The Creative Writing Program at UNC
The undergraduate Creative Writing Program at UNC-Chapel Hill is—and has long been—one of the best in the country. Its first-rate faculty and students have published widely, won many prizes, and played a major role in shaping the contemporary literature of North Carolina, the South, and the nation.
The fact that other schools in the state university system (UNC-Greensboro, N.C. State University, and UNC-Wilmington) offer graduate writing programs has challenged Carolina to concentrate on excellence for undergraduates. There are over 250 creative writing programs in the United States, mostly for students at the masters' level, but very few offer as much breadth, variety, and professionalism at the college level as UNC-Chapel Hill has for decades.
In the words of Doris Betts, Alumni Distinguished Professor of English emerita and mainstay of the Creative Writing Program for decades, “When the Harvard faculty was considering hiring Nabokov to teach literature, one professor objected that such an appointment would be like hiring the elephants to teach zoology. Fortunately, Carolina's English Department has embraced its writers and we, like elephants, never forget. The staff of dedicated novelists, poets, and non-fiction writers has had a congenial professional history here, in an atmosphere that has encouraged many young writers and rewarded many readers. During my 35 years on campus, the program has grown larger and more varied, but without losing its selectivity and without weakening its focus on genuine talent.”
For information please contact:
Michael McFee
Director- Creative Writing Program
Department of English and Comparative Literature
Greenlaw Hall, CB #3520
UNC
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3520
Phone: (919)
962-5481
Fax: (919) 962-3520
Course offered in Introduction to Publishing
Tuesdays 5:30 to 8:15 p.m., Greenlaw 526B
Taught by Kathy Pories and Chuck Adams of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
This course, ENGL 307 003, is open to Creative Writing minors and will take students through all the phases of publishing a book from evaluation and acquisition of a manuscript; negotiating a deal to buy the manuscript; the editorial process; copyediting; the production of the book, including the jacket, typesetting, and the actual book itself; the process of marketing and the means of publicizing the book upon publication. We'll also explore the business of publishing, evaluating profits and losses on books, the fluctuating and unpredictable marketplace, and the sometimes unlikely path to a bestseller. This is a demanding and heavily participatory class; students will be expected to work in groups and to duplicate those processes that take place in a publishing house.