University Catalog 2024-2025

Creative writing.

creative writing north carolina

The Department of English offers a two-year studio/academic program in fiction or poetry leading to the Master of Fine Arts degree. The program provides an opportunity for students of superior and demonstrated ability in imaginative writing to develop their skills and critical judgment through the practice of writing and the study of literature. The aim of the program is to prepare talented students for careers in writing. Degree candidates are expected to produce a book-length work of literary value and publishable quality.

Requirements for the MFA in Creative Writing

Candidates for the MFA degree must complete a total of 36 credits. Eighteen of these are taken in the area of writing specialization. These include workshop courses (12 credits) and thesis (6 credits). The remaining credits are taken in literature (6 credits) and elective areas (12 credits, including 6 credit hours of teaching preparation for those on a composition teaching assistantship). In their final semester, students must pass a comprehensive written examination on writing craft, based on a book list selected jointly by the student and the faculty. The final thesis must be a book-length manuscript in the student's field of interest. In fiction, an approximate 200 pages are expected; in poetry, 50 pages. See program website for specific requirements by concentration.

Student Financial Support

All students admitted to the MFA program are eligible for teaching assistantships. TAs in the MFA train to teach undergraduate composition courses, and a few selected creative writing classes.

Other Relevant Information

The English department has a long tradition of academic and literary excellence, including its heritage of writers from Guy Owen to Lee Smith. The strength of NCSU in the sciences offers students the opportunity to do creative work that engages with issues of technology and its effect on individuals and institutions that are not typically addressed in fine arts programs.

Through the NC State Literary Readings Series, the department sponsors readings and visits by distinguished poets, fiction and non-fiction writers.

Creative Writing Program Website

Admission Requirements

Overall GPA of 3.0 or higher; one official transcript of all undergraduate and graduate work; two letters of recommendation; and two writing samples, one creative, one critical. Creative sample: for fiction, two short stories, or for a novel, three chapters (or one chapter and a short story) totaling 25-40 pages; for poetry, 12 complete poems. Critical sample: no more than 15 pages of writing demonstrating your ability to succeed in graduate-level literature classes, a required part of the MFA curriculum.

Applicant Information

  • Delivery Method:  On-Campus
  • Entrance Exam: None
  • Interview Required:  None

Application Deadlines

  • Fall: February 1
  • Creative Writing (MFA)

Full Professors

  • Belle McQuaide Boggs

Assistant Professors

  • LaTanya Denise McQueen
  • Carter Sickels

Practice/Research/Teaching Professors

  • John J. Kessel
  • Jill Collins McCorkle
  • Joseph H. Millar

Assistant Director

  • Chelsea Krieg
  • Destiny Hemphill

Study of Old English language with selections from important poems including Beowulf. Examination of the poetry in the light of various modern critical approaches.

Typically offered in Spring only

This course is offered alternate years

Study of major works of medieval English literature (exclusive of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales) in historical context, as reflections of and influences on social and cultural change. Includes works such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Langland's Piers Plowman and Malory's Morte d'Arthur.

Prose and poetry of the English Renaissance, excluding drama. Special attention to major authors, including Spenser and Sidney, and to intellectual, cultural and literary backgrounds and developments. Introduction to pertinent methods and issues of scholarly inquiry and critical interpretation.

Typically offered in Fall only

A close examination of the literature of England from 1600 to 1660 with emphasis on major literary figures and movements, development of important literary forms and genres and relationship between literary texts of this period and their philosophical, political and theological contexts. Some bibliographical and textural assignments. Content and focus varies according to instructor's emphasis, but writers covered usually include Donne, Herbert, Crashaw, Marvell and Browne.

Survey of American literature and thought from the beginning to adoption of the constitution. Representative works such as travel and exploration reports, Indian captivity narratives, diaries, journals, auto biographies, sermons and poetry.

Rotating topics in world literature, including treatment of the subject's theoretical or methodological framework. Possible subjects: colonialism and literature; orality and literature; the Renaissance; the Enlightenment; translation; comparison ofNorth and South American literatures; African literary traditions; post-modernism and gender. Readings in English (original languages encouraged but not required).

Survey of African-American literature and its relationships to American culture, with an emphasis on fiction and poetry since 1945. Writers such as Bontemps, Morrison, Hurston, Baldwin, Hayden, Brooks, Naylor, Harper, and Dove.

Requirement: Junior Standing

GEP Humanities, GEP U.S. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, GEP U.S. Diversity

Typically offered in Fall and Summer

The works of the most important writers shaping modern African literature in English (and English translation). Selections from East, West, North and South Africa, spanning colonial through post-colonial Africa--from literature of protest and culture conflict to that of disillusionment, reappraisal and feminism.

A study of British literature during the Romantic era (1780s-1830s), including poetry, periodicals, novels, drama, and criticism as well as their political and cultural contexts.

Introduction to the study of Chaucer through an intensive reading of The Canterbury Tales.

R: Sophomore standing and above

GEP Global Knowledge, GEP Humanities

An intensive study of a particular phase of the Shakespeare canon. Emphasis will normally be on one dramatic genre (tragedy, comedy, history), but occasionally the focus may be more limited.

