come play in the archives and observe the power of repurposed material.

Instructor(s): Dina Peone     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40410

CRWR 20412. Technical Seminar in Nonfiction: The writer as researcher. 100 Units.

Research is an essential and imaginative process for the nonfiction story, but in what ways are the writer's methods unique to literary practice? This course will explore the role of research in writing creative nonfiction. Students will develop methods that play a role in writing essays, memoir, and literary journalism. The seminar will be conducted in four sequential parts: immersion research; interview techniques; library research; translating technical jargon for a public readership. Assignments will equip students with the practical steps for completing each style of research. We will also discuss how to integrate research into the descriptions, narrative, and subtext of the writing. Students will experiment with: dramatizing research through scene-building; using reflection to respond to their findings; and inviting research to become part of the plot. Research, we will find, generates some of the most dramatic and surprising moments in the writing process. We will read texts that correspond to the areas of focus, including works by Eula Biss, Daisy Hernandez, and Sarah Viren. Students will leave the course equipped to include research into their writing process for advanced writing workshops and thesis projects.

Instructor(s): Kathleen Blackburn     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 40412

CRWR 21502. Advanced Translation Workshop. 100 Units.

All writing is revision, and this holds true for the practice of literary translation as well. We will critique each other's longer manuscripts-in-progress of prose, poetry, or drama, and examine various revision techniques-from the line-by-line approach of Lydia Davis, to the "driving-in-the-dark" model of Peter Constantine, and several approaches in between. We will consider questions of different reading audiences while preparing manuscripts for submission for publication, along with the contextualization of the work with a translator's preface or afterword. Our efforts will culminate in not only an advanced-stage manuscript, but also with various strategies in hand to use for future projects. We will also have the opportunity to have conversations via Zoom with some of the translators we'll be reading. Students who wish to take this workshop should have at least an intermediate proficiency in a foreign language and already be working on a longer translation project.

Instructor(s): Jason Grunebaum     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu (include writing sample). Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Students who wish to take this workshop should have at least an intermediate proficiency in a foreign language and already be working on a longer translation project. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 41502

CRWR 21504. Advanced Translation Workshop: Scales of Reading. 100 Units.

Peer review of translations-in-progress can often take the form of line edits: we discuss word choices that call attention to themselves rather than talking through the larger compositional units in which those choices are made. While a fine-grained reading is vital to revision, it can also run the risk of minimizing our critical engagement with translated texts merely on the basis of "awkward" or " stilted" language. This workshop will explore the different scales of reading employed in reviewing drafts: Yes, those instances that make us pause or take us out of the text are worth marking for the translator, but ultimately, they're only useful to the translator if we can synthesize them into a larger, coherent reading of the work as a whole. By treating translations-in-progress as literary works deserving of close readings (rather than merely manuscript pages to be edited), we'll seek to provide our peers with a critical account of our experience as the primary readers of their translations. Specifically, we'll practice grounding our accounts in aspects of craft and structure, form and content, in order to move beyond our subjectivities as readers and our idiolects as writers - and better understand how a translated work's larger concerns are enacted in the language itself. Students with translations-in-progress, as well as students who will be starting new projects, are welcome to participate in this workshop.

Instructor(s): Annie Janusch Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu (include writing sample). Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Students who wish to take this workshop should have at least an intermediate proficiency in a foreign language and already be working on a longer translation project. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 41504

CRWR 21505. Advanced Translation Workshop: Prose Style. 100 Units.

Purple, lean, evocative, muscular, literary, exuberant, lucid, stilted, elliptical. These are all labels that critics and reviewers have used to characterize prose styles that call attention to themselves in distinct ways. Of course, what constitutes style not only changes over time, but also means different things in different literary traditions. How, then, do translators carry style over from one language and cultural milieu to another? And to what extent does style structure storytelling? We will explore these questions by reading a variety of modern and contemporary stylists who either write in English or translate into English, paying special attention to what stylistic devices are at work and what their implications are for narration, characterization, and world building. Further, we'll examine the range of choices that each writer and translator makes when constituting and reconstituting style, on a lexical, tonal, and syntactic scale. By pairing readings with generative exercises in stylistics and constrained writing, we will build toward the translation of a short work of contemporary fiction into English. To participate in this workshop, students should be able to comfortably read a literary text in a foreign language.

Instructor(s): Annie Janusch     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 41505

CRWR 22117. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Beginning a Novel. 100 Units.

This workshop is for any student with a novel in progress or an interest in starting one. Our focus will be the opening chapter, arguably the most consequential one-for the reader naturally, but most importantly for us the writer. How might it introduce the people and world of the story, its premise or central conflict, its narrative tone and style? How might it intrigue, orient, or even challenge the reader and begin teaching them how to read the book? And if the first chapter is our actual starting point as the writer, how might it help us figure out the dramatic shape of our novel, its thematic concerns, its conceptual design? We'll apply such questions to the opening chapters of an exemplary mix of novels-The Great Gatsby, The Age of Innocence, Invisible Man, Beloved, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, The Vegetarian, Normal People, etc.- and examine what they are expected to do as well as what they can unexpectedly do. And as everyone workshops the first chapter (or prologue) of their own novel, we'll consider ways of adjusting or rethinking them so that the author can better understand their project overall and build on all the promise of the material they have.

Instructor(s): Vu Tran     Terms Offered: Autumn Note(s): Students must have taken Fundamentals + a Beginning Workshop in the same genre as the Advanced Workshop you want to register for. Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42117

CRWR 22128. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Novel Writing, The First Chapters. 100 Units.

In this workshop-focused class we will focus on the early stages of both developing and writing a novel: choosing the POV, establishing the setting, developing the main characters and the dynamics between them, setting up the conflicts and seeding the themes of book, etc. As a class we will read, break down and discuss the architecture of the openings of several published novels as you work on your own opening chapters, which will be workshopped during the course.

Instructor(s): Augustus Rose     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu (include writing sample). Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42128

CRWR 22130. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Inner Logic. 100 Units.

In this advanced workshop, we will explore the range of strategies and techniques that fiction writers employ to make readers suspend their disbelief. We will consider how imagined worlds are made to feel real and how invented characters can seem so human. We will contemplate how themes, motifs, and symbols are deployed in such a way that a story can feel curated without seeming inorganic. We will consider how hints are dropped with subtlety, how the 'rules' for what is possible in a story are developed, and how writers can sometimes defy their own established expectations in ways that delight rather than frustrate. From character consistency to twist endings, we'll investigate how published authors lend a sense of realism and plausibility to even the most far-fetched concepts. Through regular workshops, we will also interrogate all students' fiction through this lens, discussing the ways in which your narratives-in-progress create their own inner logic. Students will submit two stories to workshop and will be asked to write critiques of all peer work.

Instructor(s): Baird Harper     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42130

CRWR 22132. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Strange Magic in Short Fiction. 100 Units.

In this workshop based course we'll investigate how strangeness and magic function in short fiction. We'll read stories by authors like Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado, and Alice Sola Kim, examining how these writers portray the fantastical and impossible. We'll explore concepts like defamiliarization, versimilitude, and the uncanny. We will contemplate how magical realism and surrealism differ from sci-fi and fantasy genre writing, and ask how we, as writers, can make the quotidian seem extraordinary and the improbable seem inevitable, and to what end? Students will complete several short creative exercises and workshop one story that utilizes magic or strange effects. Students will also be expected to write thoughtful, constructive critiques of peer work. Throughout the course, we'll consider how the expectations of literary fiction might constrain such narratives, and we can engage with and transcend these archetypes.

Instructor(s): Benjamin Hoffman     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42132

CRWR 22133. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Writing the Uncanny. 100 Units.

Sigmund Freud defines "the uncanny" ("unheimlich") as something that unnerves us because it is both familiar and alien at the same time, the result of hidden anxieties and desires coming to the surface. In this advanced fiction workshop, we will explore how fiction writers use the uncanny to create suspense, lend their characters psychological depth, thrill and terrify their readers, and lay bare the darkest and most difficult human impulses. We will read and discuss fiction by writers like Shirley Jackson, Jamaica Kincaid, Octavia Butler, Kelly Link, Ben Okri, Haruki Murakami, and Victor Lavalle, drawing craft lessons from these writers to guide our own attempts at writing the uncanny. Much of our class time will be dedicated to evaluating student work and honing our skills of composition and critique. In addition to shorter writing exercises and "mini-workshops" throughout the quarter, every student will complete a full-length "uncanny" short story for workshop and compose critique letters for each of their peers. Students will be required to significantly revise their full-length short story by the end of the quarter.

Instructor(s): Stephanie Soileau     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42133

CRWR 22134. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Cultivating Trouble and Conflict. 100 Units.

If you want a compelling story, put your protagonist among the damned." --Charles Baxter While crisis is to be avoided in life, when it comes to narrative, trouble is your friend. In this advanced workshop we'll explore the complex ways writers create conflict in their stories, be it internal or external, spiritual or physical, romantic, financial or familial. We'll read masters of the form like Edward P. Jones, George Saunders, ZZ Packer, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Yiyun Li, and discuss how they generate conflict that feels organic, character-driven, and inevitable. Weekly writing exercises will encourage you to take creative risks and hone new skills. Each student will workshop two stories, with strong emphasis on focused and productive peer critique and in-class commentary.

