Bard College at Simon's Rock: the Early College
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Creative Writing

The concentration in creative writing offers students the opportunity to explore an array of writing styles and genres, thereby helping them discover and develop their own voices.

Beyond the introductory course in which students write fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, students take specialized workshops offered each term, as well as tutorials and independent studies. A number of Simon’s Rock graduates have gone on to great success in graduate programs in writing, and have published their own stories, poems, essays, novels, and biographies. However, the concentration is intended to assist all students who wish to make creative writing a part of their course of study, rather than only those students interested in writing as a profession.

Because the concentration affords students the opportunity to explore writing as a means of knowing, it is frequently paired with a second concentration in literary studies, theater, visual arts, or the social sciences. Creative writing can help students become better readers of their own work, of themselves, and of the world around them.

Related Career Paths

Students with a concentration in creative writing may enter into fields and positions such as fiction writing, editing, screenwriting, communications, grant writing, and advertising.

 

Course Spotlight

girl reading

Literature 288/388: Fiction Workshop

For students who have some experience in writing short fiction and want to give and receive helpful criticism in a workshop atmosphere, this course combines structure and freedom: Structure in the form of assigned exercises drawing attention to the elements and techniques of fiction and freedom in the form of longer, independently conceived stories. Some time is spent each week discussing short fiction by contemporary writers as well as that of students in the workshop, with the goal of sharpening our abilities as writers, editors, and critics.

Related Special Programs