 Cal Poly English majors who aspire to graduate-level creative writing programs enjoy an extensive opportunity to practice their skills in fiction, poetry, and playwriting. These writers develop their creative skills in workshops supported by course work in modern and contemporary literature. THE STUDENT BODY Despite Cal Poly's reputation as a technological university, its liberal arts students are among the best in the state. Cal Poly's excellent academic reputation and the exquisite natural environment of California's central coast attract artistic students from all over the state. Surprisingly, it is often more difficult to enter Cal Poly as a humanities major than as a science major: Fewer than thirty-five percent of freshman applicants are accepted to the School of Liberal Arts. Over the years, many of Cal Poly's creative writing students have been accepted at prestigious graduate-level writing programs throughout the country. THE COURSE WORK All English majors at Cal Poly must take the Core sequence of courses that begins with ancient literatures and comes to the present. English majors may complete an emphasis area in creative writing by taking one introductory workshop, two advanced workshops, one upper-division course in modern or contemporary literature in the student's chosen genre, and the senior project in that genre. In introductory workshops, students read widely, sampling and imitating many different voices, styles and idioms and developing a helpful vocabulary as well as fundamental analytical abilities. Serious students go on to an advanced course in their special genre. At both levels, students work in a friendly but intensive atmosphere where trust and constructive criticism flourish. The introductory courses are thorough. In fiction, students learn via short exercises about character development, scene setting, and dialogue before bringing the many aspects of narrative into full-length stories. Student poets learn their craft by practicing a gradation of exercises which stress imagery, specificity, metaphor, implication, structure, and sound--and they eventually produce a minimum of eight increasingly complex poems in the quarter-long class. Before completing one-act plays, student playwrights explore character, dialogue, plot, and staging through a variety of dramatic techniques that draw on acting methods, improvisation, observation, stage direction, technical and production elements of theatre, and detailed consideration of language. The advanced student workshop helps to develop and refine skills in a smaller and more sophisticated classroom environment. Students proceed through a series of mandatory and optional exercises designed to expose them to more complex works. The syllabi rely on a greater number of books by contemporary authors. Students also become more familiar with elements of the literary culture: publications, stylistic trends, critical tropes, and opportunities in graduate schools. THE SENIOR PROJECT Those students aspiring to graduate programs in creative writing inevitably produce an original manuscript of no fewer than twenty pages. The capstone of their undergraduate career, the senior project is directed over the course of a quarter by one of the English department's creative writing professors. Such a project fosters focus, a heightened sense of revision, and an intensified appreciation for their art. Many students use the manuscript as a basis for portfolios which they must enclose with graduate applications. SPECIAL EVENTS By bringing numerous authors to campus to read their works, Cal Poly helps to demonstrate not only the excitement of literature but the richness of the literary life. Since 1989 writers such as W.S. Merwin, Sherley Anne Williams, Philip Levine, Mark Doty, Ai, Clarence Major, Tobias Wolf, Art Spiegelman, Ed Hirsch, Charles Wright, Ishmael Reed, Lorna Dee Cervantes, and David St. John have presented readings and have visited writing classes. Many emerging writers have also visited campus, including Mona Simpson, Juan Felipe Herrera, and Erin Belieu. Occasionally, mainstream popular writers such as Mary Higgins Clark and Ray Bradbury visit. And since 1971 the English Department has organized and funded its campuswide creative writing contest. Winning works are published in the department's prize-winning literary magazine Byzantium. The winners receive cash prizes and present their works at the annual awards reading, which culminates the academic year. The department also sponsors a separate Academy of American Poets contest. THE FACULTY The creative writing faculty at Cal Poly believes that the professor's job is to help students identify and enhance that which is idiosyncratically best in their writing while also providing opportunity and suggestions for new areas of exploration. All instructors in creative writing are not only dedicated teachers but also active writers. Kevin Clark (MA, creative writing, 1979; PhD, University of California at Davis, 1986), winner of the Angoff Award from The Literary Review, has published a full-length collection of poems, In the Evening of No Warning (New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2002), which was awarded a publisher's grant by the Academy of American Poets and the Greenwall Fund. He has also published three chapbooks, One of Us, Widow Under a New Moon, and Granting the Wolf. His poems have appeared in numerous venues, including The Antioch Review, The Georgia Review (and Keener Sounds, The Georgia Review's Fortieth Anniversary Poetry Retrospective), The Denver Quarterly, Black Warrior Review, and College English. His essays have appeared in such magazines as The Iowa Review, Papers on Language and Literature, Contemporary Literary Criticism, The Southern Review, and Poetry International. In 2002, Kevin won the university’s Distinguished Teaching Award. Lisa Coffman (MA in creative writing, NYU, 1989), is the author of a full-length collection of poems, Likely (Kent State University Press, 1996). She has won grants for her poetry from the National Endowments for the Arts Award and the PEW Charitable Trust. Her work has appeared in many journals, including The Southern Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and River City, and in the anthologies Fine Excess: Best of the Beloit Poetry Journal and Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia. Lisa has taught at Penn State Erie and the prestigious Deep Springs School, and she has been resident poet at Bucknell University. She also works as a free lance writer and journalist. James Cushing (PhD, University of California, Irvine, 1983), winner of Renegade Magazine’s 1994 “Warlord of the Subculture” Award, has published two full-length collections of his poetry, You and the Night and the Music (Cahuenga Press, 1991) and The Length of an Afternoon (Cahuenga Press, 1999). His poems and essays have appeared in such publications as Antioch Review, California Quarterly, Denver Quarterly, Massachusetts Review and Yabolusha Review, as well as in The Second Set, a jazz-poetry anthology edited by Yusef Komunyakaa (Indiana UP, 1996). He joined the faculty in 1989, having previously taught at UC Davis and Cuesta College. Cushing hosts a jazz program on Cal Poly’s radio station, KCPR. Adam Hill (MA, CSU-Fresno, 1991; MFA, Louisiana State University, 1994) has had poetry, fiction, and non-fiction appear in such places as The American Poetry Review, The Los Angeles Times, SPIN magazine, and The Seattle Review. Since 1996, he has directed WriterSpeak, bringing nationally recognized writers to read and speak at Cal Poly. Patricia
Troxel (PhD, Princeton University, 1986) has been a professor
at Cal Poly since 1990. Her areas of academic interest include contemporary
political theatre, multicultural performance art, European playwrights,
Shakespeare, Renaissance Theatre, and Medicine and Literature. She is
a specialist in modern British and Continental Playwright, playwriting,
and performance techniques. She is committed to developing alliances
between Europe and the United States and often works extensively with
theatre ensembles in Great Britain. As Resident Artist/Dramaturge/Director
at PCPA Theaterfest, she is the producer of the New Play Reading Series.
Her adaptations of Little Women and A Servant to Two Masters
were produced to acclaim in the 2002 season. Her adaptation of A
Flea in Her Eye was produced in 2003. FOR
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