Extracurricular Involvement

Gold Line Press publishes the annual winner of the Gold Line Press Chapbook Competition. The series is run by students and alumni of the University of Southern California’s program in Creative Writing & Literature.

Ricochet Editions is an imprint of Gold Line Press, and was founded in 2012. We do not run competitions – we ususally publish a couple of titles a year. These are selected from Gold Line Press’ slush pile, as well as via calls for submissions which take place in the spring. Each member of our small team reads every submission Ricochet receives, and we then talk about the manuscript(s) that each of us hopes to bring to print. We are devoted to engaging in an extended author-editor dialogue and working with authors on their manuscripts. Our mission is to publish innovative, non-traditional, trans-genre and/or genre-less works that have a hard time finding homes in journals, competitions and with other publishers. We have published manuscripts ranging from small chapbooks to full-length books.

WriteGirl, founded in 2001, is a creative writing and mentoring organization for teen girls in the Los Angeles area. Writegirl pairs professional women writers with girls for weekly mentoring and monthly workshops and we publish an anthology of our members’ best work each year.

Bold Ink Writers is a program designed to help teen boys write their way to brilliant futures. Workshops will take place in variety of settings in the Los Angeles region, from community centers to detention camos, with a focus on helping underserved teen boys from diverse backgrounds.

Date & time: TBA
Led by PhD Students in Creative Writing & Literature

The primary objective of this workshop is the fostering of a vibrant community of writers at USC by strengthening connections between the resources of the PhD Creative Writing and Literature program and undergraduates from across the university. PhD students lead extracurricular writing workshops, at which they read short stories, poems and excerpts of longer pieces, and workshop student work. It is not a class: there is no homework and no criteria for participation save enthusiasm and dedication. The workshop offers undergraduates the opportunity to learn more about the writing process — generating new work, revising finished work, and submitting finished work for publication — with an overarching emphasis on awareness of the world, the word and the connection between the two. Workshop participants interested in learning more about MFA programs and their application process will also find guidance. It’s a win-win for both groups: PhD students gain experience as workshop leaders and undergraduate students have the opportunity to become part of a dynamic literary community.

The USC Dornsife Prison Education Project (PEP) creates the opportunity for USC and incarcerated students to learn from each other in a rigorous and collaborative learning environment across a variety of academic disciplines. Through PEP, USC students and faculty design, teach and participate in classes with people incarcerated in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation system.