Message from the Creative Writing Instructors to Prospective English MA and PhD Students
Welcome to the University of Calgary's Department of English Graduate Program! This program is one of the oldest in Canada offering a Creative Writing option at the MA, and is home to the only PhD in English with a Creative Thesis Option in English-speaking Canada. Our students have gone on to publish extensively, many of them receiving national and international awards and recognition.
Information on the Department's writing offerings is found at the Department website under the "Creative Writing" tab. Meanwhile, here are some details about Creative Writing at the U of C that you may find useful:
English 598/698: The Book-Length Manuscript (Poetry or Prose)
ENGL 598/698: The Book-Length Manuscript is available to all graduate students, but portfolio application is required. The deadline is usually mid-August; go online to check the requirements. This course provides an opportunity for students to move beyond individual poems or stories to shape an entire collection or novel.
All MA and PhD students in the Department of English are eligible to take English 598/698 whether or not they intend to pursue the Creative Thesis Option. Many students interested in Creative Writing as a secondary area have taken this course, and published work they began in this course.
All students enrolled in 598/698 are asked to participate in a gala public reading by creative writing students at the end of winter semester. Classes usually produce a chapbook of student writing that is available for year-end sale and distribution.
It is recommended that MA and PhD students pursuing the Creative Thesis Option apply to enrol in English 598/698. Taking this course is not mandatory for completing an MA or PhD with the Creative Thesis Option, but the writing practice and experience provided in this course is extremely useful.
The full-length project completed in English 598/698 cannot be exactly the same project as the creative part of a student's thesis or dissertation. For this reason, MA students pursuing the Creative Thesis Option are strongly urged to take this course in their first year of graduate studies, before they begin work on the MA thesis project. Otherwise an MA Creative Thesis Option student in his or her second year is asked to write, in effect, two books simultaneously, an unlikely scenario.
The MA or PhD in English (Creative Thesis Option) is an MA or PhD in English, and not an MA or MFA or PhD in Creative Writing. Students will be required to take the standard number of critical full course equivalents in required areas in the Department of English, so planning is essential. As well, a PhD in English with a Creative Thesis Option means that students are expected to write Minor Field and Major Field Candidacy Examinations.
English 603.05: Creative Writing Pedagogy
When offered, English 603.05 is open to creative-stream PhD students, and MA students in their second year.
Because most North American authors earn their living as teachers of imaginative writing, this course provides instruction and experience in creative writing pedagogy. In the Fall Session, students develop their pedagogical skills in a seminar context. These skills are then exercised in Winter Session as each student team-teaches a three-genre (poetry, fiction, drama) undergraduate introductory creative writing half course. The Creative Writing Pedagogy class meets intermittently during the winter term to consider issues arising from the specific instructional experience. A teaching stipend is paid.
dANDdelion Magazine
The Department of English offers Graduate Assistantship opportunities with dANDelion Magazine. Calgary's oldest literary magazine, dANDelion, relocated to the English Department in 2000. One graduate student each year is hired on a two-year basis to operate the magazine as Assistant and then Managing Editor. These positions are funded as GA(NT)s or Graduate Assistantship (Non-Teaching). Students eligible for this position must be pursuing the Creative Thesis Option. Advertisements for the Assistant Editor typically occur in June of each year. Anyone interested is also welcome to volunteer to work on dANDdelion in various capacities.
The Calgary Distinguished Writers Program
The endowed Calgary Distinguished Writers Program funds an annual emerging Canadian writer-in-residence, as well as visiting writers of international prominence. These writers are usually available for consultation with English Department graduate students. Writers hosted by this program include, among many others, Nicole Brossard, Robert Creeley, Rudy Wiebe, Robert Kroetsch, Oliver Sacks, Michael Ondaatje, Alistair MacLeod, Derek Walcott, Ursula K. LeGuin, Deepa Mehta, Adrienne Rich, Wole Soyinka, and Dionne Brand.
The Canada Council Visiting Speakers Series
This reading series is regularly produced as a collaboration between the Department of English Visiting Speakers Committee and the Canada Council. Writers hosted in past years include Judy Fong Bates, Elizabeth Hay, Margaret Sweatman, Gerry Shikatani, Greg Hollingshead, Erin Mouré, and Hiromi Goto.
Department of English faculty who are eligible to supervise Creative Writing graduate students:
Christian Bök, Clem Martini (Dept. of Drama, adjunct in English), Suzette Mayr, Robert Majzels, and Aritha van Herk. More information on these faculty members' background, publications and interests may be found on the Department website under the "Creative Writing" tab.
Creative Writing Research Group
The Creative Writing Research Group is an interdisciplinary body open to University of Calgary students and faculty from any discipline interested in furthering the study and development of creative writing on campus and in the wider community. The CWRG undertakes a variety of activities during the academic year, including sponsoring or co-sponsoring speakers, seminars, symposiums, and readings.