- Campuses :
- Twin Cities
- Crookston
- Duluth
- Morris
- Rochester
- Other Locations
Graduate-level EngW courses are reserved first for MFAs in the writing program. If you are a graduate student in English or another department, please contact Kathleen Glasgow at kglasgow@umn.edu to discuss enrollment in an EngW course.
EngW 5102 Advanced Fiction
Instructor: Julie Schumacher
TH, 3:35-6:05 pm
This course is required for first-year fiction writers. Students will read, write and workshop original fiction. Students are welcome to submit novel excerpts, novellas, or short stories. Students may have assigned reading in addition to written assignments. This course fulfills an out-of-genre workshop requirement for poets and nonfiction writers.
EngW 5104 Advanced Poetry Writing Workshop
Instructor: Ray Gonzalez
W, 3:35-6:05 pm
This workshop is a deep immersion in the poetic process. While a specific number of pages of work with due dates are required, we will rely heavily on outside reading of books of poetry and integrating poetics to discover ways of generating new poems. Individual and group presentations on various aspects of poetry will balance an intense hands-on workshop environment. In the end, it is "poetic accomplishment" more than a "fix this, fix that" approach that will drive this workshop and present opportunities to be active in the emergence of fresh material, but also in defining and acknowledging what is already working in your writing process. Required reading list, still in development, may change:
1. John Ashbery--Three Poems. Ecco Press.
2. Robert Bly--Leaping Poetry: An Idea with Poems and Translations. U. of Pittsburgh Press
3. Inger Christensen--It. Translated by Susanna Nied. New Directions.
4. H.D. (Hilda Doolitte)--Trilogy. New Directions.
5. Aracelis Girmay--Kingdom Animalia. BOA Editions.
6. Larry Levis. Elegy. U. of Pittsburgh Press.
7. Alice Notley. Reason and Other Women. Chax Press.
8. George Oppen. Selected Poems. New Directions.
9. Bruce Smith. Devotions. U. of Chicago Press.
10. William Carlos Williams. Spring and All. New Directions. This course fulfills an out-of-genre workshop requirement for nonfiction or fiction writers
EngW 5106 Advanced Nonfiction Writing
Instructor: Regents’ Professor Madelon Sprengnether
W, 3:35-6:05 pm
This course is required for first-year nonfiction writers. Students will read, write and workshop original nonfiction. Students are welcome to submit a variety of nonfiction writing (memoir, literary essay, etc). Students may have assigned reading in addition to written assignments. This course fulfills an out-of-genre workshop requirement for poets and fiction writers.
EngW 5130 Topics in Advanced Creative Writing
Instructor: Nuruddin Farah (Winton Chair in the Humanities)
M, 3:35-6:05 pm
Cross-listed with EngL 5020 Studies in Narrative
5 seats available under EngW 5130; 10 seats available under EngL 5020
International Fiction: This seminar will study a group of fiction writers from various countries and continents who chose, for a combination of reasons, to write major works in a language other than their mother tongue. The seminar will read and discuss work from such writers as Anton Shammas Henry Roth, Joseph, Conrad, Samuel Beckett, Vladimir Nabokov, Edwidge Danticat, Salman Rushdie, Yambo Ouologuem, Irene Nemirovsky, Amitav Ghosh, and Laila Lalami. Course Instructor Nuruddin Farah is himself a novelist who has published eleven novels, four plays, and one book of nonfiction in English, which is his fourth language, and has won the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, among many other prizes. For MFAs: This course will fulfill an in-genre OR out-of-genre workshop requirement OR a literature/language requirement OR a “Creative Writing class of your choice” requirement. Taken under the EngL designator, this course can fulfill the EngL requirement under Lit/Language.
EngW 5205 Screenwriting
Instructor: Affiliate
TH, 6:20-8:50 pm
This course is for students interested in the craft of writing for film. No prior screenwriting experience is necessary. Students can expect to complete at least 50-pages of an original screenplay with at least one substantial revision by term’s end. Students will workshop screenplays, view a variety of films, and participate in class discussions. Students can expect assigned reading and additional written assignments. For MFAs: this course can fulfill an out-of-genre genre workshop requirement. Must be a junior or a senior with at least one 3000-level EngW writing course already completed OR a graduate student at the University OR a member of the community. Please contact Kathleen Glasgow for more information and permission to enroll: kglasgow@umn.edu
EngW 5310 Reading as Writers
Instructor: Peter Campion
M, 4:40-7:10 pm
Negative Capability: John Keats once called the essential quality of the artist “Negative Capability,” the capacity for “being in uncertainties.” In this class, we’ll explore how various writers make their art from uncertainty. We’ll begin with such classic work as King Lear, Keats’ own poems and Dickinson’s, as well as Melville’s short stories. Modern and contemporary reading will include non-fiction by James Baldwin and Adam Phillips, fiction by Paula Fox and Javier Marias, and poetry by Frank Bidart and Anne Winters. Students will be required to complete short, weekly assignments and a final project. This course will fulfill a literature/language requirement.
EngW 8101 Reading Across Genres
Instructor: MJ Fitzgerald
T, 3:35-6:05 pm
Introductory course for all new MFA students. The course introduces new students to one another, to faculty, and to program requirements and details. Mandatory for all new MFAs.
EngW 8180 Thesis Seminar: Multigenre
Instructor: Regents’ Professor Patricia Hampl
T, 3:35-6:05 pm
This course will set the foundation for and help shape what will be your MFA thesis in the spring of your last year. Students in the third-year are required to take this course in the fall semester.
EngW 8990 Thesis Credits
If you are entering your third year in the program in fall 2012, you will want to begin assembling your Thesis Committee in late spring 2012. Generally, students complete all four thesis credits with one faculty member in the spring of the third year (Thesis Director) and have one second reader. It is possible to complete thesis credits with two different faculty members during two semesters. Please let Kathleen know when you have selected a committee and need to register for thesis credits.
EngW 8110 Seminar in Fiction Instructor: Charles Baxter T, 3:35-6:05 pm
EngW 8120 Seminar in Poetry Instructor: Ray Gonzalez W, 3:35-6:05 pm
EngW 8130 Seminar in Nonfiction Instructor: TBA TH, 3:35-6:05 pm
EngW 5205 Screenwriting Instructor: Affiliate M, 6:20-8:50 pm
EngW 5130 Topics in Advanced Creative Writing Instructor: Andrew Elfenbein TH 3:35-6:05 pm
