WELCOME TO THE
DEPARTMENT OF
CREATIVE WRITING!

The Program

The UNO Writer’s Workshop is a community of creative writers united by their study of the literary craft. We offer studio-based instruction with professional writers in the context of a college with Visual Arts, Journalism, Communication, and Design. As a separate academic program within that college, the Writer's Workshop provides coursework leading to the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction.

Our undergraduate program is built on the power of the apprenticeship model. All teaching faculty, full-time or part-time, are publishing writers whose challenge is to personalize instruction in such a way as to bring out the potential from an emerging artist. The academic program presents a full curriculum of coursework in writing, literature, the arts, sciences, and humanities.

After a grounding in prose and poetry, students in the program may pursue a concentration in fiction, poetry, or nonfiction with the option of doing a capstone Senior Thesis of original work in their chosen genre. In their studio classes all students receive peer and faculty assessment of their works-in-progress and enjoy the bonus of advice from visiting writers who meet with the classes. Our program also sponsors the Writer’s Workshop Reading Series at UNO, which has been showcasing writers such as Tobias Wolff, John Cheever, Charles Bukowsi, and Debra Magpie Earling since the 1970s.

Writer’s Workshop graduates enjoy an extremely high acceptance rate to graduate programs. Others have chosen to go onto careers in advertising, public relations, banking, technical writing, computer programming, graphics, and radio, among other professional careers.

Faculty Books