Creative Writing Program
MAJORS & MINORS
Don't tell anyone, but the most popular concentration in the English Department is Creative Writing. And don't let anyone tell you learning to write creatively and well renders you useless for the job market. Direct mail, journalism, marketing, advertising, public relations, not-for-profit fundraising, writing of textbook and software manuals... our undergraduates go on to make use of their talents in coutnless ways besides getting rich as a best-selling author, although that has happened too. Think you got what it takes to be a LCW (English Major with a concentration in Creative Writing)? You can request the concentration your junior year. Click here for the particulars of the major. You can also minor in Creative Writing, too. Click here for information about the minor.
OUR MFA PROGRAM
NCSU offers an MFA in Creative Writing. Applications are being accepted for Fall 2010 admission (deadline April 1, 2009, but it's best to apply soon after January, particularly if you want funding).
Creative Writing has had a long presence in the English Department at NC State. Kaye Gibbons, T.R. Pearson, Haven Kimmel, Andy Duncan and Darnell Arnoult were graduates of NC State’s writing program. Lots of our MFAs on the shelves lately... Pamela Duncan has a contract for her third novel (more on that closer to publication time). Consider Therese Fowler's SOUVENIR (Spring 2008, Ballantine Books) with her follow-up, REUNION (2009). For some superb short stories, there's Amy Knox Brown's (mostly) Nebraskan tales, THREE VERSIONS OF THE TRUTH (Fall 2007, Press 53), called by Booklist, "a vibrant debut collection."
The cutting-edge novel BEING WRITTEN (Harper’s Perennial, 2008) by William Conescu was published recently to acclaim. Writes Publisher's Weekly, "Conescu's light, swift and nicely structures dark comedy puts to the test a character's ability to outwrite his own author. In the end, the author wins."
MFA FACULTY NEWS
New titles by our MFA faculty include John Balaban's PATH, CROOKED PATH (Copper Canyon, 2006). Writes the Harvard Review, "Balaban's emotional range is impressively wide and deeply human--by turns compassionate and angry, somber and humorous, earnest and ironic. His voice is strong; his poems are important."
John Kessel's THE BAUM PLAN FOR FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE (Small Beer Press, 2008) collects ten years worth of speculative, sci-fi and literary fiction from this Nebula and Tiptree-award winning author. Also, keep an eye out for John Kessel's and Jim Kelly's wildly popular and important anthologies of "Slipstream Fiction," FEELING VERY STRANGE (Tachyon, 2006) and REWIRED: THE POST-CYBERPUNK ANTHOLOGY (Tachyon, 2007).
Also, keep in mind our long-time Visiting Poet Betty Adcock's sixth and latest book of poetry, SLANTWISE (LSU Press, 2008)!
