Creative Writing Undergraduate Course Descriptions 

ENGL 3420: Introduction to Fiction Writing (Waugh) 

This introduction to short story writing will help you see all the many things a story is besides what happens. Plot may be “the soul of a tragedy,” according to Aristotle, but it certainly won’t keep your readers if that’s all there is. We will examine why character matters, as well as imagery, description, setting, time, point of view, and sparkling prose, among many other things. By taking this course, you will learn to: 1) use a basic fiction writing vocabulary, 2) identify the core narratological concepts in a work of fiction, 3) recognize the sound and rhythm of good prose, 4) understand and employ various narrative modes and structures, and 5) participate fully and constructively in a workshop oriented class. In-person. Logan.

ENGL 3420 Introduction to Fiction Writing (Denetsosie-Mitchell)

This introduction to short story writing will draw upon natural patterns that exist within nature and help you apply those patterns to your fiction. The craft of writing should extend beyond the dramatic arc, where tension reaches a climax and then falls. Although many great stories have been written using this structure, it can feel stifling. By taking this course, you will experiment with form and nonlinear prose to explore the texture of narrative writing and consider how your story might meander, spiral, or explode. Using Jane Alison’s text, 'Meander, Spiral, Explode,' we will collectively identify new patterns and natural shapes within our stories to produce new narrative vessels that make our stories ring true. In-person. Logan.

ENGL 3420 Introduction to Fiction Writing (Olsen)

This is a fiction writing course that is accessible to beginning fiction writers and beneficial to writers who have had practical experience with fiction writing but minimal academic study in the field. The course is workshop-driven (meaning there will be extensive hands-on analysis of student work) but will also feature serious craft discussion and thorough readings of published material to help students better understand how to approach their own work. Students are encouraged to write in genres and styles that interest them. The course is structured as a hybrid with every-other-week in-class meetings that alternate with weeks where we discuss specific issues related to craft and contemporary fiction. Connect.

ENGL 3430 Introduction to Poetry Writing (Gunsberg)

This course is designed to help you become better writers and readers of poetry. To this end, we’ll discuss student work as well as poetry written by established authors. Our conversations will revolve around craft, which means we’ll explore those time-tested techniques that guide and strengthen poets’ efforts. This approach begins with close attention to the language that moves us and, moreover, careful consideration of why it moves us. Class discussion and careful reading of student work will be enhanced by your efforts to develop a critical/literary vocabulary, one that broadens your understanding of poetry and enlivens your responses to your classmates’ work. In person. Logan.

Eng 3430 Introduction to Poetry Writing: Poetry and Art: Building New Worlds (Grimmer)

In this workshop-based course, we will explore poetry’s role in articulating “better worlds” through a combination of classroom-based learning and experiential learning outside of the classroom. Our guiding questions include: 1. How does poetry interact with and create effects across different modes of art, including popular music and visual arts? 2. What are the relationships between language, bodies, and content across digital and analog forms of writing? 3. What are the sociopolitical effects of these relationships across racialized, gendered, and classed identity groups? This course will be a workshop-styled attempt to explore these questions by reading and experimenting with poetry in a variety of formats and in a variety of settings. Students can expect a combination of individual writing exercises, group-based arts projects, and experiential learning in local museums and cafes. Students will learn different craft techniques for playing with the effects of text-based poems; they will also experiment with translating those effects into audio and visual mediums. Students are expected to attend local readings, write outside the classroom in libraries, cafes, and museums, and practice navigating the dynamic between individual writing, digital content, and community-based arts. In person. Logan.

ENGL 3430 Introduction to Poetry Writing (Olsen)

Regardless of your previous experience or comfort level with poetry, this is a course that will help you find your way. By reading engaging contemporary poems and discussing techniques that will allow your writer's voice to emerge and shine, this class will use both discussion and workshop to help students improve. This is a hybrid course—that means we'll be meeting via Connect every other week and then engaging in poetry writing discussions over Canvas during weeks when we're not in class. There will be frequent workshops in which we will discuss student work and find ways to improve our work. Connect. 

ENGL 3440 Introduction to Creative Nonfiction Writing (Beck)

Nonfiction is the only genre that starts with an apology. It knows that you wished it were fiction and, sometimes, it does too. Because it starts with a stutter step—by defining itself by what it’s not—nonfiction is the most accepting of all genres. If you can follow nonfiction’s one rule, DMSU (don’t make stuff up) you can do whatever you want in the genre. English 3440 will be a mix of lectures and workshops that will focus on creating new nonfiction projects. Few parameters will be placed on the projects you will complete, but the class will emphasize narrative and personal writing. Project mediums will include traditional essays, podcasts and will be open to other experimentations. In person. Logan.

