Yale Creative Writing

  • English Department

Students from all disciplines in Yale College enroll in the department’s creative writing courses. For students who wish to try their hand at learning basic elements of craft, the department recommends  English 123, Introduction to Creative Writing . This course, combining the small workshop format with lectures and readings by distinguished writers, offers hands-on experience in fiction, poetry, and drama. It is open to all undergraduates, without prerequisite or application.  Read more …

A comprehensive list of readings at Yale can be found  here .

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News and Events

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TYR Fiction Writers Announced as Finalists for ASME’s 2023 National Magazine Awards

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Anne Fadiman in Harper's on Bunky the Frog

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Yale Younger Poets Prize winner Mary-Alice Daniel '08

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Lillie Lainoff ('18) Publishes Debut Novel: One For All

Pictures from some of our recent events can be found here .

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Creative writing classes see record demand

Increased competition and an earlier application timeline sparked frustrations among students and professors. Some advocated for adding course offerings and modifying the registration process.

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Creative writing at Yale is more popular — and more competitive to get into — than ever.

The program, which is run by the University’s English department, announced enrollment decisions for its spring 2022 semester creative writing courses on Nov. 22. In a message to student applicants, creative writing director Richard Deming said that the program has seen “truly record” numbers of applications — so many that professors were given five extra days to make deliberations. 

The News spoke to eight professors who are teaching creative writing courses in the spring. All eight said that their courses received more applications than last year, though two noted that numbers for their courses were roughly on par with pre-pandemic years. Deming attributed the increased demand to a larger undergraduate population and the “growing pains” of an accelerated University-wide enrollment timeline .

“We were surprised — nobody across campus was able to anticipate the perfect storm of this unprecedented size of the student body while we’re changing registration all across campus,” Deming said.

The creative writing program has also seen a steady increase in popularity since the program was formalized eight years ago, he said, though this spring’s application round still exceeded expectations. 

Students, meanwhile, reported disappointment about the increased competition and difficulty of enrolling in creative writing courses. All of the program’s courses require a written application which can include several writing samples. English major Josh Atwater ’24 said that he applied for three courses and was rejected from each until being accepted to one from its waitlist. 

“I was so frustrated when I didn’t get into any writing courses at first: it would’ve meant another semester of struggling to devote time towards improving my writing or developing a portfolio at all,” Atwater wrote to the News.

Four professors described difficulties grappling with processing applications earlier in the semester, in accordance with the new registration timeline which required that the English department receive course applications by Nov. 11, nearly a month earlier than in previous years and in the midst of midterm season. The April application deadline for fall 2021 courses, too, was earlier than usual. 

“I think the deadlines for writing classes are too early,” English professor Anne Fadiman, who will teach “Writing about Oneself” next semester, wrote to the News. “It’s very hard for students to apply during one of the busiest times of year. How can everyone be expected to know in April what they want to study in September, particularly in creative areas?”

Theater studies professor Deborah Margolin, who teaches a playwriting seminar each fall, described the new registration process as a “double shopping period” and said that using Canvas and Course Search to review and approve applicants in multiple rounds proved “unbearingly cumbersome.”

Part of the pressure professors face, however, can be attributed to the creative writing program’s overall growth. 

Since creative writing was formalized as a program in 2013, demand has increased significantly, both in the number of English majors concentrating in creative writing and in interest from non-majors, Deming said. The program has tried to meet this demand by nearly doubling its course offerings, adding a slew of new nonfiction lecturers and most recently, courses in writing for television and drama. The program is offering a total of 23 courses for the upcoming semester.

According to lecturer Susan Choi ’90, who will teach two courses on fiction writing, demand has always exceeded supply for creative writing courses, even when she was an undergraduate at Yale 30 years ago. Choi wrote to the News that she receives about four to five applications for every seat in her class “Introduction to Writing Fiction,” and three to four applications for every seat in “Advanced Fiction Writing.” Recently, Choi has had to create waitlists of 15 to 18 people for her courses. 

“My waitlists have grown longer in recent years because the harder it is to get a class, the more classes each student applies to,” Choi wrote to the News, “So there can be a lot of shuffling around and it’s nerve-wracking for everyone.”

However, Choi’s “Introduction to Writing Fiction” offered this spring received double the applicants than the normal four to five applicants per spot. Instead, Choi said that there were more than 10 applicants for every available seat in the class. In addition, “a number of students” requested to apply after the deadline, which was not possible with the already high number of applicants, according to Choi. So far, Choi wrote that only two people from the 20-person waitlist for the class have been able to sign up for the class.

