F293. Stars to Steer By: Rethinking Creative Writing Curriculum for the 21st Century

Room 203AB, Washington Convention Center, Level Two
Friday, February 10, 2017
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm

 

For fifty years, we’ve resisted becoming a pre-professional discipline. We don’t map our curriculum with career outcomes, but because of this, many undergraduate and graduate creative writing students finish their degrees with no idea what to do next except get an MFA and apply for a dwindling number of tenure-track positions. How can we rethink our curriculum for the 21st century to give our students more “stars to steer by” professionally without sacrificing our historic emphasis on craft?


Participants

Moderator:

Cathy Day is the author of two books: The Circus in Winter and Comeback Season. She teaches at Ball State University where she currently serves as the assistant chair of the English department.

Porter Shreve is the author of four novels, most recently The End of the Book. Former director of the MFA program at Purdue, he now teaches in the MFA in writing program and directs the MA in professional communication program at the University of San Francisco.

Mary Biddinger's most recent collection of poems is Small Enterprise. She is professor of English and creative writing at the University of Akron, and she edits the Akron Series in Poetry at the University of Akron Press. Biddinger is the recipient of a 2015 poetry fellowship from the NEA.

Terry L. Kennedy is the author of the poetry collections New River Breakdown and Until the Clouds Shatter the Light that Plates Our Lives. He currently serves as the associate director of the Graduate Program in Creative Writing at UNC Greensboro and is editor of storySouth

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