Fall 2026 Course Schedule and Descriptions

Fall 2026 Course Schedule and Descriptions


C W 101 2  Introduction to Creative Writing   Wednesday 4-6:45 PM  TBA
C W 101 3  Introduction to Creative Writing   ONLINE Asynchronous TBA
C W 101 4  Introduction to Creative Writing   ONLINE Asynchronous TBA 

This introductory course focuses on the creative writing process of generating material through writing exercises in poetry, fiction and playwriting. It also examines for craft selected readings of exemplary stories, poems and plays. Open to all students. CROSS GENRE COURSE. 

C W 301  Fundamentals of Creative Writing   Thursday 4:00 – 6:45. PM   TBA
Prerequisite:  English 114, or equivalent. Enrollment limited to Creative Writing majors; non-majors admitted with consent of instructor. Instruction and extensive practice in writing poetry, fiction and plays, with selected readings of exemplary stories, poems and plays. This course is the prerequisite to Short Story Writing, Poetry Writing and Playwriting.  CROSS GENRE COURSE.

C W 302 2 Fundamentals of Creative Reading  Tuesday 12:30-3:15 PM TBA
Prerequisite:  English 114, or equivalent. Enrollment limited to Creative Writing majors; non-majors admitted with consent of instructor. Students learn to read like writers through lecture-discussion and reading assignments. Submerges the student in literature and asserts the importance of reading.

C W 510 The Short Short Story   Tuesday 12:30-3:15 PM   Paul Hoover
Prerequisites: Restricted to Creative Writing majors; GE Area A2; C W 301 or equivalent. Examination of the creative process, emphasizing techniques, style, and structure. Creative and critical writing. (ABC/NC only)

C W 511GW Craft Of Poetry - GWAR   Thursday 12:30-3:15 PM   Andrew Joron
Prerequisites: Restricted to Creative Writing majors; GE Area A2; C W 301 or equivalent. Poetry takes self-expression to the next level, transforming language as a way of renewing our experience of the world. In this class, we will explore many of the ways, both innovative and traditional, from sonnets to surrealism, that poets have activated the transformative potential of language. Students will use the assigned readings of classical and contemporary poems as starting points for their own creative interventions in language. Creative and critical writing. (ABC/NC only)

C W 520  Writers on Writing Wednesday 12:30-3:15 PM   Tonya Foster 
Prerequisite for C W 520: Upper-division standing; GPA of 3.0 or higher; or permission of the instructor. Faculty and visiting writers representing a wide range of styles and subjects will visit the class to read and discuss their writing. Students will respond to the readings and visits on an ongoing basis through critical essays and creative writing exercises. Paired with C W 820. Note:  this course can be used to fulfill 3 units of the “creative process” requirement. It can only be taken once for credit. Students who have completed C W 820 may not take C W 520 for credit. CROSS GENRE COURSE.

C W 601 Work In Progress  ONLINE Tuesday 12:30-2:30 PM  May-Lee Chai 
Prerequisite: Senior standing in Creative Writing. Work In Progress is an advanced process course that offers undergraduate senior creative writing majors the opportunity to work on a series of revisions and re-envisionings of a creative piece, resulting in a final portfolio showcasing the students’ works. Students will read and discuss works by established and emerging writers as well as give and receive feedback on their own written creative work. We will also discuss various pathways for publication and creative careers. There will be at least one Zoom visit with an established, award-winning author. This is a cross-genre course and students may turn in works in more than one genre and hybrid forms. Capstone course for seniors in which undergraduate final project is completed.

C W 606  Art of Revision  Monday  12:30-3:15 PM   Michael David Lukas
Prerequisites: C W 101 or C W 301; C W 302; C W 512GW or C W 603 Examine and experiment with the artistic processes of published writers (and a variety of other artists) who've taken a project from idea to completion. Study interviews, process notes, and "middle drafts" of these artists. Include analyses of the draft process, genre across artistic and literary forms and creation and revision of student work. CROSS GENRE COURSE

C W 640  Transfer Literary Magazine     Wednesday  4-6:45 PM   TBA
Prerequisite:  C W 301; C W 302; C W 511GW or C W 512GW or C W 513GW; or consent of instructor. This course will provide you with practical experience in literary publishing through work on Transfer, SFSU’s undergrad literary journal. Students will solicit and evaluate work for publication, gaining practical experience in editing, layout and production of the journal as well as in publicizing and promoting the finished product and taking an active role in Transfer’s social media presence. In addition, we will address various approaches to editing and aesthetics as well as the politics of representation. You will investigate your own editorial sensibility through exploratory essays and the creation of a hypothetical literary magazine. Transfer Magazine provides you with the opportunity to consider what’s currently being published in literary magazines and what you would add to that culture. This is a process course (not a lab) and can be used to fulfill 3 units of the Creative Process requirement. CROSS GENRE COURSE.