The creative writing program has no official recommendation for how professors should select students from their applicant pools, Deming said. Generally, however, he said that the program strives to build communities in each workshop and that rejections are not a reflection of any student’s weaknesses.

“The mistaken impression is that professors only take the absolute best,” Deming said. “What they’re trying to do is to shape a community, and be attentive to having a diverse set of students from various backgrounds, and the voices that work best together.”

Four professors reported prioritizing students by major and class year, while two others admitted students on a first come first serve basis. 

Atwater said that — in their rejection letters to students — professors described “hardly any difference” between accepted and rejected applications, noting that all of them were generally exceptional. 

“That’s really frustrating to people who take their writing very seriously,” Atwater wrote. “It’s almost easier to be rejected for your own shortcomings than for a structural barrier like excess demand.” 

Four professors, including Choi and English lecturer Carl Zimmer, said that the collaborative nature of their seminars makes it difficult for them to scale up the number of available seats. Each instead advocated for the University to add more classes. 

Atwater agrees the University should expand writing course offerings to include more sections of foundational courses, such as fiction and poetry writing seminars. While centralizing the application form would make the process of applying less labor-intensive and more approachable, Atwater said he thinks it would only “exacerbate the problem” of high demand for creative writing courses and ultimately make them less accessible for students. 

The English department is located in Linsly-Chittenden Hall. 

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The NYU Creative Writing Program

is among the most distinguished programs in the country and is a leading national center for the study of writing and literature.

Graduate Program

The graduate Creative Writing Program at NYU consists of a community of writers working together in a setting that is both challenging and supportive.

Low Residency MFA Workshop in Paris

The low-residency MFA Writers Workshop offers students the opportunity to develop their craft in one of the world's most inspiring literary capitals.

Undergraduate Program

The undergraduate program offers workshops, readings, internships, writing prizes, and events designed to cultivate and inspire.

Spring 2022 Reading Series

The lively public Reading Series hosts a wide array of writers, translators, and editors, and connects our program to the local community.

Creative Writing Program

Low-residency mfa writers workshop in paris, undergraduate, washington square review, literary journal, a sample residency calendar, write in paris, scholarships and grant opportunities, program of study, dates and deadlines, creative writing, recent highlights from the mfa community.

• Alum Bruna Dantas Lobato   won the 2023 National Book Award in translation

• Faculty member Sharon Olds received the Joan Margarit International Poetry Prize from King Felipe VI in July 2023

• Alumni  Tess Gunty  and  John Keene   each won a 2022 National Book Award in fiction and poetry , respectively

• Books by faculty members  Sharon  Olds  and  Meghan O'Rourke;  and alums  Tess Gunty, John Keene ,  and  Jenny Xie  were named finalists for the 2022 National Book Awards; books by alum  Rio Cortez and faculty member Leigh Newman were also longlisted

• Alum  Ada Limón   has been named the nation's 24th Poet Laureate  by the Library of Congress

• Alum  Amanda Larson 's debut poetry collection  GUT  was selected by Mark Bibbins as the winner of the Poetry Society of America Norma Farber Book Award

• Alum  Sasha Burshteyn  was named a 2022 winner of the 92Y Discovery Prize. Alums Jenna Lanzaro and JinJin Xu were also named semi-finalists for the prize.

• Alum Clare Sestanovich was selected as a  2022 5 under 35 Honoree  by the National Book Foundation

• Alum  Maaza Mengiste  was awarded a  2022 Guggenheim Fellowship

• Visiting graduate faculty member  Brandon Taylor 's collection  Filthy Animals  was named a 2021/22  finalist for The Story Prize  and was shortlisted for the  2022 Dylan Thomas Prize

• Alum  Raven Leilani  won the 2021 Clark Fiction Prize, Dylan Thomas prize, the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Fiction and the Center for Fiction 2020 First Novel Prize for her debut novel  Luster,  and was named a finalist for the 2021 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, the Gotham Book Prize, the 2021 PEN/Hemmingway Award for Debut Novel, the 2021 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award

• Alum Desiree C. Bailey 's debut poetry collection  What Noise Against the Cane  was longlisted for the 2022 Dylan Thomas Prize and was also named a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award in Poetry and the 2022 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and was published as the winner of the 2020 Yale Series of Younger Poets

• Senior faculty member  Sharon Olds  was named the 2022 recipient of the Poetry Society of America's Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry

You can read more MFA Community news here and find a list of forthcoming and recently published books by alumni here .   NYU CWP alumni include  Aria Aber, Amir Ahmadi Arian, Julie Buntin, Nick Flynn, Nell Freudenberger, Aracelis Girmay, Isabella Hammad, Ishion Hutchinson, Mitchell S. Jackson, Tyehimba Jess, John Keene, Raven Leilani, Robin Coste Lewis, Ada Limón, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, Maaza Mengiste, John Murillo, Gregory Pardlo, Morgan Parker, Nicole Sealey, Solmaz Sharif, Peng Shepherd, Ocean Vuong, Jenny Xie,  and  Javier Zamora. 

