berkeley creative writing

Stories start here.

Left Margin LIT is a creative writing workspace offering classes, camaraderie, and mentorship to East Bay writers of all backgrounds and experience levels. We also offer online classes and programs to writers who don't live in the Bay Area.

We aim to promote storytelling and poetry as vital elements of a healthy city: enriching dialogue, building community, and supporting a culture of creativity.

Testimonials

"I came to David when I needed help applying to MFA programs. Some writers will try to shape your work into a style like their own, but David was able to recognize my voice and polish it rather than mold it. Throughout the application process, David responded to every one of my concerns with reassurance and insight. He helped me navigate the painful purgatory of the waitlist, resulting in my acceptance. Without his feedback, advice, and encouragement, I wouldn't be attending my dream school."

MFA student, University of Michigan

—  Name, Title

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Summer Creative Writing

Tory adkisson.

Tory Adkisson is the author of The Flesh Between Us (SIU Press 2021), winner of the Crab Orchard Series Open Book Competition. His poems have appeared widely in journals such as Third Coast , Crazyhorse , Adroit Journal , Boston Review , Quarterly West , and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The Ohio State University and previously taught writing at the University of Georgia and Seattle City Colleges before coming to UC Berkeley.

• Read more about Tory Adkisson

Joe De Quattro

Joe De Quattro is an American fiction writer and 2023 nominee for The Best American Short Stories. He has new fiction, "Following Calvino", forthcoming in the Summer 2024 issue of Italian Americana , a peer-reviewed journal founded in 1974 and published by University of Illinois Press. His short stories have appeared in a number of literary magazines including Bayou Magazine , Beloit Fiction Journal , The Carolina Quarterly, and The Los Angeles Review. He has an MFA in Fiction from Bennington College.

• Read more about Joe De Quattro

Miriam Bird Greenberg

Miriam Bird Greenberg (they/she) teaches College Writing R1A and 134 (The Craft of Poetry). A poet and occasional essayist with a fieldwork-derived practice, Miriam is the author of In the Volcano’s Mouth , winner of the 2015 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, about the contemporary nomads, hitchhikers, and hobos living on America's margins, and their own experiences living and traveling in those worlds. They're currently at work on a hybrid-genre manuscript about the economic migrants and asylum seekers of Hong Kong's Chungking Mansions.

A high school dropout and former hitchhiker...

• Read more about Miriam Bird Greenberg

Joseph Horton

Joe Horton teaches creative writing and R1A for the CWP and the Fall Program for First Semester. He is also a Continuing Lecturer at UC Davis.

He is formerly interim director of the English Department Writing Program at the University of Michigan, where he won three Hopwood Awards. A Pushcart Prize nominee, his recent fiction and nonfiction has appeared with Ploughshares, Midwestern Gothic, the Colorado Review and TIME magazine. He is also playwright-in-residence with Savio(u)r Theatre Company, and his plays have been nominated for six Off West End Awards in London, including Best...

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Belinda Kremer

Belinda Kremer holds an MFA in Creative Writing: Poetry from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Since 1996, she has taught pre-composition, composition, advanced writing, disciplinary writing, literature, creative writing-- poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, drama-- writing for the sciences, writing for digital media, pedagogies of writing, and writing-tutor training in Michigan, New York, and California. Belinda also has extensive backgrounds in writing program and writing center administration, and in supporting faculty in teaching writing with technology. Her poetry appears in...

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Michael Larkin

Michael Larkin has an M.F.A. in fiction writing from the University of Pittsburgh, and a bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley. In addition to teaching courses in reading and composition and creative writing, he is co-curator of the annual UC Berkeley Summer Reading List for New Students and formerly the coordinator of the College Writing Programs' Summer Bridge Course, CW N2-- Writing the Bridge: From High School to the University .

