The Graduate Program in English is proud to introduce its unique Graduate Diploma in Creative Writing. Focused on developing students’ writing skills, the program trains new scholars across the genres. Workshops introduce the writing of poetry and fiction, the literary essay, personal memoirs, and historical biography. 

All of our Creative courses are open to all students, which means, not that all those who take a creative or literary writing course will go on to complete the diploma, but that all graduate students in English Literature have the opportunity to develop their skills in the writing of a range of distinct literary forms, whether poetic, fictional or those of literary prose, as well as in the critical interpretation of literature. Our diploma program places future writers in the line of writer-critics that extends in English from Coleridge and Henry James to Maggie Nelson and Billy Ray Belcourt.

Core courses include three-credit workshops in fiction and poetry. Admission requires a portfolio establishing a creative practice. Courses in literary nonfiction cover special topics such as personal memoir and food writing. The Capstone Creative Project rounds out the diploma. Completed under the supervision of a CW program member, the project combines a literary-critical essay and creative work in fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, or a multi-medial approach.

Core courses in fiction, poetry, and literary nonfiction are open to all English graduate students as well as those from other departments and programs.