BAWriting & Literature
Cultivate your creative writing potential and literary analysis skills in an inspiring, intensive studio environment.
Overview
The living art of writing and literature
Writing and literature at CCA can be whatever you want it to be. Set within an art and design school, our program gives writers the freedom to explore many different modes of narrative and storytelling.
Our program emphasizes the historical knowledge of literature, interdisciplinary exploration, and critical inquiry to help you create original work. Situated in one of the best art and design schools in the country, creativity and innovation are at the heart of everything we do. Students learn to develop their individual voices through workshops in prose, poetry, drama, screenwriting, graphic novels, improvisation, and more. They incorporate visual art into their own writing as they work on a thesis manuscript.
Immersed in the Bay Area’s rich literary history
The Bay Area has long been home to exciting literary communities, from the San Francisco Renaissance and Beat poetry movement to New Narrative and Slam/Spoken Word. During any given week, there are dozens of reading series students can attend. It’s this vibrant literary scene, combined with our art and design backdrop, that makes our Writing and Literature program so unique.
Studios & Shops
Work within many modes and genres
A creative writing degree is an investment in your development as a writer and reader. You’ll have the opportunity to practice image-making, meter, and other poetic gestures; character development and fiction forms; lyric essays, literary journalism, travel writing, hybrid narratives, and more.
Your workshop submissions in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction will be informed by close readings and analyses of writing that spans movements. We read the Romantics, Gothic literature, non-Western traditions, graphic novels—we read everything. Courses focused on literary writing by a single author, such as Walt Whitman or Octavia Butler, allow us to dive deeper into diverse perspectives and critical theory.
Our curriculum also includes four open electives, giving you the freedom to explore different disciplines such as community arts, printmaking, painting and drawing, and illustration.
Connect with published writers and literary organizations
Our students learn what it’s like to live and work as a writer through internships with Bay Area literary organizations. Within our classrooms and workshops, guest lecturers and faculty—all widely published—guide students through the fundamental steps for publication.
Your writing life at CCA
- Organize and host our HearSay Reading Series
- Create, edit, and design our Humble Pie undergraduate journal
- Perform during public open mic nights
- Collaborate with animators and illustrators
- Intern with Bay Area literary organizations
- Write a full-length collection for your senior thesis
Spaces to inspire your creative writing
Faculty
Work with small presses and arts education institutions
Our faculty are accomplished scholars, prose writers, poets, nonfiction writers, and playwrights. They publish New York Times best-sellers, mount exhibitions, and even write libretti for operas. Students benefit from their diverse practices during small workshops and one-on-one sessions.
Faith Adiele, Chair of Writing & Literature
Chair Faith Adiele is a travel writer, memoirist, essayist, editor, critic, and multimodal storyteller whose practice engages race, identity, memory and home. Informed by her Nigerian/Nordic/American identity, her literary activism includes testifying about the Nigerian civil war at documenta 14, hosting African Book Club at the Museum of the African Diaspora, starting the nation’s first writing workshop for travelers of color, and being a founding member of the Afro-Nordic Feminist Consortium. Her work is widely taught in universities and written about in such publications as Condé Nast Traveler, Paste Magazine, LitHub, Book Riot, Bitch Magazine, and the full-length study, Lifting As They Climb: Profiles of Black Women Buddhists.
Curriculum
We think with our hands
Develop your writing into works of art
Writing and Literature at CCA is a combination of forms workshops, open electives, and topical courses on theory, visual arts, and historical and modern authors and techniques. The program is designed to help you develop your writing into publishable works of art through individualized attention and access to one of the country’s most dynamic literary communities. View sample courses.
Investigate ideas through every dimension
Before diving into their chosen major, every undergraduate participates in the First Year Experience. Students explore a wide range of materials and tools over the course of two semesters. Faculty from different disciplines guide studio projects, group critiques, and theoretical discussions, setting students up for success throughout their major coursework.
BA Writing & Literature
Core Studio
- Drawing 1, 2D, 3D, 4D or two of the core classes and two writing workshops or studios
- 12.0 units
Writing & Literature Major Requirements
- Workshop: Literary Forms (2000 level)
- 6.0 units
- Literature: Historical Topics (2000 level)
- 3.0 units
- Literature: Modern Topics (2000 level)
- 3.0 units
- Media History: Literary Theory
- 3.0 units
- Ways of Reading
- 3.0 units
- Literature (LITPA 2000 or 3000 level)
- 9.0 units
- Literary Journal
- 3.0 units
- Writing Majors Workshop
- 3.0 units
- Workshop: Critical Essay
- 3.0 units
- Writing and Literature Practicum
- 3.0 units
- Senior Project: Thesis
- 6.0 units
Additional Studio Requirements
- Upper Division Interdisciplinary Studio
- 3.0 units
- Critical Ethnic Studies Studio
- 3.0 units
- Studio Electives
- 3.0 units
- Open Electives
- 12.0 units
Humanities & Sciences Requirements
- Writing 1
- 3.0 units
- Writing 2
- 3.0 units
- Introduction to the Arts or World Literature
- 3.0 units
- Introduction to the Modern Arts
- 3.0 units
- Foundation in Critical Studies
- 3.0 units
- Philosophy and Critical Theory (2000 level)
- 3.0 units
- Social Science/History (2000 level)
- 3.0 units
- Science/Math (2000 level)
- 3.0 units
- History of Art and Visual Culture (2000 level)
- 3.0 units
- Critical Ethnic Studies Seminar
- 3.0 units
- Humanities and Sciences Electives (2000 or 3000 level, at least 6 units must be 3000 level, excluding Writing and Literature and Literature and Performing Arts Studies)
- 12.0 units
Total 120.0 units
Careers
Your future as a writer and artist
Our students emerge from the Writing and Literature program with highly transferable skills in critical thinking and oral and written communication. Alumni secure positions at newspapers, literary nonprofits, small-press publishers, and advertising agencies. Many have gone on to pursue graduate degrees in creative writing, education, law, and library science.
Potential career paths
- Freelance writer
- Journalist
- Editor
- Playwright
- Content strategist
- Copywriter
- Arts administrator
- Social activist
- Entrepreneur
- Technical writer
- Publication and production assistant
- Art therapist
- Small-press publisher
- Lawyer
- Librarian
- Travel writer
- Essayist
News & Events
What’s happening in the writing community?
How to Apply
Learn the craft of writing in a supportive community
Our students are excited to study various styles and formal techniques with acclaimed writers. They want to stretch their creative writing skills in intimate workshops and establish industry connections at prominent presses and journals. Inspired by CCA’s resources for fine arts and design, students are comfortable going beyond the written page to make compelling work. As thoughtful readers, collaborators, and community members, they’re prepared to flourish in many professional spheres that require critical thinking and literary inventiveness.
Find your creative community at CCA
