Spring 2023 Course Descriptions and Schedule

Creative Writing Spring 2023 Class Schedule and Descriptions

 

This course is an introduction to the creative writing process, in which you’ll do exercises in writing poetry, fiction and dramatic scripts. There will also be selected readings of exemplary stories, poems and plays. Open to all students. CROSS GENRE COURSE.

 

Prerequisite:  English 114, or equivalent. Priority enrollment given to Eng: Creative Writing, Eng: Ed w/ Creative Writing concentration and Cinema majors. Instruction and extensive practice in writing poetry, fiction and plays, with selected readings of exemplary stories, poems and plays. This course is the prerequisite to Short Story Writing, Poetry Writing and Playwriting.  CROSS GENRE COURSE.

 

Prerequisite:  Prerequisite:  English 114, or equivalent. Enrollment limited to creative writing majors; non-majors admitted with consent of instructor. Students learn to read like writers through lecture-discussion and reading assignments. Submerges the student in literature and asserts the importance of reading.  We will analyze the basic craft elements intrinsic to four genres of writing: poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction and playwriting. Together we will apply this study to your own writing.  We will explore ways to access your own individual imagination. Through practice, writing can become a way to engage with yourself and the world.
 

Prerequisite: ENG 216 or ENG 218 or equivalent. Examination of the literary genre of graphic memoir and graphic biography within the medium of comics. (Plus-minus ABC/NC, CR/NC allowed) (This course is offered as ENG 300 and C W 501. Students may not repeat the course under an alternate prefix.)
 

Prerequisites for C W 506: C W 101 or C W 301 with a grade of C or better. Enrollment limited to C W majors; non-majors admitted with consent of instructor. Covers agents, corporate and small publishing houses, E-publishing, markets, publicity, etc. Students write letters to agents/editors, press releases for book tours and several short papers. (This is a paired course offering. Students who complete the course at one level may not repeat the course at the other level.)
 

Prerequisites: Upper-division standing; C W 101 or 301. How do we write about / from / in the body?  How can we use language to embody gender, identity, materiality?  In this course we’ll look at how a variety of poets and writers do just that and explore strategies for translating material states and bodily identity into writing. This course will be conducted along the same lines as other Creative Writing Process courses — that is, we will focus on process as we “write through” our topic using a series of contemporary literary readings and creative assignments.

 

Prerequisites: Creative writing major; ENG 214 or equivalent with a grade of C- or better; CW 301 or equivalent. The aim of this class is to foster your growth as a poet. Toward that end, we’ll engage in lots of reading and writing designed both to get you thinking about how poems do what they do (craft!) and to expand the range of possibilities for the ways your own poems might be made, what they might say and how they might mean. The class will include whole-class discussions of published poems as well as small, break-out workshop/discussion groups during which you'll discuss poems written by your fellow student writers. At the midpoint in the semester, you'll write a draft of the analytical essay that will fulfill your GWAR requirement; at the end of the semester, you'll submit the final, revised version of that essay. This course also satisfies the university’s GWAR requirement. Creative and critical writing. (ABC/NC only.)

 

Prerequisites: C W 301; ENG 114; ENG 214; B.A. majors in ENG, Creative Writing and ENG, Edu. (Creative Writing). Explore craft elements of fiction: plot, dialogue, character, point of view, place, etc. Focus is on published writing and exercises. Some student work is discussed. Satisfies the General Education GWAR/C WEP requirement. An exploration of how writers translate their vision onto the page. (Emphasis on HOW). Emphasis is on assigned reading material, but some student work will also be discussed in small groups.

 

Prerequisite for C W 814: Graduate Creative Writing students or permission of the instructor. This graduate & undergraduate process will focus on world poetry primarily since 1960 and includes such figures as Wisława Szymborska (Polish), Lev Rubinstein and Gennady Aygi (Russian), Kamau Brathwaite (Jamaican), Paul Celan (German), María Baranda and Coral Bracho (Mexican), Fernando Pessoa (Portuguese), Inger Christensen (Danish), the Palestinian poets Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Zaqtan and Wang Ping (Chinese-American).  

 

Prerequisite for C W 520: Upper-division standing; GPA of 3.0 or higher; or permission of the instructor. Faculty and visiting writers representing a wide range of styles and subjects will visit the class to read and discuss their writing. Students will respond to the readings and visits on an ongoing basis through critical essays and creative writing exercises. Paired with C W 820. Note:  this course can be used to fulfill 3 units of the “creative process” requirement. It can only be taken once for credit. Students who have completed C W 820 may not take C W 520 for credit. CROSS GENRE COURSE.

