Why Creative Writing at Eckerd?

A community of artists

The Writer’s Workshop at Eckerd College offers a BA and BFA in Creative Writing. Both degrees offer a unique blend of hands-on, studio-style workshops, where student writing is the center of study, and literature courses that focus on analyzing and engaging with a variety of literary texts.

The Creative Writing Program focuses on community building in and outside the classroom by offering students the opportunity to be involved in the student/faculty reading series, The Current, Eckerd Review, and The Gower Street Press.

Each year professors in creative writing offer workshops in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and journalism to familiarize students with the craft of creative writing. Professors then guide students as they produce and revise their own poems, stories, essays, and articles.

Special programs

  • The Current
    The official student newspaper of Eckerd College, Creative Writing and Journalism students also write for the campus newspaper, The Current.
  • The Eckerd Review
    The Eckerd Review supports the artistic and cultural life of Eckerd College and furthers the long-standing tradition of publishing an annual literary magazine that displays excellence in fiction, poetry, and visual art.
  • The Gower Street Press 
    The Gower Street Press publishes travel guides and travel writing by creative writing majors. The press gives students who take advantage of Eckerd’s robust study abroad programs the opportunity to craft, edit, design, and publish books.
  • Student/Faculty readings
    very fall, a faculty member invites students to give a public reading. These readings foster a connection with the larger arts community at Eckerd and are a way for students to showcase their work.
  • Epigraph
    Epigraph is the senior reading held at the end of spring semester. A symbol of the end of their time at Eckerd, this celebration of our seniors inaugurates their lifelong journey as writers.
  • Writers in Paradise
    During Winter Term, each January, creative writing students can participate in the nationally recognized writing conference Writers in Paradise. They work closely in workshop courses with the conference’s award-winning faculty from across the country and beyond.
Student wearing glasses

“I became a student at Eckerd because it’s one of the very few schools that offers Creative Writing as a major. I also was excited about the prospect of bringing my cat, Theo, to campus and at the Open House event I attended I got the impression that I wouldn’t fade into the background like at colleges with very large student populations.”

Kiara Williams ’26
Major: Creative Writing
Hometown: West Palm Beach, FL

Community

What makes The Writer’s Workshop at Eckerd College particularly unique is its emphasis on building a community among its students, one that fosters friendship, professional training, and mentoring aimed to prepare students for their time at Eckerd College as well as life after they they leave the academy.

Each semester The Writer’s Workshop holds student/faculty readings that provide students with the opportunity to showcase their work and gain experience at performing in front of an audience.

Also, each year, the workshop brings visiting writers who offer guest workshops for seniors in the creative writing capstone. Also seniors from the capstone course read at Epigraph, our annual capstone reading.