CREATIVE WRITING

The Writing Workshop develops serious writers---students who think of themselves primarily as writers and students for whom writing will be an important avocation. Workshop students learn the craft of writing and how literary techniques and devices result in the complex communication of ideas and emotions. We emphasize the writer?s relationship to the literary past as a way to generate significant aesthetic statements and urge students to develop their individual voices. Students also learn to articulate and defend reasoned critical opinions. Course work must include six courses in literature and four workshops---fiction, poetry, and one of the following: playwriting, screenwriting, journalism, creative nonfiction (the personal essay, the lyric essay, etc.) and publishing and the writing career and one elective. Seniors are required to complete a thesis. The thesis committee will include two full-time creative writing faculty and a third member from any other discipline.

In the first year, students take CW 100A Introduction to Creative Writing or any workshop at the 200 level and also 100 or 200 level literature courses. CW100A prepares students for upper level workshops by providing them with a foundation in literary craft; however, it does not count as a workshop required for the major. In subsequent years, students take intermediate and advanced courses in poetry and fiction, courses in playwriting, screenwriting, and journalism, etc., and develop a cluster of literature courses defined by a particular interest (e.g., modern and contemporary British and American poetry and fiction) and/or supported by courses from other disciplines (e.g., American studies or history of modern Britain).

Writing Workshop students are required to take fiction and poetry workshops at Eckerd College.

To minor in creative writing, students must take three Writing Workshop courses in at least two genres and two literature courses. These five courses must be at the 200 level or above and at least one workshop and one literature course must be at the 300 level or above. The workshops must be Eckerd College courses.

Students wishing to double major in creative writing and literature must take ten literature courses and fulfill all other requirements for both majors. Literature courses taken for a major in literature may be counted for a minor in creative writing.