Creative Writing

Creative Writing: Minor, Concentration

Hone your writing skills, deepen your knowledge of contemporary literature, reflect on the world, and engage with your imagination.

The Creative Writing Program offers students the opportunity to pursue fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Some creative writing courses are taught primarily as workshops, with an emphasis on drafting and discussing student manuscripts, while others take up special topics such as science writing and memoir and the psyche. All of them expose students to contemporary literature, teach them to read like writers, and allow them to explore countless approaches to telling stories, crafting images, and developing an ear for language.

Program Highlights

The program invites students to develop their own writing practices as well as join a community of working writers. Students in creative writing:

  • study with professors who are themselves published writers working in all three genres
  • select from a range of creative writing and literature courses that allow them to create a minor or concentration that is tailored to their interests
  • interact with some of the nation's most critically acclaimed writers through the Creative Writing Program's reading series
  • present their own work through writing contests, student reading series, and Holy Cross' literary magazine, The Purple  

Creative Writing News

Jonathan Mulrooney speaks in front of a classroom full of students
Stranger Things: English Course Traces Gothic Tradition to Modern TV Shows and Movies
More than 120 years ago, readers huddled by the amber glow of candlelight in wide-eyed terror to devour the pages of author Bram Stoker’s Gothic tale, “Dracula.” In 2016, viewers by the millions sat in the screen-lit blue light of …
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Video: Holy Cross Alumnus Makes Musical Debut on “Conan”

Tall Heights, a Boston-based duo comprised of Tim Harrington ’10 and Paul Wright, a 2007 graduate from Dartmouth College, performed their hit single “Spirit Cold” off of their major label album, “Neptune,” on “Conan,” which is hosted by Conan O’Brien, and airs on ...

Nate Chung '18 from the Nate Chung Project performs with his band as a part of Academic Conference.
Academic Conference 2018 Showcases Creativity, Independent Research of Over 470 Students
Over the course of four days, more than 470 students spanning all class years presented the results of their independent, creative and intellectual endeavors during the 2018 Academic Conference. The celebration of academic life at the College of the Holy …