The mission of the ECA Creative Writing Department is to help each student find and develop his, her, or their unique writing voice. Toward this end, students take classes in Poetry, Fiction, Journalism and Screenwriting. Other writing genres offered in the past that may also be offered in the future include: Playwriting, Memoir/Personal Essay, Humor, Flash Fiction, Writing for Performance, Monologue, and Live Storytelling.

Weekly writing exercises encourage students to explore different forms, styles, and techniques. Writing workshops teach students how to read and discuss each other’s work constructively, with the aim of helping it through the revision process and, ultimately, to completion. Students learn to identify directions worth pursuing in early drafts, as well as how and what to cut, refine, or expand upon.

Reading of contemporary literature (poetry, fiction, flash fiction, journalism, essays, memoirs, plays, and screenplays) as well as the study of other contemporary arts are all used to encourage students to stay open to their own possibilities, and to the work of other students.

To apply for Admission to the Creative Writing Department, please visit the Application Process Page .

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Visiting Writers to the Creative Writing Department include:

  • Faisal Mohyuddin: Acclaimed poet and visual artist
  • K-Ming Chang: Novelist and Poet
  • Debby Applegate: Author and Biographer
  • Brian Francis Slattery: novelist and arts editor
  • Hannah Goldfield: food writer for the New Yorker, and ECA class of 2004
  • Padraig O Tuama: notable Irish poet and peacemaker. Host of On Being's Poetry Unbound podcast.
  • Sharon Olds: winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and a National Book Critics Circle Award; professor of poetry at New York University.
  • Phillip Lopate: Director of the MFA program in nonfiction at Columbia University; editor, The Art of the Personal Essay; author of eight acclaimed essay collections. 
  • Caryl Phillips: internationally recognized writer of fiction, nonfiction, and plays. Honors include the 1987 Martin Luther King Memorial Prize; presently Professor of English, Yale University.
  • JoAnn Beard: author of an essay collection and a novel; memoir included in Best Essays of the Century; teaches in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence University.
  • Alice Mattison: winner of New York Times Editors’ Choice and Notable Book awards for her fiction; teaches fiction in the Bennington MFA Program.
  • Janet Burroway: her textbook, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft is the most widely used fiction writing text in America. 
  • Marilyn Nelson: three-time finalist for the National Book Award; Coretta Scott King award for A Wreath for Emmett Till; former CT Poet Laureate.
  • Spalding Gray: (1941-2004): writer and performer of groundbreaking monologues on stage and film; met privately with ECA writers (which he recorded as potential material for future monologues) to communicate his enthusiasm for their work, and to share his belief in the transformative power of art.

Congratulations to ECA Writers 

Our writers were honored with the following regional awards at the 2022 Scholastic Art & Writing Competition :

 

 

Scholastic National Silver Medal

Quinn Yurasek - Poetry

Gold Key

Hannah Leamon - Poetry
Eleanor Polak
Quinn Yurasek - Poetry

Silver Key

Lucy Dunn - Personal Essay
Jordan Hines - Poetry
Hannah Leamon - Poetry; Personal Essay/Memoir
Carlina Moore - Personal Essay
Isling Morris - Dramatic Script
Willem Parker - Poetry
Quinn Yurasek - Poetry

Honorable Mentions

Sophia Arnaout - Poetry; Dramatic Script
Naomi Borenstein - Flash Fiction
Lucy Dunn - Flash Fiction
Leala Goodall - Short Story
Jordan Hines - Short Story
Isling Morris - Poetry
Genevieve Peters - Flash Fiction
Quinn Yurasek - Poetry

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Creative Writing student, Jordan Hines' short story "Dearest Seacat" was selected for an anthology titled After the Nova, publishes by YA Stories, a division of the Unapologetic Voice house to give young writers an outlet to express themselves. The anthology is available in Barnes and Noble, Target and Amazon.
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Creative Writing student, Sophia Cossitt-Levy has been accepted to the Oxbridge Study Abroad Program and, this summer 2022, will be spending a month in Paris. Her course of study is "Creating Writing: Writing Paris" and in addition to this course will be studying French language and composition.

Faculty News

Bruch Cohen (Poetry) was the winner of a Pushcart Prize in Poetry in 2020.

Sari Rosenblatt (Flash Fiction) won the Iowa Short Fiction Prize. Her short story collection was published by the University of Iowa Press in 2020.

Saul Fussiner (Department Chair) was featured as a closing night performer at the Connecticut Storytelling Festival in April, 2021.