Minor in Creative Writing

Our students become deft critical thinkers who are skillful writers of fiction and poetry, and who find meaningful careers in education, publishing, law, nonprofits and business.

Our creative writing program provides students a space for experimental writing and creativity. The minor in creative writing teaches the skills of fiction and poetry through small workshop-based studio courses. Guided by our innovative and award-winning faculty, you will discover the heights of your imagination and explore new territories in language and form.

  • Work alongside peers in small workshops
  • Refine your understanding of fiction and poetry
  • Complement your undergraduate studies with a minor

Learn from diverse, award-winning faculty

Further your creative process in our small classes, where you can get to know your peers and the program faculty well

Develop your writing skills in one of our many labs and centers in the Department of English that cover a variety of topics

Be successful.

A minor in creative writing allows you to enter the workforce with a variety of skills, including critical thinking and creative processing.

 

Broaden your employment possibilities with additional knowledge and skills gained from a minor

 

Editor, educator, technical writer, social media manager, content manager and author are common opportunities to apply this minor

 

Work in education, publishing, law, the nonprofit sector or business

Academic Plan & Requirements

To earn a minor in creative writing, students must complete a minimum of 19 credit hours. Students should work with an academic advisor to declare the minor, ideally no later than their second semester of their third year of study, as it takes about three semesters to complete the minor.

Community & Involvement

We offer students many opportunities to network with peers and faculty, further their studies, and get the most out of their undergraduate experience.

Be inspired.

The English department has an extensive list of alumni who have worked in a variety of fields across the globe.

Some alumni of the program include:

Kathy Beeck

('86)
Co-founder of the Boulder International Film Festival, now in its 14th year.

Ashby Pate

('00)
A lawyer with the law firm of Lightfoot, Franklin & White LLC and a former associate justice of the Supreme Court of Palau.

Jack Williamson

(PhD'64)
A successful science-fiction writer from 1928 to 2005. He was known as the "Dean of Science Fiction," and was named the second Grand Master of Science Fiction by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 1976, and inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1996. He is credited with inventing the term “terraforming” in a 1942 short story.

Luis Alberto Urrea

(MFA'97)
A Mexican American novelist and professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois Chicago. His memoir, Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life, received the American Book Award in 1999, and his nonfiction book The Devil’s Highway: A True Story was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Sean Forman

('07)
A multi-Platinum recording artist and co-founder and member of the electronic pop duo 3OH!3.

Serena Chopra

(MA'12)
A poet and Fulbright fellow who teaches in the MFA program at Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.

Leather Storrs

('92)
A Portland, Oregon-based celebrity chef and co-owner of Portland’s Noble Rot restaurant.

Kate Grenville

(MA'82)
An Australian author who has received the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and Orange Prize, and whose work has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

News & Stories

College of Arts & Sciences magazine cover