• Read more about Michael Larkin

John Levine

John Levine has a B.A. in English and Black Studies from Oberlin College and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, where he also completed extensive coursework in college-composition pedagogy. He has been teaching writing since 1995 and teaching public speaking since 2006. He teaches Reading and Composition courses, public speaking, and creative writing at UC Berkeley. He also coordinates the long-running Berkeley Writers at Work series. Before becoming ...

• Read more about John Levine

Eric Longfellow

Eric Longfellow is a fiction writer with a Ph.D. in English/creative writing. Before joining the faculty at Berkeley, he taught writing, comparative literature, and creative writing at San Francisco State University and Illinois State University. His research and pedagogical interests include psychoanalytic theory, feminist studies, queer theory, and Marxist theory.

In addition to his academic career, he has worked in the publishing industry gaining editorial experience with Dalkey Archive Press and FC2. Previous fiction and nonfiction can be found in The Millions, The Rumpus, and...

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Kaya Oakes (she/her) has been a lecturer in College Writing since 1999 and teaches R1A, R4A, R4B, and a variety of creative nonfiction courses. She is the author of five books, most recently including The Defiant Middle: How Women Claim Life's In Betweens To Remake the World (Broadleaf Books: 2021, one of Sojourners ' 2021 Books to Inspire Faith and Justice), The Nones Are Alright (Orbis Books: 2015, Religion News Association best books finalist), Radical Reinvention (Counterpoint Press: 2012), and Slanted and ...

• Read more about Kaya Oakes

Matthew J. Parker

Matthew J. Parker returned to school late in life, earned a BA in English Literature from Barrett, The Honors College of Arizona State University and an MFA in Creative Writing From Columbia. His first book, a graphic novel, was published soon after, and his work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, Courier Newsroom, Vox Populi, The Baltimore Sun, Guernica, The Rumpus, Blavity, The East Valley Tribune, and Five Points: A Journal of Literature and Art , among others.

• Read more about Matthew J. Parker
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• UC Berkeley
• Letters & Science

Creative Writing Minor

Graduate programs, university of california, berkeley graduate admissions office.

http://www.grad.berkeley.edu/prospective/

The University of California, Berkeley does not offer a graduate program in Creative Writing. Below is a list of selected Creative Writing graduate programs offered by other colleges and universities:

Creative Writing graduate programs

ANTIOCH UNIVERSITY – Los Angeles, California – Creative Writing M.F.A. at AULA ARIZONA STATE – Tempe, Arizona – Creative Writing M.F.A. at ASU BOSTON UNIVERSITY – Boston, Massachusetts – Creative Writing M.F.A. at BU BROOKLYN COLLEGE – Brooklyn, New York – Creative Writing M.F.A. at BC COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY – New York, New York – Creative Writing M.F.A. at Columbia CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY – Montreal, Quebec, Canada – M.A. in English (Creative Writing Option) at Concordia GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY – Fairfax, Virginia – Creative Writing M.F.A. at GMU GODDARD COLLEGE – Plainfield, Vermont – Creative Writing M.F.A. at Goddard INDIANA UNIVERSITY – Bloomington, Indiana – Creative Writing M.F.A. at IU NEW YORK UNIVERSITY – New York, New York –  Creative Writing M.F.A. at NYU or M.A. in English with Concentration in Creative Writing at NYU SAINT MARY’S COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA – Moraga, California – Creative Writing M.F.A. at SMC SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY – San Francisco, California – Creative Writing M.A. and M.F.A. at SFSU TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY – San Marcos, Texas – Creative Writing M.F.A. at Texas State STANFORD UNIVERSITY Stegner Fellowship – Palo Alto, California UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA – Birmingham, Alabama – Creative Writing M.F.A. at U of Alabama UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA – Tucson, Arizona –  Creative Writing M.F.A. at U of Arizona UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS – Fayetteville, Arkansas – Creative Writing M.F.A. at U of Arkansas UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA – Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada – Creative Writing M.F.A. Options at UBC UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS – Davis, California – English M.A. with an Emphasis in Creative Writing at UCD UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE – Irvine, California – English M.F.A. in Writing at UCI UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE – Riverside, California – M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts at UCR UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA – Norwich, United Kingdom – Creative Writing M.A. at UEA UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA – Gainesville, Florida – Creative Writing M.F.A. at UF UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON – Houston, Texas – M.A. and Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing and M.F.A. in English: Creative Writing at UH UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO – Moscow, Idaho – Creative Writing M.F.A. at U of Idaho UNIVERSITY OF IOWA – Iowa City, Iowa – Creative Writing M.F.A. in English at U of Iowa and M.F.A. in Nonfiction Writing at U of Iowa UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND – College Park, Maryland – Creative Writing M.F.A. at U of Maryland UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN – Ann Arbor, Michigan – Creative Writing M.F.A. at U of Michigan UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA – Missoula, Montana – Creative Writing M.F.A. at U of Montana UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA – Las Vegas, Nevada – Creative Writing M.F.A. at UNLV UNIVERSITY OF OREGON – Eugene, Oregon – Creative Writing M.F.A. at UO WARREN WILSON COLLEGE – Asheville, North Carolina – MFA Program for Writers at WWC