Announcements

Ocean Vuong by Tom Hines

Ocean Vuong joins the NYU Creative Writing Program Faculty

Mary Gabriel by Mike Habermann

Mary Gabriel, Author of “Ninth Street Women”, Receives the NYU/Axinn Foundation Prize

Claudia Rankine

Claudia Rankine joins the NYU Creative Writing Program Faculty

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Anne Carson

Anne Carson

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Terrance Hayes

Where to find us.

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Faculty Spotlight

Jonathan Safran Foer

Foer was listed in Rolling Stone's "People of the Year," Esquire's "Best and Brightest," and The New Yorker's "20 Under 40" list.

Terrance Hayes

Terrance Hayes’s most recent publications include American Sonnets for My Past And Future Assassin and To Float In The Space Between.

Darin Strauss by Linda Rosier

Darin Strauss is the author of several acclaimed novels, including the most recent The Queen of Tuesday: A Lucille Ball Story.

Ocean Vuong by Adrian Pope for The Guardian

Ocean Vuong is the author of the bestselling novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and the poetry collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds.

Sharon Olds

Sharon Olds is a previous director of the Creative Writing Program. Her 2012 collection Stags Leap was awarded the T.S. Eliot Prize and a Pulitzer.

Katie Kitamura

Katie Kitamura’s most recent novel Intimacies was longlisted for the National Book Award and named a Best Book of 2021 by numerous publications.

Claudia Rankine by Andrew Zuckerman/The Slowdown

Claudia Rankine is a recipient of the 2016 MacArthur Fellowship, and the author of six collections including Citizen and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely.

Jeffrey Eugenides

Jeffrey Eugenides is the author of acclaimed novels The Virgin Suicides, Middlesex, and The Marriage Plot. His latest collection is Fresh Complaint. 

Hari Kunzru

Hari Kunzru is the author of six novels, including the most recent Red Pill, and White Tears, a finalist for the PEN Jean Stein Award.

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2021 Creative Writing Awards

2021 honored students.

One of our students’ assignments during their first clinical experience is to begin a journal. Through their journal they can watch their own transformations. Through their writing we can understand contemporary nursing and midwifery through the eyes, hands, and feelings of these remarkable students and soon-to-be advanced practice registered nurses and certified nurse midwives.

YSN’s annual Creative Writing Awards are enlivened by the inspirational presence of YSN Professor Linda Honan. Yale nursing students submit their narratives, journal entries, and other creative writing for consideration of one of three significant student awards.

The 2021 Creative Writing Award winners are Camila Soto Espinoza,  Maxwell Shaw-Jones, and  Tim McGehee .

Camila Soto Espinoza

Camila Soto Espinoza is a second year CNM/WHNP student at Yale School of Nursing. She was born and raised in Chile, where she discovered her love for midwifery at a very young age. In 2015, she graduated as a certified midwife from the University of Concepción, and worked in multiple public hospitals across the country. It was through the stories of her patients that she was inspired to understand the connection between culture and medicine. She moved from Chile to the US in 2018 to start her masters at Yale University. Camila has used her voice and writing skills to share her experiences as a FGLI student, immigrant, and advocate for diversity, inclusion and change. She became an RN in 2019, a Yale Institute of Global Health fellow at UNICEF in 2020, and has served as a student representative and co-chair for YSN’s diversity, equity and inclusion council for two years.  She has spent the COVID era working as an RN to keep the Yale community safe, and on research to understand the immune response caused by COVID infections. She’s currently completing her integration at Massachusetts General Hospital, and is expected to graduate in May of 2021 as a midwife and women’s health NP with a concentration in global health.

Read Camila’s essay, “Monotony,” here .

Maxwell Shaw-Jones

Maxwell is a GEPN student in the Family Nurse Practitioner Specialty. In 2018 he graduated from Middlebury College with a degree in English. He spent the following few years alternatively traveling and working a weird, wide range of jobs. After trying out being an island caretaker, a fiberglass laminator, and a museum security guard, he eventually realized he wanted to be a nurse. Maxwell is interested in the ways nursing can be used to address all manner of issues outside of what we typically think of as ‘health’ and will be co-facilitating the Fall 2021 US Health Justice Elective.