ENGL 3440 Introduction to Creative Nonfiction Writing (Engler)

You got something to say about the world? About your life? About Stranger Things, Beyoncé, or Neon Genesis Evangelion? Say goodbye to boring, dry, academic papers, and come join this workshop-style community where we experiment with the tools of nonfiction artist (like story, character, voice, and style) to learn the genre more popular than fiction. Whatever you might hope to say, this course will help you add layers of meaning and intrigue to find a compelling way to say it. In person. Logan.

ENGL 4420 Advanced Fiction Writing (Waugh)

The purpose of this advanced fiction writing course is to allow you to make the step from story dabbler to serious fiction writer, and to help you, as M.S. Bell says, “deploy unconsciously, intuitively, instinctively” the rudimentary skills you learned in the introductory course. The readings of our own work will be the basis for our workshop discussions, which means you must read the work in advance and come to class prepared with notes to help you give thoughtful, constructive criticism. We will also read exemplary texts to help us better understand what creates good writing, to train ourselves always to read as a writer, and to find how a particular word or sentence contributes to the overall effect. Similarly, we’ll cultivate a writer’s approach to life, the goal being to become what Henry James called, “one of the people on whom nothing is lost.” In person. Logan.

ENGL 4430 Advanced Poetry Writing: Advanced Multimodal Poetry: Building New Worlds (Grimmer)

In this workshop-based course, we will practice techniques for “building better worlds” through poetry and related multimedia arts. Our approach will combine in-class writing workshops with experiential learning outside of the classroom. Our guiding questions include: 1. How can we create poems that can create varied effects across multiple modes of art, including popular music and visual arts? 2. How can our poems help us navigate the relationships between language, bodies, and content across digital and analog forms of writing? 3. What do our own, our colleagues, and contemporary poems in general teach us about the sociopolitical effects of these relationships across racialized, gendered, and classed identity groups? This course will be a workshop-styled attempt to explore these questions by reading and experimenting with poetry in a variety of formats. Students can expect a combination of individual writing exercises, group-based arts projects, and experiential learning in local museums and cafes. Students will learn different craft techniques for playing with the effects of text-based poems; they will also experiment with translating those effects into audio and visual mediums. Students are expected to attend local readings, write outside the classroom in libraries, cafes, and museums, and practice navigating the dynamic between individual writing, digital content, and community-based arts. As an advanced course, students must receive and provide weekly feedback in writing workshops. In person. Logan.

ENGL 4440 Advanced Creative Nonfiction (Wells)

Michel de Montaigne says, “Every man has within himself the entire human condition.” By fairly and accurately investigating the larger meaning of a personal experience, a nonfiction writer can speak to the universal. The nonfiction writer is, therefore, tasked with honesty in their pursuit of discovery and greater knowledge. Often, we hear this described as a pact formed with the reader. However, we also know that memory can be fallible. David Lazar asserts that “Nonfiction blends fact and artifice in an attempt to arrive at truth, or truths.” Calling on memory for meaning may, at times, involve some imagination. So, then, where do the boundaries (if there are any) lie between fiction and nonfiction? What obligation does the nonfiction writer have to the reader? How does structure and form contribute to this discussion?

Advanced Creative Nonfiction builds off of the introductory course, which focuses on memoir and personal essay, to examine varied essay forms. We’ll examine craft techniques in order to deepen our understanding of form and structure. Together, we’ll look closely at braided, lyric, and flash essays to develop and hone our craft, while evaluating our own assumptions regarding writing strategies, memory, and fact along the way. Students will engage in writing exercises and workshops, with a focus on revision strategies to produce a final portfolio of innovative and polished essays. In person. Logan.

ENG 5450 Special Topics in Creative Writing: Mixtures and Margins: An Introduction to Multimodal Composition (Gunsberg)

How do contemporary writers use digital technology to adapt their poems, stories, and essays to a diverse and rapidly changing media textscape? English 5450 investigates this question by exploring different media forms, including alphanumeric writing, film, music, electronic literature, visual art, performances, and installations. Students will have opportunities to create new media texts that combine audio, visual, and interactive elements, such as printed poems that also occur as audio files or videos in conversation with print-based texts. We’ll discuss theories and historical antecedents of contemporary multimodal work before tackling three major assignments: 1) a multimodal adaptation of alphanumeric writing, 2) a digital media project, and 3) a performance or installation. Your efforts on these assignments will be supported by readings, experiments, and class visits from writers who steer their work in many exciting directions. In person. Logan.