Writing
专业详情
Northwestern’s part-time Master of Arts in Writing program provides students the opportunity to grow as artists within the specializations of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. A dual-genre specialization is also offered, as well as a publishing and professional development track that combines publishing industry-related instruction with the creative coursework of the writing workshops. The small-group workshop format allows for individual attention from published, award-winning faculty. Students also have the opportunity to learn the ropes in teaching writing, publishing, and editing. Flexible scheduling — with courses offered evenings and weekends on Northwestern’s Chicago and Evanston campuses as well as online and in hybrid format — gives students the opportunity to balance their professional, personal and writing lives. While earning their degrees, students connect with other writers at readings and other events in an artistic community that extends beyond the University into Chicagoʼs vibrant literary scene.
Writing Program Goals
- To help students determine the strengths and weaknesses of their writing, and learn how to evaluate criticism of their work
- To teach students how to take their writing apart, re-think and revise it
- To show students how to experiment with different styles and forms
- To guide students in creating a publishable manuscript or portion of one
- To teach students how to read literature as a writer and a critic
- To train students to teach creative writing, informed by current pedagogy and classroom experience
- To give students the opportunity to edit an international literary magazine with their peers
- To provide students with the tools to create strong applications for jobs in teaching, publishing, and editing
Curriculum for MA in Writing
MA in Writing
Core Courses
- 3-4 workshops in a chosen genre: poetry, fiction, nonfiction, or popular fiction (number of workshops depends on specialization)
- 2 graduate-level literature courses
Electives
- Courses drawn from MCW special topics courses, internships in teaching, publishing, and arts administration, literature courses or liberal studies courses. Students may also take an independent study courses as an elective.
Thesis
- MCW 590 Capstone Writing and Revision
Electives
Electives are chosen from the graduate course offerings in the Master of Arts in Literature program, creative writing special topics courses (MCW 490) and the seminars and internships (practica) in teaching and publishing. Since good writers also need to be good readers, students must take electives in literary studies. Recent electives have included courses on popular fiction; reading, writing, and publishing the chapbook; inventing memory. Independent studies round out the program and provide an opportunity to strengthen writing portfolios.
Thesis
The final project of both the MA and MFA programs is a creative thesis, an original work of high literary merit (judged on the basis of art as well as craft). The creative thesis is structured and revised under the supervision of a faculty member (or faculty mentor) and a second reader. The project may be one long piece or a series of shorter pieces. It may include or be an expansion of work written during the student’s course of study as long as it represents a culminating effort to shape stories, prose pieces, a long piece, or a group of poems into a coherent, self-sufficient work. This large-scale project supplements the smaller-scale study of craft with the invaluable experience of creating a larger work. And for students who plan to pursue book-length publication after graduation, the master’s creative thesis may be the first version of a work in progress.