Creative Writing Courses

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How do artists make art? How do we evaluate it? In this course, students of all levels get to experience firsthand the particular challenges and rewards of art making through practical engagement with five fields — creative writing, visual art, theater, dance, and music — under the guidance of professionals.

Practice in the original composition of poetry supplemented by the reading and analysis of standard works. Criticism by practicing writers and talented peers encourages the student’s growth as both creator and reader of literature.

The curriculum allows the student to develop writing skills, provides an introduction to the possibilities of contemporary literature and offers a perspective on the place of literature among the liberal arts. Criticism by practicing writers and talented peers encourages the student's growth as both creator and reader of literature.

This is a workshop in the fundamentals of writing plays. Through writing prompts, exercises, study and reflection, students will be guided in the creation of original dramatic material. Attention will be given to character, structure, dramatic action, monologue, dialogue, language and behavior.

Students will choose, early in the semester, one author to focus on in fiction, poetry, or drama, with the goal of arriving at a 20-25 page sample of the author's work. All work will be translated into English and discussed in a workshop format.

This studio course introduces students to graphic design with a particular emphasis on typography. Students learn typographic history through lectures that highlight major shifts in print technologies.

Advanced practice in the original composition of poetry for discussion in regularly scheduled workshop meetings. The curriculum allows the student to develop writing skills, provides an introduction to the possibilities of contemporary literature and offers perspective on the places of literature among the liberal arts.

Advanced practice in the original composition of fiction for discussion in regularly scheduled workshop meetings. The curriculum allows the student to develop writing skills, provides an introduction to the possibilities of contemporary literature and offers perspective on the place of literature among the liberal arts.

Students will choose, early in the semester, one author to focus on in fiction, poetry, or drama, with the goal of arriving at a 20-25 page sample of the author's work. All work will be translated into English and discussed in a workshop format.

What motivates us to write about our own lives? What is the relationship between the "I' who experiences and the "I" who writes? How scrupulous must we be about telling the truth? What are our moral obligations to the people we write about? In this workshop, we will consider different approaches to the people, places and things that have formed us.

In traditional workshops content and context come second to craft. Here we will explore writing political fiction, the politics of fiction and writing as political engagement.

This course will introduce students to core screenwriting principles and techniques.

The course will lead students toward the creation of a work of musical theater (for lack of a better term) which will run parallel to the collaboration of the two instructors of the course, Adam Gidwitz and Steven Mackey. Instrumental musical performers of any instrument, composers, writers, actors and others who feel they can contribute to a theatrical presentation are needed. The course will include introducing existing relevant works, the progress and process of the ongoing work of the instructors collaboration and of course facilitation of the student creations.