Creative Writing Minor

The Creative Writing Minor is a flexible six-credit program available to undergraduate students in the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering, Wharton, and the School of Nursing. The minor provides opportunities for students to pursue their own interests and develop expertise in a range of topics, methods, and approaches to craft.

To fulfill this minor, students may take courses in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, journalism, playwriting, screenwriting, and writing for children and young adults. They may also take innovative workshops in cross-genre, experimental, and hybrid writing, including writing that engages community organizing, multimedia and visual arts, and performance, as well as for-credit apprenticeships and courses in the independent study of a genre or topic.

As a Creative Writing Minor, you’ll practice your craft in small, rigorous workshops and gain a deep appreciation of the history of literary writing. Penn Creative Writing is devoted to the idea that good readers make good writers: all of our courses include rigorous explorations into the history of writing that informs your own original work. Studying literature alongside your writing practice exposes you to new forms, new ways of conveying meaning, new tools, and to writers you’ll love and writers you’ll want to differentiate yourself from.

You will also join the collaborative, integrated writing community that is Penn’s Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, home to Penn’s writing programs, platforms, and projects. The cluster of programs at CPCW, which includes the Kelly Writers House, PennSound, ModPo, and Jacket2, provides opportunities to students in and out of the classroom, including readings, webcasts, podcasts, lectures, performances, and archives — all of which promote the living textures of contemporary writing.

Creative Writing Minors complete six courses:

• Four Creative Writing Seminars
  •  Any courses within these ranges: ENGL 0700-0799 or 3000-3999, or any course with the AECW attribute
• Two courses in the study of literary writing
  • Any courses within these ranges: ENGL 0010-2999 or 4000-5999*
• Journalistic Writing Minors may count only two of their journalistic writing workshops toward the Creative Writing minor.

*Select other courses outside the English department in the study of literary writing, including courses in the study of literary writing in languages other than English, are considered on a case-by-case basis.

Minors are welcome — and encouraged — to take more than the six required courses as their schedules permit.

Current Creative Writing Minors

• Chinonye Alilonu 26A

• Naseeb Andar 26A

• Harrison Beckler 25A

• Mihika Biswas 26A

• Emily Bornstein 25A

• Luke Burke 25A

• Angela Cen 26A

• Kate Cho 27A

• Lauren Cho 26A

• Viraj Doshi 26A

• Lila Dubois 25A

• Mmachi Ezigbo 27A

• Gabrielle Galchen 25A

• Denise Gonzalez 25A

• Demetrio Gonzalez-Bordagaray 27A

• Adailia Graham 26A

• Sophia Hernandez 26A

• Szirina Ismail 26A

• Sophia Jarrar 26A

• Preethi Jayaraman 25A

• Wei-An Jin 26A

• Abbigail Kamanu 25A

• Trevor Khangi 25A

• Madeline Kohn 26A

• Sunny Lee 25A

• Allison Li 26A

• Cathy Li 25C

• Jeslyn Li 26A

• Olga Loiek 26A

• Michelle Lu 27A

• Yasmin Lukman 27A

• Élan Martin-Prashad 27A

• Anusha Mathur 25A

• Connor Nakamura 25A

• Christina Poulin 26A

• Lila Shermeta 25A

• Adam Shi 25A 

• Fay Shuai 25A

• Anya Stewart 27A

• Andrew Stratton 25A

• Claire Sun 25A

• Jillian Troth 25A

• Usha Umair 26A

• Elise Wallen-Friedman 25A

• Emily Whitehead 27A

• Grace Xia 26A

• Sophia Young 25A

• Alexander Zhou 25A