Creative Writing at Colby:  A Brief History

Creative writing has been taught at Colby for at least a half a century, but the program as it exists today is primarily the result of the energies and vision of poet Ira Sadoff. Sadoff taught creative writing workshops and literature courses at Colby from 1977 until 1999, when he left the program to teach exclusively in the English Department. In the early 1980’s Peter Harris and Susan Kenney joined the faculty to combine course offerings into a full-fledged program. Colby began offering a concentration within the English major in 1985. A minor available to all students was added in 1989.

A steady in-flux of teaching poets and writers have amplified Colby’s Creative Writing Program throughout its thirty years. Jay Meek, Bob Gillespie, John Mizner, Rob Farnsworth, Steve Bauer, Jane Meade, Mary Ruefle, Hedi John Smidt, Wes McNair, Richard Russo, Bill Roorbach, and Monica Wood have all taught in the program. In addition to Susan Kenny and Peter Harris, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Debra Spark, Natalie Harris, Michael Burke, and Adrian Blevins currently teach creative writing courses at Colby.

Through the Colby Visiting Writers Series students also meet with nationally known poets, novelists and creative non-fiction writers who come to Colby to read from their current work and visit student writing classes. Eavan Boland, John Ashbery, Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Cade Bambara, John Gardner, Czeslaw Milosz, Derek Walcott, and C.K. Williams have all read at Colby. More recent years have brought Edward Albee, Rodney Jones, Gerald Stern, Tony Hoagland, Francine Prose, Gary Snider, and Lorrie Moore to the campus. Over the years we have had half a dozen Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winners visit our campus and work with students.

The kindness and generosity of Bill and Karin Stahl helped us launch the Stahl Writer in Residence Program in 2006.  By bringing poets and writers to campus for a week to give a reading, visit classes, and work independently with students, the Stahl residency puts students in contact with a wide range of contemporary poets and writers.  The program honors the memory of Karin Stahl '99.  Steve Orlen, the author of five collections of poetry, most recently The Elephant's Child, was the Stahl Writer in 2006-2007.

Colby's Creative Writing Program became a member of The Association of Writers and Writing Programs in 2006.