Read Maxwell’s essay, “His Feet,” here . 

Tim McGehee

Tim is a first year AGPCNP student from Milford, Connecticut. After briefly training to sail in the merchant marines, he enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard drawn to its missions of homeland security and safety of life at sea. From the North Atlantic to the Caribbean, he stood watch over his cutter’s propulsion plant as a machinery technician. There he built the skills of maintaining, troubleshooting, and repairing machinery. In a twist of fate, Tim was struck by the similarities between troubleshooting machinery and diagnosing disease. After four years, he separated from the Coast Guard taking his chances on college and a career in healthcare. Upon graduating from the University of Connecticut with honors, he worked as a nursing home CNA. There he developed an appreciation for the power of building strong relationships with patients, the holistic nursing model of care, and the medical needs of older adults. He has continued to work in the long-term care setting as an RN. Outside of YSN, Tim is married with two young boys. He intends to work in primary care as a nurse practitioner with the Department of Veteran Affairs.

Read Tim’s essay, ‘ ‘Pain, You Say?’ A Nursing Home Monologue’ here .

Honorable Mentions

The following students are being saluted as honorable mentions:

Kendall Cote ’23 MSN, Helen Day ’23 MSN, Ashleigh Evans ’23 MSN, Stacey Frizzell ’23 MSN, Leoncia Gillespie ’23 MSN, Elizabeth (Libby) Grant ’23 MSN, Kay Green ’22 MSN, Kierra Jackson ’21 MSN, Nicole Kuhnly ’21 MSN, Jill Langan ’21 MSN, Kathleen Lessard ’23 MSN, Sarah Ann Lovell ’22 MSN, Kylee Martin Horlacher ’23 MSN, Sajni Persad ’23 MSN, Jordan Quintin ’23 MSN, Marina Rosenberg ’23 MSN, Kendall Tamler ’21 MSN, and Shiliu Wang ’23 MSN.

We wish to extend our thanks to our judges:

Preliminary Judges:

Nina Adams, Dr. Deborah Fahs, Betsy Groth, Dr. Lorence Gutterman, Katie Pellico, Mary Pierson, and Shel Swanson.

Distinguished Judges:

Echo Heron, critical care nurse and  New York Times  bestselling author of nine books; Anne Fadiman, award-winning author, essayist, editor, and teacher; Anna Quinlan, Pulitzer-Prize winning author; and Lee Woodruff, author of three bestselling books. 

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Yale Creative Writing by Yale Students & Alumni: Book List

About this collection.

This collection represents a sampling of published fiction and creative writing by current Yale students and alumni. 

The names below are presented by graduation year, and the links direct to the author's works available at Yale Library (Quicksearch Books+).

R.F. Kuang Yale GSAS '27

Coco Ma Yale '25

Joyce Maynard Yale '24

Rachel Kaufman Yale '19

Lillie Lainoff Yale '18

David Hoppen  Yale '17

Emily Hauser  Yale '17

Dur E Aziz Amna Yale '15

Austin Carder (translator)  Yale '15

Madeleine Henry Yale '14

Spencer Wolff Yale '13

Max Ritvo Yale '13

Sarah Matthes Yale '13

Lauren Oyler  Yale '12

Julie Qian Wang Yale '12

Elisabeth Thomas Yale '10

Tochi Onyebuchi Yale '09

Vince Granata Yale '09

Naima Coster Yale '08

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Yale '08

Jaclyn Gilbert Yale '07

Juliet Lapidos Yale '05

Elyssa Friedland Yale '03

Katharine Dion Yale '02

Alexander Tilney Yale '01

Jessica Winter Yale '99

Leigh Bardugo Yale '97

Deesha Philyaw Yale '93

Elisha Cooper Yale '93

Heather Cass White Yale '92

Samantha Power Yale '92

Susan Choi Yale '90

Monique Truong Yale '90

Christina Baker Kline Yale '86

Sarah Blake Yale '83

Joseph Finder Yale '80

Mitchell James Kaplan Yale '79

Julia Glass Yale '78

Alexis Krasilovsky Yale '71

Christopher Tilghman Yale '68

Jeffrey Lewis Yale '66

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Richard Deming Loneliness and You

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My guest in this episode is Richard Deming. Richard is the Director of Creative Writing at Yale University. He is a writer, critic, and scholar whose work explores the intersections of philosophy, literature, and visual culture. His recent book, This Exquisite Loneliness: What Loners, Outcasts, and the Misunderstood Can Teach Us About Creativity, is published with Viking.

