Creative Nonfiction
Creative nonfiction is an important and integral part of the writing curriculum in the Program for Writing and Rhetoric. WRTG courses in creative nonfiction (CNF) enhance students' abilities to express themselves in this uniquely vibrant genre that blends creativity, research, personal experience, and rhetorical principles. Students enrolled in PWR’s creative nonfiction courses learn how to write in subgenres such as memoir, the personal essay, the lyric essay, literary journalism, and hybrid forms from numerous faculty who are accomplished writers and teachers in this area. Students can also learn how to publish creative nonfiction, gaining hands-on experience working on the student-run creative nonfiction journals Hindsight and Changing Skies. Through such upper division and lower division learning experiences, students enrolled in our creative nonfiction courses have the unique opportunity to reflect on their lived experiences, deepen their critical and creative thinking skills, engage in community with other writers, and enhance their abilities as public writers in and publishers of this fun and captivating genre.
Learn More about CNF:
Sample Courses:
The following courses are tailored specifically for Creative Nonfiction. Click here to learn more about these courses.
- WRTG 2020: Intro to CNF
- WRTG 3020: Topics in Writing
- Advanced CNF
- Narrative and Self
- Ways of Telling the Story
- Travel Writing
- Comedy Writing
- Don’t Fence Me In
- Best American Essays
- Writing on Music
- Best American Essays
- WRTG 3095: Journal Publishing
Publishing Opportunities
PWR is home to two student-run creative nonfiction journals that all students can both submit to and gain experiencing working on: Hindsight and Changing Skies.
Hindsight began in 2013 as Journal Twenty Twenty. Originally created by students publishing their own Creative Nonfiction, then using blind review to publish work from other CU students, in its early years the journal was the only one in the country satisfying all these criteria:
- We publish only Creative Nonfiction—in all its forms, from Memoir to Portraiture, New Journalism to Critical Ethnography, Travel Writing to Humor and Satire, even Creative Nonfiction Comics and other Hybrid forms.
- All Editorial, Artwork, Layout and Design, Digital Production, and Journal Business is done by undergraduates.
- We began and continue publishing in Print.
- We began as an exclusively undergraduate-content magazine. (We now publish everyone from anywhere—excepting current CU teaching faculty.) And we continue to first-read all writing as anonymous submissions.
With our transition in 2021 to Hindsight, the journal is now a respected worldwide Creative Nonfiction publication, and we are growing online. In 2022, we launched a second title in conjunction with Mission Zero devoted to Climate Change, Changing Skies. And we now regularly appear at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs annual conferences, tabling both titles at the Bookfair.
Journal staff remain mostly undergraduates at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Interested students in all majors and at all levels can learn, without prior experience, how to publish a journal in print and online. Take WRTG 3095: Journal Publishing for 3 credits or an Internship (WRTG 2930 or 3930) to join the Hindsight staff, for 1, 2, or 3 Credit Hours. In learning to solicit good submissions, and then edit, publish, market, and advertise powerful Creative Nonfiction, students develop critical skills that translate to multiple majors, a variety of career paths, and strong resumes. Our multimodal journal extension online adds further to the digital literacy and rhetorical knowledge necessary to publish in print.
To learn more, visit our website and/or email Faculty Advisor, Dr. Jay Ellis, at Jay.Ellis@colorado.edu.