Instructor(s): Sharon Pomerantz     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42134

CRWR 22135. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Narrative Time. 100 Units.

The Long and the Short of it: Narrative Time A story's end point determines its meaning. The history of a life can be covered in a sentence, a few pages or seven volumes. How do writers decide? In this advanced workshop, we'll look at different ways to handle narrative time, paying special attention to building blocks like direct and summary scene, flashback, compression, slowed time and fabulist time. We'll examine work by writers whose long stories feel like novels, like Alice Munro and Edward P. Jones, alongside those who say everything in a short single scene of a page or two, like Grace Paley and Kate Chopin. Students will be encouraged to experiment with time in both writing exercises and story revisions.By the end of the course, you will have generated significant raw material and workshopped one story. Two stories, one polished and one in draft, will be prepared for the final.

Instructor(s): Sharon Pomerantz     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42135

CRWR 22137. Advanced Fiction Workshop: The College Novel (& Story) 100 Units.

In this advanced fiction workshop, we will examine and write narratives set at college, the so-called campus and varsity novels (and, in our case, short stories). We will try to capture the attendant promise and uncertainty of life on the cusp of adulthood, asking what it means to come of age, to age, to experiment, and possibly, to regress. We'll attempt to veer away from cultural cliché and caricature to portray the truth of life on campus and come to grips with the way you live right now, as we consider what it means-to borrow the title of one novel-to make our home among strangers. Students will read published works and submit two stories or novel excerpts for workshops. Please expect a rigorous but constructive workshop environment where being a critic and an editor is essential.

Instructor(s): Ben Hoffman     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42137

CRWR 22140. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Killing Cliché 100 Units.

It's long been said that there are no new stories, only new ways of telling old ones, but how do writers reengage familiar genres, plots, and themes without being redundant? This course will confront the literary cliché at all levels, from the trappings of genre to predictable turns of plot to the subtly undermining forces of mundane language. We will consider not only how stories can fall victim to cliché but also how they may benefit from calling on recognizable content for the sake of efficiency, familiarity, or homage. Through an array of readings that represent unique concepts and styles as well as more conventional narratives we will examine how published writers embrace or subvert cliché through story craft. Meanwhile, student fiction will be discussed throughout the term in a supportive workshop atmosphere that will aim not to expose clichés in peer work, but to consider how an author can find balance-between the familiar and the unfamiliar, between the predictable and the unpredictable-in order to maximize a story's effect. Students will submit two stories to workshop and will be asked to write critiques of all peer work.

Instructor(s): Baird Harper     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42140

CRWR 22146. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Disruption and Disorder. 100 Units.

This workshop-based course proceeds from the premise that disorder and disruption are fruitful aesthetics that might be applied to numerous elements of fiction to unlock new possibilities in our work. Students will seek to identify typical narrative conventions and lyrical patterns and then write away from them-or write over them, toward subversion, surprise, and perhaps even a productive anarchy. Students will search for hidden structures in work by Taeko Kono, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Diane Williams, Garielle Lutz, and others, examining the methods these writers use to lead readers to unexpected, original, and transgressive places. Students will complete several short creative exercises in which they practice disruption and disorder in plot, pace, dialogue, and syntax. In the second half of the course, students will workshop one story or excerpt and write thoughtful, constructive critiques of peer work. Revision is also a crucial component of this class, as it is an opportunity to radically warp and deviate from our prior visions. Throughout the quarter, we will attempt to interrupt and shake up our own inclinations as artists.

Instructor(s): Benjamin Hoffman     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42146

CRWR 22149. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Long Stories. 100 Units.

The advantage, the luxury, as well as the torment and responsibility of the novelist," writes Henry James, "is that there is no limit to what he may attempt." Writers interested in these torments and luxuries can begin to experiment with long form in this workshop. Each student will compose a single long story of about forty pages. We'll attend to the freshness of beginnings, the satisfactions (and compromises) of endings and, most acutely, to the crises of middles. A scaffolding of workshops, outlines, and conferences will support and structure your efforts. Along the way we'll explore the opportunities of long-form structure with examples from the likes of David Foster Wallace, Alice Munro, Ted Chiang, and Toni Morrison. Most of our class time will be devoted to workshopping long stories by students.

Instructor(s): Benjamin Lytal     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42149

CRWR 22152. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Finding and Refining Voice. 100 Units.

As writers, your "voice" is you imposing who you are on the truthfulness of your sentences. Finding your voice, then, is the process-whether you're describing a character, an image, or an idea-of constantly asking yourself, Do I absolutely believe this?, of rewriting and rewriting your sentences until you absolutely do believe it, and finally of refining all the technical aspects you brought to bear to assure that level of individual truth. Out of that, naturally and inevitably, comes your voice-at least for the time being. In this workshop, we'll examine this crucial stage in the development of your own aesthetic, which is not merely a writing style, but more importantly a personal perspective on the world that informs and is informed by that style. We will read a selection of writers with distinctive worldviews and thus distinctive literary voices (Paul Bowles, Toni Morrison, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Lorrie Moore, Ottessa Moshfegh, Ocean Vuong, Garth Greenwell, etc.), and we'll complement those readings with writing exercises and workshops of your own fiction, where you will actively interrogate, cultivate, and refine your emerging voice.

Instructor(s): Vu Tran     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42152

CRWR 22153. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Rants and Rambles. 100 Units.

The unshackled narrators that dominate many of our most exciting novels-from Dostoevsky's underground man to the uber-relatable mother of 2019's Ducks, Newburyport-take their bearings not from the scenic method of theater or the omniscient narration of history but from the essay form and from oral storytelling. This workshop plumbs those resources to better understand this alternative tradition, studying the craft that can make unruly narrative both highly entertaining and intellectually satisfying, exploring rhetoric, repetition, leitwortstil, logical nesting, suspense, digression, irony, and humor. While executing creative exercises in voice, we'll read books of furious energy by Thomas Bernhard and Jamaica Kincaid alongside cooler, essayistic meanders by W. G. Sebald and Claire-Louise Bennett. Students will compose and workshop a substantial work that takes its cues from these examples.

Instructor(s): Benjamin Lytal     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42153

CRWR 22154. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Unlikeable Characters. 100 Units.

From "unreliable" to "unlikeable," certain characters--and character qualities--are often measured against popular understandings of who is "good," who is "relatable," and who gets to decide. As Ottessa Moshfegh quips in a Guardian interview, "We live in a world in which mass murderers are re-elected, yet it's an unlikeable female character that is found to be offensive." In this technical seminar, we will critically investigate cultural dialogues around "unlikeability," and discuss the shared qualities and compelling narrative capabilities of "unlikeable" characters. Assignments will include reading responses, short craft analyses, and a presentation.

Instructor(s): Meghan Lamb     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42154

CRWR 22155. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Writing About Work. 100 Units.

Writing about work, jobs, and vocational experiences may seem contradictory- or even antithetical-to our goals in fiction. After all, if we aim to inspire, to invigorate, to otherwise wield a narrative "axe for the frozen sea within us" (as Kafka wrote), why write about the very day-to-day tasks so often charged with numbing and blurring our sensation of life? In this workshop, we will explore and answer this question with our own work-focused fictions, developing strategies for defamiliarizing the mundane, and using routines to build dramatic tension. Utilizing a combination of creative workshops and exercises-and drawing upon models from the job-focused fiction of Eugene Martin, Dorothy Allison, Lucia Berlin, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Edwidge Danticat, and other writers-we will also deepen and develop our characters through precise depictions of their work environments.

Instructor(s): Meghan Lamb     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42155

CRWR 22156. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Narrator as Personality. 100 Units.

While aspiring writers usually grasp quickly how to write direct dialog-we hear it all around us, in public and private spaces-narration is a trickier enterprise. In this writing workshop, we will look at the narrator as personality, a voice that exists to tell the story, but not always to enter it. The narrator can be a constant, like an elbow in the side, or effaced, touching down to only give us the basics of time and place. They can be all knowing, summarizing scenes, people and events from a distant, God-like vantage, or reportorial, speaking in present tense as events unfurl. Some narrators make us laugh but are conning us with their charm; others explain the psychology of events like a great therapist or moralize like a member of the clergy. We will read a wide range of examples from writers like Edward P. Jones, Anton Chekhov, Salman Rushdie, Amy Hempel, Yiyun Li, and Louise Erdrich. Students will be encouraged to experiment in both writing exercises and story revisions. By the end of the course, you will have generated significant raw material and workshopped one story, which you will revise for the final.

Instructor(s): Sharon Pomerantz     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42156

CRWR 22157. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Tiny Chapters. 100 Units.

In this advanced fiction workshop, students will have the opportunity to assemble a long narrative out of short fragments. Composing with small units reframes the art of narrative. We'll study the diverse affordances of working with fragments-collage, aporia, essayistic interpolation-always keeping an eye on the totality of our narratives. We'll discuss the art of brevity-including related forms like the aphorism, the note, and the joke. We'll begin in experiment and end with substantial compositions. Our readings will be drawn from the numerous contemporary novelists who use this method (Jenny Offill, Olga Ravn, Dorthe Nors) as well as the older generation of authors who, in their different ways, may be said to have pioneered the form (Marguerite Duras, Gwendolyn Brooks, William Gass, Renata Adler). But most of our class time will be devoted to workshopping original student work.