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Creative Writing MFA Alumni Spotlight: Francisco Aragón ('03)

Published: February 20, 2024

Author: Paul Cunningham

Francisco Aragon

"I was affiliated with [University of Notre Dame], but I wasn't teaching; I was a full-time arts administrator. I was able to cultivate more meaningful and substantive initiatives that led to a more national footprint. That was when I [and Letras Latinas] began to collaborate with the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Poetry Society of America. I would be remiss if I didn't mention how crucial Letras Latinas' ties are with Notre Dame's Creative Writing program. We typically tap MFA students to introduce our visiting poets as well as conduct our oral history video interviews."   — Francisco Aragón, Poets & Writers

Francisco Aragon AWP

"Letras Latinas' mission is to amplify and support our storytellers-poets, playwrights, fiction writers, essayists. As long as our community is producing storytellers, and as long as we live in an environment in which communities are battling being erased—think about the political climate we're currently in in the U.S., with the attempted banning of library books by LGBTQ and Black voices—I don't envision the scenario where it's 'mission accomplished'" — Francisco Aragón, Poets & Writers

R. Stranger MFA’24 combines creative writing and visual arts in their multimedia approach to art

by Linda Lenhoff, February 15, 2024

creative writing masters yale

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R. Stranger MFA’24 incorporates visual work into their writing, striving to find their own personal channel of creating. Through PNCA’s Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing program, Stranger has been able to pursue cross-genre, collaborative work, combining prose, poetry, photography, film, archiving, and cataloging. “I needed to be in a writing program situated within an art school, where I would have the ability and freedom to incorporate my visual work and embodied practice into my creative writing,” Stranger says. “Literature and art have been the portals through which I receive so much of the world.”

The program’s unique approach to treating writing as a multidisciplinary studio art practice offers Stranger the ability to build relationships across departments. Stranger is especially grateful for mentorship from faculty members Vi Khi Nao , a writer, and Dao Strom , an artist. “Each of them has undeniably affected my work and approach to writing and creating,” Stranger says, adding that Nao “opened my eyes to the depth of emotion we can allow ourselves to go and the necessary risks that an artist must take if they wish to be true to their work and themselves.

Stranger focuses on difficult issues in their art, including “the multidimensional nature of queerness, the complexities of having/being a body, and the transformative nature of grief,” Stranger says. Utilizing several mediums allows Stranger to “move through the work of mourning and living through different layers of humanness.”

PNCA and the Hallie Ford School of Graduate Studies have granted Stranger multiple opportunities to share and show their work. “I tabled my zines at the 2022 Do-It-Yourself / Do-It-Ourselves Graduate Symposium as well as at this year’s Form.a Art Press Fair at Oregon Contemporary,” Stranger says. Their photography was also selected for display at Lightbox Photographic Gallery’s New Visionaries exhibit through an Oregon BFA/MFA photo student exhibition call organized by PNCA faculty Rachel Wolf .

The proverbial cherry on top of Stranger’s experience at PNCA has been having a private studio within an institutional space, thanks to Strom and Creative Writing Program Director Jay Ponteri . “I can still be in the world while also receiving access to a nurturing art community and the institutional resources that aid my public art practice.”

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De la cruz named kenan professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry.

Enrique M. De La Cruz

Enrique M. De La Cruz , an international leader in molecular motor proteins and the cytoskeleton, was recently appointed the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, effective immediately.

He is a member of Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry.

De La Cruz has made profound contributions to three areas of biophysics including deciphering the molecular mechanisms underlying actomyosin function, RNA helicase function, and the regulation and mechanics of actin filament severing. He has authored 98 research publications in peer-reviewed journals, numerous review articles and commentaries, and chapters in undergraduate textbooks.

De La Cruz’s work transcends traditional boundaries between academic disciplines by using insights and techniques from biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering. His integrated research approach has revealed how regulatory proteins control the length and assembly dynamics of actin filaments and how kinetic adaptations among evolutionary-related proteins (e.g., RNA helicases, non-muscle myosin motors, G-proteins, and ENNP-family enzymes) provide for their biological functions and has allowed him and colleagues to develop novel enzyme therapeutics currently being evaluated in human patient clinical trials. His research is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health.

In recognition of this work, De La Cruz was named a member of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s inaugural class of fellows in 2021. He was also elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2022, of the Connecticut Academy of Science in 2021, and in 2020 honored as among Cell Press’ 100 most inspiring Hispanic/Latinx scientists in America. He has held numerous visiting appointments: he was a visiting scientist at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique (CEA) & Universite Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, France, a Mayent-Rothschild Senior Researcher Fellow at the Institut Curie, Paris, and an Invited Professor Fellow at ESPCI Paris Tech and Sorbonne Université.

