stanford creative writing online

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Creative Writing: Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction

This intensive creative writing course is an exploration and study into the craft of creative writing. Students will read poems, essays, and short stories by well-known authors, as well as develop the skills needed to form their own personalized writing process. Students will be able to recognize how each creative piece sets its own terms and lives by them. They will practice writing like a reader and reading like a writer. With the aid of class discussions, exercises, and workshops, students will learn the fundamental craft of creative writing, enhance their creative thinking, and complete the course with their own portfolio of creative work. Most importantly, students will be a welcome part of a supportive writing community.

Note: Creative Writing: Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction is offered at multiple times with different instructors this summer. The courses will cover the same content.

Session One

Session Two

Scheduled Class Time*

08:00 AM - 11:00 AM (PDT)

04:00 PM - 07:00 PM (PDT)

*The course will meet for two hours daily (Monday–Friday) for a live online class during this window of time. The third hour is used for online office hours. Students will be admitted to and attend just one course section and time. The exact course time and office hour schedule will be set closer to the start of the program. In addition to the live meeting times, students complete out-of-class learning assignments such as assigned readings, group work, pre-recorded online lectures, and more.

Related Courses:

• Design Your Life with Philosophy
• The Nature of Evil
• Creative Writing: Poetry of Place

Creative Writing

Molly Antopol

Caroline Bailey

Lydia Burleson

Sarah Coduto

Aracelis Girmay

Sara Houghteling

Adam Johnson

Amaud Jamaul Johnson

A. Van Jordan

Jesuseyi Osundeko

Patrick Phillips

Elizabeth Tallent

Kirstin Valdez Quade

Tobias Wolff

Creative Writing

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School of Humanities and Sciences

This course of study cultivates the power of individual expression within a vibrant community of writers.

What You'll Study

Stanford’s Creative Writing Program--one of the best-known in the country--cultivates the power of individual expression within a vibrant community of writers. The Minor in Creative Writing offers a structured environment in which students interested in writing fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction develop their skills while receiving an introduction to literary forms. Students may choose a concentration in either prose or poetry. Creative Writing minors will participate in workshop-based courses and may have an opportunity to work independently with Stegner Fellows, Stanford’s distinguished writers-in-residence.

Degrees Offered

More information.

Learn more about Creative Writing in the Stanford Bulletin

• Creative Writing Program
• Department of English
• School of Humanities & Sciences
• Explore IntroSems related to this major

Exploratory Courses

English 10c.

Introduction to English I: Tradition and Individuality, Medieval to Early Modern

ENGLISH 11A

Introduction to English II: High Life and Low Life: British Literature 1660-1820

ENGLISH 11B

Introduction to English II: American Literature and Culture to 1855 (AMSTUD 150)

ENGLISH 12A

Introduction to English III: Introduction to African American Literature (AFRICAAM 43, AMSTUD 12A)

ENGLISH 12C

Introduction to English III: Modern Literature

ENGLISH 145G

US Fiction 1945 to 2000

ENGLISH 146A

Steinbeck (AMSTUD 146A)

ENGLISH 152G

Harlem Renaissance

ENGLISH 17Q

After 2001: A 21st Century Science Fiction Odyssey

ENGLISH 71

Dangerous Ideas (ARTHIST 36, COMPLIT 36A, EALC 36, ETHICSOC 36X, FRENCH 36, HISTORY 3D, MUSIC 36H, PHIL 36, POLISCI 70, RELIGST 36X, SLAVIC 36, TAPS 36)

ENGLISH 81

Philosophy and Literature (CLASSICS 42, COMPLIT 181, FRENCH 181, GERMAN 181, ILAC 181, ITALIAN 181, PHIL 81, SLAVIC 181)

ENGLISH 90

Fiction Writing

ENGLISH 91

Creative Nonfiction

ENGLISH 92

Reading and Writing Poetry

ENGLISH 9CE

Creative Expression in Writing

Related Links 

Information about the Creative Writing Minor

Poetry Courses

125 Stanford Stories

70 years of great writing.