Instructor(s): Benjamin Lytal     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42157

CRWR 22158. Advanced Fiction Workshop: From the Ground Up. 100 Units.

In a craft talk, writer Stephen Dobyns once described an exercise he used for generating stories inspired by Raymond Carver, who said about his process, "I write the first sentence, and then I write the next sentence and then the next." Apparently, Dobyns was frustrated by that answer, but later challenged himself to write 50 first sentences of potential stories. Then, he picked half of them and wrote 25 first paragraphs. From those, he eventually completed about a half dozen stories. (I learned this from an article by the great short story writer Kelly Link.) In this generative workshop, we will proceed in this fashion. During the first week, we'll study the first sentences of stories and each write our own 50 first sentences. During the second week, we'll study the first paragraphs of stories and each write 25 first paragraphs, and so on until all students have a few complete drafts of stories, one of which will be submitted to our in-class workshop. Along the way, we'll read and discuss well-made stories by writers such as Kelly Link, Denis Johnson, Joy Williams, Edward P. Jones, Justin Torres, Mary Gaitskill, and many others. To be successful, students will read and write actively and share their well-informed opinions with enthusiasm, especially in our workshop discussions.

Instructor(s): Ryan Van Meter     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42158

CRWR 22159. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Family Life, Family Strife. 100 Units.

If, as the opening lines of Anna Karenina suggests, it is true that "every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," then the unique character of family is largely determined by its distinct manner and type of conflict. In this advanced fiction workshop, we'll examine fiction about family friction with an eye for observing the strategies that authors have used to construct dramas that revolve around how families love, cope, or crumple in the midst of crisis. As we identify tropes of family dysfunction, we'll also consider the ways authors use narrative devices like point-of-view, setting, plot, and scene to investigate how we define family (and how those definitions have evolved); its bonds and intergenerational inheritances; how families-like institutions- are bonded by their distinctive habits, manners, mores, and laws; and how kinship might magnify, subvert, or critique larger society. Above all, we'll debate what family life and family strife teach us about storytelling. Over the course of the term, we will write and workshop your own fiction inspired by model texts.

Instructor(s): Julie Iromuanya     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 42159

CRWR 23113. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Waste, Surplus, Reuse. 100 Units.

What do writers and artists do with surplus, with extras, leftovers, and other excesses of production? Is there a creative use to put them to? When viewed in the context of ecology and economy, what are the ethical dimensions of working with surplus? Are there also ethics and aesthetics of the "useless"? With these guiding questions, this course will explore creative approaches to waste, and develop revision practices that draw on the reuse of material surplus. We will consider forms of excess, and we'll examine diverse types of waste and things that "waste", including literal trash, ruins, the body, time, the dream, and everyday texts (such as emails, text messages, rough drafts, conversations, and ephemeral media). Readings and media may include work by Georges Perec, Harryette Mullen, Nikki Wallschlaeger, T. S. Eliot, Kurt Schwitters, and Agnes Varda. Students should plan to complete various prompts, lead discussion on readings, and complete a final project.

Instructor(s): Nate Hoks     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43113

CRWR 23123. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Form & Formlessness. 100 Units.

Wallace Stevens suggests that "The essential thing in form is to be free in whatever form is used." How does form provide a kind of freedom for a poet? How does it manifest itself in a poem? Does it mean we have to follow prescribed rules, or is there a more intuitive approach? This course will give students a chance to try out a range of traditional and experimental forms, both as an attempt to improve as writers and in order to interrogate form and its other, what Bataille called the formless, or "unformed" (l'informe). We'll explore traditional and contemporary takes on a variety of forms, such as sonnets, odes, aphorisms, serial poems, and poetic collage. Students should expect to write exercises, submit new poems, contribute feedback on peer work, write short response papers, and submit a final portfolio.

Instructor(s): Nathan Hoks     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu (include writing sample). Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43123

CRWR 23126. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Poetry and the Present Moment. 100 Units.

In this workshop we will tackle the problem of writing poetry in the present moment at a range of scales, thinking critically about our world's obsession with the "contemporary." At the grandest scale, we will ask what it means to write into the contemporary moment, one in which we seem to feel time fading with every status update and tweet, and one that demands embodied engagement-reading works that have been written recently, in dialogue with living authors. At the most intimate scale, we will consider how poetry can cultivate critical awareness of the present moment amidst forces that pull us with dopamine-induced promises and regrets into the future and past. How does poetry, with its odd ability to punctuate, syncopate, fragment, and suspend time, intervene in daily life and in the historical record? Authors for consideration will include Issa, Basho, Gertrude Stein, F.T. Marinetti, David Harvey, Cecilia Vicuna, Bernadette Mayer, Etel Adnan, Leslie Scalapino, Lyn Hejinian, Julie Patton, CA Conrad, Julian T. Brolaski, and Bhanu Kapil. Students will have the chance to experiment with different forms of attunement to the present, and will produce a daybook in tandem with a final "book" project that may take a range of forms.

Instructor(s): Jennifer Scappettone     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43126

CRWR 23132. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Poets' Prose. 100 Units.

Which one of us, in his moments of ambition, has not dreamed of the miracle of a poetic prose," wrote Charles Baudelaire in Paris Spleen,"... supple enough and rugged enough to adapt itself to the lyrical impulses of the soul, the undulations of reverie, the jibes of conscience?" This genre-blurring workshop will explore elements of the history and practice of the prose poem, and other poems and texts that combine strategies, forms and gestures of prose (fiction, nonfiction, etc.) with those of poetry. We will also read texts that are difficult to classify in terms of genre. "Flash Fiction," "Short Shorts," the fable, the letter, the mini-essay, and the lyric essay will be examined, among others. We will discuss the literary usefulness (or lack of it) of genre and form labels. The class will be taught as a workshop: students will try their hand at writing in their choices of hybrid forms, and will be encouraged to experiment. Writers from all genres are welcome, as what we will be studying, discussing, and writing will involve the fruitful collision of literary genres.

Instructor(s): Suzanne Buffam     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43132

CRWR 23133. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Poets in Archives. 100 Units.

This course will examine how the historical archive can be a source for poetry writing, seeking to develop frameworks for interpreting the experiences that poets enact through archives. Deeper questions to be examined involve the relation between poetic form and historical knowledge; the relation between imagination and memory; between material histories and their inscription; between poets and their historical and biographical pasts; and between the critical and creative, the historical and biographical, and the exteriors and interiors of literature, history, myth, and politics. Because this is an advanced workshop, we will rely on mutual exchange dedicated to improving writing. Critique will therefore be our core activity, guided by our readings and professor instruction, but driven primarily by original student work and discussion.

Instructor(s): Edgar Garcia     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43133

CRWR 23134. Advanced Poetry Workshop: The Book as Form. 100 Units.

What is a book? This supposedly obsolete medium has undergone vital metamorphosis over the course of the past century, migrating from text into the visual and performing arts, as well as online. As contemporary writers we will consider what it means to contribute to its evolution, thinking about new forms that the "poetry collection" can take, as well as more emergent forms of the book as project-or process. Authors to be studied include Sappho, Basho, Mina Loy, Bruno Munari, Bread and Puppet Theater, Susan Howe, Anne Carson, Ann Hamilton, Buzz Spector, Bhanu Kapil, Don Mee Choi, Jen Bervin, Mei-Mei Burssenbrugge, Stephanie Strickland, Tan Lin, Edwin Torres, Nanni Balestrini, Douglas Kearney, and Amaranth Borsuk. Be prepared to think about poetry from the scale of the syllable to the scale of the entire bound (or unbound) work.

Instructor(s): Jennifer Scappettone     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43134

CRWR 23135. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Weird Science. 100 Units.

This class invites students to explore various relationships between science and poetry, two domains that, perhaps counter-intuitively, often draw from each other to revitalize themselves. As poets, we'll use, misuse, and borrow from science in our poems. We'll approach poems like science experiments and aim to enter an "experimental attitude." From a practical point of view, we'll try to write poems that incorporate the language of science to freshen their own language or to expand the realm of poetic diction. Furthermore, we'll work with tropes and procedural experiments that may result in revelation, discovery, and surprise. Readings may include work by Aimé Césaire, Kimiko Hahn, Ed Roberson, Dean Young, Joyelle Mcsweeney, and Will Alexander. Students can expect to write several poems, participate in discussion forums with both initial response papers and follow-up comments, critique peers' work, and submit a final portfolio. A substantial amount of class time will be spent workshopping student work.

Instructor(s): Nathan Hoks     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43135

CRWR 23136. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Poetry as Parasite. 100 Units.

Might there be a kind of poem that acts like a parasite latched on to a host body? A poem whose very life is the fusion of various sources, voices, discourses? This poetry workshop invites students to read and write poetry that, either overtly or subtly, engages with other texts. We'll examine ways that poems create intertextual relationships (e.g. quoting, voicing, alluding, echoing, stealing, sampling, imitating, translating…) and test out these methods in our own writing. Students should expect to engage with the basic question of how their work relates to other poets and poems. Expect to read a substantial amount of work by modern and contemporary poets, submit new original poems for workshop, complete intertextual writing exercises, participate in discussion forums with both initial response papers and follow-up comments, critique peers' work, and submit a final portfolio. A substantial amount of class time will be spent workshopping student work.

