Linda A. Cicero | Stanford News Service

Cultivating the power of individual expression within a vibrant community of writers

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Announcement from the Stanford Creative Writing Program

Creative Writing Program

Creative Writing Minor

Discover your writing prowess and push the imaginative bounds of prose, poetry, and screenwriting with our undergraduate minor.

Micaela Go

Stegner Fellowship

An opportunity for promising writers to develop their craft in the company of peers and under the guidance of Stanford faculty.

Stanford University

Our Community

Meet the faces of Creative Writing--the faculty, lecturers, staff, and visiting writers who guide and support our students and fellows.

It’s here that I fell deeper and deeper in love with writing, and I can say without a shadow of doubt that I met mentors, peers, and friends for life. The generosity with which the Creative Writing Program has shaped me will sustain—it’s truly been life-changing.
Katherine Ho
Peer Advisor, Class of 2023

In the Spotlight

For poet Aracelis Girmay, poetry is a way of thinking through complexity

For Aracelis Girmay, a poet who joined the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences as a professor in the English Department and member of the Creative Writing Program in September 2023, poetry offers one way to work through these questions. Girmay maintains that poetry doesn’t just describe human experience but rather crystallizes it.

Joseph Rios Awarded Fellowship Prize from Academy of American Poets

Stegner Fellow and Fresno Poet Laureate Joseph Rios has been awarded an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. These $50,000 awards are given to honor poets of literary merit appointed to serve in civic positions and to support them in creating new work, as well as to enable them to undertake meaningful, impactful, and innovative projects that enrich the lives…

2024-2026 Stegner Fellows

The Creative Writing Program is pleased to welcome the incoming 2024-2026 Stegner Fellow cohort in poetry and fiction.

Recent News

  • Announcements
We are absolutely delighted to share the news that Professor Chang-rae Lee has been elected to the 2025 cohort of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
  • Announcements
Submit the Course Preference Form to be considered for enrollment into Spring 2025 Creative Writing courses.
  • Announcements
The 13th Annual Poetry Into Film Contest is accepting submissions for the best short film inspired by a poem.

Upcoming Events

Date
Thursday, April 3, 2025. 5:30pm
Location
Tresidder Union
459 Lagunita Drive, Stanford, CA 94305
Oak Lounge

Join us for a reading and conversation with Mosab Abu Toha, the internationally acclaimed Palestinian poet, short-story writer, and essayist from…

Date
Wednesday, April 9, 2025. 6:30pm - 8:00pm
Location
John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Rotunda, E241
290 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

Stanford Public Humanities and the Creative Writing Program invite you to a reading and conversation with poet and novelist sam sax. Sax is…

Date
Wednesday, April 16, 2025. 8:00pm - 9:30pm

The Creative Writing Program is pleased to announce the next event with the Stein Visiting Writer: A Reading with Rachel Kushner.

Bookshelf

Keith Ekiss
2025
Madeleine Cravens
2024
Zach Williams
2024
Weijia Pan
2024
Jackson Holbert
2023