Creative Writing

Creative Writing

A Literary Life

Imaginative reasoning is key to the literary life. Poetry, fiction, memoir: all hinge on the imagination and the intellect, on rhyme and reason, on technique and design. In our creative writing workshops, students refine their voices, develop their aesthetics, strive for originality, reflect on their cultures, research the past, consider the future. They engage the senses, play with words, experiment with form; they invent, provoke, inspire, speculate; they question and answer. All the while they gain insights into human nature and the world around them. And they hone the professional skills that prepare them for a workplace that’s driven by communication, social networking, and the articulate and precise expression of complex ideas.

Prairie Schooner staff
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Undergraduate

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Graduate

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Literary Readings & Events

The Reading Series

Creative Writing Reading Series

The Department of English hosts readings and discussions by acclaimed and renowned poets, novelists, and memoirists; in past years, we’ve featured Roxane Gay, Natasha Tretheway, Jesmyn Ward, and others.

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Creative Writing Month

Every October, the Department of English hosts a month-long celebration of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, with readings, panel discussions, and other events and projects. Creative Writing Month includes Publishing Week, featuring literary agents and editors. We also prepare for November’s National Novel Writing Month.

Creative Writing Month

National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month, and UNL English hosts readings and discussions, as well as Poem in Your Pocket Day and other poetry projects, throughout the month.

National Poetry Month

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No Name Reading Series

The No Name Reading series features the best in poetry and prose from graduate student writers in the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The monthly readings take place at Barrymore's, an 18+ venue adjacent to Lincoln's Rococo Theatre.

No Name Reading Series

Publications & Projects

Prairie Schooner

Prairie Schooner

Prairie Schooner, founded in 1926 at the University of Nebraska, is widely recognized as one of the premiere literary magazines in the nation. Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief Kwame Dawes and Managing Editor Siwar Masannat lead a team of undergraduate interns, graduate editorial staff, and alumni readers who help publish the quarterly literary magazine.

Prairie Schooner

Laurus

Laurus

Laurus, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's undergraduate literary magazine, publishes fiction, poetry, non-fiction and visual artwork created and edited exclusively by UNL undergraduates. The magazine publishes and prints its annual issue every spring, and publishes additional mini-issues online throughout the year.

Laurus

Slam Poetry

Slam Poetry

The UNL Slam Poets are a group of students promoting creative expression through the writing and performing of slam poetry. Poetry slams held throughout the year feature visiting poets and give students an opportunity to perform their original poetry. Each spring, a team of student poets compete in the national College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI).

Slam Poetry

Faculty

Timothy Schaffert
Creative writing and fiction writing

James Lowell Brunton
Film and media studies, literary and critical theory, LGBTQ studies, and creative writing (poetry)

Joy Castro
Memoir, fiction, film, U.S. ethnic literatures, women's literatures, and modernism

Avee Chaudhuri

Kwame Dawes
Post-colonial literature and theory, African American literature, Caribbean literature, African literature, reggae aesthetics, poetry, and playwriting

Chris Harding Thornton
Creative writing, literary theory and criticism, Great Plains literature, and American fiction

Arden Eli Hill
Creative writing (poetry) and women's and gender studies

Katie Marya
Poetry, Creative Nonfiction, Translation (Spanish-English), Latin American Literatures, Women's Literatures 

Shawn Rubenfeld
Creative writing (fiction), composition and creative writing pedagogy, Jewish-American literature, and graphic literature

Pascha Sotolongo Stevenson
Ethnic literatures, women writers, contemporary fiction, literary slipstream, creative nonfiction, and children's literature

Bianca Swift

Hope Wabuke
African and African diasporic literature, African American literature, women's and gender studies, literary and cultural criticism, and creative nonfiction/essay

Stacey Waite
Composition, rhetoric, and literacy, queer theory/queer pedagogies, teaching of writing, feminist and gender studies, and creative writing/poetry

Ava Winter

Jonathan Wlodarski