Mission
The Creative Writing Program encourages students to think of themselves as writers committed to the development of their craft and the examination of their culture. All student writers compose fiction, literary non-fiction, poetry and drama as part of a sequence of courses that prepares them as scholars and as agents of social change. The underlying purpose of the program is to provide both studio training and theoretical grounding so that student writers make connections between their work and the world.
The Core of Our Program:
Students in the Creative Writing program at ULV work from an organic writing approach. Students spend their first semester of coursework focusing on voice and on shaping generic journal entries into forms. Students write a great deal, read from their work out loud in public venues, and participate as active members in the classroom writing community. There is much time spent on the journal as a writing foundation, with extensive exercises in observation, listening and in theoretical inquiry, as well as reading and writing in the academically-defined genres of poetry, fiction, literary essay, playwriting and screenwriting. Introductory students familiarize themselves with the editing process by working as readers on the regional literary journal Prism Review and on their own self-published chapbooks. The Introductory course culminates in a public reading of creative works. It is a vigorous course that serves as the foundation for all other coursework in the program.
Advanced courses in the Creative Writing program continue shaping students' uniquely individual voices by stressing this organic, process-oriented approach worked on in the introductory course. Students select two focus genres for upper division work: Fiction, Literary Non-Fiction, Screenwriting and Playwriting, Poetry, or Diverse Discourses which includes new and hybrid genres: lyric essay, visual poetry, multimedia and hypertext fiction, performance writing, oral storytelling and others. In these courses students read and analyze representative literature from each particular genre, and also read and analyze the theoretical discourse framing each genre. Students write exclusively in the selected genre and focus heavily upon the critique and workshop process, honing their skills and producing a portfolio of representative work that is collected into a self-published chapbook or presented at a staged reading.
The combination of organic foundation writing, workshop critique and theoretical grounding are what makes the ULV program special. Students work closely with faculty writers and with one another to explore the possibilities for their unique voices. At the end of the course sequence, students are required to give a public reading of their work.
WRITERS IN THE COMMUNITY
The ULV Creative Writing Program stresses the importance of public presentation of work, either through publication participation or performance participation, as well as community outreach. Our students are encouraged to become involved in all of the wonderful opportunities available in the Los Angeles area. Students in the University of La Verne's Creative Writing Program:
- Participate in public readings and performances of their work on the ULV campus and off campus through organizations like Da Poetry Lounge, Emerging Urban Writers, WordProcess Poets, Mic and Dim Lights and more
- Self-publish and distribute their own chapbooks
- Work on the editorial staff of our regional journal Prism Review and the Theatre Magazine Entracte
- Teach Creative Writing through community service programs like California Poets in the Schools
- Intern with Los Angeles area organizations like Red Hen Press, Bombshelter Press, Mocean Pictures, Ruskin Poetry Series or Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Our Program Alumni have been published in Wilmington Blues, Long Story Short, Quiet Mountain, Scrivener's Pen, Poetry Super Highway and more.