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San Jose State University

California, united states.

The MFA at SJSU balances literary study with creative writing workshops. The program is designed to give students the opportunity to develop their talents in more than one genre while increasing their knowledge of modern and contemporary literature in a variety of forms and across a diverse range of cultural and critical perspectives. The program also features courses that provide hands-on preparation for beginning one's writing career in a globalized, technologically enhanced world.

Situated in downtown San Jose, in the heart of Silicon Valley's cultural center, the MFA program offers students a portal into the writing life. SJSU is the literary incubator for Silicon Valley. Students will be taught by instructors who are themselves publishing poets, fiction writers, nonfiction writers, translators, and editors - many of whom work in both traditional and cutting-edge forms, and who are involved in the arts and technology networks of Silicon Valley.

The English Department publishes Reed magazine, one of the oldest campus literary journals on the West Coast, with over 60 years of continuous publication. Reed is student-produced and offers opportunity for the editing experience as well as a possible publishing venue.

Contact Information

Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing +

Undergraduate program director.

The goals of the BA in English with a Concentration in Creative Writing are: to provide students the opportunity to concentrate their studies in the field of Creative Writing. To provide these students a course of study in the craft, theory, and practice of writing fiction, creative nonfiction, and/or poetry. To provide these students a course of study in literature and expository writing which will support their studies in Creative Writing courses. Many students earning a BA in English with a Creative Writing concentration will continue on to apply for admission to the MFA Program in Creative Writing, or will pursue a professional Creative Writing career.

Undergraduate classes in Creative Writing at SJSU are supplemented by the readings and other literary programs sponsored by the SJSU Center for Literary Arts (CLA). Since 1986, the CLA has provided readings, lectures and seminars that allow the San Jose community to interact with writers of contemporary literature who have demonstrated exceptional voice and vision. Its mission is to spread the influence of and interest in literature throughout the South Bay area and to facilitate cross-cultural understanding in the region's ethnically diverse population through the appreciation of works of literature. The CLA's Major Authors Series has been the most significant literary series in the region, presenting to the community five winners of the Nobel Prize, fifteen winners of the National Book Award and twenty-eight winners of the Pulitzer Prize.

The CLA is funded by grants and donations from individuals and foundations.

SJSU also publishes REED Magazine, an annual student-run Literary Magazine published every Spring and featuring submissions of original poetry and short stories from across the nation. (For more information click on http://www.reedmag.org/drupal/.)

Below are requirements for this focused concentration in Creative Writing.

(To see a detailed description of the SJSU BA Concentration in Creative Writing curriculum and individual courses, click on: http://www.sjsu.edu/english/undergraduate/degreeplans/majorcreatwrit.)

PREREQUISITE: 3 Units.

ENGL 71: Introduction to Creative Writing (3) - NOTE: English 71 does not count toward 48 units listed below, but it does satisfy GE Area Requirement C2.

15 Units of Creative Writing

ENGL 105: Advanced Composition (3)

ENGL 130: Fiction Writing (repeatable up to 3X) (3)

ENGL 131: Poetry Writing (repeatable up to 3X) (3)

ENGL 133: REED Magazine (repeatable 2X) (3)

ENGL 134: Speechwriting (3)

ENGL 135: Creative Nonfiction Writing (repeatable up to 3X) (3)

LITERATURE REQUIREMENTS: 9 UNITS

ENGL 149: The Romantic Period

ENGL 150: The Victorian Age

ENGL 151: Twentieth Century Poetry

ENGL 153B: Nineteenth Century British Novel

ENGL 154: British and Irish Fiction Since 1900

ENGL 161: American Literature to 1830 (3)

ENGL 162: American Literature: 1830-1865 (3)

ENGL 163: American Literature: 1865-1910 (3)

ENGL 164: American Literature: 1910- 1945 (3)

ENGL 165: Topics in Ethnic American Literature (3)

ENGL 166: American Literature Since 1945 (3)

ENGL 167: Steinbeck (3)

ENGL 168: The American Novel (3)

ENGL 169: Ethnicity in American Literature (3)

ENGL 176: The Short Story (3)

ENGL 177: Twentieth Century Fiction

Foreign Language Requirement

One year of foreign langauge study at the college level or equivalency through examination.