In addition, De La Cruz is a dedicated advocate for making science more accessible to students from underrepresented backgrounds, and he has been recognized for this work by the Biophysical Society and other international organizations. He has delivered keynote lectures at institutions and universities across the country and around the world.

At Yale, De La Cruz has been recognized as an outstanding university citizen: he has served as chair of the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and as Head of Branford College. As Head of Branford College, he is known as an attentive mentor to undergraduate students who plays a key role in making Yale College feel like a home. He was a member of the inaugural cohort of Poorvu Center Faculty Fellows, a group of faculty members who collaborate on developing new pedagogical initiatives in support of teaching at Yale.

In addition, De La Cruz serves on the advisory board of the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning, the Minority Organization for Retention and Expansion Steering Committee, and has served on numerous Yale College and university-wide bodies. Beyond Yale, he serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Biological Chemistry , Biophysical Reviews, and other top publications in the field, and is actively involved in science outreach efforts at the elementary, high school, and college levels.

De La Cruz earned his Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry, Cell & Molecular Biology (BCMB) at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and received postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

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2020 Outreach Courses

A grid of images suggesting people writing, reading, using laptops to work, and joining a Zoom call for a conversation.

CREATIVE WRITING, DISABILITIES AWARENESS, AND INCLUSION COURSE SERIES:

11/5/2020—12/22/2020 (Near East and Northern African regions, though open to all)

This short course series contains six one-hour courses (each with a 30-minute lecture and two 15-minute assignment sections). Courses are captioned/subtitled in Arabic and in English. Each course is taught by a different disabilities writer/activist.

The courses in the series are released on a weekly basis. To view the course series on your own schedule, please click here: bit.ly/DAwritingcourse

Instructors include Sheila Black , a poet, writer, and disabilities activist and currently director of development at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP), the main professional organization for creative writing programs; Ron Marz , comic book writer known for the Green Lantern and the Silver Surfer, but also for an international creative collaboration  project in 2012 where he and others, at the invitation of the Syrian government, created the Silver Scorpion, a Syrian-American teenage superhero who is wheelchair-bound; Elsa Sjunesson , Hugo, Aurora, and British Fantasy awards winner, and an activist for disability rights; and Melody Moezzi , writer, lawyer, and disabilities activist, a United Nations Global Expert and an Opinion Leader for the British Council's Our Shared Future initiative, and who, several years back, was part of an ECA program involving young American-Muslim leaders.

WORD/MOVEMENT

6/15/2020 through 8/1/2020   (Kazakhstan, Latvia, Russia)

The Movement sessions of this course work with aspects of meaning-making in dance, with establishing context and point-of-view, and with generation of movement and experimentation with structure. These sessions form the starting point of each Word session, which are in creative writing workshop format. Participants experiment with form and with language, fusing responses, insights, and reactions from the Movement sessions into their creative writing.

View text galleries of some of the course projects and assignments submitted by the Russian-speaking and Latvian-speaking participants here:   http://www.distancelearningiwp.org/wordmovementtextgalleries

(AFTERNOTE: This course’s emphases on diverse perspectives and on resiliency, occurring as it did in the midst of an unexpected global pandemic, both echoed and intersected with the myriad types of virtual artistic and issue-oriented collaborations appearing across the United States during this time.)

WOMEN'S CREATIVE MENTORSHIP PROFESSIONALIZATION PROJECT

4/15/2020 through 10/15/2020  (Argentina, Botswana, Colombia, Kenya, Mauritius, Mexico, Somalia, South Africa)

This project furthers already-established connections in the IWP's Women's Creative Mentorship (WCM) Project ,  broadens international networks and collaborations, and amplifies the many threads of conversation established by the mentor-mentee groups. A series of professional practice seminars anchored and applied these topics.

Participants were invited to create digital collages of their work in this project, and, given the COVID-19 pandemic, their work beyond it.