Explore how writers represented the tumultuous Victorian era (1837-1901), spanning responses to industrialization, political reform, religion, colonialism, class, gender, and race at home and abroad. The course covers an array of literary forms and seeks to include perspectives from within the British Isles as well as from across the British empire.

Typically offered in Fall and Spring

An intensive reading of Milton with attention to background materials in history and culture of seventeenth-century England.

British writers of the period 1600-1790 studied in historical and cultural contexts. Usually includes works by Dryden, Swift, Pope, Defoe, Mandeville, Boswell and Johnson, but addition of other significant writers possible.

Selected British novels of the Restoration and eighteenth century from a variety of contemporary critical perspectives. Such writers as Fielding, Richardson, Sterne, Burney, Smollett and Austen.

Study of selected British novels published between 1837 and 1901 in contexts of the development of the genre, historical period and current literary theory. Such writers as Dickens, Thackeray, Bronte, Trollope, Eliot, Meredith and Hardy.

Study of literary culture of United States from 1860s to early 1900s with emphasis on fiction by such realists and naturalists as Twain, Howells, Chesnutt, James, Crane, Wharton, Dreiser and Norris. Inclusion of prose of writers such as Adams and DuBois possible.

Examination of British fiction of this century and relationship of significant intellectual, historical and political issues. Inclusion of such writers as Joyce, Conrad, Woolf, Lawrence, Beckett and Murdoch possible but also post-colonial novelists as well.

Development of English poetry from its late Victorian phase through Modernism to present post-war scene. Inclusion of such writers as Hardy, Yeats, Eliot, Smith, Auden, Larkin, Heaney, Wolcott and Hill possible.

Survey of modern British drama from its beginnings at turn of the century to present.

A survey of modern American drama centering on major figures.

Introduction to literary culture of "the South," tracing the roots of the twentieth-century "Southern Renaissance" in such ante-bellum genres as plantation fiction, Southwestern humor, fugitive-slave narration and pastoral elegy. Examination of persistence of "Southern" writing within increasingly standardized culture of the United States.

Development of modern American poetry from rebellion against the romantic and genteel verse of the 1890's; special attention to Robinson, Frost, Pound, Williams, Stevens and Ransom.

An examination of representative American writers of novel and short fiction.

Elizabethan and Jacobean drama from 1580 to 1642, excluding Shakespeare. Coverage of such writers as Marlowe, Jonson, Webster, Beaumont and Fletcher, Heywood, Tourneur and Ford.

Prerequisite: ENG 261 and upper division or Graduate standing

Representative British plays of the period 1660-1780 studied in cultural, social and ethical contexts. Usually includes works by Etherege, Wycherley, Behn, Dry-den, Otway, Vanburgh, Farquhar, Congreve, Lillo, Gay, Goldsmith and Sheridan.

Post-1945 literary theory in relationship with representative avant-garde writers. Theoretical and argumentative essays in such areas as chaos theory, deconstruction, feminism and the limits of fiction. Fiction readings by Calvino, Pynchon, Barthelme, Cortazar and others.

Prerequisite: Graduate standing

Variation in content. Selected problems and issues in literature.

Advanced work in techniques of writing fiction for students with substantial experience in writing. Workshop sessions with students commenting on each other's work.

Prerequisite: ENG 488 or ENG 489

Advanced work in techniques of writing poetry for students with substantial experience in writing. Workshop sessions with students commenting on each other's work.

Thesis research.

Prerequisite: Master's student

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2024-2025 Undergraduate Catalog

A PDF of the entire 2024-2025 Undergraduate catalog.

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A PDF of the entire 2024-2025 Graduate catalog.

creative writing north carolina

Creative Writing, MFA

Publishing Laboratory Enjoys a Relationship with Harpercollins, the World’s Second-Largest English Language Publisher

2 Literary Magazines & 1 Literary Book Imprint - We Offer Graduate Students Experience Working for All 3

Writers’ Week is a Literary Festival Featuring a Diverse Lineup of Writers

STUDY OF CREATIVE WRITING PREPARES STUDENTS FOR PROFESSIONAL SUCCESS. OUR ALUMNI ARE:

Graduates have published books with top commercial, university and independent presses, garnering critical acclaim and prestigious awards. Many have careers as technical writers. Most importantly, they learned the skills and habits to pursue a satisfying and sustainable writing life.

The MFA is a terminal degree and qualifies graduates to teach at the university level. We provide teaching assistantships and pedagogical training. Our graduates go on to teach writing and publishing throughout the country.

Our graduate students gain hands-on experience in the editing, design, production and marketing of books and magazines and go on to careers as agents, marketing coordinators, art directors, managing editors, and small press publishers.

program completion feature

Generate complex, original writing of literary merit and personal value

Utilize form, style, and technique in effective and sophisticated ways

Critically analyze literary works

Articulate your own evolving aesthetic as a writer

“ I gained valuable teaching experience, served as managing editor of Ecotone, and relished my time with mentors who encouraged and challenged me. Simply put, it changed my life. ”

A Community of Writers

Our MFA program joins students who share a common passion and faculty members who provide critical support of their work. The faculty of the Department of Creative Writing view MFA students as colleagues-in-the-making. To help initiate them into the profession, we offer a series of panels and workshops designed to address practical issues that lie outside the scope of the writing workshop.