CORE REQUIREMENTS: 24 UNITS

A. Core Shared with the General English Major:

ENGL 56A: Survey of English Lit

ENGL 68A: Survey of American Lit

ENGL 68B: Survey of American Lit

ENGL 100W: Writing Workshop (Expository Writing for English Majors)

ENGL 122: Comp Lit, or 123 A, B, C, or D Global Lit

OR 125A: Homer to Dante

ENGL 144: Shakespeare

OR 145: Shakespeare and Performance

B. Core Course For CW Concentration

ENGL 139: Living Writers Seminar

C. Capstone Core Course for CW Concentration

ENGL 193C: Capstone Seminar in Creative Writing and Self-Reflection

Total Concentration Plus Core Units:

Bachelor of Arts in English/Literature +

Minor / concentration in creative writing +.

SJSU offers English Majors a concentration in Creative Writing. All Creative Writing and upper division classes are 4 units.

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing +

Graduate program director.

The MFA at SJSU is a dual-genre program that balances literary study with creative writing workshops. The program is designed to give students the opportunity to develop their talents in more than one genre while increasing their knowledge of modern and contemporary literature in a variety of forms and across a diverse range of cultural and critical perspectives. The program also features courses that provide hands-on preparation for beginning one's writing career in a globalized, technologically enhanced world.

Situated in downtown San Jose, in the heart of Silicon Valley's cultural center, the MFA program will offer students a portal into the writing life. Students will be taught by instructors who are themselves publishing poets, fiction writers, nonfiction writers, translators, and editors - many of whom work in both traditional and cutting-edge forms, and who are involved in the arts and technology networks of Silicon Valley.

Samuel Maio

Samuel Maio is the author of THE BURNING OF LOS ANGELES (1996), and CREATING ANOTHER SELF: VOICE IN MODERN AMERICAN PERSONAL POETRY (2005), both from Truman State University Press. His poems, essays, and reviews have been published widely in periodicals.

http://www.sjsu.edu/cwmfa/faculty.html

Alan Soldofsky

Alan Soldofsky is a veteran of the San Francisco Bay Area poetry scene. His 2013 collection of poems, IN THE BUDDHA FACTORY, from Truman State University Press, was a finalist for the T. S. Eliot Award. He has been a contributing editor of Poetry Flash, and co-host of the popular poetry show “Planet on the Table” on Berkeley’s KPFA radio. He has published three poetry chapbooks: Kenora Station, Staying Home, and Holding Adam / My Father’s Books, a chapbook that includes a selection of poems by his son, Adam Soldofsky. Over the last three decades, his poems have been published widely in magazines and journals,

http://www.sjsu.edu/people/alan.soldofsky/

Nick Taylor

Nick Taylor is the author of the historical novels The Disagreement (Simon & Schuster, 2008) and FATHER JUNIPERO'S CONFESSOR (Heyday, 2013). Nick's work has earned a Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship and the Michael Shaara Prize for Civil War Fiction. He has also received support from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the William R. Kenan, Jr., Fund for Historic Preservation. Currently Nick serves as Associate Professor of English and Director of the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies at San José State University. In 2014, Doubleday published his first thriller, The Setup Man, under the pseudonym T.T. Monday.

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty_and_staff/faculty_detail.jsp?id=2136

Cathleen Miller

Cathleen Miller's biography of Dr, Nafis Sadik, CHAMPION OF CHOICE, is the result of ten years of work and many, many strange circumstances. Other publication credits include travel stories for a variety of newspapers and anthologies. Miller is also the coauthor of DESERT FLOWER, the life story of activist Waris Dirie which describes the Somali nomad's experience with female genital mutilation. This book's print version has sold 11 million copies in 55 languages, and was later adapted as a feature film released in 34 nations. Cathleen Miller is a professor of creative writing at San José State University.

http://www.sjsu.edu/people/cathleen.miller/

Scott Sublett

Scott Winfield Sublett, a veteran screenwriter screenwriting teacher, is known for writing BYE-BYE BIN LADEN (2009), GENERIC THRILLER (2009) and PIZZA WARS: THE MOVIE (2002). He also has published a screenwriting guide, SCREENWRITING FOR NEUROTICS (2014).

