<p>I can't find hardly any schools with this major. What do people take in college if they know they want to become an author?</p>
<p>Check Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, Kenyon</p>
<p>My d is a junior who is interested in a creative writing major. What are the best schools for this, in your experience? Does she need to prepare a portfolio? Should she major in English Literature and concentrate in creative writing or should she look specifically for a program that has a creative writing major? Thank you in advance for any information you can give us!</p>
<p>You should just search this topic. There have been many on it.</p>
<p>CMU is a good one.</p>
<p>Generally, I think most schools have the option of concentrating in creative writing within an English degree. Some, like UNC-Chapel Hill, offer creative writing only as a minor. I don't know about major programs, sorry.</p>
<p>My sister is interested in creative writing. I would suggest:</p>
<p>Bard
Beloit
Bennington
Bowling Green
Brown
Carnegie Mellon
Columbia
Denison
Emerson
Goucher
Grinnell
Hamilton
Hollins
Johns Hopkins
Iowa
Kenyon
Knox
Middlebury
Oberlin
Sarah Lawrence
Susquehanna
UNC Chapel Hill
U Redlands</p>
<p>Things to read:
AWP's</a> Hallmarks of a Successful Undergraduate Program</p>
<p>Thanks, warblersrule86. This looks like a great list to investigate. One of D's other major interests is opera, so she will be looking for a school where voice lessons will be available. I can see several schools on this list which she will definitely research.</p>
<p>I would suggest USC (Southern Cal). They have a full creative writing major (not just contained within the English major) and a full music school (Thornton) where she could study opera. Students are encouraged to double major, so a creative writing/opera combination would be encouraged.</p>
<p>also vassar, wesleyan, and connecticut college are known for producing excellent writers. i'm not sure if there is actually a 'major' in creative writing, but there is definitely a concentration in it within the english departments.</p>
<p>that link is also very helpful</p>
<p>& here's one for opera degrees if you want to look for colleges that offer both:</p>
<p>Northwestern University has a fabulous creative writing program.</p>
<p>I am also interested in writing, particularly along the lines of nonfiction and stories based on life experiences, not neccesarily fantasy. I also enjoy drawing, what path would a children's author/illustrator take?</p>
<p>Bennington has produced many (particularly for it's small size) professional writers. The philosophy there is that you must be a reader before you can write, so people interested in writing take primarily literature classes. There is also quite a bit of writing within the classes, however. In looking at the above thread of AWP's Hallmarks of a Successful Undergraduate Program, Bennington would appear to have quite a few of the requirements.</p>
<p>Oberlin has both a creative writing major and the music, of course; could take voice lessons from a conservatory student and hear great opera all around her, but the competition to actually perform opera on stage would go to the conservatory-trained singers. She could develop musically, in other words, and even double major in Music and Creative Writing at Oberlin College (not the conservatory).
That said, the creative writing major is limited in space with a very competitive admission-by-portfolio at the end of sophomore year. By taking the courses as a freshman and soph, she can develop a portfolio while out there, but there is no guarantee she can get in to that major. It's even hard to get into the courses themselves, and after a while those courses are limited to the majors. For a while, Oberlin tried to expand the spots offered by having student-taught seminar discussion groups run by seniors, with one central professor teaching the course, much like a university does for larger classes. But recently they ended that approach, saying that the college's commitment to have only professors teaching students directly meant more than expanding spots for a major, however popular it is.
Not easy.
I understand access to creative writing classes is of issue at other colleges as well, so ask carefully. Just because a course is listed in a catalogue doesn't mean it's available in practical terms.
Another poster asked about Children's Writing/Illustrating. For that, I'd steer away from Oberlin because they educate aspiring poets and novelists. If they don't have faculty that can help you, they won't let you major in it (my D's experience there; she chose a different major b/c her portfolio had so much children's writing in it and that was their reply. She could have then taken the poetry course to add that dimension to her portfolio, but decided away from the whole idea of majoring in it.
For better help with children's writing, try Emerson College in Boston, a school in Virginia whose name slips me (sorry) but I found those leads by looking up literary guilds for Children's Book Writing. I go to the professional associations by google, then look for links to which colleges they recommend.</p>
<p>Brandeis has a minor in creative writing, I believe...I'm not sure how well-regarded it is, but I might go there next year, and I definitely need to find out.</p>