Instructor(s): Nathan Hoks     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43136

CRWR 23137. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Poetry, Archives, and History. 100 Units.

This course introduces fundamental ideas about poetic form and approaches to poetic writing through close reading and discussion of poetry (modern and contemporary but not exclusively). We will consider poetic elements from the ground-up-reading closely for sound, image, syntax, and meaning-in order to enliven those elements in student writing. Likewise, we will consider how poems appear at a crossroads between history and experience (the past and present) in order to inspire students to write not only about themselves but about real and imagined social, cultural, historical, and intellectual locations and horizons (considering such aspects of poetry writing as geography, history, mythology, anthropology, kinship, science, visual media, audio media, etc). We will do so in conversation with our peers by way of regular presentations and workshops, in which students will give feedback to one another's works, learning thus how to read critically while generously, and how to respond collegially while also constructively. At the end of the quarter students will revise drafts based on class writing exercises and workshop conversations, to produce a portfolio prefaced by a critical reflection. The arc of the class also involves the making of a collaborative syllabus (with a wide range of texts offered and guided by the instructor but available to the creative configuration of the students themselves), to strengthen our grasp of archival and curatorial aspects of poetry writing.

Instructor(s): Edgar Garcia     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43137

CRWR 23138. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Poetics of Procedure and Restraint. 100 Units.

Rats who build the labyrinth from which they will try to escape" is how Raymond Queneau famously described the members of Oulipo, a group of international writers and mathematicians founded in France in 1960, and which still thrives today. The group's aim is to use constraints and procedures to create new literary forms. ("Oulipo" is an acronym that stands for Workshop or Sewing Circle of Potential Literature.) In a similar spirit of playful experiment, we will take a hands-on approach, with students composing new drafts each week. We will experiment with a variety of methods, ranging from traditional verse forms to concrete poetry; creative translations; re-writing; erasures; collages; documentary and research-based poetics; site-specific and ritual poetry; incorporating film, sound, image; and a selection of stimulating Oulipian constraints (e.g. only using certain letters or writing three versions of the same poem, etc.). As we workshop students' drafts, we will discuss topics including inspiration, authorship, form, copying and plagiarism; poetry, activism, and social justice; and the idea of "fact" in poetry. At the end of the quarter, you'll revise your drafts and collect them in a portfolio.

Instructor(s): Rachel Galvin     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43138

CRWR 23139. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Ekphrastic Poetry. 100 Units.

In this generative advanced poetry workshop we will find inspiration for our own poetry by engaging with the visual arts. We will read poems that respond to, reflect, and refract the arts, and exercises will be based on our own encounters in museums, at the movies, in the realms of fashion, architecture, landscape, and elsewhere. We will ask ourselves about artifice and making, the materiality of the written word, the relationship between observation and expression, the emotive qualities of the image, and the sonic qualities of words. Most of our course reading will be contemporary poetry, but we will also explore a range of exciting earlier examples. Each class meeting will include workshops of student poems, discussions of assigned literature, and conversations about art practice and art community. In addition to reading deeply, looking closely, and writing wildly, students are expected to be lively participants in the arts community on campus, and will attend exhibitions, concerts, readings, screenings, and other events and experiences that bring us into contact with various modes of expression. Texts may include poems by, Harryette Mullen, James Schuyler, Brenda Shaughnessy, David Trinidad, and Virgil.

Instructor(s): Robyn Schiff     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43139, CHST 23139

CRWR 23140. Advanced Poetry Workshop: Poetry and Crisis. 100 Units.

Since Homer's narratives of war and exile, and Hesiod's accounts of cyclical degeneration and the uncertain future of humankind, poetry has dealt with crisis and liminality. Our own present moment is defined by a convergence of climate and ecological crises, refugee crisis, food crisis, war, and epidemic. In this workshop, we will examine poetic writing arising out of crises, whether political, artistic, or existential, and craft poems that attempt to deal with crisis - both in the form of a concrete Event, and as a literary trope - through critical creative engagement, experimentation, and intertextual dialogue. Readings may include work by Peter Balakian, Jericho Brown, Don Mee Choi, Jorie Graham, Ilya Kaminsky, Valzhyna Mort, Claudia Rankine, Ocean Vuong, as well as classical sources. Students can expect to workshop their poems in class; to engage, critically and supportively, with peers' work; and to develop a final portfolio.

Instructor(s): Oksana Maksymchuk     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 43140

CRWR 24002. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Writing About the Arts. 100 Units.

Thinking about practices is a way of focusing a conversation between creative writers, art historians, curators, and working visual artists, all of whom are encouraged to join this workshop. We ourselves will be practicing and studying a wide variety of approaches to visual art. We'll read critics like John Yau and Lori Waxman, memoirists like Aisha Sabbatini Sloan, inventive historians like Zbigniew Herbert, and poets like Gwendolyn Brooks and Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, as well as curatorial and museum writings, catalogue essays, artists' statements, and other experimental and practical forms. The course hopes to support students both in developing useful practices and experimenting boldly. Classes will be shaped around current exhibitions and installations. Sessions will generally begin with student-led observation at the Smart Museum, and we will spend one session on close looking in the study room at the Smart. Students will also visit five collections, exhibitions and/or galleries and, importantly, keep a looking notebook. Students will write a number of exercises in different forms (immersive meditation, researched portrait, mosaic fragment), and will also write and revise a longer essay (on any subject and in any mode) to be workshopped in class.

Instructor(s): Rachel Cohen     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu (writing sample required). Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 34002, CRWR 44002, ARTH 24002

CRWR 24012. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Writing the Narrative Nonfiction Feature. 100 Units.

In this writing workshop, students will go through all the stages of composing a narrative nonfiction feature story. After generating a few ideas that seem original, surprising in their approach, and appropriate in scope, we will write and re-write pitches, learning how to highlight the potential story in these ideas. After the class agrees to "assign" one of these features, each student will report, research and write a draft. The features will be workshopped in class, and students will go through an editorial process, polishing their stories through drafts and experimenting with style and form for a final assignment. Along the way, we will consider the mechanics, ethics and craft of this work as we read published nonfiction and talk to writers/reporters about their process. In the end, we should be able to put together a publication that contains all of these feature stories.

Instructor(s): Ben Austen     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44012

CRWR 24019. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Experimental Essay. 100 Units.

Most introductions to creative nonfiction include one sections devoted to the strange and unwieldy-Ander Monson's "I've Been Thinking About Snow" or a page or two of Anne Carson's Nox. A brief foray into the metaphysical essay, the interactive essay, the performance essay and then back into the mainstream of creative nonfiction. This course, however, will be ignoring the mainstream entirely and, rather, will be devoted to the fringe, the strange and almost undefinable. From the performance essay to the video game essay, from the illustrated essay to the found essay and everything in between. This course will consist of experimental readings with accompanying writing prompts and in-class discussions, as well as dedicated workshops to each student's own experimental creative nonfiction project.

Instructor(s): Lina Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44019

CRWR 24020. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Writing the Eco-memoir. 100 Units.

We live in an era marked by human-driven environmental change, an epoch distinguished not only by the reality of anthropogenic impacts, but of human witness. Never before, writes Elizabeth Rush, have humans been here to tell the story of collapse, extinction, adaptation, and memory. In this workshop, we will read and write eco-memoir, a hybrid form of literary nonfiction that blends the work of ecology, history, and personal narrative to understand more fully how memory is bound to ecosystems. Some might simply call this memoir, following J. Drew Lanham's view that the writing of memoir is also the writing of environment. This course will ask how the memoirist looks at place, taking up W.G. Sebald's thinking that places seem to "have some kind of memory, in that they activate memory in those who look at them." Students will practice using the tenets of literary memoir-writing to engage with the theoretical frameworks of such environmental thinkers as Donna Haraway and Jedidiah Purdy. We will ask: to what extent is remembering a collective act? How might the eco-memoir represent the uneven consequences of ecological disruption? What narrative structures does the story of an ecosystem take? Students will write two-full length essays or memoir chapters. Readings will include texts by Kendra Atleework, Elizabeth Bush, Linda Hogan, J. Drew Lanham, W.G. Sebald, and visiting writers.

Instructor(s): Kathleen Blackburn     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44020

CRWR 24021. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: The Trouble with Trauma. 100 Units.

In "The Body Keeps the Score" Bessel van der Kolk writes, "The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves." Many trauma survivors begin writing reluctantly, even repulsed by the impulse to query their woundedness. The process is inhibited by stigma surrounding the notion of victimhood, entities that would prefer a survivor's silence, plus our tendency to dismiss and devalue ones suffering in relation to others. Students in this class will shed some of these constricting patterns of thinking about trauma so they may freely explore their stories with confidence, compassion, curiosity, and intention. We'll read authors who have found surprise, nuance, and yes, healing through art, honoring the heart-work that happens behind the scenes. Half of class-time will include student-led workshops of original works in progress. Paramount to our success will be an atmosphere of safety, supportiveness, respect, and confidentiality. By the quarters end each student will leave with a piece of writing that feels both true to their experience and imbued with possibility.

Instructor(s): Dina Peone     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44021

CRWR 24022. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Writing Beyond the Event. 100 Units.