Sally Ashton

Sally Ashton is a poet, writer, teacher, and Editor-in-Chief of DMQ Review, an online journal featuring poetry and art. She earned her BA in English with a creative writing minor from SJSU, and her MFA in Poetry and Literature from the Bennington Writing Seminars.

She is the recipient of an Artist Fellowship, Poetry, from Arts Council Silicon Valley and a fellowship from Montalvo Arts Center. She is the author of three books of poetry, two of which were nominated for Pushcart Prizes. Poems also appear in the textbook, An Introduction to the Prose Poem, and Breathe: 101 Contemporary Odes, as well as in literary journals such as Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics, Brevity, Zyzzyva, 5am, Mississippi Review, and Poet Lore. She was awarded the Fish Flash Fiction First Prize, an international award, in 2014.

Ashton was appointed the second Santa Clara County Poet Laureate on April 1, 2011. During her term, she compiled a collection of the favorite poems of County residents posted on a project blog. Besides teaching at San Jose State University, she teaches private workshops and at writer’s workshops including Disquiet: An International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal.

http://www.sjsu.edu/people/sally.ashton/

Selena Anderson

Selena Anderson is a writer from Texas. She completed her MFA at Columbia University where she won the Transatlantic/Henfield Prize, and her Ph.D. from the University of Houston. Her stories have appeared in Glimmer Train, Kenyon Review, AGNI, and Cosmonauts Avenue, and The Best of Gigantic Anthology. She is working on a collection and a novel.

Publications & Presses +

Reed Magazine

Visiting Writers Program +

Kim Addonizio, Daniel Alarcon, Tim Cahill, Cristina Garcia., Sandra M. Gilbert, Molly Giles, Andrew Sean Greer, James D. Houston, James Kelman, Caroyln Kizer, Ursula K. Le Guin, Andrew Lam, Ishmael Reed, Julia Scheeres, Simon Winchester, Vendala Vida, Al Young. The 2018 Lurie Distinguished Author-in-Residence is novelist Don George.

Reading Series +

Center for Literary Arts ( http://www.litart.org/ )

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Creative Writing at San Jose State University

Go directly to any of the following sections:

• Available Degrees

Creative Writing Degrees Available at San Jose State

• Master’s Degree in Creative Writing

San Jose State Creative Writing Rankings

The bachelor's program at San Jose State was ranked #49 on College Factual's Best Schools for creative writing list .

Popularity of Creative Writing at San Jose State

In 2021, 6 students received their master’s degree in creative writing from San Jose State. This makes it the #143 most popular school for creative writing master’s degree candidates in the country.

Creative Writing Student Diversity at San Jose State

Take a look at the following statistics related to the make-up of the creative writing majors at San Jose State University.

San Jose State Creative Writing Master’s Program

Of the 6 students who earned a master's degree in Creative Writing from San Jose State in 2020-2021, 33% were men and 67% were women.

The following table and chart show the ethnic background for students who recently graduated from San Jose State University with a master's in creative writing.

• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online
• Image Credit: By Daderot under License

More about our data sources and methodologies .

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The Center for Literary Arts of San José

Writers workshop.

CLA Writers Workshops are open to individuals of all backgrounds--including those who are exploring creative writing for the first time--as well as aspiring writers who want to prepare their work for publication. Workshops are modeled on graduate-level creative writing courses, and may include short in-class writing assignments to jumpstart the writing process, as well as work outside of class that will entail reading the work of select published writers, critiquing the work of other workshop participants, and writing a piece to be workshopped by the class. Each participant will receive written comments from the instructor. Workshops are led by accomplished local authors, including students and alumni of the San Jose State University Creative Writing Program. 

For more details, click here to read the  workshop policies and procedures and the cancellation policy .

The World is the Story: A Fiction Workshop on Dynamic Place

Starting November 10

12:30PM–2:30PM

Running 6 weeks

Instructor: Katie M. Flynn, author of

The Companions

Course Description

“World building” is a term often associated with speculative fiction, but as Amitav Ghosh says, “The world of fact is outrunning the world of fiction.” How do we write fiction during times of tremendous flux? In this generative workshop, we’ll explore approaches to writing into uncertainty and building the dynamic world your story needs, with its own rules.