Imagination flourishes in Stanford’s Creative Writing Program

“Minds grow by contact with other minds. The bigger the better, as clouds grow toward thunder by rubbing together.” — Wallace Stegner

The novelist Wallace Stegner came to Stanford in 1946 to teach writing. He found a campus swollen with returning GIs and war workers. This cohort – later known as the Greatest Generation – had interesting stories to tell. At Stanford, Stegner  developed a program  of  workshops, community and freedom to write  that would nurture these writers’ talents and those of generations to come.

The Stegner Fellowships, as Stanford’s two-year writers’ fellowships are now called, are perhaps the best-known facet of Stanford’s  Creative Writing Program . Stegner Fellows have gone on to become Pulitzer Prize winners (N. Scott Momaday, Larry McMurtry, Adam Johnson ), poets laureate of the United States (Robert Pinsky, Philip Levine) and bestselling novelists (Scott Turow). Diverse in origin, they have brought new understanding of their own countries and cultures through literature ( NoViolet Bulawayo ). Many have returned to Stanford to teach new generations (Johnson, Kenneth Fields, Tobias Wolff).

The milieu in which the Stegner Fellows flourish also nourishes the creative gifts of hundreds of Stanford undergraduates each year. Creative writing workshops and tutorials are among Stanford’s most sought-after courses. That’s unsurprising when one considers the value that Stanford puts on output, on expressing one’s ideas.

“We hated the idea that someone would come to this great university and think it’s either/or — ‘I’m going to be a science student, or I’m going to be a creative writer.’ We made the minor so people would know they didn’t have to make that choice.” —  Eavan Boland , director of the Stanford Creative Writing Program

“It’s the art of imagination. It’s a muscle that students want to activate,” explained Tom Kealey, a lecturer in the Creative Writing Program.

Nearly all of Stanford’s creative writing courses are open to undergraduates across the curriculum, though some, like the one-on-one Levinthal Tutorials, require a manuscript review. Nearly 70 percent of Stanford’s English majors have emphases in creative writing, whether in poetry or prose. There is also a creative writing minor. Its new Fiction into Film option culminates in the Hoffs-Roach Tutorial, in which students complete a 100-page screenplay. Another popular option is to take four or five writing courses as an informal emphasis.

The creative nonfiction courses are popular with students in the sciences, Kealey said: “Many want to make sense of their lives by creating narratives.”

Lectures about the craft of writing are also very popular. Professor Elizabeth Tallent teaches a course each spring,  Development of the Short Story , that can attract up to 100 students.

The newest member of the program’s distinguished faculty is  novelist Chang-Rae Lee , who comes to Stanford in fall 2016.

Informal workshops such as Poets’ House and Art of Writing offer an introduction to creative writing across disciplines. Innovative courses seek to explore new literary forms and to bring appreciation of writing to more people in new ways.

Stanford’s creative writing program was the first to offer a course in  completing a graphic novel , a popular class repeated every other year. It gives undergraduate awards for environmental writing, an  important aspect of Wallace Stegner’s legacy .

In spring 2015, program director Eavan Boland led a free online course on  Ten Premodern Poems by Women  that drew more than 1,000 participants from 105 countries. For the course, the office of the Vice Provost of Teaching and Learning enhanced Stanford’s OpenEdX platform to allow participants to submit narrative responses and even poems, an innovation that will help future online humanities courses.

Watch the creation of the Creative Writing Program’s latest graphic novel in this video.

Jason Leung | Unsplash

How to Apply

The 2024-2026 Wallace Stegner Fellowship application is now closed. The application for the 2025-2027 fellowship will open on September 1, 2024 and will close on November 1, 2024. 

To apply for the fellowship, please prepare the following information and materials:

• Personal background information
• Contact information for 2 recommenders who can speak to your suitability as a workshop participant (please do not submit letters of recommendation)
• A statement of plans in which you briefly explain your writing plans for the two years of the Stegner Fellowship (1000 words maximum)
• A description of what you hope to get out of the workshops in your genre and how you intend to contribute to the development of other Fellows’ work (300 words maximum)
• A writing sample (9000 words maximum for fiction, 15 pages maximum for poetry)

The application fee is $55 , payable by credit or debit card. A fee waiver is available for those who qualify; the fee waiver request form is integrated into the online application.

Apply online

For application or selection process questions, visit our  Application FAQ page .

For all other inquiries, email stegnerfellowship [at] stanford.edu .