UNCW Department of Creative Writing

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Department of Creative Writing Statement of Values

WE ARE PRACTICING LITERARY ARTISTS: OUR AUTHORITY TO TEACH ARISES DIRECTLY FROM THE DISCOVERIES WE MAKE IN OUR OWN WRITING, DAILY AND OVER A LIFETIME. According to diverse aesthetics, we use words to engage the world and create works of beauty and significance. We cultivate an artistic sensibility through language, on the page and out loud, both

for its accuracy and for its music. We strive for artistic excellence through the diligent practice of craft. Our collective goal is to inspire each other and our students to our best creative work—expressed in writing that is technically proficient, clean, and professionally presentable. Grammar, diction, and syntax are the paint and brushstrokes by which we build drama and artistic meaning. We believe in helping our students establish sound, professional working habits so they will approach their craft with respect. We also actively encourage their engagement with other arts.
•CRW offers courses in the creative process, which incorporate other arts.
•Faculty members integrate film, music, and visual art into craft classes, workshops, and performances.
•Faculty members write and teach across genres.
•All faculty instructors and GTAs grade undergraduate work both for “artistic merit” and “presentation,” the latter including all aspects of grammar and usage.
•A required course in Editing for Publication is now offered for our BFA majors. WE BELIEVE IN THE BOOK AS AN ESSENTIAL ENDEAVOR. The book expresses a whole, sustained vision. Short forms all have their undeniable virtues, but the literary marketplace is first a marketplace of books. We write them and teach our students to write not only short stories, essays, and poems, but unified books. Reading, a lifelong engagement with books of literary quality, is central to the writer’s life and our individual and collective identity. Reading books helps a writer calibrate an original aesthetic and challenges the writer to grow beyond comfortable certainties and habits.
•All BFA seniors produce a chapbook or anthology in the Pub Lab.
•The MFA curriculum includes semester- and year- long courses in the book-length prose narrative and poetry collection.
•The Publishing Laboratory explores the artistic as well as the practical facets of designing, editing, and printing books.
•All tenure-track faculty members are expected to publish books for promotion and tenure. Broadly conceived, research means going into the world and finding out what is necessary to know in order to write about a chosen subject perceptively, knowledgably, and imaginatively. The value of research lies not only in its product but in the very act of discovering one’s truest self in the context of public subjects. Research at its best enlarges the writer’s vision and the scope of subjects available, challenging the writer to develop new structures and forms with which to address them. Finally it helps a writer achieve an effective balance between self-awareness and awareness of the world.
•CRW offers a graduate course in “Research for Writers” organized around direct experience pursuing creative projects.
•CRW integrates the practice of research—as a deliberate attempt to enlarge and deepen knowledge of a subject—into writing in all genres.
•CRW requires BFA students in creative nonfiction to write beyond memoir and autobiography, using what they already know to explore subjects they passionately want to find out about.
•CRW supports the research of MFA students and CRW faculty members with travel grants. TEACHING IS A COMPLEMENTARY AND PARALLEL ART. Our faculty members are engaged and available. For us all, teaching our craft and mentoring new writers is an important way to become better writers ourselves, for the act of articulating one’s aesthetic requires exploring it, continually testing basic assumptions, and evolving as an artist. We are part of a tradition, and our students’ experience and work are a significant part of our collective legacy. This legacy extends to the larger community of writers and readers beyond campus.
•All faculty members share the teaching and mentoring of BFA and MFA students and rotate by turn serving as master teachers in CRW 201, our Basic Studies introductory course.
•The CRW Department has developed a culture of community and ongoing informal mentoring. Teaching is closely observed; excellence and innovation are rewarded.
•Through outreach programs such as Writers in Action, the Young Writers Summer Camp, the Bald Head Island Writers Retreat, and workshops sponsored by the Osher Lifelong Learning Center, we expand opportunities for MFA students and faculty members to teach in non-traditional settings and reach writers who normally would not have access to a university. A WORK OF POETRY, FICTION, OR CREATIVE NONFICTION COMPLETES ITSELF IN THE IMAGINATION OF THE READER. Creative Writing is, at heart, an act of extraordinary communication. Just as we as faculty writers strive to find the right audience for our work, so too we encourage our students to find their readership, rather than write merely for therapy or self-expression. The publishing process is one more stage in the writer’s apprenticeship.
•CRW conducts workshops for MFA and BFA students in performing creative writing for an audience.
•The Publishing Laboratory offers a Certificate in Publishing for BFA majors. Other courses for BFA and MFA students de-mystify the process of shepherding work into published form and address both artistic concerns and practical challenges.
•Faculty mentors help their advisees—when they are ready—to find representation and to place their best work in appropriate venues.