Each week, we’ll study samples of dynamic world building in the form of short stories and novel excerpts from writers such as Lauren Groff, Mohsin Hamid, Amy Hempel, Raven Leilani, Lauren Oyler, George Saunders, and Charles Yu. We’ll read closely with an eye toward how place works in tandem with other craft elements to achieve this effect. Through in-class and at-home writing exercises, participants will test out various strategies for building dynamic worlds. In the second half of the workshop, we’ll shift our focus to writing process: how to explore and expand these newly written pieces into short stories or novel openings, before revising them. Participants will receive constructive feedback on their polished story or novel opening from the instructor, including guidance on publication and other next steps. This class is geared toward writers of literary and speculative fiction alike.

About the Instructor

Katie M. Flynn’s first novel, The Companions , came out in March 2020; it explores life during a prolonged quarantine and a tech company’s answer to loneliness. Her short stories have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle , Tin House , and many other publications. Katie has been awarded Colorado Review ’s Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction and the Steinbeck Fellowship in Creative Writing. She holds an MFA from the University of San Francisco and an MA in Geography from UCLA. Her interlinked collection of short stories, Island Rule , is forthcoming from Scout Press (2022). 

Thank you for your interest in the literary arts. Consider donating to the CLA to support creative voices:

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San Jose State - Steinbeck Fellowship

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Program Description and Benefits: 

The Steinbeck Fellowship, given annually to two to three recipients, is one-year residency at San José State University which includes a stipend of $10,000. Fellows must live in the Bay Area during the residency and give one public reading each semester and must live in the Bay Area during the academic year.

Applicant Profile: 

Applicants may not be enrolled in an academic degree program during the fellowship period. Applicants may be in creative writing, including fiction, drama, creative nonfiction, and biography. Applications in poetry will not be accepted.

Selection Criteria: 

The selection committee considers the quality of the candidate's proposal and any factors that would lead to expectations of future publication and other achievement. The creative writing fellowship does not require that there be any direct connection to Steinbeck's works.

How To Apply: 

Graduating students or alumni, as applicable, may apply directly to this program. Applicants may consult with the Fellowships Office on their application materials.

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Dr. Joy Viveros Director  

Phone:  415 . 405.2128 Reception:  Grad Stop, ADM 250  1600 Holloway Avenue San Francisco, CA 94132 Email:   [email protected]

• Email: [email protected]
• Telephone: (415) 405-2128

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• Career & Leadership Development

Visit the Health Advisories website for the latest vaccination and mask information and to Report a Case.

SJSU is Open and Operational

Campus will be open January 22–26. Visit our FAQ to learn more .

Writing Center

Professional Staff

Michelle Hager

Michelle Hager is the Writing Center Director, and she has extensive experience in writing instruction and writing center administration. She is also an alum of San Jose State University, having earned her B.A. in English (with a Certificate in Professional and Technical Writing) and M.A. in English from SJSU. Prior to becoming the Writing Center Director in July 2013, she served for four years as the Writing Center Associate Director. In this position, she developed the web presence of the Center and created and supervised a program for lower-division writing tutors. She has also worked with the Writing Across the Curriculum Director to develop and supervise the course-embedded writing tutors program at SJSU (which is now housed in the Writing Center). She has presented at national and regional conferences, including the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), the Northern California Writing Centers Association Conference (NCWCA), the Young Rhetoricians' Conference (YRC), and the Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education Conference (APAHE). She recently completed the intensive summer institute through the International Writing Centers Association (IWCA). During her 12 years of teaching at the university, Michelle taught English 1A and 1B (First Year Writing), English 22 (Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature), English 103 (Modern English Grammar), English 106 (Editing for Writers), English 112A (Children's Literature), and English 112B (Young Adult Literature). She sits on multiple committees--both at the university and within her professional organizations. She was also the program chair for the 2019 Northern California Writing Centers Association Conference, which was hosted at SJSU. She belongs to the National Council for Teachers of English, the Online Writing Centers Association, and the International Writing Centers Association.

