Curriculum

Master of Professional Writing students specialize in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or writing for stage and screen, but are required to take classes in other genres as well. This unique approach separates MPW from other creative writing programs. An MPW degree consists of 30 units—18 units in one concentration and 12 elective units in any genres outside that concentration. The program culminates in the completion of a final thesis project.

♦ Fiction - The storytelling impulse is an ancient one, and at MPW we are interested in helping you tell your stories in new as well as in traditional ways. We offer workshops and seminars that provide students with the opportunity to read deeply in contemporary and canonical texts and to find resonances and models for new and original work. Our instructors include Janet Fitch (White Oleander), who has developed a class specifically for MPW students, one that brings them into a deeper awareness of available techniques; Judith Freeman (Red Water), Gina B. Nahai (Cry of the Peacock), and Mark Richard (House of Prayer No. 2), who offer among them a wide array of approaches to long and short forms; and Gabrielle Pina (Bliss), who has created a course on research. Recent and upcoming visiting writers include Yiyun Li, Denis Johnson, Mark Salzman, and Sapphire.

• Fiction Writing Workshop
• Advanced Short Story
• The Novel
• Techniques of Fiction Writing: Exploring the Possibilities of Perception & Language
• Young Adult Lit: Criticism, Co-Creation, and Social Networking
• The Graphic Novel

♦ Nonfiction - Whether you choose to explore memoir, personal essay, or journalism, in traditional forms or new media, our nonfiction faculty—who include M.G. Lord (Astro Turf), Dinah Lenney (Bigger Than Life), Kenneth Turan (Los Angeles Times film critic), David Ulin (Los Angeles Times book critic), Dana Goodyear (The New Yorker staff writer), and Sandra Tsing Loh (of NPR and The Atlantic Monthly)—offers a broad range of workshops to support and cultivate your content and craft. Study Writing for Radio, Cultural Criticism, or Humor Writing; explore the memoir, the essay, and the profile; investigate a wide array of courses with an award-winning faculty of working writers, core and visiting, who continue to publish and participate in the national and local literary scenes. As such, we are able to feature readings and panels, on and off-campus, on all manner of subjects of interest to writers of nonfiction. Upcoming, current, and recent courses include:

• The Nonfiction Experience
• Investigating and Interpreting Pop Culture Across Genres
• Memoir Writing
• Writing About Place
• Writing for Radio
• Mash-Ups: New Ways to Tell Stories–Profile
• Mash-Ups: New Ways to Tell Stories–Short Nonfiction in Print & Online

♦ Poetry - Our poetry workshops are open to all writers, regardless of their previous experience, because we believe that engagement with poetry enhances linguistic precision, fosters economy of expression, and challenges writers to regard all literary forms both as repositories of tradition and as grounds for experiment. Our instructors include National Book Critics Circle-winning poet Amy Gerstler (Dearest Creature) and National Endowment for the Arts literature fellow Nan Cohen (Rope Bridge). Recent poetry events have included readings by Eavan Boland, D.A. Powell, and Dana Gioia, as well as a reading celebrating The Best American Poetry 2010, edited by Amy Gerstler. Upcoming, current, and recent courses include:

• Principles of Poetic Techniques       
• Advanced Poetry Writing

♦ Writing for Stage and Screen - MPW students choose from playwriting, screenwriting, and television writing classes to generate and revise texts for performance. Our screenwriting instructors include legendary screenwriting guru Syd Field (Screenplay), who possesses a deep knowledge of dramatic structure and screenwriter/director Tim Kirkman (Loggerheads), whose award-winning work in independent film brings poetic cadence to the practice of screenwriting. Many visiting screenwriters—including Oscar nominees Robin Swicord (The Jane Austen Book Club) and Michael Tolkin (The Player)—add another dimension to the curriculum. Our faculty also includes raconteurs—and so there is a theatrical aspect to the classes of award-winning playwright Prince Gomolvilas (the stage adaptation of Mysterious Skin). Our television writers also have backgrounds in theatre, and they bring their knowledge of both forms to their teaching: Emmy Award-winner Michael Price (The Simpsons) and Julie Hébert (The Good Wife). Visiting writers have included Paul Attanasio (House) and Alexander Woo (True Blood). Our emphasis is on writing rather than production, but we do offer a Writing for Stage and Screen Festival every Spring, which gives select students a chance to work with professional actors, directors, and dramaturgs. Our classes are open to writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Upcoming, current, and recent courses include:

• Principles of Dramatic Structure
• Creating Compelling Characters
• Screenplay Workshop
• Screenwriting Across Genres: Creating Comedy
• In the Room: The Craft of Television Writing-Drama
• In the Room: The Craft of Television Writing-Sitcom
• Mash-Ups: New Ways to Tell Stories-TV Writing
• Writing and Performing Comic Monologues: A Storytelling Workshop

♦ Characteristic of MPW's multi-genre spirit, many of our courses defy categorization. They explore a variety of topics through the lens of different forms, such as new media. Upcoming, current, and recent courses include:

• Internship: Writers in the Field–The Business of Show Business
• Internship: Writers in the Field–Pedagogy & the Creative Mind
• Internship: Writers in the Field–Publishing
• Mash-Ups: New Ways to Tell Stories–Beginnings
• Mash-Ups: New Ways to Tell Stories–Villains
• Research Across Genres
• Writer's Marketplace
• Writing Humor: Literary and Dramatic