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Creative Writing BA

College of Liberal Arts / Writing, Literature, and Language
Undergraduate major / Bachelor of Arts

About The Program

The Creative Writing program at Metropolitan State University is one of the richest and most diverse in the nation. Both our B.A. and minor in Creative Writing include workshops in fiction, poetry, memoir, and creative non-fiction; in writing children's literature, writing very short creative works, writing humor, writing the graphic novel, writing for publication and profit, and advanced creative writing. As a creative writing student at Metropolitan State, you will gain experience in drafting, analyzing, and editing creative works of writing.

Our stellar faculty is award-winning, widely published literary artists whose joy in both teaching and writing is infectious. Metropolitan State's creative writing curriculum challenges students with the delights and hard work required to write imaginatively, including developing an individual writing process, setting writing goals, understanding the opportunities available in print and electronic media, and leading a life made richer by the literary arts.

The program invites you to learn from instructors who are highly accomplished practitioners and excellent teachers. Faculty in the creative writing program are accomplished writers of national prominence. Author accolades include:

  • a #1 New York Times Bestseller,
  • a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize,
  • a Today Show Book Club pick,
  • the Geisel medal,
  • a Christopher Award,
  • an American Book Award,
  • a PEN/Open Book Award,
  • an Asian American Literary Award (Members' Choice),
  • two Loft-McKnight Awards, several Minnesota State Book Awards, and
  • several American Library Association Awards.

Student outcomes

  • Develop your writing skills to express your thoughts and feelings in an imaginative way.
  • Learn the craft and art of creative writing from master writer-teachers.
  • Read, draft and revise fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and children's writing.
  • Nurture and hone your talent in the company of equally devoted students and teachers.
  • Learn how to write creatively for multiple audiences and in multiple genres.
  • Develop the ability to read critically; learn how to analyze and edit your own and others' work.
  • Gain valuable experience in the world of publishing, both as writer and editor, by working on Haute Dish, Metropolitan State's award-winning online literary magazine.

Creative Writers such as novelists, poets, and short story writers are usually self-directed and self-disciplined artists. However, excellent writing skills are valuable in other writing-intensive work such as editing, grant writing, multimedia writing, employee communications, and speech writing.

Related minors

How to enroll

Current students: Declare this program

Once you’re admitted as an undergraduate student and have met any further admission requirements your chosen program may have, you may declare a major or declare an optional minor.

Future students: Apply now

Apply to Metropolitan State: Start the journey toward your Creative Writing BA now. Learn about the steps to enroll or, if you have questions about what Metropolitan State can offer you, request information, visit campus or chat with an admissions counselor.

Get started on your Creative Writing BA

Courses and Requirements

SKIP TO COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Requirements (120 credits)

+ Prerequisites (3 - 4 credits)

WRIT 359 may count as either a WRIT 251 prerequisite or an elective, but not both.

This class is a hands-on workshop that explores, explains and discusses all the essential aspects of craft employed in the writing of poetry, short fiction, short memoir and other, less easily-definable works of short creative writing. Character development, point of view, tense, dialogue, chronology, voice, narrative arc, pacing, tension within both scenes and an overall narrative, creative use of language, and all basic literary terms will be covered, with the goal of helping students tell a compelling story no matter the genre.

Full course description for Boot Camp: Creative Writing

+ Required (29 credits)

This workshop course emphasizes the union of reading and creative writing. Good creative writers need to understand literature from the writer's perspective. They also need a comprehensive background in the various genres of literature and must be able to discuss, critique and identify the basic components of imaginative writing. This course focuses on tone, style, diction and author's voice through the students' own writing and through the readings of others.

Full course description for Writers as Readers

This course covers editing principles and techniques. Topics include how readers use and comprehend texts, the editor's role in the publication process, the writer/editor relationship, and editing for organization, format, style, grammar, punctuation, usage, consistency and accuracy. Students edit a variety of texts, including technical documents and newsletter articles in print and online.

Full course description for Editing

Writing Short Creative Works is a multi-genre workshop designed for creative writers who wish to work exclusively on very short pieces. Students will deepen their knowledge of the general craft of writing, expand their personal writing horizons by writing outside familiar genres, and work intensively on drafting and revising short works. The range of writings possible in this class include poems, prose poems, personal essays, sudden fiction, humor writing, short-short memoirs and creative non-fiction, and other genre-defying work. This course may be repeated for credit.

Full course description for 1000 Words or Less

This advanced workshop provides students with the opportunity to develop and refine works of fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry. Open to all advanced creative writing students. Creative Writing majors who are nearing graduation must take this course to fulfill the capstone portfolio requirement for the major. This course may be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: Two 300-level creative writing courses.