Phone: 408-924-2249

Email: [email protected]

Coordinator of Multilingual Writing Support Services

Amy Russo is the Coordinator for Multilingual Writing Support Services at the SJSU Writing Center, working with both undergraduate and graduate students. She earned her B.A. in European Studies from Hendrix College and her Master of Library and Information Science from Louisiana State University. In December 2017, Amy earned her M.A. in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) at Monterey. Prior to joining the SJSU writing team, Amy taught English for five years in Japan and tutored for two years at a graduate writing center. Over the last seven years, she has made numerous presentations at conferences about linguistics, language teaching, and writing, including the California TESOL Conference, the UC Davis Language Symposium, and the JET Skill Development Conference for English Teachers. Amy is actively involved in Toastmasters, a public speaking non-profit. In addition, she partners with the San Francisco Japanese Consulate to support the Japanese Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program through teacher training. Amy is the co-founder and former officer of the JET Alumni Association of Monterey Bay (JETAAMB). In this position, Amy creates workshops and trainings for tutors about working with multilingual students (with Michelle Hager, Writing Center Director). She also builds materials and professional development opportunities for faculty on topics relating to the support of multilingual writers (with Dr. Tom Moriarty, Writing Across the Curriculum Director). Amy’s aim is to promote lifelong learning that is positive, flexible, and meaningful for students through careful content creation, learner strategy training, and collaboration with students, tutors, faculty, staff, and campus organizations.

Phone: 408-808-2101

Email: [email protected]

Coordinator of Online Writing Support Services

Seher Vora is the Coordinator for Online Writing Support Services, providing online training and initiatives for students, faculty, and Writing Center employees. She holds a BA in International Studies and Linguistics from UC Irvine, an MA in International Relations from Tufts University, and an MFA in Creative Writing from San José State University. Prior to the Coordinator position, Seher worked at the Writing Center for two and half years as an online writing tutor and served as the Associate Editor and then Interim Editor-in-Chief of The Write Attitude, the Writing Center's official blog. In addition, Seher has nearly seven years of experience as an editor and in student services. She was the Fiction Editor for the literary journal Reed Magazine, Copy Editor for the non-profit news outfit Global Press Journal, and Senior Editor at The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, a journal of international relations. Seher also served as Professional Internship Program Manager at the UC Irvine Social Sciences Academic Resource Center for over two years. Seher is passionate about helping students develop a well-rounded approach to writing that is informed by diversity, empathy, and openness, as well as encouraging an exploration of writing styles and techniques through different media, platforms, and collaborations.

Phone: 408-924-2351

Email: [email protected]

Former Writing Center Director and Faculty-in-Residence

• Dr. Linda C. Mitchell (Director, 2007-2013) 
• Maria Judnick  (2016-2021)
• Heidi Livingston Eisips (spring 2019)
• Shannon Bane (2016-2017)
• Gloria Collins (2008-2016)
• Debra Caires (2014-2016)
• Jessy Goodman (2015-2016)
• Cindy Baer (2013-2015)
• Martin Leach (2012-2013)
• Jan Hagemann (2007-2012)
• Sabine Rech (2007-2008)
• Andrew Fleck (fall 2008)
• Jim Lobdell (spring 2007)
• Nancie Fimbel (spring 2007)

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Arts & Humanities

USU Creative Writing and Art Contest Announces 2024 Winners

By Ashley Wells | March 20, 2024

"Bittersweet Nightshade" by Basil Payne took 1st Place in the art category of the 2024 USU Creative Writing and Art Contest.

USU’s Creative Writing Contest has named the winners in its 31st annual competition, recognizing the best creative work by USU students.

Open to all USU undergraduate students from all departments and disciplines, the contest awards top writers of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction, as well as visual artists in drawing, painting and photography. Each category received the blind review of expert judges drawn from the USU and Cache Valley arts community.

On her winning fiction piece, “Tashi’s Vows,” winner Amber McCuen says: “I wrote the short story ‘Tashi's Vows’ in a fiction writing class, which was specifically focused on writing fiction based in research. In studying Tibetan Buddhism before I wrote the story, I watched documentaries, checked out books from multiple libraries, and at one point had 80 tabs of web pages and articles open. My biggest desires in writing this story were to depict everything as accurately as possible, from the physical monastery to the culture of its residents, and to tell a human, heartfelt story.”

