Submitted by: Sandy Longhorn, slonghorn@uca.edu on 11/04/2024
In honor of 15 years of the bachelor’s of arts in creative writing, the UCA Programs in Creative Writing will host a “Sweet 15!” celebration with presentations, an open mic and a reception.
The event will be open to the public and refreshments will be provided. It will be held from 7-8:30 p.m. Nov. 19 in the Win Thompson Hall lobby.
For more information, contact Sandy Longhorn, slonghorn@uca.edu.
Founded in 2009, the program offers the widest variety of creative writing classes in the state of Arkansas. At its beginning, the creative writing program served about 50 students. Now, 145 students are either majoring or minoring in creative writing.
Tom Williams, dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, said he cannot imagine UCA without the creative writing major.
“The BA in Creative Writing is singular; you won’t find anywhere in Arkansas such a devoted set of faculty, along with a degree plan so unique,” Williams said.
In addition to fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and script writing, students can take classes in novel writing, writing for children, writing for graphic novels and video games, editing and publishing, teaching creative writing and more.
Through the various classes offered in the program, Stephanie Vanderslice, professor of creative writing, said students gain important skills that are directly applicable to the 21st century landscape.
“They know how to give feedback and how to work together to make any piece of writing better. They know how to brainstorm and optimize creative solutions to writing problems,” Vanderslice said.
Terry Wright, retired dean of the then College of Fine Arts and Communication, said the creative writing program is his proudest accomplishment.
“Sometimes, when I drink my morning coffee and rock on my porch, I think about a certain look I used to see on students’ faces, often in an Introduction to Creative Writing class. It signaled I did or said something that turned a student’s creativity firehose full on for likely the first time. I called it ‘The Epiphany Look,’” Wright said. “I hope, at this moment, there is a student sitting in a creative writing class at UCA who is wearing that unmistakable look.”
