Creative Writing

Why major in Creative Writing?

T‌he Creative Writing Program at SVSU offers both a major and a minor in the exciting realm of creative writing. Students develop and hone their skills during a comprehensive program of study which includes courses focused on poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction. Both majors and minors have the opportunity to take special topics courses which have included Flash Fiction, Aesthetics in Fiction, Collections and Sequences, and The Long Poem. Majors culminate their study with a capstone seminar course. Along with courses in creative writing, students also read widely while taking a variety of literature courses, along with developing skills during courses in applied writing through the Rhetoric and Professional Writing Program.

The skills, knowledge, and understanding acquired through our programs are excellent preparation not only for graduate work in creative writing but for careers in the professions. Our students have gone on to be successful in top-notch MFA programs, and in professions including corporate communication and content writing, entrepreneurial design consultancy, and journalism, along with many other fields. 

Student Opportunities:

• Students can develop editorial skills as staff for Cardinal Sins, our student-led literary magazine. Student staff is often funded to participate in the National Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, for which students have traveled to Chicago, Seattle, Boston, and Minneapolis.

• Cardinal Ink is a student-led creative writing club where students share their work.

• The Voices in the Valley Reading Series brings in a wide variety of national writers each year to give public readings and visit creative writing classrooms. Students have had the opportunity to learn from prestigious authors including the renowned human-rights poet Carolyn Forché and Pulitzer-prize winner Tracy K. Smith, among many others. 

• Students often work as staff writers for SVSU’s weekly newspaper, The Valley Vanguard.

• Students have participated in internships with the Theodore Roethke House in Saginaw, the childhood home of the Pulitzer-prize winning poet Theodore Roethke, which is now a literary museum and landmark.

• Many creative writing majors and minors also acquire valuable experience by working as tutors in the campus Writing Center.