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Voices Blog

Creative writing.

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May 18 Online Event: 'My Good Son: 'The Power and Burdens of Parental Love

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Creative Writing

Creative writing, comparative writing.

What is a comparative poetics? Across which boundaries does poetry move—and move us? This creating writing course takes up the question of how poetry moves across form, language, media, the self, geography, and our readerly expectations. Over the course of the summer session, we will pair the practice of writing our own poetry with the critical reading of poetic texts and one another’s work. Each week of this course is organized around a theme: form(ation), translation, mixed-mediation, narrativization, re/dislocation, and experimentation. These six themes will both serve as the basis for weekly prompts and will also center our discussions of poetry by Rosa Alcalá, Jen Bervin, Sagawa Chika and Sawako Nakayasu, Lyn Hejinian, Bhanu Kapil, Douglas Kearney, M. NourbeSe Philip, Simone White, and others. These discussions will ground twice-weekly workshops (which will open with discussions of a published poem), in which we will share and discuss work in progress.

By the end of the course, each of you will have produced a portfolio of poems, given a presentation or performance of your work, and developed a statement on poetics; you will also have gained skills in approaching poetic texts work ranging from Middle English lyric to contemporary multi-lingual translations, from life writing caught up in the present to works entangled in historical archives—skills that will prepare you to read poetic texts in the future and that will offer a foundation for your own writing practices.

• Spring 2024
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Exploring Creative Writing

ENGLISH X438

Get an overview of common forms and genres of written self-expression, including personal essay/memoir, poetry, short fiction and novel. You experiment and discover in a safe environment. The course curriculum helps you learn and practice a variety of genres, forms and styles toward further developing your skills as a creative writer.

In class assignments, you focus on the shorter forms to maximize the number of genres in which you can experiment.

Course Outline

Course Objectives

• Share a structural overview of several different forms of written self-expression, and write in each of those forms
• Develop the discipline of regular writing in order to understand the importance of revision and develop your ability to revise
• Apply feedback on your work and assess your own strengths and areas of interest
• Offer constructive advice on the work of others

What You Learn

• Personal essay 
• Voice and humor
• Poetry craft
• Short story craft
• Novel synopsis
• Beginning a Long Form (novel, memoir, poetry collection) 
• On being a writer

How You Learn

• Discussion assignments
• Written assignments, including essays, poems, short stories, novel synopsis and long form opening
• Reading assignments

Summer 2024 enrollment opens on March 18!

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Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

Education Articles & More

How creative writing can increase students’ resilience, students can find strength and community in sharing their stories through writing..

