English Undergraduates: Writing Specialization

Activities

Some of the Writing Specialization Majors have formed a creative writing group called The Scratching Post. They meet to discuss their own creative work in poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction. They have also helped the English Graduate Student Association organize public readings which included both faculty and students. In the past we have also taken a van load of students to readings off campus: to the Roethke reading series at the University of Washington in Seattle, and to the Reading Series at Whitman College in Walla Walla. Most recently we heard Seamus Heaney read at Whitman and Galway Kinnell read in Seattle.

Events & Visiting Writers

One of the features of our new Writing Specialization major is a class with visiting writers. We call it the Contemporary Writers Colloquium (Eng. 468). In it, students will read the work of some well-established creative writers. They will come to the class and respond to the creative work of students in that class. This is followed by an evening public reading given by the professional writer. In 2006, we had David Wojahn (Yale Younger Poet Award winner, and author of five books of poetry from the University of Pittsburg Press, including his Selected Poems called Interrogation Palace); Justin Tussing (a fiction writer whose novel The Best People In the World was published by HapperCollins, and whose short fiction has appeared in the NewYorker, TriQuarterly, and Third Coast); and Lucia Perillo (recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award, winner of both the Kate and Kingsley Tufts prizes, the Norma Farber Award, and author of four books of poetry including Dangerous Life, Body Mutinies, Luck is Luck, and The Oldest Map With The Name America).

We also sponsor a Visiting Writers Series of readings. Besides the writers who attend the Contemporary Writers Colloquium, we sponsor a reading during fall and winter quarters as well. In 2006-07, we will have Gladys Cardiff, Phillip Garrison, Lynda Beirds, Major Jackson, Quan Barry, and Judith Claire Mitchell. We also sponsor readings by faculty and students, including a reading for students who have their work published in our annual magazine, Manastash.