Click below to view the WCM participants' short videos, their texts and images, and their writing resource lists in response to being asked to describe their past few months, including the balancing/un-balancing of life, COVID-19, writing, and global and local concerns: http://www.distancelearningiwp.org/digitalcollageswmp2020

Upcoming Events

  • Jan 28 — May 26 Write at the Stanley: A Generative Writing Workshop Location: Stanley Museum of Art , Visual Classroom -->
  • Feb 03 — Dec 05 Art & Write Night Location: University of Iowa Museum of Natural History , Hageboeck Hall of Birds (Bird Hall, third Floor) -->
  • Mar 10, 7:08 pm BMindful Holy Days: Ramadan (Islam) Location: University of Iowa Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion -->
  • Mar 20 BMindful Holy Days: Nowruz/Naw-Ruz (Baháʼí) various ethnicities worldwide Location: University of Iowa Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion -->
  • Lines & Spaces
  • Fall Residency
  • Between the Lines
  • Summer Institute
  • Crafting the Future
  • Women’s Creative Mentorship Project
  • International Conferences
  • Life of Discovery
  • Silk Routes
  • US Study Tours

Happening Now

Ranjit Hoskote ’s speech at the 2024 Goa Literary Festival addresses the current situation in Gaza.

In NY Times, Bina Shah worries about the state of Pakistani—and American—democracy.

“I went to [Ayodhya] to think about what it means to be an Indian and a Hindu... ”  A new essay by critic and novelist Chandrahas Choudhury .

In the January 2024 iteration of the French/English non-fiction site Frictions, T J Benson writes about “Riding Afrobeats Across the World.” Also new, a next installment in the bilingual series featuring work by students from Paris VIII’s Creative Writing program and the University of Iowa’s NFW program.

in NYTimes , Sanam Maher examines a new book about women defending themselves when the justice system in their country won’t.

Find Us Online

COMMENTS

  1. Welcome

    Yale Creative Writing About Students from all disciplines in Yale College enroll in the department's creative writing courses. For students who wish to try their hand at learning basic elements of craft, the department recommends English 123, Introduction to Creative Writing.

  2. Creative Writing

    Graduate Student Placement; Graduate School Programs and Policies; Creative Writing. Director's Note; Courses in Creative Writing and Journalism; Creative Writing Faculty; Diversity. Committee Members; English Initiatives. Current Work; Previous Work; Yale Initiatives; Resources. Resources for Grad Students; Take Action. Past Actions. A Letter ...

  3. Graduate Education

    The Yale English Department offers a broad-ranging program of graduate education, with courses that engage all periods of British literature, American literature since its inception, and many of the contemporary interdisciplines (feminism, media studies, post-colonialism, Black studies, LGBTQIA+ studies, and the environmental humanities).

  4. Creative writing classes see record demand

    Creative writing at Yale is more popular — and more competitive to get into — than ever. The program, which is run by the University's English department, announced enrollment decisions for its spring 2022 semester creative writing courses on Nov. 22. In a message to student applicants, creative writing director Richard Deming said that ...

  5. Graduate & Professional Study

    Yale's Graduate School of Arts & Sciences offers programs leading to M.A., M.S., M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees in 73 departments and programs. School Website School of Architecture The Yale School of Architecture's mandate is for each student to understand architecture as a creative, productive, innovative, and responsible practice. School Website

  6. Creative Writing

    In many semesters, Yale's residential college seminars also include some courses in creative writing. The English department's upper-level writing courses (English 450-475) are open to all students on the basis of the instructor's judgment of their work. Instructions for the submission of writing samples for admission are available in LC 107.

  7. Creative Writing & Journalism Courses

    Maggie Millner. Professional Writing/Production Courses These courses do not count toward the Creative Writing Concentration. ENGL 413 Literary Production: Prose. James Surowiecki. ENGL 421 Styles of Academic and Professional Prose. Lincoln Caplan, Randi Epstein, Kate Bolick, Pamela Newton, Adam Sexton, and Kim Shirkhani.

  8. Creative Writing Program

    The graduate Creative Writing Program at NYU consists of a community of writers working together in a setting that is both challenging and supportive. ... 2021 National Book Award in Poetry and the 2022 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and was published as the winner of the 2020 Yale Series of Younger Poets

  9. 2021 Creative Writing Awards

    The 2021 Creative Writing Award winners are Camila Soto Espinoza, ... She moved from Chile to the US in 2018 to start her masters at Yale University. Camila has used her voice and writing skills to share her experiences as a FGLI student, immigrant, and advocate for diversity, inclusion and change. ...

  10. Creative Writing Workshop

    A safe space to write! We are continuing to investigate and troubleshoot with our Microsoft partners the issue affecting Connected Calendar and Meeting Schedule functionality.

  11. Yale Creative Writing by Yale Students & Alumni: Home

    The Final Voicemails by Max Ritvo (Yale '13) Diagnosed with terminal cancer at sixteen, Ritvo spent the next decade of his life pursuing poetry with frenetic energy, culminating in the publication of Four Reincarnations.As with his debut, The Final Voicemails brushes up against the pain, fear, and isolation that accompany a long illness, but with all the creative force of an artist in full ...