Full course description for Advanced Creative Writing

+ Electives (8 credits)

The following courses may be taken twice for credit: WRIT 324, WRIT 352, WRIT 353, WRIT 354, WRIT 355, WRIT 358, WRIT 481.

A student completing this course understands the process of finding, synthesizing, evaluating, and documenting sufficient and reliable information appropriate to a variety of purposes including upper division coursework, senior capstone papers or professional writing, and communication tasks. Students also explore a number of the contemporary issues surrounding information in society, have opportunities to use and/or visit primary resource collections and learn a variety of research techniques. Specific sections of the course will structure assignments around a course theme identified in the class schedule. Prior themes have included Civil Rights, Holocaust and Genocide, Crime and Punishment, Food, Immigration, and Health Care. Both themed and non-themed sections are offered every semester as are online and in-class sections.

Full course description for Searching for Information

This course is designed to help students read short stories with enjoyment, understanding and critical appreciation. It emphasizes twentieth-century writers including women, ethnic and minority writers, and writers both within and outside the European literary tradition.

Full course description for The Short Story

This course studies changes in the novel as a literary form, from the eighteenth century in England to the late twentieth century in America. Students learn to think about such matters as character, plot, point of view, structure, irony and narrative technique, and become more attentive and appreciate readers.

Full course description for The Novel

This course centers the cinematic art from communities historically excluded from mainstream American cinema: Indigenous Cinema, Black and African-American Cinema, Women-led Cinema, Asian-American Cinema, Latinx-American Cinema, Queer (LGBTQ+) Cinema, Disability Cinema, among many others. The major goal of this course is to consciously and radically shift perspective in contemporary cinema studies away from the traditional film school canon to the above. We will discuss the causes of this suppression, study reports and statistics, discuss intersectionality, explore the effects this exclusion has had on American society, and analyze the barriers to inclusion. Past the history into the present, we will study films from the New Wave of Diversity in 21st Century American Cinema, explore their equitable aesthetics, and highlight equitable producing, financing and distribution options for filmmakers who are disabled as well as for Women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ filmmakers. Significant focus is…

Full course description for Excluded Voices of American Cinema

Writing for the spoken word and for acting demands different skills than writing for the page. Develop your ear, your signature of voice, your sense of subtext. Through a variety of approaches, from improvisation to creative autobiography, students explore character, conflict and drama as metaphor. Writers with material they would like to explore or adapt for the stage are welcome. Expect to complete at least one short play.

Full course description for Playwriting I

This writing class, a combination of in-class meetings and significant individual work outside of class, explores the many ways that creative writing, from books to literary readings to public art projects, informs daily life. Much of the content of WRIT 300 focuses on how social constructs of race and racism have influenced creative writers in the Twin Cities, from the legacies and impacts of racism on writers' creative process and output to the creative writing communities' collective and institutional responses to racism. This writing class is designed for non-creative writing majors; students from all disciplines with an interest in creative writing are welcome.

Full course description for Creative Writers, Identity and Race in the Twin Cities

This class offers an introduction to writing children's literature in the genres of picture book, fiction, nonfiction and poetry in a workshop environment. Students examine works of guest authors and critique both published and student writings. Through activities and assignments, students have the opportunity to develop the unique craft and vision required to write quality children's literature. This course may be repeated for credit.

Full course description for Writing Children's Literature

This course is a serious inquiry into what's funny, how to write that way and how to say something important in the process. Each writer will focus on developing an idea of serious purpose and conveying that purpose through the use of humor. All genres are welcome. This course may be repeated for credit.

Full course description for Writing Humor

Writing Short Creative Works is a multi-genre workshop designed for creative writers who wish to work exclusively on very short pieces. Students will deepen their knowledge of the general craft of writing, expand their personal writing horizons by writing outside familiar genres, and work intensively on drafting and revising short works. The range of writings possible in this class include poems, prose poems, personal essays, sudden fiction, humor writing, short-short memoirs and creative non-fiction, and other genre-defying work. This course may be repeated for credit.

Full course description for 1000 Words or Less

This class is a hands-on workshop that explores, explains and discusses all the essential aspects of craft employed in the writing of poetry, short fiction, short memoir and other, less easily-definable works of short creative writing. Character development, point of view, tense, dialogue, chronology, voice, narrative arc, pacing, tension within both scenes and an overall narrative, creative use of language, and all basic literary terms will be covered, with the goal of helping students tell a compelling story no matter the genre.

Full course description for Boot Camp: Creative Writing

This advanced workshop provides students with the opportunity to develop and refine works of fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry. Open to all advanced creative writing students. Creative Writing majors who are nearing graduation must take this course to fulfill the capstone portfolio requirement for the major. This course may be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: Two 300-level creative writing courses.

Full course description for Advanced Creative Writing