05/16/2024

MFA Alum John A. Dailey's memoir, Tough Rugged Bastards, will soon be published by Simon & Schuster and is available for preorder now. Congratulations, John!

05/15/2024

Please join us in congratulating MFA alum Rebecca Spiegel on the release of her debut memoir, Without Her, due from Milkweed Editions in September. We're so proud of you, Becca!

05/01/2024

Clyde Edgerton is the honored guest speaker at the 45th annual Thomas Wolfe Society conference on May 31 in Durham, and you’re invited! Clyde will give a talk and book signing, and because it’s Clyde, there’s bound to be music and shenanigans as well. Read more at
nclr.ecu.edu/2024/03/14/tws-conference-edgerton-hovis.

04/25/2024

Get ready for Write Wilmington's last session of the season! You won’t want to miss it 😎☀️

04/24/2024

Please join us in celebrating the upcoming release of MFA alum ('15) Katie Prince's debut poetry collection, Tell This to the Universe, soon to be out from YesYes Books. Congratulations, Katie!

04/23/2024

Please join us for a reading and discussion with visiting writer Aisha Sabatini Sloan and visiting editor Mensah Demary in Kenan 1111 on Thursday, April 25 at 7 p.m. We're so lucky to have them among us this semester, and the evening is sure to be inspiring for writers and readers alike.

04/22/2024

Please join us on Tuesday, April 23, at 6 p.m. in Kenan Hall room 1111 to celebrate our graduating BFA students on their thesis readings.

04/18/2024

It’s almost time for our writing session!

04/17/2024

CNF faculty David Gessner reports, "We are going to start an environmental writing track at our MFA program at UNCW. This term's environmental writing class was a kind of warm-up/template for the track. Let's just say it went pretty well. Here we are on Masonboro Island."

David Gessner

04/16/2024

Please join us TONIGHT to celebrate our graduating BFA students in Kenan Hall room 1111 at 6 p.m. for their thesis readings.

04/16/2024

Please join us in celebrating the work of third-year MFAers Darwin George Dennison, James King, Emily Krauser, Sarah Osman, Gillian Pribicko, and Loren Spurlock, who will read from their theses this Thursday evening in Congdon Auditorium. (They wrote books!)

04/15/2024

Join us this Friday for our penultimate session of Write Wilmington for this season!

Photos from UNCW Department of Creative Writing's post

04/12/2024

The MFAmily at UNCW came together in Kenan Hall on Thursday night to give a warm welcome to poetry professor and department chair Mark Cox's seventh collection, Knowing. (And of course there was cake!)

04/11/2024

We’re looking forward to Jess’s session in the morning! Hope to see you there!

04/09/2024

Please join us on Thursday, April 11, at 7:00 p.m. in Kenan Hall 1111 to celebrate the release of Knowing, poetry faculty and department chair Mark Cox's seventh collection. A reception and signing will follow the reading, which is free and open to the public.

"Tony Hoagland has said Mark Cox is 'a veteran of the deep water; there's no one like him,' and Thomas Lux identified him as 'one of the finest poets of his generation.' No one speaks more effectively of the vital and enduring syntaxes of common, even communal, life."

—Richard Simpson

04/08/2024

Let’s welcome Jess Ram, former Write Wilmington coordinator! She’s back to lead Friday’s session!

