Arts & Humanities

B.A. in English (ENGAL)

Creative Writing

Students in the English Major and Minor can choose a creative writing emphasis, taking courses and workshops in fiction writing, poetry writing, nonfiction writing, nature writing, and editing, in addition to studying classic and contemporary literature. Students have the chance to study with faculty writers who have published award-winning novels, books of poetry, short story collections and nonfiction books.

Faculty members here have also been awarded prestigious fellowships from organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts. Additionally, Altoona student writers benefit from from interactions with our Emerging Writer in Residence, and from a regular slate of prominent visiting writers (recent visitors include Richard Russo, Ethelbert Miller, Joy Harjo, Lewis Nordan, Kate Daniels, and David Bradley.) We have an energetic and exciting student literary magazine (Hard Freight) and student newspaper, and there are opportunities for creative writers to do editing internships. Though our English major is relatively new, we have already seen our writing emphasis student go on to graduate school at Bowling Green, University of Minnesota, and Vermont College, and publish their prose and poetry in books and magazines.

Full-time Creative Writing Faculty

Todd Davis, winner of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, is the author of two poetry collections: Ripe and Some Heaven. His poems have appeared in numerous journals and have been featured by Garrison Keillor on The Writer's Almanac and by Ted Kooser in American Life in Poetry.

Erin Murphy is the author of three books of poetry: Science of Desire, Too Much of This World, and Dislocation and Other Theories. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and her awards include a $5,000 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize.

Steven Sherrill is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Fiction in 2002. His poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Best American Poetry 1997, and he is the author of three novels: The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break , Visits From the Drowned Girl, and The Locktender's House.

Patricia Jabbeh Wesley is the author of three books of poetry: The River is Rising, Becoming Ebony, and Before the Palm Could Bloom: Poems of Africa. Her work has been internationally published and anthologized, and her awards include the Crab Orchard Poetry Award.

Part-time Creative Writing Faculty

Lee Peterson is the author of Rooms and Fields: Dramatic Monologues from the War in Bosnia, winner of the 2003 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize (Jean Valentine, judge). She has given readings and led workshops nationally.

Emerging Writers in Residence

Deborah Bernhardt (Poetry, Fall 1999) is the author of Echolalia, a collection of poems (Four Way Books, 2006).

Mellissa Fratterigo (Fiction, Fall 2000) is the winner of the Sam Adams/Zoetrope All Story Short Fiction Contest.

Patrick Rosal (Poetry, Fall 2001) is the author of two books of poetry: Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive and My American Kundiman (Persea Books, 2004 and 2006).

Sharon Wahl (Fiction, Fall 2003) has published her stories in the Chicago Tribune, The Iowa Review, Harvard Review, Literal Latte, StoryQuarterly, and others journals.

Lee Peterson (Poetry, Fall 2004) is the author of Rooms and Fields: Dramatic Monologues from the War in Bosnia (Kent State University Press, 2004).

Matthew Pitt (Fiction, Fall 2005) has published stories in Best New American Voices 2001, Witness, Confrontation, The Colorado Review, and Crab Orchard Review.

Luke Krueger (Play writing, Fall 2006) has published several plays and a book of nonfiction, A Noble Function: How U-Haul Moved America (Barricade Books, 2007).

Seth Sawyers (Creative Non-Fiction, Fall 2007) has published essays in Crab Orchard Review, Fugue, Ninth Letter, River Teeth, Fourth Genre, and elsewhere.