Creative Writing

Creative Writing Initiatives

INITIATIVES AS OF FEBRUARY 2021

  • We are, with the support of the Lewis Center and the Office of the Dean of Faculty, in the process of making tenured as well as tenure-track hires in order to further diversify our faculty.
  • We will hold a town-hall meeting designed for CWR faculty, students, and staff at least annually, preceded by a training/lecture/teach-in by an invited writer/teacher that centers BIPOC experiences and anti-racism, and facilitated by that guest.
  • We will redouble our collaboration with existing BIPOC writers’ reading series in other departments, programs, and centers at the University, looking for opportunities to co-sponsor and cross-promote these readings, and continue to feature BIPOC writers in the two reading series organized by our program.
  • The former Committee on Race and the Arts has been replaced by the LCA Climate and Inclusion Committee. This committee plans to offer regular reports of its activities and to make its meetings open to any LCA community members on a regular basis.The Creative Writing Program will stay abreast of the Climate and Inclusion Committee and its activities.
  • In cooperation with the Lewis Center, we will reach out to students through programs, centers, and affinity groups in advance of every application and registration deadline each semester, in order to publicize our offerings more widely.
  • We will make our application process transparent and are in the process of revising our application guidelines.
  • As we have done for the past 5 years, we will offer at least one course that focuses on writing and race each year, which will be open to beginning as well as advanced students.. We will promote these classes vigorously and ask the registrar to make them more apparent to students.
  • We will actively work with African American Studies, Program in Latin American Studies, and Asian American Studies along with Princeton Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative to cross-list courses and incorporate what we learn from these programs, departments, and initiatives.
  • We will work with residential college(s) to explore the possibility of establishing a writing/study room on campus with a library dedicated to the works of BIPOC authors.
  • We will offer a program each year that brings publisher(s), agent(s) and writers to speak with current students on publishing and ethics.
  • Professor Rowan Ricardo Phillips is offering a one-session intensive this spring Co-presented by the LCA and the Center for Career Development focusing on different careers or ways to make a living as a write and practical life management tips to consider as students build a writing career. We will also develop and offer a writing careers panel that includes but is not limited to MFA programs.
  • With the Trenton Public Library, where we already have an established tie, we will establish a program that enables current students to offer workshop(s) with high school students – these may be in Spanish or English.
  • In coordination with the Lewis Center, we are creating a network of mentors, which may include alumni who identify as BIPOC, who are committed to diversity and inclusion.
  • We will make available—to all faculty—regular anti-racist trainings by an outside thinker about creative writing and anti-racist practices.
  • We are in the process of compiling inclusive workshop practices that can be adapted for any CWR course and will convene faculty brown-bag lunch meetings specifically to share BIPOC-centered practices that have worked in our individual classes.
  • Suggested classroom practices will be communicated to all new faculty at hire for their own adaptation.
  • The Lewis Center has established a completely anonymous portal through which to share thoughts, suggestions, concerns, or comments on classroom experiences. There is also information available on University Title IX and sexual misconduct resources and reporting mechanisms. All faculty will be encouraged to include this information and link in their syllabi.