  12. Creative Writing]Creative Courses

    Graduate Student Placement; Graduate School Programs and Policies; Creative Writing. Director's Note; Courses in Creative Writing and Journalism; Creative Writing Faculty; Diversity. Committee Members; English Initiatives. Current Work; Previous Work; Yale Initiatives; Resources. Resources for Grad Students; Take Action. Past Actions. A Letter ...

  13. Faculty

    Faculty. Horace W. Goldsmith Senior Lecturer in Judaic Studies, Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature. Francis Writer in Residence; Professor in the Practice, Creative Writing. Senior Lecturer in English, Writing Concentration Coordinator. Professor (Adjunct) of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Lecturer in English.

  14. Yale University Library Research Guides: Yale Creative Writing by Yale

    Yale Creative Writing by Yale Students & Alumni: Book List Home Book List Highlights (A-Z by Title) (S)kinfolk by Tochi Onyebuchi (Yale '09) ISBN: 9780999431696 Publication Date: 2021-04-13 When Did You First Realize You Were Black?

  15. ‎Loneliness and You: Richard Deming on Apple Podcasts

    Richard is the Director of Creative Writing at Yale University. He is a writer, critic, and scholar whose work explores the intersections of philosophy, literature, and visual culture. His recent book, This Exquisite Loneliness: What Loners, Outcasts, and the Misunderstood Can Teach Us About Creativity, is published with Viking.

  16. Five promising leaders from Yale named 2024 Marshall Scholars

    As a Marshall scholar, she will pursue a M.Sc. degree in education (child development and education) and a M.P.P. (Master of Public Policy). She is the first Marshall scholar from Yale's Education Studies Program. Since 1954, more than 2,200 students have received graduate degrees through the Marshall Scholarship.

  17. Creative Writing MFA Alumni Spotlight: Francisco Aragón ('03)

    A 2003 alum of the MFA in Creative Writing program at the University of Notre Dame, Francisco Aragón was recently interviewed by Emily Pérez for Poets & Writers. From sharing the origin story of Letras Latinas (the literary initiative at Notre Dame's Institute for Latino Studies) to big-picture ideas for the future, there's no denying that Aragón has and will continue to support established ...

  18. R. Stranger MFA'24 combines creative writing and visual arts in their

    R. Stranger MFA'24 incorporates visual work into their writing, striving to find their own personal channel of creating. Through PNCA's Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing program, Stranger has been able to pursue cross-genre, collaborative work, combining prose, poetry, photography, film, archiving, and cataloging. "I needed to be in a writing program situated within an art school ...

  19. Courtney Martin, director of YCBA, will lead Rauschenberg ...

    Courtney J. Martin '09 Ph.D., the Paul Mellon Director of the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA), has accepted a new appointment as executive director of the New York-based Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Martin, a scholar of historical and contemporary art who has led YCBA since 2019, will continue in her Yale role until June 30, 2024.

  20. Addressing Yale's history of slavery

    On Feb. 16, Yale University marked a milestone in its comprehensive, long-term examination of the university's historical role in and associations with slavery, publishing a related peer-reviewed book and announcing several new commitments and actions in response to its findings.. The book, "Yale and Slavery: A History," which is available in a free digital version, was authored by Yale ...

  21. Moscow City Teachers' Training University

    Moscow City Teachers' Training University (Russian: Московский городской педагогический университет) is a public university located in Moscow, Russia. It was founded in 1995. History. In 1993, the Moscow Department of Education proposed to the Russian Ministry of Education a project to create a pedagogical university on the basis of several ...

  22. De La Cruz named Kenan Professor of Molecular Biophysics and ...

    At Yale, De La Cruz has been recognized as an outstanding university citizen: he has served as chair of the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and as Head of Branford College. As Head of Branford College, he is known as an attentive mentor to undergraduate students who plays a key role in making Yale College feel like a home.

  23. 2020 Outreach Courses

    CREATIVE WRITING, DISABILITIES AWARENESS, AND INCLUSION COURSE SERIES: 11/5/2020—12/22/2020 (Near East and Northern African regions, though open to all) This short course series contains six one-hour courses (each with a 30-minute lecture and two 15-minute assignment sections). Courses are captioned/subtitled in Arabic and in English.

  24. Study Master's degrees in Moscow, Russia

    Moscow has long, cold winters usually lasting from November to the end of March. Temperatures can fluctuate between the city centre and the suburbs between 5-10°C (41-50°F). Heat waves may occur during summer. Average low temperatures are -10°C (15°F) in February, while average highs reach 24°C (76°F) in July. Study a Master's degree in ...