Gregory Dille’s essay, “Ventriloquist,” was chosen as the nonfiction winner.

“ Growing up rural meant relying on family and the natural environment for company,” Gregory says. “Being so immersed in the natural world meant constant, predictable change — seasonal weather, migrating birds, and so on. Certain change, I learned at a young age, was not predictable, however. ‘Ventriloquist’ was my attempt at capturing that sudden, unpredictable feeling.”

Noelani Hadfield was named poetry winner for selected poems “trial by fire,” “patience is a virtue that rips me apart,” and “metaphysics of being.”

“For me, my writing is always rooted in my own experiences,” Noelani says. “Poetry, however, is this great medium where you can fictionalize and transpose in order to get to the true ‘heart’ of the poem. All of these poems are me trying to explore something within myself — things that are in all of us.”

On their winning piece “Bittersweet Nightshade,” writer and artist Basil Payne says: “I made this art piece in conversation with a poem I did over the summer for a project I worked on. Most of this piece comes from nature — the plant in the middle is a bittersweet nightshade plant I preserved with a plant press, and the splotchy red, purple, and wine background was made from different berries I foraged. Through this piece, I wanted to share how I see the world. I saw myself in that plant, a tattered, hole-punched weed on the side of the road, and I thought it was beautiful.”

This is the eighth year the contest has partnered with USU’s international undergraduate literary journal, Sink Hollow . The winning entries will be published next month in a special contest issue, giving this work an international audience.

The winners will also get the chance to share their work locally when they will give a reading at Helicon West .

“The Helicon reading of the contest winners’ work is always one of the best nights of the year on campus,” said Contest Director Charles Waugh. “We get to celebrate not only the winning work, but also our whole, vibrant writing community here at USU and in Cache Valley.”

The Helicon West reading of the contest winning work will 7 p.m. April 25 at the new Logan Library in Community Room A. As always, Helicon is free, uncensored, open to the public, and will include an open-mic session.

2024 USU Creative Writing and Art Contest Winners

• First: Basil Payne, “Bittersweet Nightshade.”
• Second: Cassity Whitby, “Tour Guide Ruth.”
• Third: Abigail Smith, “Through the Looking Glass.”
• Honorable Mention : Lily Webb, “Facing the Storm; Summer Reign.”
• Honorable Mention : Cassity Whitby, “June With Adreann and the Kids; November Blue Light.”
• Honorable Mention: Basil Payne, “A dream which had heard me weep; Juniper.”
• Honorable Mention: K’Lee Perry, “Leaves and Eaves; Patchwork Sun.”
• Honorable Mention: Abigail Smith, “Taking Leave.”
• Honorable Mention: Madileine Malo, “Circles.”
• Honorable Mention: Amber McCuen, “Goliath.”
• Honorable Mention: Brianna Pickering, “Ode to Ophelia; Keeping Watch.”
• Honorable Mention: Bria Dean “Seven Circles; Inclusion Matters.”
• First: Amber McCuen, “Tashi’s Vows.”
• Second: Megan Boyce, “The Magic Lantern.”
• Third: Ashleigh Sabin, “The Great Unconformity.”
• First: Gregory Dille, “Ventriloquist.”
• Second: Nick Carlson, “A Recipe for Funeral Casserole.”
• Third: Clarissa Casper, “Flash Flood.”
• First: Noelani Hadfield, “trial by fire; patience is a virtue that rips me apart; metaphysics of being.”
• Second: Basil Payne, "Icarus as God; love-dewed meadows; Monstrous belief.”
• Third: James Ashby, “Faces; Sanctuary; I Still Have Die to Cast, just not anymore for you.”

Ashley Wells English Department Lecturer [email protected]

Comments and questions regarding this article may be directed to the contact person listed on this page.

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SJSU is Open and Operational

Campus will be open January 22–26. Visit our FAQ to learn more .

Center for Steinbeck Studies

Application Information

Program description.

