Creative Writing
Creative Writing
What You’ll Study at Queens
Are you ready to develop and experiment with your creative writing style in a supportive environment? As a creative writer at Queens, you’ll experience hands-on, workshop-based classes to strengthen your close reading, attention to language, and understanding of a story. Students learn from each other and from engaged faculty who are actively publishing.
As a student of creative writing, you’ll explore how we understand our lives and our world by writing a portfolio of stories, poems, essays, and novels. Our courses push you to practice different kinds of writing—creative, critical, and professional — preparing you with transferable skills and the ability to think deeply, make connections, and access creativity for a variety of career paths.
Students can work for the undergraduate journals Signet and Quest for publishing and editing experience while we also offer a series of distinguished visiting authors and scholars. Recent guests include the nation’s poet laureate Ada Limón, Clint Smith, Reginald Dwayne Betts, and alumnus Chuck Wendig. Students can also choose literary-themed international tours to Greece, Italy, Paris, and London.
How Can You Use This Degree?
Our faculty advisors connect you intentionally to the Vandiver Center for Career Development. Internships show you tangible ways to apply your degree, and you’ll have the chance to try out different possibilities in the Charlotte metropolitan area and beyond. Faculty also carefully guide and support students choosing graduate-level study.
In the workforce, examples of successful positions include:
- Writing
- Editing
- Law
- Publishing
- Education
- Banking
- Marketing
- Communication
- Library science
Highlighted Courses
- Writing of Creative Nonfiction (ENG 307)
- Writing of Poetry (ENG 308)
- Writing of Fiction (ENG 310)
- Seminar in Creative Writing (ENG 311)
Student Success / Highlights
Our graduates have authored books, earned a Fulbright scholarship, earned graduate degrees in a variety of fields like creative writing, literary studies, library science, and law, and worked in the private and public sectors.
For example, read about recent alumna Lara Boyle ’23 and her journey to publication as a Creative Writing major at Queens. Her published nonfiction and fiction have appeared in Newsweek, the Huffington Post, and a variety of literary journals. She is pursuing her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at UNC-Wilmington.
Program Contact
Craig Renfroe Jr., M.F.A.
English Department Chair
Associate Professor, Creative Writing
renfroec@queens.edu
704-337-2488