Creative Writing

Lewis & Clark offers a full menu of courses for students interested in developing their skills as creative writers. These include class sequences in poetry and fiction writing offered annually within the English Department by Mary Szybist, poet, and Pauls Toutonghi, novelist.

While creative writers often major in English, students from other majors as broad as art, biology, psychology, and music regularly take writing courses and appear in campus publications as a part of their liberal arts experience. English majors with a concentration in creative writing will seek a balance of courses in literature and writing to strengthen their background for graduate study or for professional careers in publishing and writing.

Poetry. These courses include 200 level Poetry and Poetry Writing, 300 level Poetry Writing, and 400 level Advanced Poetry Writing which are taught by Mary Szybist for students developing as poets.
Beyond formal coursework or workshops, students may also pursue honors by working independently with the writers on faculty on a collection of poetry or short stories, or a novella. The English Department has bound volumes of completed honors projects for students to peruse as examples. Advanced Poetry Writing Students participate in a Student Poetry Reading at the end of the Spring semester.

Fiction. Short-story and fiction writing courses include 200 level Intro to the Short Story, 300 level Fiction Writing, and 400 level Advanced Fiction Writing. All courses are taught by novelist, Pauls Toutonghi. Students in the Advanced Fiction Writing course participate in a Student Fiction Reading at the end of the Spring Semester.

Creative non-fiction. Since prospective writers are often exploring the reach of their medium in the broadest sense, the English curriculum also includes English 208 in Creative Non-Fiction taught by essayist Susan Kirschner

Play and screen writing. Beyond the department, students also often take course work in play and screenwriting from Stephen Weeks in the Theatre Department. One-act plays from Theatre 275, Playwriting, are regularly performed in the Fir Acres Theatre.

Campus Publications. Lewis & Clark students sponsor and edit a number of publications through which campus writers can gain an audience. Journals that solicit student creative work include; The Meridian, Living Mosaic, Polyglot, The Lewis & Clark Literary Review, Synergia, Pause, and The Pioneer Log.
The Meridian is primarily a journal of scholarly Internationally-themed work, but also tends to include more artistic works about international experiences.
is an environmentally themed journal that seeks to spark discussion and express the campus community's connections with the environment.
Polyglot showcases creative works originally written in foreign languages, published side by side with their English translations.
The Lewis & Clark Literary Review, is edited by students who receive English credit, and is distributed each spring in concert with a celebration and reading.
Synergia publishes poems and stories with a focus on gender issues and appears as part of the annual Gender Symposium. The Theatre Department journal,
Pause, publishes one-act plays by student playwrights.
The Pioneer Log serves to inform the Lewis & Clark community on issues of concern to students.
More information about all of these publications can be found on the Student Media Board website

Poetry and Fiction Readings. The English Department sponsors as many as a half dozen poetry or fiction readings each year by visiting writers. These occasions are supplemented by other on-campus presentations sponsored by other College groups such as the Core program, Arts Alive, and the Gender Symposium. Often visiting artists will meet with writing classes or lead workshops as well as present their own work. In recent years, the College has welcomed such writers as Major Jackson, Sherman Alexie, Dorothy Allison, Louis Simpson, Donald Justice, Madison Smartt Bell, David Sedaris, Carole Glickfeld, Charles Baxter, Thomas Glave, and Wayne Wilson.

Awards. The College has one of the longest standing creative writing programs among small colleges in the West. The distinguished poet William Stafford spent most of his teaching career at Lewis & Clark and is now honored by the Stafford Room in the Watzek Library, which displays several manuscripts and editions of his poems. Vern Rutsala, recipient of numerous poetry awards, also taught poetry writing here for forty years. In recognition of this long association, the Academy of American Poets includes Lewis & Clark among a select number of colleges that may present its annual award. Seniors submit manuscripts that are juried by a writer from off-campus. The winner of the Academy of American Poets prize is announced at the annual Honors Convocation.

Student writers at Lewis & Clark also submit work to the Associated Writing Programs' Intro Journals Awards. In recent years, two fiction writers from among Lewis & Clark's students have won and been published in literary journals such as the Hayden's Ferry Review and Mid-American Review. Students have also won prizes in the Prentice Hall Student Writing Contest and been published in Let Go My Ear, an Anthology of Outstanding Undergraduate Short Fiction. In 2001 a Lewis & Clark student received honorable mention in The Atlantic's Undergraduate National Contest.