The Creative Writing Program

About the Creative Writing Program

Santa Monica College's English Department offers a range of exciting creative writing classes that can benefit writers of all skill levels. Explore your desire to write or refine your existing writing abilities through our courses about writing in the genres of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. You can take a single class that fits your interests, or you can learn about the full range of writing genres by pursuing our new Creative Writing Certificate.

Program Path

Creative Writing

Certificate of Achievement

The Creative Writing Certificate provides students with the preparation needed to author works in creative writing, including works for personal development and/or professional application. Completion of the required courses in the Certificate Program provides a comprehensive foundation in the study and practice of creative writing, and guides students through varied and rich opportunities to dig deep into the power and properties of language and the craft of writing expressively.

View Requirements

The English Department has recently expanded its offerings in creative writing. These newly established courses present rich and unique learning opportunities for all students, regardless of one’s major, previous writing experience, or longer term academic plans. Passionate writers and curious beginners will flourish in a creative, workshop-based community of peers. Note: The following four courses replace the previous ones, English 30A and English 30B

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English 71: Introduction to Creative Writing

This is a multi-genre introductory course, and a prerequisite for the others. English 71 introduces the craft and practice of creative writing. Through reading and writing in various genres, students will explore poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction in their many forms and sub-genres. Students will generate new pieces and be introduced to the workshop method. In workshop, they will offer constructive and critical feedback. Students will gain meaningful practice in revising their original work, and practice the critical skill of reading like writers to better understand the craft of creative writing.

Note: Students who have taken either English 30A and/or 30B may choose this course as an option, but are not required to take it as a prerequisite. In some cases, students with transferable creative writing credits from other institutions and/or a unique and meaningful creative writing history prior to enrollment may want to reach out with their enrollment questions.

English 72: Writing in Fiction

In this course, students will expand and sharpen storytelling skills and gain a deeper understanding of the properties of fiction through writing, revision, reading, discussion, and critique. These activities will sensitize each writer to the characteristics and creative possibilities inherent in language as a vehicle for story. Students will explore the work of a varied range of fiction writers to consider characterization, point of view, setting, interiority, sentence structure, and other elements of the art of narrative fiction. Through drafting, revision, workshop discussion, and close reading, students will broaden their understanding of the narrative designs, literary techniques, and opportunities for expression available to them as writers of fiction.

English 73: Writing in Poetry

This creative writing course focuses on the fundamentals of poetry and related forms. Students will generate new pieces and participate in a peer-to-peer workshop where they will offer constructive and critical feedback. While developing their writing process, students will also learn to apply critique and revise their original work. The course will also include literary analysis to understand better the craft of poetry, publication, and performance.

English 74: Writing in Creative Nonfiction

This course introduces the craft and practice of creative nonfiction, which employs many of the literary strategies and techniques of fiction writing to the telling of true stories. Students will explore CNF subgenres such as memoir, flash and micro-memoir, researched nonfiction, hermit crabs and other borrowed forms, lyric, braided, and other types of personal essays, cultural criticism, travel narratives and even hybrid subgenres. Students will expand and sharpen storytelling skills and gain a deeper understanding of the properties of creative nonfiction through writing, revision, reading, discussion, and critique. By reading and analyzing a range of nonfiction works, students will broaden their understanding of the narrative designs, literary techniques, and opportunities for expression available in creative nonfiction.

Contact Us

Please email us if you have questions about the Creative Writing Program. We want to hear from you:

Diane Arieff at: arieff_diane@smc.edu
Susan Caggiano at: caggiano_susan@smc.edu

Resources and Transfer

Many colleges and universities offer bachelor's degrees in Creative Writing. Students planning to transfer to a four-year college or university to pursue a degree in Creative Writing should meet with a counselor to discuss which courses should be taken at SMC to transfer to their chosen schools.

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