 

Prerequisites: Restricted to Creative Writing majors; C W 301 or C W 101 with a grade of C or better; non-majors admitted with permission of the instructor. Journal writing is a personal space for writers to recapture the exquisite richness of personal experience in order to understand themselves and inspire imaginative ideas that lead to stories, poetry, plays and film. As such, we will explore journal writing as a literary form and as a tool to gather ideas for our own creative work. We will read excerpts from a range of writers’ journals and see how their entries found their way into their creative work. Students are expected to keep a journal as a response to stimuli the world presents to them, to record memories, to gather ideas in raw form and to refine ideas and creative work.  The reading of assigned journals coupled with on going writing exercises will generate poems, stories, personal essays, or scenes or monologues through the semester.

  

 Prerequisite: Senior standing in Creative Writing.  Enrollment is limited to undergraduate majors in English: Creative Writing, Creative Writing, and English: Education (Creative Writing). Work In Progress is an advanced process course that offers senior creative writing majors the opportunity to delve into an extended writing project of their own design and engage in a series of writing experiments that will enhance the work of deepening, extending, and re-envisioning that project. Early in the semester you’ll look through drafts of past work to discover the raw material that you want to deepen and explore throughout the semester. Our emphasis will be on the critical (and exciting) exploratory phase of the writing process and we’ll study and try out a variety of creative practices that writers use to keep their projects alive, open and dynamic over the long haul. CROSS GENRE COURSE.

 

Prerequisites: C W 301; C W 511GW or C W 512GW or C W 513GW. Enrollment limited to creative writing majors; non-majors admitted with consent of instructor. This course will explore different aspects of fiction writing craft by critically analyzing published short stories, as well as fellow students’ creative writing.  Students will then apply and hone these craft concepts through in-class writing exercises and written assignments, transforming conceptual knowledge of craft into “how to” applicable knowledge.  Each student will then explore their creative process and consider how it can include critical thinking, consciously applying craft in three written assignments and a complete short story.

 

Prerequisite: TH A 130 (for CW majors: C W 301 and C W 511 or C W 512 or C W 513) Priority given to creative writing, English education, and drama majors. We will be studying a variety of definitions and models of monologues, such as childhood as the treasure chest of memory, dramatic stories that are ripped from the headlines, history, celebrations of one’s culture and identity, stand up routines with blistering social commentaries and more. We will various performance techniques which include the influence of dance, music and poetry on the art form.  We will explore the connection between the page and the stage.  We will practice a variety of vocal, physical and writing exercises designed to help students relax so that characters and their stories can emerge.  Students will develop their own pieces and apply these techniques and methods to their own projects.

 

Prerequisites: C W 101 or C W 301; C W 302; C W 512GW or C W 603.Examine and experiment with the artistic processes of published writers (and a variety of other artists) who've taken a project from idea to completion. Study interviews, process notes, and "middle drafts" of these artists. Include analyses of the draft process, genre across artistic and literary forms, and creation and revision of student work.

 

C W 609 Directed Writing BA Student: Prerequisites: Restricted to Creative Writing majors and permission of the instructor. Permission of the instructor is required to take this course; you will be dropped without prior consent of the instructor. By the middle of the semester before you plan to enroll in Directed Writing, submit a sample of your writing in the instructor’s mailbox or email along with a note explaining that you want to take their Directed Writing class. Be sure you include your name, phone number and e-mail. If the instructor is on leave, please email your writing sample to her or him.

 

Prerequisite:  C W 301; C W 302; C W 511GW or C W 512GW or C W 513GW; or consent of instructor. Join the staff of Transfer, the literary magazine of the Creative Writing Department, established in 1950, and one of the longest running student literary magazines in the US. The course is designed to give you a working taste of what it takes to put out a literary magazine (including critical analysis and discussion of short-listed submissions, proofreading, solicitation and distribution) and to make you think about the world of literary magazines and your own beliefs in literature.  Come prepared to analyze and discuss text and investigate your own literary aesthetics.  In order to bring Transfer into the 21st Century, in addition to assisting the editors publish the print magazine, class members will create, design and edit their own literary magazine.  If you’re interested in being an editor of Transfer, at the end of the semester you will be given the opportunity to apply for an editor position for the next issue. This is a process course (not a lab) and can be used to fulfill 3 units of the Creative Process requirement. CROSS GENRE COURSE.