Much of the tradition of Western storytelling relies on scene-driven narratives propelled by rising action toward an inevitable apex. Often natural disasters are illustrated the same way: hurricanes, invasion of new species, infectious disease, and oil spills are cast as singular events with a beginning, middle and end. This advanced workshop will explore how to push beyond the event. We will examine how forms of nonfiction, from investigative journalism to lyric essays, push against the hegemony of the "event" to tell a longer, slower story of disruption across the nexus of time and space. Following Rob Nixon's concept of slow violence, readings will focus on places and communities whose narratives do not fit tidily into beginning-middle-end story structures. Workshop will ask students to consider how their work might recognize the contexts of extraction, commodity flow, climate change, and borders surrounding the "events" driving our stories.

Instructor(s): Kathleen Blackburn     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44022

CRWR 24023. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Coming of Age Memoir. 100 Units.

Where does childhood end and adulthood begin? For Wordsworth growth happens in reverse. "The Child is the father of the Man," he wrote in 1802, yearning to recall the fundamental joy of a rainbow. Proust was eager to forget his schooldays: "We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us." In this class, students will search their lives for events and lessons which they may consider formative, together evaluating the standards they use to qualify rites of passage, in order to isolate unique patterns of growth that students can call their own. Half the quarter will be dedicated to discussing original student work. A multitude of possibilities will be offered by readings of contemporary memoirists from all walks of life. By quarters end, each student will have laid down the groundwork for a dexterous memoir about surviving the challenges of their youth, and in doing so perhaps even imagine a future that is less prescribed and more personally fulfilling.

Instructor(s): Dina Peone     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Submit writing sample via www.creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44023

CRWR 24024. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Writing Reading. 100 Units.

There are many creative ways to write of, about, from, and because of reading. In this class, serious readers will have the chance to practice forms they love and may not often get chances to write: the incisive review, the long-form reading memoir, the biographical sketch of a writer in history, the interview, the essay about translation, diaristic fragments. In this course, we'll develop individual approaches, styles and regular practices. We'll make use of both creative (and traditional) research, analysis, and criticism, and explore the wide terrain available to creative writers. We'll go back to foundational essayists including Toni Morrison and Virginia Woolf, study contemporary writers of reading such as Jazmina Berrera, Claire Messud, Niela Orr, Ruth Franklin, Emily Bernard, Hanif Abdurraqib, and Parul Sehgal. Students will keep a reading/writing notebook, conduct an interview, and write and revise a longer essay for workshop.

Instructor(s): Rachel Cohen     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44024

CRWR 24025. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Queering the Essay. 100 Units.

In Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Queering the Essay, we'll approach the essay as a vehicle for queer narratives, as a marker of both individual and collective memory, and as a necessary compliment to the journalism and scholarship that have shaped queer writing. Through readings and in-class exercises, we'll explore tenets of the personal essay, like narrative structure and pacing, alongside considerations of voice and vulnerability. After a brief historical survey, we'll look to contemporary essayists as our guides--writers like Billy-Ray Belcourt, Melissa Faliveno, Saeed Jones, Richard Rodriguez, and T. Fleischmann-- alongside more familiar writers like Alison Bechdel and Maggie Nelson. And through student-led workshops, we'll wrestle with concerns that often trouble narratives of otherness: What does it mean to write a personal narrative that has a potential social impact? How can we write trauma without playing into harmful stereotypes? How can our writing work as--or make demands toward--advocacy, rather than voyeurism?

Instructor(s): Victoria Flanagan     Terms Offered: Winter Note(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44025, GNSE 44205, GNSE 24205

CRWR 24026. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Feminist Biography. 100 Units.

The personal is political - that slogan of Women's Liberation - has long been understood, among other things, as a call for new forms of storytelling. One of those forms, feminist biography, has flourished in publishing since the 1970s, and it continues to evolve today, even as the terms of feminism and of biography are continually re-negotiated by writers and critics. In this workshop, we read some of those writers and critics. And we read illustrative examples of contemporary feminist biography (and anti-biography) in various nonfiction genres, including magazine profile, trade book, Wiki article, audio performance, personal essay, cult pamphlet, avant-garde art piece. Mostly, we try out the form for ourselves, in our own writing. Each workshop writer will choose a biographical subject (single, collective, or otherwise), and work up a series of sketches around that subject. By the end of the quarter, workshop writers will build these sketches into a single piece of longform life-writing. The workshop will focus equally on story-craft and method (e.g. interview and research techniques, cultivating sources); indeed we consider the ways that method and story are inevitably connected. This workshop might also include a week with an invited guest, a practicing critic or biographer.

Instructor(s): Avi Steinberg     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44026, GNSE 24026, GNSE 44026

CRWR 24027. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Environmental Writing, Editing, and Publication. 100 Units.

Environmental writing is a quickly-expanding field in the literary and publishing community. It encompasses nonfiction sub-genres of traditional journalism, personal essay, and hybrid forms. This course is designed for students in creative writing with an interest in environmental reportage; it is also intended for students in environmental sciences (broadly speaking) with some writing experience who wish to practice presenting complex information to a non-expert audience. Reading contemporary environmental and science writing, students will develop nonfiction techniques relevant to writing environmental stories, like how to find and contact field experts, how to engage readers in complex topics, how to integrate research into narrative, how to use dialogue from interviews, how to weave the personal together with research material, and how to pitch environmental stories. The course will also cover the practical aspects* of the field by including a workshop with the Careers in Creative Writing Journalism program, guest lectures from editors and journalists in the field, and assignments that familiarize students with current environmental literary magazines. Readings will include Kerri Arsenault's Mill Town and selections from The Best American Science and Nature Writing.

Instructor(s): Kathleen Blackburn     Terms Offered: Autumn Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44027

CRWR 24028. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: World-building in Long-form Nonfiction. 100 Units.

A writer setting out to write a long piece of nonfiction prose may assume that the world of the piece is given, but in fact the nonfiction writer has significant work to do to create a space where a reader can live. In writing creative biography, history, memoir, literary criticism, art writing, and narrative journalism, there are wonderful possibilities for archival research, visiting places and spaces, making first hand observations, interviewing, finding settings and characters, and atmospheric research, whether reading old magazines, listening to radio shows, or studying weather patterns. In this course, advanced writers will immerse themselves in one longer project, developing it in notebooks and weekly postings and exercises. The first half of the course will focus more on practicing and reading (writers including Elizabeth Rush, Zbigniew Herbert, Valeria Luiselli, and James Baldwin), the second half will focus on workshopping as the longer pieces develop. Students will finish the course with a sustained piece of prose.

Instructor(s): Rachel Cohen     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44028

CRWR 24029. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Writing Sports. 100 Units.

As live performance, public ritual, and sheer melodrama, sports give lavish expression to some of our most deeply held cultural attitudes. As sports-related industries have grown exponentially in the past decades, and as the material and political fortunes at stake in these games has also grown, so too has the need for serious writing about sports. The world's stadiums and arenas have become theaters of very real battles over race and gender, class and religion, colonialism and social justice. At the same time, the games themselves have also changed in fascinating and telling ways. This workshop invites writers who are curious about sports as a subject for literary exploration. We examine the subject through various genres of nonfiction, from longform journalism to personal essay to audio storytelling. Our readings will include both canonical and contemporary voices in sports writing. Workshop writers can choose to build a portfolio of three pieces of original nonfiction, or one long piece in three parts. No previous knowledge of sports is required.

Instructor(s): Avi Steinberg     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44029

CRWR 24030. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Writing the Narrative Nonfiction Feature. 100 Units.

Apart from it being nonfiction, a nonfiction feature is like a short story-in terms of length and scenes and characters and all the potential innovations of storytelling. In this writing workshop, students will go through each stage of composing a narrative nonfiction feature story. After generating a few ideas that seem original, surprising in their approach, and appropriate in scope, we will write pitches. After the class agrees to "assign" one of these features, each student will report, research and write a draft. The features will be workshopped in class, and students will go through an editorial process, polishing their stories and experimenting with style and form for a final assignment. Along the way, we will consider the mechanics, ethics and craft of this work as we read published nonfiction and talk to writers and reporters about their process. There will be an emphasis in the class on Chicago writers and their beats; in weekly writing assignments, students will also report on local stories.

Instructor(s): Ben Austen     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44030, CHST 24030

CRWR 29200. Thesis/Major Projects: Fiction. 100 Units.

This thesis workshop is for students writing a creative BA or MA thesis in fiction, as well as creative writing minors completing the portfolio. It is primarily a workshop, so please come to our first class with your project in progress (a story collection, a novel, or a novella), ready for you to discuss and to submit some part of for critique. As in any writing workshop, we will stress the fundamentals of craft like language, voice, and plot and character development, with an eye also on how to shape your work for the longer form you have chosen. And as a supplement to our workshops, we will have brief student presentations on the writing life: our literary influences, potential avenues towards publication, etc.

Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Note(s): Required for CW majors and MAPH CW Option students completing creative BA and MA theses in fiction and CW minors completing minor portfolios in fiction. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 49200

CRWR 29300. Thesis/Major Projects: Poetry. 100 Units.

