Undergraduate Program
Creative Writing At Yale
Writing Faculty | Fall 2008 Writing Courses | Applications
Readings | The Schlesinger Visiting Writer Series
What makes writing at Yale so special? Of course it is the faculty: Yale has a stunning array of faculty, whose work places them among the foremost writers of their generation. But it is more than this. Creative writing at Yale is set in the context of a university where the arts flourish. Its four schools of the arts, and its long tradition of nurturing students with superb theatrical, musical, artistic and writing gifts make it among the great places of the world for undergraduates to develop their talents.
In any week throughout the school year, student guides at the British Art Center and the Yale Art Gallery might be giving guests special tours, while the Beinecke Library might be hosting a poetry reading by W.S. Merwin. J.D. McClatchy and Stephen Sondheim might be listening to undergraduate singers perform Sondheim on Sprague Hall's stage. The University Theater might be hosting the Opera Theatre of Yale College's production of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore while The Whitney Humanities Theater would be occupied with a student senior project by a senior playwright. In the Off-Broadway Theater off York Street the Yale tap dancers might be polishing their show, while up on Prospect Street the interns at the Yale Review, the nation's oldest literary journal, would be helping to read through the submissions, and another set of students might be finishing an issue of The Yale Lit, founded in 1836 and one of the nation's most prominent undergraduate literary magazines since then. Budding journalists might be polishing their applications for summer internships at newspapers around the country through Yale's new journalism initiative, founded this year with a donation from CourtTV founder Steven Brill '72. Fred Strebeigh's non-fiction class might be preparing its entries to the Atlantic Monthly Student Writing Contest, in which Yale students have won more prizes than students from any other college or university, and an undergraduate film maker, whose 35-minute short was a Student Academy Awards Regional Semifinalist, would be getting set to screen his newest production.
Yale is not an undergraduate school of the arts. Yet the arts at yale are not merely a classroom activity, they are an integral part of life. Writers are surrounded by graduate students and faculty from the Schools of Drama, Music, Art, and Architecture, whose own projects, presentations, and contributions to campus life ensure an unusually sophisticated environment.
The range and quality of literary and artistic activity on campus is part of a long tradition of cultural excellence that has endured from generation to generation. For over three centuries now, Yale has helped to shape our nation's literary heritage. From its earliest years, with writers such as Jonathan Edwards and James Fenimore Cooper, the college has trained and encouraged the ambitions of young authors through rigorous scholarship, brilliant teachers, and rare opportunities. Early in the twentieth century, Sinclair Lewis, Thornton Wilder, Philip Barry, and Cole Porter were among the undergraduate bright lights. From that day to this, Yale College has produced writers whose work has demonstrated an unparalleled richness and diversity. The wit of Garry Trudeau and Calvin Trillin, the narrative command of David McCullough and Robert Massie, the haunted austerities of Mark Strand and Rosanna Warren, the fictive ingenuity of Tom Wolfe, Claire Messud and Chang-rae Lee are models of the kind of writing Yale cultivates.
The Writing Program
At the heart of the Creative Writing Program at Yale is the encounter of master and apprentice. It is in these sessions that a young writer is stamped for life. No beginners first coached and corrected by John Hersey or Robert Penn Warren, who taught at Yale for many years, or more recently by John Hollander or Robert Stone, or by such visiting teachers as Richard Howard, Peter Matthiessen and Maureen Howard, have ever forgotten the lessons learned during their struggles with silence under the watchful eyes of the wise instructor. As in the past, the Program's distinguished teachers have direct contact with students, in small classes or one-on-one conferences, helping them to discover their true ambition and to shape their sense of themselves as writers.
The Writing Concentration At Yale
Many students take a creative writing course or two as part of larger study in the liberal arts, or they take English 120, "Reading and Writing the Modern Essay," or Yale's famous course, "Daily Themes," in which students write 300 words daily and attend a weekly lecture and weekly tutorial to test their non-fiction powers or improve their writing fluency.
Writing Workshops are open to all students on the basis of the instructor's judgment of their work. Instructions for the submission of writing samples for admission to creative writing seminars and workshops are available in LC 107. Students may in some cases arrange a tutorial in writing (English 470), normally after having taken intermediate and advanced writing courses. All students interested in creative writing courses should also consult the current listing of residential college seminars.
The Writing Concentration is open to a limited number of serious writing students in their junior and senior years. Yale's philosophy is that the study of creative writing should exist in the context of a larger study of literature. Wide, deep (and usually voracious) reading is imperative to good writing. An understanding of the traditions of literature, and close familiarity with the best that has been written, is also extremely important. And where, except for solitary reading, is a key place to get this background, if not in college?
For this reason, the Writing Concentration is a part of the English major, and builds on it. The aim of the program is to give English majors who have demonstrated interest and achievement in writing an opportunity to plan the writing courses they take in a coordinated, cumulative way, and to do advanced work in tutorial.
Sutdents in the writing concentration take at least 4 courses in the concentration: these include 400-level courses in writing; they must include at least two courses in one genre and at least one in another. The point is to plan courses in such a way as to develop both a breadth and depth of skill. Students also complete at least 11 courses in the major in addition to writing concentration courses.
Each student also completes The Writing Concentration Senior Project, a tutorial in which students produce a single sustained piece of work or a portfolio of shorter work. Like the senior essay, the senior project is read and commented on by a second reader who confers with the advisor on a grade for the work. Students present their work in an annual evening group reading called "The Concentrator's Ball."
The applications for the Writing Concentration and for the Writing Concentration Program Senior Project, with a list of deadlines, can be found at www.yale.edu/english/undergraduate-applications.
The Writing Faculty
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