Creative writing classes were canceled this week to prepare for today's annual colloquium.
Julie Shigekuni, director of the Creative Writing Department, said students can explore their options within the department.
"Students should know who the faculty members are," she said. "They should know what their choices are, and they should develop connections with the faculty."
The event is in SUB Ballroom B from noon to 3 p.m. Fiction faculty members will present their works and answer questions for the first hour. Poetry faculty will follow at 1 p.m., and then the creative nonfiction teachers will finish the series at 2 p.m. There will be free coffee and cookies.
There will also be applications available at the colloquium for MFA tutorials.
"MFA students in the Creative Writing program, they're paid to work one on one with creative writing majors and they can get three credits," Shigekuni said. "It's a good way for students in their junior or senior year to do intensive work on a writing sample they can then submit to graduate programs."
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Tutorial applications are due May 1.
Shigekuni said there's also an undergraduate reading series every other Wednesday at noon that has taken off in just two weeks. The next one is April 15 in the English Department Lounge in the Humanities building.
"Anybody who's currently enrolled in a creative writing course, they can read the work they're working on in front of an audience, and we have good faculty turnout," she said. "That's been really good. We've only had two of them. The first we had three students, and they got a lot of attention with six faculty members. The second one we had 25 to 30 students show up. I'm hoping this is something that will continue to be a good event."
Last semester's colloquium was voluntary, but this one is mandatory for creative writing students. Shigekuni said she hopes people from other departments with an interest in writing will attend the event.
"The point of it is they could hear the teachers who are going to be teaching in the fall semester give presentations," she said. "The fiction writers will be presenting on a story. The poets will be presenting on two poems, and nonfiction writers will be presenting on an essay."