This thesis workshop is for students writing a creative BA or MA thesis in poetry, as well as creative writing minors completing the portfolio. Because it is a thesis seminar, the course will focus on various ways of organizing larger poetic "projects." We will consider the poetic sequence, the chapbook, and the poetry collection as ways of extending the practice of poetry beyond the individual lyric text. We will also problematize the notion of broad poetic "projects," considering the consequences of imposing a predetermined conceptual framework on the elusive, spontaneous, and subversive act of lyric writing. Because this class is designed as a poetry workshop, your fellow students' work will be the primary text over the course of the quarter.

Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Note(s): Required for CW majors and MAPH CW Option students completing creative BA and MA theses in poetry and CW minors completing minor portfolios in poetry. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 49300

CRWR 29400. Thesis/Major Projects: Nonfiction. 100 Units.

This thesis workshop is for students writing a creative BA or MA thesis in nonfiction, as well as creative writing minors completing the portfolio. Student work can be an extended essay, memoir, travelogue, literary journalism, or an interrelated collection thereof. It's a workshop, so come to the first day of class with your work underway and ready to submit. You'll edit your classmates' writing as diligently as you edit your own. I focus on editing because writing is, in essence, rewriting. Only by learning to edit other people's work will you gradually acquire the objectivity you need to skillfully edit your own. You'll profit not only from the advice you receive, but from the advice you learn to give. I will teach you to teach each other and thus yourselves, preparing you for the real life of the writer outside the academy.

Instructor(s): Dan Raeburn; Lina Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Note(s): Required for CW majors and MAPH CW Option students completing creative BA and MA theses in nonfiction and CW minors completing minor portfolios in nonfiction. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 49400

CRWR 29500. Thesis/Major Projects: Fiction/Nonfiction. 100 Units.

This thesis workshop is for students writing a creative BA or MA thesis or minor portfolio in either fiction or nonfiction--or both. In other words, your project may take a number of forms: fiction only, nonfiction only, a short story and an essay, a novel chapter and a piece of narrative journalism, and so on. This course might be of special interest to those working on highly autobiographical pieces or incorporating substantial research into their creative process--fiction that hews close to fact, say, or nonfiction that leans heavily into storytelling. And/or it might be useful for those who want to pursue hybrid or between-genres projects or simply want to continue working in more than one form. We'll be open to many possibilities. It's not a prerequisite that you've taken both a fiction and creative nonfiction course previously, but it will nonetheless be quite helpful to have done so. Note, too, that this is the cumulative course in Creative Writing. There will still be room to explore and rethink (sometimes radically) the pieces you've drafted in previous classes, but please do come to our first session with a clear sense of what you want to work on over the quarter. Required for CW majors and MAPH CW Option students completing creative BA and MA theses in fiction or nonfiction and CW minors completing minor portfolios in fiction or nonfiction.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu (in application please indicate experience in fiction & nonfiction and how this thesis workshop informs your own writing practice). Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 49500

Faculty Director

Director of the Program in Creative Writing Robyn Schiff Email

Undergraduate Primary Contact

Director of Undergraduate Studies Rachel Galvin Walker 511 Email

Administrative Contacts

Program Manager Michael Fischer Taft House 103 773.834.8524 Email

Student Affairs Administrator Denise Dooley Taft House 104 773.702.0355 Email

[email protected]

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Writing Department: Undergrad & Graduate Writing Programs

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago's (SAIC) Department of Writing brings together a community of writers and artists at one of the nation’s most influential colleges of art and design. We seek students who thrive in a challenging, self-directed, and experimental environment, in which the literary arts are a living and open field. SAIC’s Writing program is distinct from more conventional programs and writing schools in that it brings together a community of writers and artists and draws on a distinguished faculty with diverse artistic and intellectual concerns.

Freshman and Transfer Final Deadline: June 1

Learn more about applying to SAIC for fall 2024.

Accepting Applications

Apply to SAIC's graduate Writing program for fall 2024 admission.

At SAIC, students in the undergraduate and graduate writing programs have a unique opportunity to explore writing both within and between genres, and to creatively connect with visual art practices throughout SAIC. We welcome students from all programs across SAIC’s diverse, interdisciplinary community who wish to pursue writing as part of their education and creative practice.

Writing Courses & Curriculum

The Bachelor of Fine Arts with an Emphasis in Writing (BFAW) program emphasizes a process-based approach to creative writing—one in which students experience writing across genres and in interdisciplinary and hybrid modes. Fully integrated into SAIC’s studio departments, you will explore the relationship between language and visual art by connecting writing to comics, graphic novels, artist’s books, painting, performance, film, sound, and gallery installations. The BFA with an emphasis in Writing program’s curriculum includes courses such as:

• Introduction to Writing as Art
• Two-semester literature survey
• Writing workshops for prose, poetry, comics, plays, and hybrid projects
• Generative seminars with multi-genre topics such as: artist books, literary monsters, and electronic writing
• Undergraduate thesis workshop—a small, intensive class in which students conceive, generate, and revise a creative project of their choice

The Master of Fine Arts in Writing (MFAW) welcomes writers of all genres—fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and playwriting—and visual artists who work with language as an integral component of their practice. The two-year writing program provides a rigorous yet flexible curriculum to challenge and accommodate individual explorations of process and form. Students in the graduate writing program are encouraged to work with their advisors to develop a plan that takes advantage of adjacent fields of study, such as performance, film, sculpture, arts journalism and art history, as well as many other possibilities, to best support their continued growth and writing journey.

Learn more about the Writing Department's undergraduate and graduate programs. 

Alumni Accomplishments

Our distinguished alumni are widely published and cultivate the literary landscape.

February 2024: Faculty and Staff Accomplishments

The Beautiful and Ominous Worlds of Cynthia Pelayo

Michael Zapata and Gabriel Bump Included on Tribune's List of New Writers to Know

Department of Writing

Lakeview Building

116 S. Michigan Ave., 

Chicago, IL 60603

[email protected]

Mark Booth [email protected]

MFA in Writing Graduate Coordinator

Ruth Margraff [email protected]

BFA in Writing Undergraduate Coordinator

Sara Levine [email protected]

Senior Administrative Director

Amber Da [email protected]

Administrative Assistant

Richard Gessert [email protected]

“My time at 826CHI taught me to value thoughts and trust my voice. There is something so powerful about a community of young writers. I feel that that experience fueled my confidence in my writing but also in myself as a person worth sharing her story.” - Kara K., Grade 11

After-school writing lab, after-school writing lab.

After-School Writing Lab (ASWL) takes place on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons (4pm - 6pm) at our Wicker Park Writing Lab, for students in 2nd through 8th grade. In this special After School Writing Lab 7 week spring session, students will explore interdisciplinary forms of poetry, storytelling, collage and audio recording. The program will culminate with a gallery exhibition, listening party and live reading at 826CHI’s Spring Showcase on May 30th.

Spring session applications OPEN! April 17th - May 30th Wednesdays & Thursdays 4pm - 6pm Sign up for ASWL at our Wicker Park Writing Lab here: In English / En Español ‍

Need more info? Contact the Programs team at [email protected]

FIELD TRIPS

Field trips.

Field trips are hosted on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings at our Wicker Park location. Field Trips are tuition-free and offered to Chicago Public School classes in grades one through twelve. Each Field Trip opportunity focuses on a variety of writing skills and writing experiences. Each of our eight different Field Trip experiences is designed to be project-based, collaborative, playful, empowering, imaginative, and to encourage students to share their ideas in their own unique voices. We are no longer accepting applications for this school year. Sign up for our newsletter to be the first to know when the new application is posted! Please email [email protected] with any questions. Field trips run Sep 19 th through May 29 th

Applications for Field Trips are OPEN!

Mission poetry.

Students will be taken on a poetry adventure and be tasked with writing a series of poems to after they become overwhelmed by all the work going on around the secret publishing house. Their mission will be to write emotion-centered poems - topics like What is Your Happy? Hard emotions? What Makes You Feel Calm When You're Overwhelmed? This Field Trip is great for building empathy and self-awareness into the classroom.

Images & Imagination

One of 826CHI’s favorite tools for combating writer's block and inspiring creativity, this lesson uses collage art and the promptings of volunteer writing coaches to guide students through the journey of writing an original story. This Field Trip is ideal for overcoming writer's block and for students tackling personal statements or scholarship essays. This Field Trip helps share effective, tangible, and memorable skills into the writing process and helps make writing feel more fun for students who may not be a fan of writing.

Spoken Word Poetry

Students will learn about the history of spoken word poetry and its deep roots in Chicago. They will also apply poetic elements to their own original poems individually and as a group and get the chance to share out loud. This Field Trip is great for students who are expressive and enjoy spoken word poetry. This is a great addition for classrooms preparing for, culminating, or in the middle of a poetry unit.

The Uncommon Essay

Students will learn the basics of personal narrative in order to craft an essay that they can use for college, scholarships, and job applications etc. They will learn how to brainstorm, draft, and edit a piece that reflects their personal journey. This program challenges students to focus on sensory detail, plot and character development, and dialogue.

SUMMER PROGRAMS

Summer programs.

We are excited to announce the return of our Summer Programs! For 2024 we will be holding a total of three camps in our Wicker Park Writing Lab! From poetry to food criticism, we have something for every imaginative writer. During Summer Programs students will also spend plenty of time outside, exploring our neighborhood and city! SIGN UP OPEN NOW!