 

Prerequisite: C W 101 or 301 with a grade of C or better. Enrollment is limited to undergraduate majors in English: Creative Writing and English: Education (Creative Writing). Non-majors admitted with consent of instructor. Paid and unpaid internship positions designed to give CW students practical knowledge and experience are available through local literary and arts organizations, civic and community organizations, Bay Area school districts and within the Creative Writing Community at SF State. Check out our Community Projects in Literature Internship Leads at http://creativewriting.sfsu.edu/internships. Incredible academic internships are also available for C W 675/875 credit through SF States Institute for Civic and Community Engagement (ICCE). Check out their list of paid and unpaid internships at http://icce.sfsu.edu. These working by remote and/or in person internships are robust opportunities to 'learn by doing'. If you have any questions please contact Matthew Davison, tigay@sfsu.edu. C W 675/875 may be taken twice for 6 units of credit.

                         

Prerequisites:  (If this is your first time as an instructional aid, please register for C W 859 Practicum in Teaching.) Advanced undergraduate standing, grade of B+ or better in the course in which the student will be an aide and approval of the department Chair.  Students are placed with a creative writing faculty member in a supervised practicum/internship experience, in which they explore the theoretical and practical aspects of teaching creative writing. This is the course to sign up for if you want to be an instructional aid, (I.A.) in a specific undergraduate class for 3 units of credit. CROSS GENRE COURSE. Please contact Nona Caspers, ncaspers@sfsu.edu, for a permit number and to arrange the meeting times.

 

Prerequisite:  Consent of instructor and a 3.0 GPA.  Upper division students may enroll in a course of Independent Study under the supervision of a member of the Creative Writing department, with whom the course is planned, developed, and completed. This course may be taken for one, two, or three units. No priority enrollment; enrollment is by petition, and a copy of your unofficial SF State transcript. Independent Study forms are available online http://registrar.sfsu.edu/forms under Independent Study (699, 899). This form must be signed by the instructor you will be working with, and the department chair and must be turned in with a copy of your unofficial transcript. Please request a permit number from your instructor when they approve the 699 form.

 

GRADUATE CLASSES:

Note:  Preference in all Creative Writing graduate courses will be given to students admitted to either the M.A. or the M.F.A. programs in Creative Writing.  Preference in M.F.A. level courses will be given to students admitted to the M.F.A. program.  Priority in M.A. and M.F.A. writing workshops and creative process courses will be given to students admitted in the genre of the course.  Other Creative Writing M.A./M.F.A. students may enroll in these courses only with the permission of the instructor.

 

Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. Consent of Instructor; Grade                                       of B or better in the course or its equivalent in which the student will be an aide. This course is an application of previously acquired knowledge through assisting instruction and learning pedagogical strategies--in other words, you will be a graduate instructional aid (GIA) in the course for 3 units of credit. Please contact instructor Nona Caspers, ncaspers@sfsu.edu, for a permit number and to arrange the meeting times.  CROSS GENRE COURSE.

 

Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. Priority enrollment given to graduate Creative Writing fiction students; open to Creative Writing students in other genres only on a space available basis, to be determined at the first class meeting. This course is an advanced short story writing course taught in a workshop setting. We will explore different aspects of fiction writing craft by critically analyzing published short stories, as well as fellow students’ short stories.  Students will then apply and hone these craft concepts in their own written short stories, transforming conceptual knowledge of craft into “how to” applicable knowledge.  Each student will then explore their creative process and consider how it can include critical thinking, consciously applying craft in their three workshop short story submissions.

 

Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. In this class we will explore some aspects of the “business” of creative writing—how writers find and create audiences for their work, find editors and publishers and pay the rent—as well as how they create lives in which art and the creative process are central. This is a survey class, not a seminar, so while this class will not teach you how to become a best-selling writer in ten easy steps, it will provide you with a larger sense of the business side of creative writing, while encouraging you to develop your ability to distinguish between the business of creative writing and the art. Each class period will involve lecture & discussion by guest speakers (poets, writers, literary agents, book editors, literary journal publishers, reading series curators, book distribution managers, free-lance writers and editors, literary nonprofit managers, and the like). You will be given a writing and/or research assignment the week before each presentation to lead you into the speaker’s field.

