The Creative Writing Program at Colby

All Creative Writing classes are run, at least in part, as workshops in which students critique each other's work. Students experiment in class and out with forms of prose and poetry, while reading the work of professional writers to develop a critical vocabulary and heighten editing and revising skills. Classes are limited to fifteen students, a size that promotes discussion, allows for individual attention, and helps develop a writing community in class and on campus. Writing teachers encourage frequent conferences to focus on individual writing programs and to suggest direction for student writing and reading.

There are two options for pursuing the discipline.

The concentration in creative writing within the English major structures a rigorous program for the serious writing student who wishes to develop sophisticated writing skills in fiction or poetry along with a broad background in literature in English. A large series of English department offerings—Modern American Fiction, Lyric Self and Other, Renaissance Poetry, British Romanticism, Buddhism in American Poetry, and Culture and Literature of the American South to name a very few—enhance students’ exposure to the texts, passions, and strategies of authors from a multitude of periods and lands.

The minor in creative writing, open to non-English majors, requires students to take writing workshops in beginning and advanced poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. In addition to creative writing courses, non-English majors must take three allied English courses, mutually agreeable to the student and his or her creative writing adviser.

Additional workshops are offered, on a rotating basis, in screenwriting, playwriting, environmental writing, and feature writing. A series of Creative Writing Special Topics courses—Novel Writing, Documentary Radio, Poetry in the Schools, Memoir, and a syntax class, Great Writers Sentence by Sentence—are offered on a revolving basis to expose students to additional genres and methods of practice and study.

Many students, working independently with the faculty, produce collections of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction during their final year at Colby. Many also work on the student literary and arts magazine, The Pequod, to improve critical skills, edit, and learn layout and design.

FOR A COMPLETE LIST OF COURSE OFFERINGS, CLICK HERE
FOR COURSE REQUIREMENTS FOR ENGLISH MAJORS CONCENTRATING IN CREATIVE WRITING, CLICK HERE
FOR COURSE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE MINOR IN CREATIVE WRITING, CLICK HERE
FOR INFORMATION ABOUT HONORS THESIS, CLICK HERE