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Creative Writing

Available as a major or minor 

As a creative writing major, you'll hone the skills of carefully crafted writing, critical reading, formal analysis and oral communication. You'll learn to look at and reflect on the world as a writer by closely observing, reflecting, shaping and interpreting real and imagined experience. You'll be prepared for graduate study in creative writing or literature, or for careers requiring strong writing skills and creativity, such as journalism, editing, publishing, law, public relations and advertising.

Poetry reading in the garden

Curriculum & Courses

Sample Course Offerings

CRWR 215: Poetry  
CRWR 215: Creative Writing Fiction
CRWR 317: Advanced Creative Writing: Screenwriting 

Students talking over a notebook

Learn by Doing

A very creative campus

  • On Concept's Edge

    Roanoke College's literary magazine is entirely student-run. The staff selects submissions for print and handles layout and printer selection. On Concept's Edge is printed in the spring semester and is packed to the brim with good writing.

    Copies of On Concept's Edge

  • Brackety-Ack

    Roanoke College's much beloved weekly newspaper is known for its weird name and its insightful, hard-nosed approach to life on campus. Students handle everything at Brackety-Ack, including writing, photography, editing, opinion polling, layout and web design.

    Copies of the Brackety-Ack

  • The Roanoke Review

    The Review is an annual national journal that publishes poetry, short fiction and nonfiction every spring. Established in 1967 by Henry Taylor, a past Roanoke College English professor and Pulitzer Prize winner, the Review is staffed by current students and Professor Mary Hill.

    Flyer that reads "Follow us on twitter! @RoanokeReview"

  • Visiting Writers

    Students meet Pulitzer Prize winners, best-selling authors, eminent scholars and prominent journalists. Through direct exposure to these writers, students gain a greater understanding of the discipline and more confidence in their own writing.

    Visiting writer reading some of his work aloud

The art of travel writing

Roanoke students had a chance to write about their experiences in Cambodia at tourist sites and through visiting communities off the beaten path.

Student with a group of children in Cambodia
Students in Cambodia
Students having fun with community members in Cambodia
Students entering ruins in Cambodia
Students walking with children in Cambodia
Student sitting with children in Cambodia
Student working on a structure with children in Cambodia
Student posing by a statue of a lion in Cambodia
Cambodian food
Professor with an author from Cambodia
Bracelets on fence posts
Student with an author from Cambodia

Student Experiences

Erin Keating on studying at Shakespeare's Globe Theater

Internships

Internship brings Shakespeare to life for Roanoke student

After interning as a dramaturge, backstage manager and line caller, Madison Little '18 knows one thing: She was made for the theater.

Little, a creative writing and literary studies major at Roanoke, landed a summer internship and a spring semester gig with American Shakespeare Center's Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Virginia.  Until her internship, she never thought about using her love of writing and storytelling on stage."I really like watching Shakespeare come to life," said Little, who was a member of the College's improv club. "I like seeing how the story threads come together."

Madison Little sits on floor in theater

Careers & Outcomes

Catron's NYT Modern Love Story

Mandy Len Catron '03 is a self-proclaimed love story fanatic whose writings on the topic have received national attention. Catron, who teaches writing at the University of British Columbia, writes on the science of falling in love for her own blog, The Love Story Project. Her words garnered national acclaim when the New York Times published one of her essays, "To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This" as part of its Modern Love Column.

Mandy Len Catron

Our graduates work at great organizations.

Logos of employers of creative writing graduates

Lauren Harrison '07, is one of youngest reporters at Newsday

Lauren Harrison

A documentary project as part of an independent study at Roanoke helped Lauren Harrison uncover her passion for storytelling. Video camera in hand, she followed her family's ancestry trail to many places, including West Virginia, Pulaski and Appomattox. She found gravesites, scoured birth and death records and even uncovered a church founded by one of her ancestors.  With encouragement from her advisor, English professor Dr. Virginia Stewart, Harrison applied for graduate school at Columbia University's School of Journalism. She won a full tuition scholarship.

After graduating from Columbia, she worked as a reporter at the Chicago Tribune through a two-year residency program. She joined the staff at Newsday, one of the 20 largest circulation newspapers in the United States, in 2010 as a features reporter covering arts, culture and entertainment in Long Island, N.Y.

Faculty

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News

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Creative writing gives you the chance to explore your experience and imagination in depth through writing and reading poetry, fiction, nonfiction and other genres. As a creative writing major, you'll hone the skills of carefully crafted writing, critical reading, formal analysis and oral communication.

You'll learn to look at and reflect on the world as a writer by closely observing, reflecting, shaping and interpreting real and imagined experience. You'll be prepared for graduate study in creative writing or literature, or for careers requiring strong writing skills and creativity, such as journalism, editing, publishing, law, public relations and advertising.

We offer both a major and a minor in creative writing.