C W 675 Community Projects-Literature Monday 4-6:45 PM Paul Hoover
Prerequisite: C W 101 or 301 with a grade of C or better. Enrollment is limited to undergraduate majors in English: Creative Writing and English: Education (Creative Writing). Non-majors admitted with consent of instructor. Paid and unpaid internship positions designed to give CW students practical knowledge and experience are available through local literary and arts organizations, civic and community organizations, Bay Area school districts and within the Creative Writing Community at SF State. Check out our Community Projects in Literature Internship Leads at https://creativewriting.sfsu.edu/content/communityprojects-0. Incredible academic internships are also available for C W 675/875 credit through SF State's Institute for Civic and Community Engagement (ICCE). Check out their list of paid and unpaid internships at http://icce.sfsu.edu. These working by remote and/or in person internships are robust opportunities to 'learn by doing'. If you have any questions, please contact Paul Hoover atviridian@sfsu.edu . C W 675/875 may be taken twice for 6 units of credit.                       

C W 699   Independent Study          By Arrangement   
Prerequisite:  Consent of instructor and a 3.0 GPA.  Upper division students may enroll in a course of Independent Study under the supervision of a member of the Creative Writing department, with whom the course is planned, developed, and completed. This course may be taken for one, two, or three units. No priority enrollment; enrollment is by petition, and a copy of your unofficial SF State transcript. Petition for Individual Study forms are available online https://registrar.sfsu.edu/sites/default/files/indstudyi.pdf. Please reach out directly to a faculty member to ask them if they will support an Independent Study for you. This form must be signed by the instructor you will be working with, and the department chair; please send to the department office at cwriting@sfsu.edu with a copy of your unofficial transcript once you have filled it out. Your instructor will give you the schedule and permit numbers to add the course during the first week of the semester. 

                            

GRADUATE CLASSES:
Note:  Preference in all Creative Writing graduate courses will be given to students admitted to either the M.A. or the M.F.A. programs in Creative Writing.  Preference in M.F.A. level courses will be given to students admitted to the M.F.A. program.  Priority in M.A. and M.F.A. writing workshops and creative process courses will be given to students admitted in the genre of the course.  Other Creative Writing M.A./M.F.A. students may enroll in these courses only with the permission of the instructor.

C W 807 Developing the Novel   Thursday 4-6:45 PM   Joe Cassara
Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. Priority enrollment given to graduate Creative Writing fiction students; open to Creative Writing students in other genres only on a space available basis, to be determined at the first class meeting This is a hybrid seminar designed to guide MFA students through the early stages of conceiving, positioning and planning a novel. The course will focus on transforming an initial idea into a fully realized novel proposal. Students will produce a project dossier, including a one-paragraph synopsis, a three-page full synopsis, a comparative titles list and a clear articulation of the novel’s genre, lineage and place in the contemporary marketplace. Alongside these materials, students will draft the opening 50 pages and develop a scaffolded outline for the remaining chapters and scenes, culminating in a polished cover letter for agents and editors. Class time will emphasize roundtable discussions and project pitches, using the group as a sounding board to refine voice, sharpen ideas and test narrative direction. Envisioned as the second course in a three-part sequence (following 'Discovery and Development' and preceding 'Novel Writing'), this course lays out the groundwork for continuing work on the full manuscript in the subsequent semester. Preference will be given to students enrolled in Spring 2026's "Discovery and Development" course.

C W 809  Directed Writing for Graduate Students      By Arrangement  May-lee Chai chai@sfsu.edu 
Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. Permission of the instructor is required to take this course; you will be dropped without prior consent of the instructor. The semester before you plan to enroll in Directed Writing, submit a sample of your writing in the instructor’s mailbox along with a note explaining that you want to take their Directed Writing class. Be sure you include your name, address, phone number and email. If the instructor is on leave, please email your writing sample to her or him.                                                                 

C W 810 1 What The Body Knows: Form: Embodied Imaginaries ONLINE Tuesday 4-5:40 PM Tonya Foster 
Prerequisite: Classified graduate status in creative writing or consent of instructor. What was with the 70’s emphasis on “transcendence,” on pressing past “physical limitations,” on notions of consciousness expanding past what a body’s senses can attend? Is it a variant of what’s called “the mind-body” problem? As though the mind were not always embodied. As though the body were not the means and mechanism through which we know that vaguery called “the soul.” Who can afford to transcend “the body,” especially in these precarious times and spaces? In this course, we will explore work by poets, writers, and essayists who upload (translate?) embodied experience into language. This is a cross-genre seminar-workshop. May be repeated for credit when topics vary.

