Excerpt: Creative Writing

Creative writing. The phrase conjures up many intriguing, yet ethereal ideas about what it means to be a "real" writer. Some picture endless hours in coffee houses sipping lattes. Others imagine receiving their first Oscar for best screenplay. Many think of the starving poet, suffering for his or her art, famous only after death. These are just a few of the common stereotypes about writers and their work. But what is the truth? What kind of person becomes a writer? Quite simply, a writer is a person who loves playing with language; a person who writes... a lot!

Creative writing is different from other types of writing. Most commonly, creative writing is used to inform and entertain. Typically, journalistic writing (hard news) and academic writing and research is not included in the category of creative writing, although all writing does require a certain amount of creative energy and input. The actual writing that is used creatively may become books or magazines, by produced on television or radio, be published on websites or blogs, or become smaller, focused products such as brochures, business letters, greeting cards, or newsletters.

This course will introduce students to the most common forms of creative writing, including:
- poetry
- fiction
- creative nonfiction
- drama

Students will have an opportunity to try their hand at writing each form and will be provided with many strong examples of each kind of writing in order to allow them to fully analyze and understand the discipline. This course is a broad overview of a sizable topic, one that will require a great deal of reading, and extensive writing as well. This course also contains modules which address creative writing as a business and a career, in order to provide students with the basic information they would need to pursue such an endeavor.