 

Prerequisites: Restricted to graduate students in Creative Writing; C W 807; or permission of the instructor. In this course, you will develop your novel-in-progress, explore and hone your voice, and take large, daring leaps toward your most cherished goals as a writer. We’ll turn close attention to excerpts from each student’s manuscript in an atmosphere of aesthetic rigor and mutual support. We’ll pay attention to a range of factors at play, including characterization, plot, point of view, developing and sustaining narrative tension, internal/external conflict, evocation of setting, treatment of time and the range of possibilities for dialogue, theme, structure, imagery, voice and style. As a springboard for discussion, and to fill our wells, we’ll also read a few short novel excerpts, with an eye toward strategies relevant to our own work in long-form fiction. You are encouraged to experiment, explore and be open to inspiration as you expand your book and yourself as a writer. May be repeated for a total of 18 units.

 

809   Directed Writing for Graduate Students                       ARR

Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. Permission of the instructor is required to take this course; you will be dropped without prior consent of the instructor. The semester before you plan to enroll in Directed Writing, submit a sample of your writing in the instructor’s mailbox along with a note explaining that you want to take their Directed Writing class. Be sure you include your name, phone number and e-mail. If the instructor is on leave, please email your writing sample to her or him.

 

 

Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. Speculative fiction is a genre that gives priority to “cognitive estrangement,” using narrative prose to push beyond ordinary reality into a zone where the familiar becomes strange and the strange familiar. This course will survey various modes of modern speculative fiction, including science fiction and fantasy, dystopian and Gothic literature, surrealism and magical realism. Students will utilize readings in these modes as points of departure for their own creative writing. The assigned readings will include works by Philip K. Dick, Ursula LeGuin, Octavia Butler, Ted Chiang and Nnedi Okorafor. 

 

Prerequisite: Restricted to graduate Creative Writing students or permission of the instructor. How does freedom live—or not live—in the body? How does memory? Wounding? Daring? Queerness? Joy? And what does this mean for the stories we generate on the page? In this class, we’ll read fiction and narrative non-fiction by trans and gender non-conforming writers as a springboard for exploring themes of gender, embodiment, desire, self-actualization, liberation, danger, and belonging in our own work. We’ll start with foundational, canonical texts by Leslie Fienberg, Manuel Puig, and Qiu Miaojin, and then draw on a broad range of contemporary literary voices for inspiration and creative sparks. As readers, we’ll be centering trans and gender non-conforming (genderqueer, non-binary, genderfluid, transmasculine, transfeminine, intersex, or/and two-spirit) authors. As writers, we’ll be welcoming of each of our truths and the narratives wanting to come through us to the page.

 

Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. This graduate & undergraduate process will focus on world poetry primarily since 1960 and includes such figures as Wisława Szymborska (Polish), Lev Rubinstein and Gennady Aygi (Russian), Kamau Brathwaite (Jamaican), Paul Celan (German), María Baranda and Coral Bracho (Mexican), Fernando Pessoa (Portuguese), Inger Christensen (Danish), the Palestinian poets Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Zaqtan and Wang Ping (Chinese-American). 

 

Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing.  Faculty and visiting writers representing a wide range of styles and subjects will visit the class to read and discuss their writing. Students will respond to the readings and visits on an ongoing basis through critical essays and creative writing exercises. Paired with C W 520. Note:  this course can be used to fulfill 3 units of the C W 810 (creative process) requirement. It can only be taken once for credit. Students who have completed C W 520 may not take C W 820 for credit.  CROSS GENRE COURSE.

 

Prerequisite: Restricted to graduate Creative Writing students or consent of the instructor. M.A. and M.F.A. students from all genres are welcome (should the course be over-enrolled, priority will be given to Playwriting students). Calling all playwrights, directors, actors, stage managers, production managers and graphic artists!  Greenhouse 2022 is looking for full length and short plays to be presented in a guerilla style theatre format in various indoor and outdoor spaces on the SF State campus for our annual festival of new work. Playwrights must be highly self-motivated in the creative process.  They must be willing to help cast their own plays and do whatever it takes to get their work up.  The festival will be held in April. Master classes with local professionals will guide students with helpful tools in dramaturgy, publicity and marketing, fundraising and grant writing. For more information please contact Anne Galjour at agaljour@sfsu.edu. May be repeated for a total of 9 units.

 

Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. Fourteen Hills is a working small press as well as a graduate course in editing and literary publishing. Each year, in the spring, we publish one issue of Fourteen Hills: the SFSU Review, a nationally recognized literary print magazine, as well as in fall the Michael Rubin Book Award (MRBA) by an SFSU student or recent graduate. Fourteen Hills is run entirely by students with support from our Faculty Advisor and the Department of Creative Writing. The course is designed to give students an opportunity to observe and participate in many aspects of running a literary magazine, from editorial decisions to distribution logistics, from public relations and event planning to conducting author interviews. Students in the class serve as staff for the journal, working closely with the editors to consider and evaluate work for publication in the upcoming issue as well as learning about the copy-editing process, visual art selection, cover design, distribution, sales and promotion. The course is taught primarily by the Editor-in-Chief, with guidance from the Faculty Advisor. Small group work will be led by the Fiction and Poetry genre editors. CROSS GENRE COURSE.

