Library Website : Creative Writing: Creative Writing

How to Choose a Genre

In ENGL 201, you explore the three major genres: poetry, creative nonfiction and fiction. The way the class is structured, you are required to read extensively in each subject, and then write in one of the genres. But how do you choose between prose and poetry? It helps to identify each genre to understand the expectations of prose and poetry, even though occasionally the genres lapse. Below is an interactive Twine that allows you to explore samples of genre, as well as learning more about them. Check it out!

Creative Writing Exploration

Publishing

SUNY Geneseo doesn't have a publishing track within the English department, but it does have the print and online literary magazine, Gandy Dancer. ENGL 426/428 is a class for people interested in the process of editing and publishing or for writers looking to get insight on the publishing aspect of writing. Professor Rachel Hall is the faculty advisor for the lit mag, but students are responsible for choosing prose/poetry submissions, laying out the magazine, and choosing art to compliment the stories and cover. Students receive a copy of the issue they created at the end of the semester. Allison Brown, Digital Publishing Services Manager at Milne, is responsible for teaching students InDesign and Wordpress and helps students with the layout of the magazine. For more information, talk to Professor Rachel Hall!

Outside Sources

The resources listed here are not available at Milne, but might be available through IDS (free with your Geneseo account) or at Wadsworth Library.

The Portable Poetry Workshop by Nigel McLoughlin
The Writer's Eye: Observation and Inspiration for Creative Writers by Amy E. Weldon
Brevity: A Journal of Concise Creative Nonfiction: www.brevitymag.com
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
The Triggering Town by Richard Hugo
How Dare We! Write: A Multicultural Creative Writing Discourse by Sherry Quan Lee
A Stranger's Journey: Race, Identity, and Narrative Craft in Creative Writing by David Mura
De-Canon's list of texts written by writers of color discussing craft & De-Canon's 2007 survey of full-time faculty of color at graduate creative writing programs in the U.S.
Wendy Bishop's Released Into Language and Katharine Haake's What Our Speech Disrupts for important late 20th and early 21st century examples of how some of the workshop-oriented commonplaces began to be challenged. There's a PDF of the Haake book available online.
Journal of Creative Writing Studies, which is online and open-access
The CRWR-OPPS email list
Clayton Eshleman's craft book, Novices: A Study of Poetic Apprenticeship & Tony Hoagland's The Art of Voice
The Graywolf "Art of" series & the University of Michigan's Press Poets on Poetry series
The Creative Writing Studies Organization website: https://creativewritingstudies.com/
Teaching the Art of Poetry by Baron Wormser and David Cappella
The Practice of Creative Writing by Heather Sellers
The Making of a Story by Alice LaPlante
Creating Short Fiction by Damon Knight
The Story and the Situation by Vivian Gornick

The websites below are also great tools for writers!

Leslie Pietrzyk's Work-in-Progress: www.workinprogressinprogress.com/

Erika Dreifus's The Practicing Writer: https://www.erikadreifus.com/blogs/practicing-writing/
Lithub: https://lithub.com/

Technology for Writers

Twine
An interactive story board that allows you to create endless, exciting narratives.
Hemingway Editor
The app highlights lengthy, too-complex sentences that readers wouldn't understand.
Zombies, Run
You are one of the last survivors of the zombie apocalypse. As you walk, jog or run, the story of your survival/mission expands, all while being chased by zombies!
FocusWriter
A hideaway interface that lets you write distraction-free. It comes equipped with timers/alarms, a goal setter, and auto-save.