In the Stephens College English/Creative Writing department, you will study a variety of literature,
including poetry, fiction, drama and nonfiction;
develop your own voice within a strong, supportive
community of women; and strengthen vital career skills
in communication and critical thinking.

QUICK FACTS

• Read your original work on “Literary Lunch,” a weekly show that airs on the College’s radio station; and at public readings
• Serve as an editor or on the production staff of Harbinger, Stephens’ arts magazine
• Learn writing techniques in a minimum of six genres including screenwriting
• Compile, edit, publish, market and sell your writing in a chapbook
• Work with Stephens faculty to submit your work to external professional publications
• Write and submit your script for performance or film production
• Benefit from networking opportunities through the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) and Sigma Tau Delta, an international English honor society (winner of the 2006-2007 VP/Treasurer Award for Leadership from the Stephens Student Government Association. Department chair Dr. Judith Clark also was recognized with the Best Sponsor award. She previously was named the Outstanding Midwestern Sponsor for 2007 by Sigma Tau Delta.)
• Earn a M.Ed. in Counseling-Creative Therapy in as little as one additional year through our “Plus One” master’s program (for students who enroll in Fall 2009 or later)

B.A. IN ENGLISH
The Stephens College English program teaches you skills vital to any career and serves as a solid foundation for graduate study. You will learn modern critical methods, including feminist, post-colonial and reader-response theories. All are intended to ensure creative development and strengthen interpretive, analytical, decision-making and communication skills. In your senior capstone course, you will demonstrate your writing skills in a senior essay under the guidance of a faculty committee.

B.F.A. IN CREATIVE WRITING
Stephens’ B.F.A. in Creative Writing—the only one at a women's college in the Midwest —helps you develop and refine your writing skills with its unique women's writing curriculum. A broad range of literature, women’s studies and cultural criticism courses, as well as writing workshops, help you explore and perfect your skills as a writer while building your understanding of relationships among women, writing and culture. You will achieve command of the language in workshop-style classes
focusing on the genres of poetry, fiction, screenwriting, playwriting, autobiography and non-fiction. As your capstone experience, you will submit a creative project under the guidance of a faculty committee.

ALUMNAE
Stephens alumnae include successful professionals such as Alanna Nash, feature writer for Entertainment Weekly and the New York Times, and author of Golden Girl: The Jessica Savitch Story and Elvis Aaron Presley: Revelations from the Memphis Mafia; Janet Fowler Shaw, teacher and creator of the famed Girls from Other Lands children’s book series; Leslie Adrienne Miller, Pushcart Prizewinning poet and author of seven published volumes, including Yesterday Had a Man In It; Ann Daniel Stone, associate poetry editor of Nimrod International Journal; Cynthia Erb, professor of film studies and author of Tracking King Kong; Stormy Stipe, poet, fiction writer and professor of creative writing and English; and Jennifer Woods, marketing editor
at Sarabande Books.

VISITING WRITERS
Through the Visiting Writers Program, students have engaged with such famous writers as Adrienne Rich, Margaret Atwood, William Stafford, John Irving, Tillie Olsen, Demetria Martinez, Claribel Alegría, Leslie Adrienne Miller, Alice Friman, Debra DiBlasi, Gladys Swan, and African-American writers Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, Shirley Jordan, Nikki Giovanni and Stephens alumna Lyah Beth LeFlore. Providing an intimate setting in which to study and socialize is “A Room Of One’s Own,” a room named in honor of writer Virginia Woolf.

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