C W 810 3 Speculative Fiction  Wednesday 12:30-3:15 PM  Andrew Joron
Prerequisite: classified graduate status, M.A. or M.F.A. in Creative Writing. Speculative fiction is a genre that gives priority to “cognitive estrangement,” using narrative prose to push beyond ordinary reality into a zone where the familiar becomes strange, and the strange familiar. This course will survey various modes of modern speculative fiction, including science fiction, dystopian and Gothic literature, surrealism and magical realism. Students will utilize readings in these modes as points of departure for their own creative writing.

C W  820  Writers on Writing   Wednesday 12:30-3:15 PM   Tonya Foster 
Prerequisite: Graduate standing or permission of the instructor. Faculty and visiting writers representing a wide range of styles and subjects will visit the class to read and discuss their writing. Students will respond to the readings and visits on an ongoing basis through critical essays and creative writing exercises. Paired with C W 520. Note:  this course can be used to fulfill 3 units of the C W 810 (creative process) requirement. It can only be taken once for credit. Students who have completed C W 520 may not take C W 820 for credit.  CROSS GENRE COURSE.

C W 840  14 Hills Literary Magazine  Monday 4-6:45 PM  Michael David Lukas
Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. Fourteen Hills is a working small press as well as a graduate course in editing, publishing, and other skills essential to thriving and leading in the contemporary literary world. Each year, we publish one issue of Fourteen Hills: the SFSU Review, a nationally recognized literary print magazine, as well as the Michael Rubin Book Award (MRBA) winner, a book-length work by an SF State student or recent graduate. Fourteen Hills is run entirely by students with support from our Faculty Advisor and the Department of Creative Writing. The course, taught primarily by the Editor-in-Chief, is designed to give students an opportunity to observe and engage in many aspects of running a literary magazine, from editorial decisions to distribution logistics, from public relations and author interviews to curating a literary prize, from aesthetic considerations to the dynamics of equity and narrative justice in the broader publishing field. Students in the class serve as staff for the journal, working closely with the editors to consider and evaluate work for publication as well as learning about the copy-editing process, visual art selection, cover design, distribution, sales, and promotion. This is a class designed to merge real-world, hands-on publishing experience with the honing of skills that can ignite, inspire, and empower us in all our literary endeavors. CROSS GENRE COURSE.

C W 852 Creative Nonfiction Workshop  Thursday 12:30-3:15 PM Chanan Tigay
Prerequisite: Graduate standing or permission of the instructor. This class will explore the exciting and growing genre of creative nonfiction, including various forms of essays, text + image, narrative nonfiction, memoir and hybrid forms. Students will have an opportunity to experiment with various forms of CNF as well as to turn in for workshop two original works for feedback from the class.

C W 853 Workshop in Fiction  Wednesday  4-6:45 PM     Joe Cassara
Prerequisite: Classified graduate status in the M.F.A. in Creative Writing or consent of instructor. This course is a generative and critical space dedicated to the development of students’ original fiction through sustained practice, close reading and rigorous discussion. Students will produce and submit new work over the course of the semester, engage deeply with questions of voice, structure, character, narrative tension and the anatomy of the scene. Workshop sessions will center on thoughtful, craft-driven critique with an emphasis on revision as an essential part of the writing process. Readings of short fiction may supplement discussion, and we will study them as frameworks for understanding narrative technique. The following May be repeated for a total of 18 units. 

C W 854 Workshop in Poetry Monday 12:30-3:15 PM Paul Hoover
Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in MFA in Creative Writing, the MA in English; Creative Writing, or the new MA in Creative Writing.  Students will concentrate on the creation and revision of their poetry.  The class format will include discussion of reading assignments, group discussion of student work, and in-class and at-home writing assignments. 

C W 855 Workshop in Playwriting Wednesday 4-6:45 PM TBA
Prerequisite: Restricted to graduate Creative Writing students or permission of the instructor. Students are expected to concentrate on the revision of a play, on bringing work to a finished state, ready for production. May be repeated for a total of 18 units.

C W 859 Practicum in Teaching Monday 4-6:45 PM  Nona Caspers
Open to both MA and MFA Creative Writing students.  Repeatable once for credit.  Students working for the first time as Pedagogical Apprentices to instructors of undergraduate Creative Writing courses are required to take this Practicum course concurrent with their work with a teacher of record.  Students meet as a group once every three weeks in tandem with asynchronous work on Canvas, posting teaching journals and case studies on a weekly basis.   This course provides pedagogical grounding for pragmatic classroom teaching work and offers students a structured forum in which to discuss their teaching under the supervision of an experienced teacher and in collaboration with other Pedagogical Apprentices.   NB: Each student must make arrangements with an instructor to serve as a Pedagogical Apprentice.