Jessica Nirvana Ram is an Indo-Guyanese poet and essayist. She earned her MFA from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and her BA from Susquehanna University. Her work appears in Hayden's Ferry Review, Honey Literary, Prairie Schooner, among others. Jessica's debut poetry collection EARTHLY GODS is forthcoming with Variant Literature in 2024. Her chapbook IN THE AFTERMATH is forthcoming with Prismatica Press in 2024 as well. Find her on Twitter .

04/04/2024

Reminder: the fun begins at 9 am!

04/02/2024

All the laurels to Meghann Blackman, Kristen Dorsey, Maggie Hare, Vasilios Moschouris, Camille Pass, and Candice Rankin, who will read from the MFA theses on Thursday evening in Congdon Auditorium. We hope you'll join us for this celebration of their books!

04/01/2024

Introducing Mahlaynee Cooper, session instructor for this Friday!

Mahlaynee Cooper, the Founder of Speak Ya Peace NC, champions awareness of injustices through Art and Activism, with her band SolTree Reign adding a musical dimension to their endeavors. Performing at notable venues, Mahlaynee, originally from Brooklyn, NY, emphasizes a deep affection for children and advocates for their rights through the non-profit "Love our Children." Actively involved in The Juneteenth Committee, the National Black Caucus, and the NAACP, she imparts her knowledge as a teaching artist, recently completing a residency exploring the early roots of Hip-Hop. Recognized as a “Wilmington Woman to Watch” in 2022, Mahlaynee graduated from the Wilma Leadership Institute in 2023, embodying her belief in truth, justice, and humanity, as expressed by Baba Malcolm X.

03/28/2024

Get ready to write up a storm! 🌩️⚡️

03/25/2024

Former Write Wilmington Social Media Manager Becca Hannigan will lead Friday’s session!

Becca Hannigan is a fiction writer based in Denver, Colorado. In May 2023, they graduated with an MFA from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where they taught undergraduate students and worked as fiction editor for Ecotone. Along with teaching, she has worked on staff at the Sewanee Young Writers' Conference and as an intern for the Brink Literacy Project, teaching workshops. Their work has been published in Story Quarterly, the Rumpus, 303 Magazine, Juked, and elsewhere.

03/22/2024

If you have some time this Sunday come on out!

03/21/2024

Tonight!
Please join us for a reading and reception in celebration of the release of Pub Lab Assistant Director Michael Ramos's debut essay collection, The After: A Veteran's Notes on Coming Home. Thursday, March 21 at 7:00 p.m. in Kenan Hall 1111. An event not to be missed!

03/21/2024

See you in the morning for !

03/20/2024

We hope you'll come on out for the annual Absurdist Reading this Sunday at 7 pm at Palate. (Spoiler alert: we're gonna make it weird.)

03/19/2024

Please join us for a reading and reception in celebration of the release of Pub Lab Assistant Director Michael Ramos's debut essay collection, The After: A Veteran's Notes on Coming Home. Thursday, March 21 at 7:00 p.m. in Kenan Hall 1111. An event not to be missed!

03/18/2024

BFA Coordinator Tim Bass will lead the session this Friday! Don’t miss it!

Tim Bass is the coordinator of the BFA Program in Creative Writing at UNCW. His teaching includes classes in grammar, fiction, and creative nonfiction. He has an MFA degree from UNCW and a B.A. in journalism from UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former newspaper reporter.

03/14/2024

From our friends at : It’s about that time. Register for tomorrow’s session!

03/12/2024

Make some time for yourself this week and join Write Wilmington on Friday morning with UNCW faculty David Gessner!

03/04/2024

We’re on spring break this week, so Write Wilmington will see you March 15 with UNCW professor David Gessner!

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Telephone

+19109623070

Website

https://uncw.edu/academics/colleges/chssa/departments/writing

Address

UNCW Kenan Hall, 601 S College Road
Wilmington, NC
28403

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