Eat Your Words Camp (Elementary)

Calling all food enthusiasts, writers, and those who relish the art of dining! If you have a passion for food and a talent for storytelling, this workshop is calling your name. Join a team of renowned chefs and fellow food lovers for an engaging series of workshops aimed at honing your writing skills while tantalizing your taste buds. Over the course of a week, you'll learn the craft of crafting compelling food reviews, sample the finest culinary offerings the city has to offer, and create written works that will be savored by foodies and chefs throughout Chicago. Come embark on this delicious journey where every word is as satisfying as every bite! The EYW Camp for elementary school runs from July 15th - 18th from 9am-3pm.

Eat Your Words Camp (Middle School)

Calling all food enthusiasts, writers, and those who relish the art of dining! If you have a passion for food and a talent for storytelling, this workshop is calling your name. Join a team of renowned chefs and fellow food lovers for an engaging series of workshops aimed at honing your writing skills while tantalizing your taste buds. Over the course of a week, you'll learn the craft of crafting compelling food reviews, sample the finest culinary offerings the city has to offer, and create written works that will be savored by foodies and chefs throughout Chicago. Come embark on this delicious journey where every word is as satisfying as every bite! The EYW Camp for middle school runs from July 22nd - 25th from 9am-3pm.

High School Writing Lab

Are you passionate about the power of words? Ready to immerse yourself in a transformative two-week writing experience alongside fellow high schoolers from every corner of the city, under the mentorship of seasoned writers? Take command of your literary journey at 826CHI’s High School Writers Lab this August. Explore diverse writing styles, cultivate your unique voice, and reflect on your aspirations as a writer. End your journey by sharing your work with a live audience, and see your creative endeavors immortalized in a professionally-designed publication by 826CHI. We’ll take excursions around the city and find inspiration at every turn. Seize this opportunity to elevate your craft and leave your mark on the literary landscape! This program will run from August 5th-15th on Mondays through Thursdays from 10am-4pm.

WRITING WORKSHOPS & COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

Writing workshops & community partnerships.

826CHI works in collaboration with after-school programs and community-based organizations to offer creative writing workshops to students in neighborhoods across Chicago. These workshops, which explore writing and another area of study, include:

• Book as Body (Grades 1-12). Students read and write poetry and short stories that discuss the body.
• Images & Imagination (Grades 5-12). We'll guide students through the adventure of writing original stories, using collage art as their only guide.
• Aliens, The Apocalypse, & Activism: The Role of the Imagination in Social Change  (Grades 6-12). This workshop will explore the fusion of social justice and science fiction.
• ChiTown, Rise Up! (Grades 8-12). In this workshop, we'll take a journey through Chicago through its art, stories, and culture, so that we can write our own truths about our city.
• Poets in Revolt!  (Grades 8-12). In this workshop, we'll examine poems from the labor movement to third wave feminism.
• The Uncommon Essay for The Common App (Grades 9-12). Students will learn the basics of personal narrative in order to craft an essay that they can use for college, scholarships, and job applications etc. They will learn how to brainstorm, draft, and edit a piece that reflects their personal journey. This program challenges students to focus on sensory detail, plot and character development, and dialogue.
• ...and more! We are willing to develop new workshops for qualifying after-school programs & community organizations.

All of our workshops are Common Core Standards-aligned.  ‍ Do you work with students who would benefit from two or three session writing workshops in your space or ours? Have an idea for a workshop? email us at [email protected]

Applications for the 2023-2024 school-year are OPEN!

TEEN WRITERS STUDIO

Teen writers studio.

Teen Writers Studio (TWS) is a year-long creative writing workshop that connects high school students to fellow writers, including peers and older professionals in the field. It’s open to anyone in 7th-12th grade and welcomes youth from all over the city. TWS members meet frequently each month to write together, talk about writing, and produce a literary chapbook each year. If you’re into any of the above, this space is for you. Sessions start September 19th, 2023 and run until May 23rd, 2024, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:00-6:00PM at the 826CHI's Wicker Park Teen Space and Writing Lab. Each spring, TWS students produce a chapbook , which they share and celebrate at a release party with friends, family, and 826CHI’s community. Purchase 2022-2023's publication, All the Beauty It Brings , at the Wicker Park Secret Agent Supply Co .

Applications for the 2023-2024 Teen Writer's Studio cohort are now open!

IN-SCHOOL PARTNERSHIPS

In-school partnerships.

Built to meet the needs of educators, our In-School Partnerships program brings the 826CHI education team into classrooms and community centers across the city to work with students. 826CHI staff, volunteers, and Teaching Artists support teachers' existing curricula and/or collaborate on new ideas. If you are a classroom teacher or community-based educator looking to partner with 826CHI, please share your project idea with us by applying today.  If you have any questions, email us at [email protected] .

In-School Partnership applications are reviewed bi-annually in January and August.

STUDENT PUBLISHING

Student publishing.

At 826CHI, our project-based approach to teaching writing affirms all student voices as valuable and brilliant. Through our programs, we turn our students into published authors. Each year, we publish more than 100 unique projects, from professionally edited, printed, and designed books to books and zines printed and bound in-house by our staff. Students’ work is featured in Chicago Public Library branches across the city, shelved in CPS school libraries, prominently displayed in our writing lab to inspire future student-authors, and sold in and independent bookstores throughout the city and our storefront, the Wicker Park Secret Agent Supply Co.

Books from each program

Published dozens of times each year as the culmination of smaller, multi-week projects.

Young Authors Book Project

Each year 826CHI partners with CPS classrooms on an extended writing project which culminates in a specially designed and beautifully bound book.

The 826CHI Compendium

Published once every two years. Each volume of this anthology features republished favorites from students of all ages, from across our programs.

Field Trip Chapbooks

Published at the end of each two-hour creative writing session, students take home copies of the original story they wrote together as a class.

Check out all 826CHI student publications by visiting our Wicker Park Secret Agent Supply Co. Tuesdays-Saturdays!

Some of our published works.

Purchase copies at The Secret Agent Supply or check out of your local Chicago library branch.

IN THE COMMUNITY

826chi is honored to partner with a number of non-profit organizations, businesses, and foundations throughout chicago., program partners, 826 digital.

Wherever you are, you can bring the 826 spirit and methodology to your community with 826 Digital. 826 Digital is an online platform that hosts a collection of engaging, adaptable, standards-based resources designed to captivate young writers and empower their educators. 826 Digital was created by teachers for teachers; it hosts an ever-expanding collection of lessons, projects, writing prompts, and student writing that brings an unconventional and engaging approach to teaching writing. 

Explore 826 Digital's educator-created and student-approved resources.

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The Perfect Present

Writing Program

Learn the basics of sketch comedy scenes, the building block of any Second City show. Study classic Second City scenes, use improv to develop scenes and write original sketches.

Please note that some of these classes will be delivered online.

Call 312.664.3959

Sketch & Comedy Writing

Writing 1 is for any student who is looking to start the journey of writing to and for a Second City-style revue. This class is the foundation for scenic comedy writing, a guide for utilizing an improviser’s skill set for rapid creation, and learning writing refinement. The concepts and tools…

More Details

Writing 2 builds on the foundation for scenic comedy writing established in Writing 1 by expanding on scenic types, writing to cast and running order, and writing through collaboration. Writing 2 focuses on the construction of a sketch comedy revue running order. Students who understand the structure of a show…

Writing 3 builds on the exploration into a Second City running order established in Writing 2 by focusing on the various sources of scenic inspiration and delving deeper into satirical writing. Writing 3 addresses the satirical needs of a sketch comedy revue running order as well as the skills and…

Writing 4 completes the writer’s toolkit with advanced skills for achieving strong point-of-view and applying scenic writing skills to custom writing opportunities. Writing 4 is a culmination of the skills acquired through The Second City Writing Program. It is with this class that a student will be prepared to move…

Writing 5 focuses on generating and refining written satirical material that results in a fifty-minute sketch revue script. Writing 5 puts into practice the skills acquired from previous class levels to create and produce a Second City-style revue.

Students in Writing 5 learn how to complete a script for a Second…

Writing 6 is the culmination of the Writing Program guaranteeing the production and theatrical run of a Second City-style revue. Writing 6 focuses on producing a staged comedy sketch show by fulfilling production roles, writing to show and cast needs, and working with a director to mount a show properly…

Writing Sadness Through Humor

Cry ‘Til You Laugh! In this four-week course, you will learn to write about sad experiences either in your own personal life or through fiction. This class will also teach you how to add humor to your writing in order to provide some comic relief. Writing about emotional experiences can…

Writing for TV & Film

Intro to Writing for TV & Film

Intro to Writing for TV & Film is for anyone who wants to learn the crucial basics of writing for film and television or anyone with a great idea of a movie who needs help putting it into (properly formatted) words. It gives you a strong foundation for TV and…

Writing for Late Night TV 1

Learn how to write monologue jokes, desk bits, remote segments, guest pieces, sketch and a variety of segments for shows like Fallon, Kimmel, Amber Ruffin, Seth Myers, Colbert, Ellen, Noah, Oliver and more. Pitch monologue jokes weekly, brainstorm, explore and heighten material in this collaborative Writer’s Room environment. Create original…

Writing for Late Night TV 2

Building on Writing for Late Night Level 1, this class will consist of expanding the joke writing, using the associated word technique, angles, and video and visual punchlines. We work on Rants on a topic, like Seth Meyers, “A Closer Look,” John Oliver, Samantha Bee, Colbert, Trevor Noah, etc. We…

Comedy TV Pilots Program

Level 101 – Do you have an idea for a TV show but don’t know where to start? Comedy TV Pilots 101 is designed to give you the tools for converting your idea into an outline of your very own TV pilot. From character to relationship to story, each week…

Intro to Comedy Writing (Online)

NEW CLASS – FALL 2023

Discover the comedic magic of The Second City, where comedy writing meets improvisation in a one-of-a-kind creative process! For over 60 years, we’ve been honing our craft, using improv as our secret writing tool to bring laughter to our stages.

