THE WRITERS INSTITUTE
Susquehanna University’s Writers Institute provides students with the opportunity to receive nationally-recognized undergraduate training in all forms of creative writing through its Creative Writing Major. Students work closely in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, editing, and the technology of publishing with faculty who are widely-published authors. Small workshops and one-on-one instruction are central to the Creative Writing Major, which is enriched by the following programs:
The Raji-Syman Visiting Writers Series: The Writers Institute has received a significant gift from an outside donor that will fund a very large portion of this year’s visiting writers series. To honor that contribution, the series has been named the Raji-Syman Visiting Writers Series. Seven writers are invited (for a long-term stay) to visit campus to perform a reading. Some have had lunch with students and visited their classes. All readings from visiting writers are free and open to the public. Recent visitors have been Tobias Wolff, Andre Dubus III, Li-Young Lee, Billy Collins, Sharon Olds, Robert Boswell, Jayne Anne Phillips, Louise Gluck, Eavan Boland, Richard Bausch, Dagoberto Gilb, Ted Conover, Tom Perrotta, Carolyn Forche, Sue Miller, Zach Savich, Ann Pancake, Mary Jo Bang, and Richard Rodriguez.
The Susquehanna Review, Essay, and RiverCraft: Three distinct magazines are edited and produced by students—a national magazine featuring work from undergraduate writers from across the country, a nonfiction magazine, and a magazine of fiction and poetry from Susquehanna student writers.
Endowed Writing Prizes and Scholarships: Ten writing scholarships of $17,500 per year ($70,000 total) are available to incoming writing majors based on the quality of their writing portfolios. Prizes of as much as $1000 are awarded to students chosen each year on the basis of work published in our student magazines and in senior portfolios.
The Student Reading and Chapbook Series: Ten student readings are presented each year. Every senior writing major edits and produces a chapbook that showcase his or her best work.
Internships: Susquehanna’s Creative Writing Majors have had recent internships with national magazines, advertising agencies, professional writing organizations, nonprofit foundations, newspapers, public relations firms, film producers, radio stations, churches, businesses, and schools.
Graduate Programs: Within the past six years, Writing Majors have been accepted with fellowships or assistantships to such outstanding graduate writing programs as Iowa, Columbia, Hollins, Indiana, Washington, Houston, Arizona, Massachusetts, Johns Hopkins, Pittsburgh, Boston University, Ohio State, UNC-Greensboro, UNC-Wilmington, George Mason, Rutgers, Mississippi, and The New School.
In addition, the Writers Institute sponsors Writing Action Day, which brings 150 high school seniors to campus for workshops in all genres of writing. Each summer, the Institute offers the one-week Advanced Writers Workshops for High School Students. Participants live on campus and concentrate on fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction, working closely with published writers.
The Writing Faculty have published thirty-four books of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, many of which have been used in classrooms throughout the United States. They have won major book prizes such as the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowships, Pushcart Prizes, and magazine prizes. They regularly publish their work in such periodicals as Harper’s, Newsday, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Paris Review, American Scholar, The Georgia Review, and Poetry. Their work has been syndicated in newspapers throughout the United States and heard on National Public Radio.
If you would like to know more about the programs for high school students or receive information about the Creative Writing Major at Susquehanna, see our web site at www.susqu.edu/writers or contact Dr. Gary Fincke, Director, by e-mail at gfincke@susqu.edu or by telephone at 570-372-4164.
Also visit the Writers Institute at http://www.susqu.edu/