The undergraduate program in creative writing at UWM stresses both parts of the title: creative, writing. Our students spend every moment of every class developing their creative skills, and they write (and rewrite) an enormous amount. The result is an incredibly diverse, incredibly talented body of creative writers, who create everything from poems to novels to stories to zines, online and in print. They work on the program’s legendary undergraduate literary magazine, Furrow, and attend and/or organize dozens of creative writing events on—and off-campus year-round.
Students who major in English with a creative writing concentration focus their studies in either poetry or fiction, but all will write in more than one genre before they graduate. Creative writing workshops, where students’ works are the main texts, form the bulk of the curriculum, particularly at the more advanced levels; it’s in this way that students develop not only their writing skills but also their critical reviewing and thinking skills.
Our graduates have gone on to many different careers — far from being a narrowly-focused degree, a major in creative writing serves a wide variety of careers well, including editing, publishing, advertising, marketing, public relations, teaching, law and more. Whatever field they choose, what’s common is that they do uncommonly well. (Just this past year, one of our graduates received mention in the famed Best American series.)
For requirements and electives, visit our undergraduate major requirements page.
For more information, contact our coordinator:
Professor Liam Callanan
liam@uwm.edu
Curtin Hall 593
Creative Writing Core Faculty
