Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences

Creative Writing

Most courses in the Humanities at Caltech seek to improve students' analytic writing skills, but courses in the writing of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction enable students to develop their talents as writers in other forms. Instructors of these courses range from published poets and novelists and a successful screenwriter to the former editor at a national magazine. In these courses students read and analyze important literary texts in the relevant genre and produce their own creative work. Much time is devoted to in-class workshops of student writing, which not only provide students with valuable feedback from their peers and the teacher but also teach them to become insightful critics of others' work. Students in the poetry course write in a variety of forms including the sonnet and blank verse, while students of non-fiction experiment with satire, the memoir, and the polemic. The fiction courses cover either realism, which encourages students to make art out of what they know, or imaginary writing (in the tradition of Poe, Borges, and others) which is designed to give students more creative freedom. In addition, the President's Office is supporting a new program called "Words Matter," which involves humanists from the Division. It will have ample financial resources to bring in some of the best writers of fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction for week-long visits that will supplement our regular course offerings with lectures and seminars for creative writing students and for the entire Caltech community.