C W 860 Teaching Creative Writing Wednesday 4-6:45 PM  Nona Caspers
Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. This course engages Creative Writing graduate students in pragmatic and theoretical exploration of the teaching of creative writing. Our methods and activities will be diverse. We'll begin the semester in active imaginative engagement in the student experience, here and now, the Fall of 2025. We'll create and present craft exegeses and craft and process lectures of varying length. We'll explore strategies for engaging in useful, generative analysis of student works-in-progress. We'll hold practice sessions in leading class discussions, setting out to use text models with creativity, adaptability and imagination. We'll also discuss aspects of Creative Writing pedagogy as stimulated by essays and interviews. By the end of the semester, each student will have prepared a detailed syllabus for a fifteen-week creative writing course. These activities will be not only pragmatic but also diagnostic: as the semester progresses, each student will aim to unearth their particular passions and priorities as writers, educators and human beings--the prime movers in the discovery of each of our own unique teaching voices and styles.  CROSS GENRE COURSE.

C W 875 Community Projects-Literature  Monday 4-6:45 PM   Paul Hoover
Prerequisite for C W 875: Restricted to graduate Creative Writing students or permission of the instructor. Non-majors admitted with consent of instructor. Paid and unpaid internship positions designed to give CW students practical knowledge and experience are available through local literary and arts organizations, civic and community organizations, Bay Area school districts and within the Creative Writing Community at SF State. Check out our Community Projects in Literature Internship Leads at https://creativewriting.sfsu.edu/content/communityprojects-0.  Incredible academic internships are also available for C W 675/875 credit through SF State's Institute for Civic and Community Engagement (ICCE). Check out their list of paid and unpaid internships at http://icce.sfsu.edu. These working by remote and/or in person internships are robust opportunities to 'learn by doing'. If you have any questions, please contact Paul Hoover at viridian@sfsu.edu . C W 675/875 may be taken twice for 6 units of credit.                         

C W 880 Vampires, Androids, Detectives Monday 7–9:45 PM   Michael David Lukas
Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing M.F.A. C W or consent of instructor. Over the past two decades, the field of creative writing has undergone a number of significant developments. One of the most exciting and far-reaching is literary fiction’s cross-pollination with what has been called “the more speculative genres.” Authors as stylistically diverse as Kazou Ishiguro, Karen Russell, Marlon James and Michael Chabon have used the tropes of science fiction, fantasy, detective novels and comic books to help revitalize literary fiction in an age of hybridity and interconnection, while at the same time helping to redefine the very idea of realism. In this course we will map the “genre borderlands” exploring the idea of genre fiction, how various genres have changes in the past fifty years and how writers of all stripes have used genre tropes to push the boundaries of both literary and genre fiction. Concurrent with these discussions we will also try our hand at writing in various generic styles, pushing our own work to new and exciting places.

C W 893  Written M.A. Creative Project (3 units)  By Arrangement
Prerequisite:  advancement to M.A. candidacy in Creative Writing.  Advancement To Candidacy (ATC) and Culminating Experience Proposal forms must be on file in the Division of Graduate Studies the semester before registration. These 3 units M.A. students sign up for while working on the culminating experience/thesis/written creative project, which may be a collection of short stories, a group of poems, a novel or a play.  To enroll: contact your thesis/written creative work committee chair the first week of the semester for the schedule and permit numbers to add the class. You must enroll in this course or you will not receive credit for your thesis.

C W 893  Written M.F.A. Creative Work (6 units)   By Arrangement
Prerequisite:  advancement to M.F.A. candidacy in Creative Writing; Advancement To Candidacy (ATC) and Culminating Experience Proposal forms must be on file in the Division of Graduate Studies the semester before registration. These 6 units M.F.A. students sign up for while working on the culminating experience/thesis/written creative project, which is expected to be a book length collection of short stories, or poems, or a novel or a play of publishable quality.  Enrollment is by permission number during priority registration/enrollment: you will be emailed the correct class and permission numbers to enroll in your section. You must enroll in this course or you will not receive credit for your thesis.

C W 899  Independent Study    By Arrangement
Prerequisite:  consent of instructor and a minimum GPA of 3.25.  A special study is planned, developed, and completed under the direction of a faculty member. This course may be taken for one, two, or three units. No priority enrollment; enrollment is by petition, and a copy of your unofficial SF State transcript. Petition Individual Study forms are available online http://registrar.sfsu.edu/sites/default/files/indstudyi.pdf (699, 899). This form must be signed by the instructor you will be working with and brought with an unofficial transcript for the department chair signature. Your instructor will give you the schedule and permit numbers to add the course during the first week of the semester.       

 

Archived Class Schedules