Many of my seventh-grade students do not arrive at school ready to learn. Their families often face financial hardship and live in cramped quarters, which makes it difficult to focus on homework. The responsibility for cooking and taking care of younger siblings while parents work often falls on these twelve year olds’ small shoulders. Domestic violence and abuse are also not uncommon.

To help traumatized students overcome their personal and academic challenges, one of our first jobs as teachers is to build a sense of community. We need to communicate that we care and that we welcome them into the classroom just as they are. One of the best ways I’ve found to connect with my students, while also nurturing their reading and writing skills, is through creative writing.

For the past three years, I’ve invited students in my English Language Development (ELD) classes to observe their thoughts, sit with their emotions, and offer themselves and each other compassion through writing and sharing about their struggles. Creating a safe, respectful environment in which students’ stories matter invites the disengaged, the hopeless, and the numb to open up. Students realize that nobody is perfect and nobody’s life is perfect. In this kind of classroom community, they can take the necessary risks in order to learn, and they become more resilient when they stumble.

Fostering a growth mindset

One of the ways students can boost their academic performance and develop resilience is by building a growth mindset. Carol Dweck, Stanford University professor of psychology and author of the book Mindset , explains that people with a growth mindset focus on learning from mistakes and welcoming challenges rather than thinking they’re doomed to be dumb or unskillful. A growth mindset goes hand in hand with self-compassion: recognizing that everyone struggles and treating ourselves with kindness when we trip up.

One exercise I find very useful is to have students write a story about a time when they persevered when faced with a challenge—in class, sports, or a relationship. Some of the themes students explore include finally solving math problems, learning how to defend themselves, or having difficult conversations with parents.

I primed the pump by telling my students about something I struggled with—feeling left behind in staff meetings as my colleagues clicked their way through various computer applications. I confided that PowerPoint and Google Slides—tools (one might assume) that any teacher worth a paperweight has mastered—still eluded me. By admitting my deficiency to my students, asking for their help, and choosing to see the opportunity to remedy it every day in the classroom, I aimed to level the playing field with them. They may have been reading three or four grade levels behind, but they could slap a PowerPoint presentation together in their sleep.

For students, sharing their own stories of bravery, resilience, and determination brings these qualities to the forefront of their minds and helps solidify the belief that underlies a growth mindset: I can improve and grow . We know from research in neuroplasticity that when students take baby steps to achieve a goal and take pride in their accomplishments, they change their brains, growing new neural networks and fortifying existing ones. Neurons in the brain release the feel-good chemical dopamine, which plays a major role in motivating behavior toward rewards.

After writing about a few different personal topics, students choose one they want to publish on the bulletin boards at the back of the classroom. They learn to include the juicy details of their stories (who, what, when, where, why, and how), and they get help from their peers, who ask follow-up questions to prompt them to include more information. This peer editing builds their resilience in more ways than one—they make connections with each other by learning about each other’s lives, and they feel empowered by lending a hand.

In my experience, students are motivated to do this assignment because it helps them feel that their personal stories and emotions truly matter, despite how their other academics are going. One student named Alejandro chose to reflect on basketball and the persistence and time it took him to learn:

Hoops By Alejandro Gonzalez Being good takes time. One time my sister took me to a park and I saw people playing basketball. I noticed how good they were and decided I wanted to be like them. Still I told my sister that basketball looked hard and that I thought I couldn’t do it. She said,“You could do it if you tried. You’ll get the hang of it.” My dad bought me a backboard and hoop to play with. I was really happy, but the ball wasn’t making it in. Every time I got home from school, I would go straight to the backyard to play. I did that almost every day until little by little I was getting the hang of it. I also played with my friends. Every day after lunch we would meet at the basketball court to have a game. … I learned that you need to be patient and to practice a lot to get the hang of things. With a little bit of practice, patience, and hard work, anything is possible.

Originally, Alejandro wasn’t sure why he was in school and often lacked the motivation to learn. But writing about something he was passionate about and recalling the steps that led to his success reminded him of the determination and perseverance he had demonstrated in the past, nurturing a positive view of himself. It gave him a renewed sense of investment in learning English and eventually helped him succeed in his ELD class, as well.