Apprenticeship Leading to Publishable Quality Manuscript

The MFA at UNCW is a 48-hour apprenticeship, requiring a total of 21 hours of writing workshops, 21 hours of literature or other elective courses, and 6 thesis hours, leading to completion and defense of a substantial book-length manuscript of literary merit and publishable quality.

While students apply in poetry, fiction or creative nonfiction, and focus primarily on that genre, some cross-genre study is required. Coursework in editing and publishing is offered through our Publishing Laboratory. Experience in magazine and book production is also offered in conjunction with our imprint Lookout Books and with Ecotone and Chautauqua , our department's national literary magazines.

author signing autograph on book

SAMPLE COURSES

Admission deadlines & requirements, information: mfa creative writing.

  • Complete applications are considered for admission as a group, after the published deadline.
  • All application and supporting documents must be received by the published deadline.

Coordinator

Location/Delivery Method

  • Main Campus

Concentrations

  • Creative Non-Fiction

Deadlines (11:59 p.m. EST)

  • Fall 2025:   January 15, 2025

Transcripts

  • One official transcript is required from each U.S. post-secondary institution attended. Refer to the Getting Started page for international transcript instructions.

Test Scores

  • None Required

Recommendations

Additional requirements.

  • Upload Supplemental Documents After Application Submission
  • Writing Sample: A typed manuscript in the applicant’s primary genre, labeled “poetry,” “fiction" or “creative nonfiction”: 10 pages of poetry, 30 pages of fiction or 30 pages of creative nonfiction (double-spaced prose, single-spaced poetry). The manuscript should demonstrate mastery of basic craft and unmistakable literary promise. Applicants are advised not to apply with a mixed-genre manuscript.
  • Essay:  An essay (300-500 words) on the applicant’s goals in pursuing the MFA, including previous educational experience.
  • Assistantship Essay: If you are interested in being considered for an assistantship in the Creative Writing classroom, or in the Publishing Laboratory (or both), please include a brief (one- to two-page) supplemental statement of relevant experience and interest. (If interested in both, upload a single combined essay.) 

Explore More Program Details

Learn more about the Department

Related Programs

Publishing, post-baccalaureate certificate.

Students seeking to enroll in the MFA publishing certificate program must first complete the introductory course, CRW 520, The Publishing Process.

Filmmaking, MFA

UNCW’s MFA in filmmaking is an immersive three-year terminal degree program. The comprehensive curriculum includes multi-modal (narrative, documentary, and experimental) workshops in cinematography, screenwriting, editing, sound design, producing, and directing, as well as courses in cinema history, analysis and aesthetics.

English M.A.

For lovers of literature, writing, film or the English language, studying English means doing what you love most.

Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Post-Baccalaureate Certificate

This certificate is designed for students already enrolled in a graduate degree program at UNCW, as well as professionals not seeking a degree. The program provides the opportunity to gain substantial training in women's and gender studies as a supplement to departmental degrees and careers.

UNC English & Comparative Literature

Creative Writing

The department of English and Comparative Literature’s Creative Writing program is – and has long been – among the best in the country. Hundreds of alumni have gone on to write books, films, albums, plays, and television shows, pursue graduate study in creative writing, and publish stories, poems, and essays in the world’s best journals, magazines, and newspapers. The English and Comparative Literature (ECL) major’s concentration in Creative Writing was established in 2018 to allow students the chance to graduate with comprehensive skills in narrative development, critical thinking, textual analysis, and creative expression.

The Creative Writing concentration has five tracks: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, musical writing, or a combination of genres.

Click here for Current Concentration Requirements

creative writing north carolina

Choose a Track

Option 1: fiction, option 2: poetry, option 3: combination of genres, option 4: musical writing, option 5: nonfiction.

Courses: ENGL 138 or ENGL 283, ENGL 208, ENGL 404, ENGL 693H & 694H

Choose 2 from:

Any courses in engl and/or cmpl (excluding first-year seminars), among these 10 required courses: no more than 2  can be outside engl/cmpl, contact the concentration coordinator: prof. ross white, [email protected], career spotlight.

creative writing north carolina

Mary Pope Osborne

Author of children’s books, including the magic tree series, class 1971.

“Long ago, in a poetry class in the English department at UNC, I gained the confidence to put thoughts and images on a page and share them with others. In that class, I began my love affair with the English language, with the magic and mystery of words. Since then, I’ve published over a hundred children’s books.”

IMAGES

  1. NORTH CAROLINA CREATIVE WRITING DIFFERENTIATED WORKSHEET by Pointer

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  2. 9 Top Writing Groups in North Carolina

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  3. 75th Anniversary of Creative Writing Program

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  5. Creative Writing at Carolina

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  6. Style

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VIDEO

  1. Reading and Writing Hiragana

  2. C letter signature❤️ #carolina #shorts #art #calligraphy #signature #signwriting #writingskills

  3. The Craft of Writing Prose with NYT Bestselling Author Wiley Cash