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WR 503 Residency I

Graduate students attend lectures, panels, informal discussions, generative making sessions, and public readings and performances by faculty mentors, peers, and guest artists and writers. Topics include literary and theoretical texts, methods / materials / forms / processes, and possibilities for professional engagement, e.g., publishing, promotion, social practice, writers in the schools. Graduate students are exposed to multiple ways in which writer-teachers cultivate their own creative practices. Due to a revised curriculum, the credit count for this course shifts slightly during academic years 23-24 and 24-25.


WR 505 Creative Writing Studio I

Graduate students generate drafts of original prose, cross-genre, poetry, and literary translations while further developing close reading and critical writing skills about literature, writing methods, and various aesthetic approaches to making. Graduate students regularly submit creative work, critical responses to readings, a bibliography in MLA format of literary works and texts, and personal letters to their mentors and discuss their own work and their responses to feedback. Through these exchanges, students generate as many pages as possible. Graduate students are encouraged to take risks, experiment, and make use of a variety of forms, genres, mediums, and materials. Fall off-site Studio. Due to a revised curriculum, the credit count for this course shifts slightly during academic years 23-24 and 24-25.


WR 513 Residency 2

Graduate students attend lectures, panels, informal discussions, generative making sessions, and public readings and performances by faculty mentors, peers, and guest artists and writers. Topics include literary and theoretical texts, methods / materials / forms / processes, and possibilities for professional engagement, e.g., publishing, promotion, social practice, writers in the schools. Graduate students are exposed to multiple ways in which writer-teachers cultivate their own creative practices. Due to a revised curriculum, the credit count for this course shifts slightly during academic years 23-24 and 24-25.


WR 515 Creative Writing Studio 2

Graduate students generate drafts of original prose, cross-genre, poetry, and literary translations while further developing close reading and critical writing skills about literature, writing methods, and various aesthetic approaches to making. Graduate students regularly submit creative work, critical responses to readings, a bibliography in MLA format of literary works and texts, and personal letters to their mentors and discuss their own work and their responses to feedback. Through these exchanges, students generate as many pages as possible. Graduate students are encouraged to take risks, experiment, and make use of a variety of forms, genres, mediums, and materials. Graduate students also prepare for their First-Year Reviews that happen during their third (of five) residency, which includes a self-evaluation and a sample of critical and creative work completed during the first year of study that represents their best work, progress, and challenges. Due to a revised curriculum, the credit count for this course shifts slightly during academic years 23-24 and 24-25.


WR 603 Residency 3

Graduate students attend lectures, panels, informal discussions, generative making sessions, and public readings and performances by faculty mentors, peers, and guest artists and writers. Topics include literary and theoretical texts, methods / materials / forms / processes, how artists address issues of social injustice and social change, and possibilities for professional engagement, e.g., publishing, promotion, social practice, writers in the schools. Graduate students are exposed to multiple ways in which writer-teachers cultivate their own creative practices. Due to a revised curriculum, the credit count for this course shifts slightly during academic years 23-24 and 24-25.


WR 613 Residency 4

Graduate students attend lectures, panels, informal discussions, generative making sessions, and public readings and performances by faculty mentors, peers, and guest artists and writers. Topics include literary and theoretical texts, methods / materials / forms / processes, how artists address issues of social injustice and social change, and possibilities for professional engagement, e.g., publishing, promotion, social practice, writers in the schools. Graduate students are exposed to multiple ways in which writer-teachers cultivate their own creative practices. Due to a revised curriculum, the credit count for this course shifts slightly during academic years 23-24 and 24-25.


WR 615 Creative Writing Studio 3

Graduate students develop and begin to revise a creative writing thesis draft along with letters. This is done in three exchanges of letters between students and faculty mentors. Minimum requirements are: two letters (one per packet), thesis project proposal with formulation of revision plan, and creative writing thesis rough draft within a single word document. Students are encouraged to use the packets to generate new creative pages that might be included into their thesis project. Due to a revised curriculum, the credit count for this course shifts slightly during academic years 23-24 and 24-25.


WR 620 Forms & Methods 1

Graduate students explore one writing method, form, material, or an aspect of process integral to their own creative writing practice with the intention of clarifying their process of revision on which they shall embark when they begin their creative writing thesis (WR615). Graduate students draft, revise, and polish a 15-20 page poetics essay, 15-20 pages in length, which can (and should) grow out of a graduate student's annotations done during the first year. A prospectus for the critical essay is generated during residency and must be approved by both faculty mentor and program head. Due to a revised curriculum, the credit count for this course shifts slightly during academic years 23-24 and 24-25.


WR 621 Forms & Methods 2

Due to a revised curriculum, the credit count for this course shifts slightly during academic years 23-24 and 24-25.


WR 698 Creative Writing Thesis

Graduate students revise and polish a creative writing thesis with the goal of creating a polished, publishable book-length manuscript. This is done in four exchanges with letters between students and faculty mentors. Minimum requirements are: four letters (one per packet), creative writing thesis rough drafts, revised and polished creative writing thesis, and midterm and end-of-semester evaluations. Due to a revised curriculum, the credit count for this course shifts slightly during academic years 23-24 and 24-25.


WR 699 Thesis Presentation

This course offers graduate students the space to defend, exhibit, and perform their creative writing thesis while reflecting upon the poetics most relevant to the formation of their revised work. Graduate students in their final residency give a public reading of their creative work (2o minutes), defend their creative writing thesis, serve on committees of their peers, and facilitate a 45-minute generative making session or talk on methods / materials / forms / process. Due to a revised curriculum, the credit count for this course shifts slightly during academic years 23-24 and 24-25.


Courses

Summer

Course
Residency 1
Creative Writing Studio 1

Spring

Course
Residency 2
Creative Writing Studio 2

Summer

Course
Residency 3
Creative Writing Studio 3
Forms & Methods 1

Spring

Course
Residency 4
Forms & Methods 2
Creative Writing Thesis

Summer

Course
Residency 5, Thesis Presentation / Graduation

Creative Writing Studios

Students write original fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and/or literary translations. Students generate rough drafts and develop reading skills in individually tailored instruction focused on craft, literature, aesthetics, and criticism.

Each semester, students are required to submit five "packets" containing original creative work, critical responses to reading assignments, a bibliography in MLA format of literary works and texts, and letters discussing their own work and their responses to the mentor’s critiques of and advice about that work. In addition, students complete two narrative self-evaluations, one midway through the semester and one at the semester’s end.

Forms and Methods

Students draft, revise, polish a long essay on methods, materials, forms, and process and prepare a generative making session or a talk to be given at their final residency. The goal is broadening and deepening knowledge of diverse artistic sensibilities and articulating aesthetic inclinations as well as the literary models and cultural sources of those aesthetic inclinations. In addition, students draft and revise a teaching philosophy, cover letter, and teaching CV. This is done in packet exchanges with letters between graduate students and faculty mentors.

Creative Writing Thesis and Thesis Presentation

Each student revises and polishes a creative writing thesis with the goal of creating a polished, publishable, book-length manuscript of creative writing work. The creative writing thesis should exhibit deep engagement with substantive and sentence-level revision along with an exploration of aesthetic possibilities.

A thesis committee comprised of three MFA faculty members evaluates the student’s creative writing thesis. At the student’s final residency, the student attends a thesis conference during which the committee discusses the student’s work, its guiding aesthetics, processes around making, and influences, literary and otherwise. This culminates with the student giving a public reading of their creative work.

Willamette University

Low Residency Creative Writing