Virtual Writing

Writing Comedy News (Online)

Satire and Humour Writing with Sophie Kohn (Online)

Over this four-class intensive, learn to write short, satirical pieces in the style of McSweeney’s, The Beaverton, Reductress, Shouts and Murmurs, and The Onion. Explore the elements that make for especially powerful, smart, memorable and ~funny~ humour writing as you and your fellow students workshop…

Writing for Late Night TV 1 (Online)

Writing for late night tv 2 (online), writing on-demand.

Sketch Writing Level 1 (On-demand)

Students living away from one of the Second City Training Centers can still study comedy sketch writing! In Sketch Writing 1 students receive individual instruction through online correspondence, exploring the fundamentals of character development and theatrical scene structure. Exercises include a variety of comedic genres, from “Simple Yet Impossible Goal”…

Sketch Writing Level 2 (On-demand)

Building on Online Sketch Writing 1, students will continue to learn the universal comedy techniques used in mainstream media as well as focusing on satire, character development and rewriting.

Major Concepts: Short history of sketch comedy, relationship, game and blackout sketches.

Class Work Examples: 2-Person relationship sketches aren’t…

Sketch Writing Level 3 (On-demand)

In Online Sketch Writing 3 you will continue building the blocks of a sketch revue! Explore sketch structures that “break the rules”, including blackouts and clothesline scenes. Expand your ability to collaborate with other writers as you learn the structure of a Second City sketch revue.

Major Concepts: Specialty…

Sketch Writing Level 4 (On-demand)

The culmination of the Online Writing Program allows you to strengthen your own voice as a writer as you explore concepts of satire founded in historical and personal events. Gain new tools for rewriting your sketches to strengthen the point of view. This term includes special workshops in songwriting and…

Intro to Writing for TV (On-demand)

Intro to Writing for TV is for anyone who wants to learn the essence of writing for television or anyone with a great idea for a series who needs help putting it into (properly formatted) words. This on-demand course gives you a strong foundation for TV writing structure, demystifies the…

Writing for Late Night TV and Talk Shows Level 1 (On-demand)

Write desk bits, remote segments, guest pieces, sketch and a variety of segments for shows like Fallon, Seth Meyers, Kimmel, Amber Ruffin, Colbert, John Oliver, Trevor Noah, Ellen, Desus & Mero and more. Write monologue jokes weekly, create original material to strengthen your writing samples, and produce the elements to…

Writing for Late Night TV and Talk Shows Level 2 (On-demand)

Building on Writing for Late Night TV and Talk Shows Level 1, this class will consist of joke maximizers for monologue jokes, finding the angle for your joke to help come up with multiple punch lines, jokes with visual punchlines, writing a rant on a topic like John Oliver’s show….

Writing Satire for the Internet Level 1 (On-demand)

In this four-week online writing satire course, you will learn how to form a strong comedic point of view on topical news and pop culture events. You will brainstorm, draft and rewrite short pieces in the style of McSweeney’s, Shouts and Murmurs and The Second City Network. Internet presence, pitching,…

Writing Satire for the Internet Level 2 (On-demand)

This second four-week satire writing intensive builds on the concepts learned in Satire 1 and puts an increased emphasis on writing at a professional level. Students will keep a running pitch document, have access to exclusive interviews with top editors and satire writers working today, and create a website for…

Writing Satire for the Internet Level 3 (On-demand)

Portfolio, pitching and submitting bootcamp.

In this two-month class, the final in the Online Satire series, students will complete a writing portfolio that showcases their voice and POV, work to create a professional network, and focus on pitching and submitting finished pieces throughout the course. Topics covered…

Writing Sadness Through Humor (On-demand)

Writing the Humorous Personal Essay (On-demand)

Do you have funny personal stories to share? In this four-week course, you will learn to write about humorous experiences in your own life. We will discuss how to make your stories interesting and relatable to other people.

We will brainstorm ideas and develop them into personal essays. You can write…

Stand-Up 101: Joke Writing (On-demand)

Develop yourself as a solo comedic performer by writing and workshopping your own material. By understanding how earlier stand-up comics evolved, students experiment outside their comfort zone and experiment in a variety of styles until discovering their own unique style. Students will be encouraged to perform in local open mics…

Storytelling: Tell Better Stories (On-demand)

An online, go at your own pace Personal Storytelling course.

Understanding the basics of a good, compelling story is essential to life, essential to connection, essential to whether you want to write a memoir, give a Ted Talk or share a story piece for The Moth. Understand your story and you’ll…

Memoir Foundations with Suzanne Scanlon

This class is open to writers of all levels. Whether you have a story you want to tell but don’t know where to start, or a book in progress, this class will get you writing, rewriting, and finding (new) ways in.

Book-Length Revision 2024 with Julia Fine

We’ll look at strategies for making revision less daunting, discuss structural logistics, and try different revision techniques with the goal of finding the right path for each project.

Magic as Emotional Translation with Hajrije Kolimja

What can magic offer in narratives that strict realism cannot? In this class, we’ll be looking at the utility of magic in fiction writing—particularly investigating how it helps us translate experiences of extreme emotion and the multiplicitous identities of which they are a part.

SINGLE SESSION

Short Story in a Morning with Cyn Vargas

Welcome to the Morning Storytelling Bootcamp—by the end of our three-hour journey, you'll emerge with one or more story scenes or ideas that are ready to take on the world!

All the Feels: Writing for Emotional Impact with Kat Falls

In this workshop, we'll explore the vital role evoking emotion plays in storytelling and how to craft stories that resonate long after the reader closes the book.

Thanks for the Memories: How to Write Flashbacks with Frances de Pontes Peebles

In this class, we will get curious about flashbacks. When should flashbacks be inserted and why? How much memory is necessary? How can we write flashbacks that propel a story rather than paralyze it?

MASTER CLASSES

PJ Seminar: A Master Class on Building Reader Empathy through Close Point of View with Anne Ursu

Books for young readers rely on the emotional connection between reader and protagonist, and narration is crucial to forging that connection. We’ll look at ways to craft narration to create characters that linger.

Master Class: Follow the Desire: Writing Gripping Fiction with R.O. Kwon

In this class, we'll look at others' desire-filled writing and dream up some of our own. How do we follow what our characters want, and, pulled along, find a world?

PJ Seminar: Too Hot to Cut: How to Write Sex Scenes with Purpose with Isle McElroy

In this class, we will deepen our understanding of how sex scenes work to develop character, heighten tension, and advance plot in fiction. Students will also complete short craft exercises.

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YOUTH SUMMER CAMPS

Online & In-Person for Summer 2024

More 2024 Details and Dates coming soon. Please subscribe to our Youth Newsletter to get first updates on camp information.

StoryStudio is proud to offer multiple week-long writing workshops for young scribes. With our talented instructors, young writers can expect to learn elements of writing, build friendships and community with fellow peers, and get feedback on their creative works. Check out our different sessions, a mix of online and in-person, and covering grades 5 through 12.

5th – 8th Graders Online

June 24 – 28, 2024 10am – 12pm CT

For 2024, we’re pleased to welcome back instructor Zac Ginsburg for this week-long creative writing camp.

Price: $325

9th – 12th Graders IN PERSON

July 8 – 12, 2024 9am – 12pm CT

For 2024, we’re pleased to introduce Kris Gevorgyan to the Studio for this in person high school level camp.

7th – 11th: Sci-Fi/Fantasy Online

July 22 – 26, 2024 10am – 12pm CT

Instructor Zac Ginsburg returns for this genre-specific camp for writers who want to build their own worlds.

6th – 8th: Fiction IN PERSON

July 22 – 26, 2024 9am – 12pm CT

Instructor Denise Santomauro returns for this genre-specific camp for in person camp for middle-schoolers.

7th – 11th: The World’s a Vast Stage Writing & Performing IN PERSON

June 24 – 28, 2024 9am – 12pm CT

We’re pleased to introduce Mike Zapata to the Studio for this in person writing and performance-based camp.

7th – 11th: Art & Writing IN PERSON

July 15 – 19, 2024 9am – 12pm CT

Explore your creative side by using visual arts to create short writing pieces in various genres with instructor Christina Bucaro.

StoryStudio is pleased to offer full scholarships to students who are unable to meet the tuition requirements. If your child would like to apply for a scholarship, please ask them to fill out this form.

Want to Donate?

Are you interested in donating to our Summer Camp Scholarship Fund? Help students like Amy and other young writers participate in a week full of creative writing and community building. All donations go directly to funding scholarship spots in all of our summer camps.

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