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Please consult the University Calendar for a , not all of which are offered in a given year. Our department also offers and courses.

Fall 2025

WRITE 294 A1: Introduction to Writing Poetry
E. Harris
“Poetry is concerned with using and abusing, with losing with wanting, with denying with avoiding with adoring with replacing the noun. It is doing that always doing that and doing nothing but that.” - Gertrude Stein, “Poetry and Grammar”

It has been said that: “Poetry does nothing.” In this course, students will delve widely and wildly into this (no)thing that poetry is: language. Do not be afraid of poetry! (Or, be very afraid, but not because you think you cannot read or write it – you can – rather, it deserves our respect because it has magic powers and can build and destroy worlds).

We will read widely, write often, and will explore principles and practices such as: reading with slow attentiveness, what is poetic form and why use it?, and how to discuss and “critique” poetry. (How can we support fellow writers to make their work even more engaging on its particular terms?)

We will critically explore diverse poetries ranging from: historic poetic forms and their political underpinnings, revisionist interventions within conventional forms, and experimental and not-yet-imagined forms of writing (and therein, representations of possibility, possible selves, and relations!)

Students will be invited to create and edit work that truly means something to you.

WRITE 294 X1: Introduction to Writing Poetry
E. Harris
“Poetry is concerned with using and abusing, with losing with wanting, with denying with avoiding with adoring with replacing the noun. It is doing that always doing that and doing nothing but that.” - Gertrude Stein, “Poetry and Grammar”

It has been said that: “Poetry does nothing.” In this course, students will delve widely and wildly into this (no)thing that poetry is: language. Do not be afraid of poetry! (Or, be very afraid, but not because you think you cannot read or write it – you can – rather, it deserves our respect because it has magic powers and can build and destroy worlds).

We will read widely, write often, and will explore principles and practices such as: reading with slow attentiveness, what is poetic form and why use it?, and how to discuss and “critique” poetry. (How can we support fellow writers to make their work even more engaging on its particular terms?)

We will critically explore diverse poetries ranging from: historic poetic forms and their political underpinnings, revisionist interventions within conventional forms, and experimental and not-yet-imagined forms of writing (and therein, representations of possibility, possible selves, and relations!)

Students will be invited to create and edit work that truly means something to you.

WRITE 295 A1: Introduction to Writing Fiction
G. Bechtel

WRITE 295 X1: Introduction to Writing Fiction
G. Bechtel

WRITE 297 A1: Introduction to Writing Nonfiction
W. Agorde

WRITE 297 X1: Introduction to Writing Nonfiction
W. Agorde

WRITE 392 A1: Intermediate Poetry
M. Dumont

WRITE 393 X1: Intermediate Fiction
C. Kerr

WRITE 397 A1: Intermediate Nonfiction
J. Abel

WRITE 399 A1: Projects in Genre
K. Williams

WRITE 494 X1: Advanced Creative Writing: Poetry
J. Abel

Winter 2026

WRITE 294 B1: Introduction to Writing Poetry
M. Dumont

WRITE 295 B1: Introduction to Writing Fiction
W. Agorde

WRITE 295 X50: Introduction to Writing Fiction

WRITE 297 B1: Introduction to Writing Nonfiction
E. Harris

“I saw the author, her left cheek, her left shoulder agape, a photo of her washed in emergency, a quieting freight, a grandfather, a great-grandmother, one state of an illness, on the rim of a page without verbs, bullet-ridden and elegant, a boulder beside her, the things collected in her brain…” - Dionne Brand, The Blue Clerk

Humans are strangely and marvellously “narrative” creatures. Creative non-fiction (What is it?) is an expansive and porous genre; it can enable us to add a touch of “the personal” to investigative writing, while questioning what makes some voices (or ways of “telling” and “knowing”) more “official” or “legible” or “truthful” than others. Together we will explore possibilities in terms of representing “the experience of truth” (a term borrowed from nonfiction author Joan Didion).

We will explore a wide and wild range of creative non-fiction forms including: journalism, the personal essay/the “lyric” essay, autobiography and memoir, the braided/hermit crab essay, micro-fiction, speculative non-fiction, and the “critical fabulation” of Saidiya Hartman. We will also explore hybrid texts that purposefully blur/refuse/re-imagine the boundaries between and among these genres.

By exploring the work of diverse established writers and fellow students, we will work on refining skills for our lifetimes in writing: what is story, and how to tell an interesting story?, relationship of content + form, patient study of techniques and how these work as general (though never universal) strategies to elicit empathy and to ideally, communicate. All writers welcome! Many of the skills we develop will be equally applicable for writers of fiction, poetry, and academic scholarship.

Writers can bring in works of your choice for Workshop since it is designed to help you grow within your own interests and at your own pace.

WRITE 297 X50: Introduction to Writing Nonfiction
E. Harris

“I saw the author, her left cheek, her left shoulder agape, a photo of her washed in emergency, a quieting freight, a grandfather, a great-grandmother, one state of an illness, on the rim of a page without verbs, bullet-ridden and elegant, a boulder beside her, the things collected in her brain…” - Dionne Brand, The Blue Clerk

Humans are strangely and marvellously “narrative” creatures. Creative non-fiction (What is it?) is an expansive and porous genre; it can enable us to add a touch of “the personal” to investigative writing, while questioning what makes some voices (or ways of “telling” and “knowing”) more “official” or “legible” or “truthful” than others. Together we will explore possibilities in terms of representing “the experience of truth” (a term borrowed from nonfiction author Joan Didion).

We will explore a wide and wild range of creative non-fiction forms including: journalism, the personal essay/the “lyric” essay, autobiography and memoir, the braided/hermit crab essay, micro-fiction, speculative non-fiction, and the “critical fabulation” of Saidiya Hartman. We will also explore hybrid texts that purposefully blur/refuse/re-imagine the boundaries between and among these genres.

By exploring the work of diverse established writers and fellow students, we will work on refining skills for our lifetimes in writing: what is story, and how to tell an interesting story?, relationship of content + form, patient study of techniques and how these work as general (though never universal) strategies to elicit empathy and to ideally, communicate. All writers welcome! Many of the skills we develop will be equally applicable for writers of fiction, poetry, and academic scholarship.

Writers can bring in works of your choice for Workshop since it is designed to help you grow within your own interests and at your own pace.

WRITE 393 X50: Intermediate Fiction
G. Bechtel

WRITE 399 X52: Projects in Genre
J. Abel

WRITE 494 B1: Advanced Creative Writing: Poetry
M. Dumont

WRITE 495 X50: Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction
C. Kerr

WRITE 495 X51: Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction
C. Kerr

WRITE 498 B1: Advanced Creative Writing: Nonfiction
J. Abel

Previous Offering

2024-25 Fall and Winter Creative Writing Courses
2023-24 Fall and Winter Creative Writing Courses

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