The creative writing program at Miami University-Middletown serves as a gateway to the creative writing program at the main campus in Oxford. Middletown offers all of the lower level courses that the B.A. in Creative Writing requires, and encourages students to participate in the creative life of the campus through a variety of events, organizations, creative publications, and award opportunities.
At Middletown, creative writing courses emphasize:
> Creative vision. Students learn to see the world through a creative lens, and to use writing to explore and engage with the world.
> The writing process. Students learn to discover their subject matter through writing (rather than imposing an idea on writing), and to critically reflect on their writing. Because more emphasis is placed on the writing process than its product, students also spend a great deal of time practicing practical strategies in revision.
> The cultural contexts of writing. Students investigate the relationships between literature and other genres of writing, the dialectical relationships among writer, text, and cultural context, and how to accommodate those relationships in their writing. In the spring of 2006, Poetry in/and the Community will be offered for the first time as community-based learning course, in which students will work with local writing groups in the community to discuss the role of community in creative writing and vice versa, and to organize a public reading of their poetry.
Click the links below to see individual course descriptions, syllabi, and student writing.
> Intro to Fiction (web page temporarily inactive)
> Intro to Poetry (web page temporarily inactive)
> Intro to Creative Writing: Serious Play
> Intro to Creative Nonfiction: What Is This Stuff?
> Intermediate Fiction Workshop: Even More Serious Play
> Intermediate Poetry Workshop: Poetry in/and the Community
The Middletown campus offers a variety of creative venues for creative writers to take advantage of:
> The Illuminati. The Illuminati is the creative writing student organization of the Middletown campus. Students organize various events, such as open mic readings, workshops, and contests, and publish Illuminati, the campus' literary journal, which features fiction, poetry, and artwork from students, staff, and community members.
> Segue. Segue is the big little brother of Illuminati, an online literary journal that publishes the work of writers from around the world. Each issue features a well-established author who offers a short collection of work along with an essay describing the writing process behind the work. Past featured authors have included Terese Svoboda, Diane Glancy, Denise Duhamel, Ruth Daigon, and others. The student editor of Illuminati is given the opportunity to serve as managing editor of Segue.
> Visiting Writers. Every year the campus hosts a visiting writer to give public readings and to lead discussions in creative writing classes. Past writers have included Diane Glancy and Brian Kiteley.
> Writing in the community. Creative writing students can take advantage of working with local writing groups such as the Middletown Poetry Circle, who meet regularly to share and discuss poetry, publish a newsletter, work with local schools in writing events, and hold the annual Fireside Reading, an open mic event for students, staff, and community members.
> The Malcolm Sedam Writing Contest and Scholarship. Named after one of the most prestigious poets to teach at Middletown, the contest annually awards high quality writing in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. The scholarship awards one or more students $850 dollars based on the merit of a writing portfolio.
Contest information: PDF
| Flashpaper
Scholarship information: PDF
| Flashpaper