 

Prerequisites: Classified graduate standing in M.F.A. creative writing; priority enrollment given to M.F.A. creative nonfiction students; open to other M.F.A. genre and M.A. creative nonfiction students only on a space-available basis, to be determined at the first class meeting. This class will explore the exciting and growing genre of creative nonfiction, including opportunities to experiment with many forms of the essay, such as lyric, personal/memoir, “hermit crab,” braided, literary criticism, digital/video, hybrid, flash, graphic essays and more. In addition to generative experiments, students will have the opportunity to turn in for workshop two original works for feedback from the class as well as a revision. We’ll read a number of works by established and emerging authors for discussion and inspiration, including Jazmina Barerra, Alexander Chee, Roxane Gay, Shing Yin Khor, Kiese Laymon, Terese Marie Mailhot, Maggie Nelson, José Vadi and Lidia Yuknavitch. We’ll have at least one Zoom visit with an established author to discuss craft. And we'll discuss multiple strategies for effective revision/re-envisioning of work. Students working in any form of creative nonfiction are welcome. May be repeated for a maximum of 18 units.

 

Prerequisite: Classified graduate status in the M.F.A. in Creative Writing or consent of instructor. Prerequisite: Classified graduate status in the M.F.A. in Creative Writing or consent of instructor. In this course, we will work on honing our stylistic skills on the page, as well as our ability to read, evaluate, and critique peer work. Each student will submit two manuscripts over the course of the semester for peer review. We will especially focus on how fiction writers use and manipulate a reader's experience of time on the page, and how the story's narrative arc, pacing, and structure are all influenced by the question of time. Since students will focus on completing a narrative arc, novel excerpts are discouraged. We will also read Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami, and selected stories by Alice Munro. Final grade will be based on two workshop submissions, peer critique letters, one critical analysis assignment, as well as participation and attendance. May be repeated for a total of 18 units.

 

Prerequisite: Classified graduate status in the M.F.A. in Creative Writing or consent of instructor. “As if your life depended on it. You must write and read as if your life depended on it…To read as if your life depended on it would mean to let into your reading your beliefs, the swirl of your dreamlife…” This excerpted quote from Adrienne Rich’s “What is Found There” speaks to the sense of urgency and complexity guiding this writing workshop. What is it to make art when the world is on fire? Students will concentrate on the creation, revision and radical revision of their poetry. The class format will include discussion of reading assignments, writing in response to readings, viewings and music; group discussion of student work and in-class and at-home writing and reading assignments. Prerequisite: Classified graduate status in the M.F.A. in Creative Writing or consent of instructor. May be repeated for a total of 18 units.

 

Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. Maria Irene Fornes wrote: "My goal in workshops is always what will be advantageous for the growth of the individual writer, rather than for the writer to show the other people in the class what they have accomplished." In that spirit, we'll focus on generating new work and using craft and process triggers to explore work already under construction. We'll read and watch very new plays and discuss intention and theatrical strategies.   We'll also spotlight craft and process challenges of interest to the group.  Our methods, while diverse, will be adapted to target the needs of the group's particular members.        

  

Prerequisite: Creative Writing Majors only. Students working for the first time as Graduate Instructional Aides in undergraduate Creative Writing courses are required to take this Practicum course concurrent with their GIA teaching semester. Students meet as a group once every three weeks and post teaching journals and case studies on iLearn on a weekly basis. This course provides pedagogical grounding for pragmatic classroom teaching work and offers students a structured forum in which to discuss their teaching under the supervision of an experienced teacher and in collaboration with other Graduate Instructional Aides. Open to both M.A. and M.F.A. Creative Writing students. Undergraduates accepted by special permission. This position is for course credit, only. If you are a graduate student interested in applying to the paid teaching positions, you will need to take C W 860 Teaching Creative Writing to qualify. CROSS GENRE COURSE.  Open to B.A., M.A. and M.F.A. Creative Writing students. B.A. students should email ncaspers@sfsu.edu for a permit number.

