Professors Brooks and Frank‡; Associate Professor Bosman; Assistant Professors Lawson* and Myint; Writer-in-Residence Lee*; Lecturers Kapur (Director) and Sweeney; Visiting Lecturer Sanders†. Postdoctoral Fellows Mysore and Yang†.
Through the English Department, the Creative Writing Center offers courses in a wide range of genres, including fiction, poetry, playwriting, creative nonfiction, hybrid forms, screenwriting and translation. Students from any major or discipline are welcome to enroll in creative writing classes. Our goal is to bring together a diverse literary community to deepen and support the creative work of all our students.
Our small workshop-based courses are intense and supportive, emphasizing both process and community across genres, topics and course levels. The Creative Writing faculty also supports numerous honors theses each year, offering students the opportunity to engage in a long-term writing project as the culmination of their time at Amherst. The Center does not offer a major and does not offer courses independently; almost all of the courses offered are located in the English Department and count toward its major requirements. We consider that creative writing is in significant part learned through creative reading; therefore, our faculty also teach courses in the reading of literature. Alongside creative writing classes, we encourage students to explore courses in literature and in other subjects across the curriculum as an important method of enriching their own writing.
*On leave 2023-24.†On leave fall semester 2023-24.‡ On leave spring semester 2023-24.