Maintaining a hopeful outlook

Another way to build resilience in the face of external challenges is to shore up our inner reserves of hope —and I’ve found that poetry can serve as inspiration for this.

For the writing portion of the lesson, I invite students to “get inside” poems by replicating the underlying structure and trying their hand at writing their own verses. I create poem templates, where students fill in relevant blanks with their own ideas. 

One poem I like to share is “So Much Happiness” by Naomi Shihab Nye. Its lines “Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house / and now live over a quarry of noise and dust / cannot make you unhappy” remind us that, despite the unpleasant events that occur in our lives, it’s our choice whether to allow them to interfere with our happiness. The speaker, who “love[s] even the floor which needs to be swept, the soiled linens, and scratched records,” has a persistently sunny outlook.

It’s unrealistic for students who hear gunshots at night to be bubbling over with happiness the next morning. Still, the routine of the school day and the sense of community—jokes with friends, a shared bag of hot chips for breakfast, and a creative outlet—do bolster these kids. They have an unmistakable drive to keep going, a life force that may even burn brighter because they take nothing for granted—not even the breath in their bodies, life itself. 

Itzayana was one of those students who, due to the adversity in her life, seemed too old for her years. She rarely smiled and started the school year with a defiant approach to me and school in general, cursing frequently in the classroom. Itzayana’s version of “So Much Happiness” hinted at some of the challenges I had suspected she had in her home life:

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness. Even the fact that you once heard your family laughing and now hear them yelling at each other cannot make you unhappy. Everything has a life of its own, it too could wake up filled with possibilities of tamales and horchata and love even scrubbing the floor, washing dishes, and cleaning your room. Since there is no place large enough to contain so much happiness, help people in need, help your family, and take care of yourself.   —Itzayana C.

Her ending lines, “Since there is no place large enough to contain so much happiness, / help people in need, help your family, and take care of yourself,” showed her growing awareness of the need for self-care as she continued to support her family and others around her. This is a clear sign of her developing resilience.

Poetry is packed with emotion, and writing their own poems allows students to grapple with their own often-turbulent inner lives. One student commented on the process, saying, “By writing poems, I’ve learned to be calm and patient, especially when I get mad about something dumb.” Another student showed pride in having her writing published; she reflected, “I feel good because other kids can use it for calming down when they’re angry.”

To ease students into the creative process, sometimes we also write poems together as a class. We brainstorm lines to include, inviting the silly as well as the poignant and creating something that represents our community.

Practicing kindness

Besides offering my students new ways of thinking about themselves, I also invite them to take kind actions toward themselves and others.

In the music video for “Give a Little Love” by Noah and the Whale, one young African American boy—who witnesses bullying at school and neglect in his neighborhood —decides to take positive action and whitewash a wall of graffiti. Throughout the video, people witness others’ random acts of kindness, and then go on to do their own bit.

“My love is my whole being / And I’ve shared what I could,” the lyrics say—a reminder that our actions speak louder than our words and do have an incredible impact. The final refrain in the song—“Well if you are (what you love) / And you do (what you love) /...What you share with the world is what it keeps of you”—urges the students to contribute in a positive way to the classroom, the school campus, and their larger community.

After watching the video, I ask students to reflect upon what kind of community they would like to be part of and what makes them feel safe at school. They write their answers—for example, not being laughed at by their peers and being listened to—on Post-it notes. These notes are used to create classroom rules. This activity sends a message early on that we are co-creating our communal experience together. Students also write their own versions of the lyrics, reflecting on different things you can give and receive—like kindness, peace, love, and ice cream.

Reaping the benefits

To see how creative writing impacts students, I invite them to rate their resilience through a self-compassion survey at the start of the school year and again in the spring. Last year, two-thirds of students surveyed increased in self-compassion; Alejandro grew his self-compassion by 20 percent. The program seems to work at developing their reading and writing skills, as well: At the middle of the school year, 40 percent of my students moved up to the next level of ELD, compared to 20 percent the previous year. 