 

Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. This course introduces advanced graduate students to the art and practice of teaching creative writing. Creative Writing 301 will serve as our prototype. We’ll be reading essays and interviews, discussing aspects of creative writing pedagogy and performing a variety of rigorous teaching activities. We’ll discuss giving useful feedback for student writers; designing effective writing assignments; use of texts and craft models; strategies for leading discussions of literary works and student works-in-progress. Students will also prepare and execute mini-lectures on a range of craft and process topics and develop a detailed syllabus for an introductory creative writing course. CROSS GENRE COURSE

 

Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. Paid and unpaid internship positions designed to give CW students practical knowledge and experience are available through local literary and arts organizations, civic and community organizations, Bay Area school districts and within the Creative Writing Community at SF State. Check out our Community Projects in Literature Internship Leads at http://creativewriting.sfsu.edu/internships. Incredible academic internships are also available for C W 675/875 credit through SF State’s Institute for Civic and Community Engagement (ICCE). Check out their list of paid and unpaid internships at http://icce.sfsu.edu. These working by remote and/or in person internships are robust opportunities to 'learn by doing'. If you have any questions please contact Chanan Tigay, tigay@sfsu.edu. C W 675/875 may be taken twice for 6 units of credit 

 

Prerequisite: Restricted to graduate students in the M.F.A. in Creative Writing or consent of instructor. One of the most difficult narrative issues in fiction writing is how to emotionally move your readers.  Often, what we writers render on the page are concepts of drama meant to profoundly affect the reader but it does not.  In this graduate process class we will critically analyze the intricate concepts of how emotions are developed in fiction and master how to recognize and apply narrative craft that earns and fulfills its dramatic intent.  These skills will be developed through discussions of published works, in-class writing exercises, and creative writing assignments.  Students will be challenged to incorporate narrative techniques in fulfilling dramatic intent into their writing, but with the understanding that the craft consciously being applied (sometimes with difficulty) eventually will become absorbed into their unconscious writing intuition.

 

Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing M.F.A. C W or consent of instructor. Over the past two decades, the field of creative writing has undergone a number of significant developments. One of the most exciting and far-reaching is literary fiction’s cross-pollination with what has been called “the more speculative genres.” Authors as stylistically diverse as Kazou Ishiguro, Karen Russell, Marlon James, and Michael Chabon have used the tropes of science fiction, fantasy, detective novels, and comic books to help revitalize literary fiction in an age of hybridity and interconnection, while at the same time helping to redefine the very idea of realism. In this course we will map the “genre borderlands” exploring the idea of genre fiction, how various genres have changes in the past fifty years and how writers of all stripes have used genre tropes to push the boundaries of both literary and genre fiction. Concurrent with these discussion, we will also try our hand at writing in various generic styles, pushing our own work to new and exciting places.

 

C W 893 Written M.A. Creative Project (3 units)
Prerequisite:  advancement to M.A. candidacy in English: Creative Writing or M.A. in Creative Writing.  Advancement To Candidacy (ATC) and Culminating Experience Proposal forms must be on file in the Division of Graduate Studies the semester before registration. These 3 units M.A. students sign up for while working on the culminating experience/thesis/written creative project, which may be a collection of short stories, a group of poems, a novel or a play.  Enrollment is by permission number during priority registration/enrollment: you will be emailed the correct class and permission numbers to enroll in your section. You must enroll in this course or your will not receive credit for your thesis.

 

C W 893 Written M.F.A. Creative Work (6 units)
Prerequisite:  advancement to M.F.A. candidacy in Creative Writing; Advancement To Candidacy (ATC) and Culminating Experience Proposal forms must be on file in the Division of Graduate Studies the semester before registration. These 6 units M.F.A. students sign up for while working on the culminating experience/thesis/written creative project, which is expected to be a book length collection of short stories, or poems, or a novel or a play of publishable quality.  Enrollment is by permission number during priority registration/enrollment: you will be emailed the correct class and permission numbers to enroll in your section. You must enroll in this course or your will not receive credit for your thesis.

 

C W 899           Independent Study                             ARR
Prerequisite:  consent of instructor and a minimum GPA of 3.25.  A special study is planned, developed, and completed under the direction of a faculty member. This course may be taken for one, two, or three units. No priority enrollment; enrollment is by petition, and a copy of your unofficial SF State transcript. Independent Study forms are available online http://registrar.sfsu.edu/forms under Independent Study (699, 899). This form must be signed by the instructor you will be working with, and the department chair, and must be turned in with a copy of your unofficial transcript. Please ask your instructor to give you a permit number once they have approved the 899 petition.