The Steinbeck Fellows Program, endowed through the generosity of Martha Heasley Cox, offers emerging writers of any age and background the opportunity to pursue a significant writing project during their fellowship tenure. The emphasis of the program is on helping writers who have had some success but have not published extensively, and whose promising work would be aided by the financial support and sponsorship of the Center and the University's creative writing program.

The Steinbeck Fellowship Program is named in honor of author John Steinbeck and is guided by his lifetime of work in literature, the media, and environmental activism. The program offers the opportunity to interact with other writers, faculty, and graduate students, and to share your work in progress by giving a public reading during the fellowship. Fellowships include a stipend of $15,000. Due to the impacts of COVID-19, the residency requirement of living in the San Francisco Bay Area has been temporarily waived. The fellowship period is for one academic year (approximately September - May).

Fellowships Offered

Currently, SJSU offers one-year fellowships in Steinbeck scholarship and in creative writing, including fiction, drama, creative nonfiction, and biography. Applications in poetry will not be accepted. In awarding fellowships, the selection committee considers the quality of the candidate's proposal and writing sample, as well as any factors that would lead to expectations of future publication and further achievement.  The creative writing fellowship does not require that there be any direct connection between your work and Steinbeck's.

Application Requirements

• Proposal or prospectus for work to be written (one to three pages including basic timeline)
• Three letters of recommendation (sent directly from recommender—the online system will prompt you for their email addresses)
• Writing sample of no more than twenty-five pages

Applications are accepted beginning in September. Deadline: January 5 Announcement of Awards: May

Apply to the Steinbeck Fellows Program

Best Practices for Applicants

• Your writing sample may include excerpts from more than one project, however we encourage you to include a sample from the work you intend to pursue during the fellowship.
• Extensive publication history isn’t necessary. However, the majority of our applicants have previously published in literary journals or other media.
• Academic credentials are not required. Many fellows have completed advanced degrees, but admission is based on the merit of the writing sample and proposal or prospectus.
• Manuscripts should follow standard formatting: double-spaced, 1” margins.
• If you are not awarded a fellowship this year, please feel free to reapply.
• Although we would like to offer feedback or notes on the manuscripts, we are unable to do so due to the volume of applications we receive.

The Minor in Creative Writing is offered by the  Department of English and Comparative Literature   .

University Graduation Requirements

To be awarded a minor, at least 12 units of coursework must be completely distinct and separate from the coursework in the major, and coursework for the minor must include a minimum of 6 upper-division units ( University Policy S16-4 ). Minor preparation or support courses do not count toward the 12 distinct units. Of the coursework for the minor, at least 6 units must be completed in residence at SJSU. The minimum aggregate GPA for all coursework required for the minor must be at least 2.0.

Minor Requirements (18-19 units)

Lower division (3 units).

• ENGL 71 - Creative Writing 3 unit(s) (C2)

Upper Division (12 units)

• ENGL 130 - Writing Fiction 4 unit(s)
• ENGL 131 - Writing Poetry 4 unit(s)
• ENGL 133 - Reed Magazine 4 unit(s)
• ENGL 135 - Writing Nonfiction 4 unit(s)

Literature Courses (3-4 units)

Select either one survey course

• ENGL 50 - Beginnings to the American Experiment 3 unit(s)
• ENGL 60 - Literatures of the Atlantic World, 1680‐1860 4 unit(s)
• ENGL 70 - Emerging Modernisms and Beyond 3 unit(s)
• ENGL 149 - The Romantic Period 4 unit(s)
• ENGL 150 - The Victorian Age 4 unit(s)
• ENGL 151 - 20th and 21st Century Poetry 4 unit(s)
• ENGL 162 - Studies-American Literature Before 1865 4 unit(s)
• ENGL 163 - American Literature: 1865-1945 4 unit(s)
• ENGL 165 - Topics in Ethnic American Literature 4 unit(s)
• ENGL 166 - American Literature Since 1945 4 unit(s)
• ENGL 167 - Steinbeck 4 unit(s)
• ENGL 168 - The American Novel 4 unit(s)
• ENGL 169 - Ethnicity in American Literature 3 unit(s)
• ENGL 176 - The Short Story 4 unit(s)
• ENGL 177 - Topics in Fiction Since 1900 4 unit(s)

Total Units Required (18-19 units)