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THE CREATIVE WRITING OPTION

The concentration in creative writing allows students to choose 15 of the required 36 credits for the English major from a sequence of creative writing courses. These courses, relying heavily on peer evaluations in a workshop environment as well as extensive critical analysis, enable students to work closely with practicing professional novelists, playwrights and poets. Literary study within these courses focuses on technical issues: a question of how, in addition to why and what. Larger issues are related to current aesthetic theories, the relationship between art and society, and the balance of research and creativity that engenders literature.

The 15 credits for the Creative Writing option should be earned from the following courses:

Please note: the 300- and 400-level courses require completion of appropriate lower level classes as prerequisites, and the 400-level courses require permission of the instructor based on a portfolio review. Also, no two creative writing workshops may be taken within the same semester. The English Department does not recognize courses in creative writing as meeting distribution requirements for Rutgers, Livingston, Douglass, or Cook Colleges.

Students electing the creative writing option are urged to study widely in the Arts and Sciences, and to participate actively in the “Writers at Rutgers" a series of readings by professional, often quite famous, writers from outside the university. Check the Undergraduate office (Murray 104) for the schedule.