As a teacher, my goal is to meet students where they’re at and learn about their whole lives. Through creative writing activities, we create a community of compassionate and expressive learners who bear witness to the impact of trauma in each others’ experiences and together build resilience.

As a symbol of community and strength, I had a poster in my classroom of a boat at sea with hundreds of refugees standing shoulder to shoulder looking skyward. It’s a hauntingly beautiful image of our ability to risk it all for a better life, as many of my ELD students do. Recognizing our common humanity and being able to share about our struggles not only leads to some beautiful writing, but also some brave hearts.

About the Author

Laura Bean, M.F.A. , executive director of Mindful Literacy, consults with school communities to implement mindfulness and creative writing programs. She has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and presented a mindful writing workshop at Bridging the Hearts and Minds of Youth Conference in San Diego in 2016.

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Bay Area Writing Project

The bay area writing project.

Serving educators since 1973

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Jim Gray put into action a radically new idea about teacher education—that successful classroom teachers make the best teachers of other teachers. National Writing Project

This is who we are and what we do

The Bay Area Writing Project (BAWP), based at the University of California, Berkeley, is an organization of, by, and for teachers of writing at all grade levels and in all disciplines, dedicated to improving the teaching and uses of writing through a variety of programs–both on the university campus and in the schools of the Bay Area.

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We are dedicated to the premise that in order to be effective teachers of the arts we must also slide behind typewriters, pick up chalk, strap on guitars, start the camera rolling, reach for the brush…and pursue the arts ourselves, with passionate abandon, tumbling head over heels into the next moment. 

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Discover your voice. A writing program for every writer.

Creative Writing

Hone your creative writing skills and get helpful feedback from other writers.

This program series will be held in person at the Battery Park City Library .  Join us for Creative Writing, a weekly writing session co-presented by the Battery Park City Authority and led by author and poet Jon Curley. Taking inspiration from life events, attendees will be encouraged to use reflection as a way to enhance their writing styles in any preferred mode. Beginners welcome! 

About the instructor:

Jon Curley is a Senior University Lecturer of Humanities at New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, New Jersey. He teaches literary and cultural studies, and is especially devoted to the art, literature, and culture of Newark, home of his mentor, the late activist and artist Amiri Baraka. He is the author of  Poets and Partitions: Confronting Communal Identities in Northern Ireland  (2011) and is co-editor of  The poetry and Poetics of Michael Heller: A Nomad Memory  (2015) with Burt Kimmelman. 

This series will consist of six sessions, 90 minutes each. 

Dates: Mondays, 2/26, 3/4, 3/11, 3/18, 3/25, and 4/1  Hours: 2 - 3:30 PM

Attendance at all sessions is recommended. Space is limited  | Registration is required. Register above with your email address. Walkups will be permitted as space accommodates.

• Audience: Adults, 50+

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Leader of Boston-based GrubStreet reflects on writing center's mission and successes

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• Amanda Beland
• Tiziana Dearing

The nation's largest creative writing center is located right here in Boston. GrubStreet has taught students from around the world for the last 27 years. The group's mission is to create a productive and welcoming space for feedback on creative writing of all kinds. And that mission, seems to be working.

GrubStreet says over the last five years, writers in its community published nearly 2,000 novels, essays, memoirs and poems. Of those, close to 200 have been nominated or honored with awards or prizes.

We talk with Eve Bridburg, GrubStreet's founder and executive director, about the group's mission and what's next for the center and its writers.

This segment aired on March 21, 2024.

Amanda Beland Senior Producer Amanda Beland is a producer and director for Radio Boston. She also reports for the WBUR newsroom.

Tiziana Dearing Host, Radio Boston Tiziana Dearing is the host of Radio Boston.

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