Welcome to creative writing at Penn! Our faculty offers writing workshops every semester in fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, as well as those in screenwriting, playwriting, and review. Any student in the four undergraduate schools (College, Wharton, Engineering, Nursing) or in the College of General Studies may take these courses as electives. Additionally, students who are English majors can choose to concentrate in creative writing, and there are approximately 90-100 such concentrators in any given year, making the option one of the most popular in the English major.
Our program also invites visiting writers to our campus for readings and talks. It's an opportunity for faculty and students alike to meet with them informally, and, often, to join them for dinner at the hospitable Kelly Writers House. Recent visitors have included poets Eammon Grennan, Tony Hoagland, Sarah Manguso, and Albert Goldbarth, fiction writers Mary Kay Zuravleff, Meg Wolitzer, and Ken Kalfus, and non-fiction writers Douglas Brinkley and David von Drehle.
Finally, each spring, the creative writing program sponsors university-wide writing contests in several categories: poetry, fiction, review, scriptwriting, and translation. Look under "Student Work" on the webpage for some wonderful poetry and short story selections.
Enroll in a course. Attend a reading. Come join us!
Gregory Djanikian