An aerial view of Madison. Helen C. White Hall, home of the Creative Writing Program, is one
building out of frame in the bottom right corner. Photo © University of Wisconsin Board of Regents.

Our Programs

Welcome to the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Program in Creative Writing. We offer courses in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and playwriting to students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Since 1986, we have also been host to the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing's post-graduate fellowships, which provide emerging writers from all over the world an opportunity to complete their first books. For detailed information about our various courses, projects, and events, please refer to the navigation bar at the top of this page. If you'd like to be kept in the loop about our events and programs, please join one or more of our mailing lists: Madison-Area Literary Events, Undergraduate Alumni News, MFA Alumni News, Institute & Former Fellow News, Fiction & Poetry Fellowship Deadlines and Info, Playwriting Fellowship Deadlines and Info, Brittingham/Pollak Prize Deadlines and Info.

Though officially founded in 1978 by professor and poet Ron Wallace, the Program in Creative Writing has existed for almost as long as the Department of English itself; in these pre-formative years, our students included such distinguished writers as Eudora Welty, Delmore Schwartz, Saul Bellow, Jean Toomer, Lorraine Hansberry, Joyce Carol Oates, Carl Djerassi, Peter Straub, Ed Ochester, Anne Lauterbach, and Wallace Stegner. Since that time, the Program continued its history of excellence, growing to become one of the most highly regarded in the country. Our MFA is currently ranked among the top three in the nation by Poets & Writers magazine, nearly all of our post-graduate fellows go on to publish award-winning first books (more than 90 total since the fellowships' inception), and our undergraduates are not only widely published but consistently have been accepted to the most competitive creative writing graduate programs in the US.

As an extension of its educational mission, the Program in Creative Writing aims to be the center of literary life in the Madison area. Our students, fellows, and graduates have their hands in most of the city's writing-related happenings, including the Monsters of Poetry reading series, the annual Wisconsin Book Festival, the FELIX Reading Series, and the Writers in Prisons Project. For a calendar of upcoming events, stay tuned to our readings page, where you can also subscribe to a public Google calendar of the year's literary happenings.

We've done our best to ensure that all of your questions are answered on this website. If you do not find the answers you need, however, please direct your questions to the appropriate staff and faculty members:

• For further info about the undergraduate course of study, contact Undergraduate Program Coordinator Ron Kuka.
• Inquiries regarding the MFA or the PhD Minor in Creative Writing may be directed to mfamail@english.wisc.edu.
• Questions about our post-graduate fellowships and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing can be sent to institutemail@english.wisc.edu.
• For general inquiries or information regarding upcoming events, please contact Graduate and Institute Programs Coordinator Sean Bishop.

      Program in Creative Writing
      Department of English
      600 N. Park St, H.C. White Rm 6195
      University of Wisconsin
      Madison, WI 53706

      phone: 608-263-3658
      fax: 608-263-3709