Department of English

One semester of ENG 96a or 96b, as an eleventh course required for the major.

A student interested in this option should consult with a Co-Director of Creative Writing within the first month of the semester prior to the proposed study to discuss application guidelines and an adviser for the project, usually a senior faculty member the student has worked with before.

Normally, all four workshop requirements will have been completed prior to the start of the project.

The project will culminate in a creative body of work of high standard smaller in scope than the book-length thesis. A 25-page chapbook of poetry, for example, or 50 pages of fiction.

Recommendation for departmental honors will be made by the Creative Writing faculty to the English department based on the excellence of the student's record in the major, and the creative work as exemplified in the honors project.

Eleven semester courses are required. The workshop requirement is reduced to a minimum of three semester Creative Writing Workshop courses (poetry, prose or both). Two of the required workshops should be from the 109 or 119 categories. Also required is the satisfactory completion of two semesters of the Senior Creative Writing Thesis (ENG 96d).

ENG 96d (Senior Creative Writing Thesis)

Eleven semester courses are required, including the satisfactory completion of two semesters of the Senior Creative Writing Thesis (ENG 96d). One semester of ENG 96d may count as a creative writing workshop while the second semester will count as the eleventh course.

ENG 96d (Senior Creative Writing Thesis). The student will produce, under the direction of a faculty mentor, a distinguished body of writing (usually a book of poems 50-70 pages, or a collection of stories or a novel of 100-150 pages). The poetry or fiction thesis option also requires an essay discussing the student's literary influences. The essay will be due at the end of the senior year, along with the thesis.

Admission to the poetry or fiction thesis option in Creative Writing is by application only during the first semester of the junior year. An applicant needs to have completed two creative writing workshops before applying. The deadline for admission is usually in November. The deadline for midyear students will be in April.

Recommendations for honors in the Creative Writing major will be made to the English department by the Creative Writing faculty, based on the student's work as exemplified by the senior thesis.

A student majoring in Creative Writing may double-major in English or minor in English.

Annotated Bibliography

Detailed instructions on completing the annotated bibliography can be found below.

Submitting Your Thesis

Upon the completion of your thesis, you must submit two bound copies, one to your advisor and one to your second reader. You must also submit an electronic copy to the library.

The deadline for 1st semester juniors to submit manuscripts for the thesis option will be sometime in November. Notifications will be sent in January before the start of the semester.

For mid-year students who will be first semester juniors in the spring, the deadline will be sometime in April.

To Apply

Submit 15-20 pages of poetry, or up to 35 pages double spaced or 18 pages single spaced of fiction, an informal transcript, and a brief (1 or 2 page) cover letter in which you describe a literary work that has influenced or inspired you and explain what you hope to achieve in writing a thesis. Submit as a single .doc/.docx attachment to english@brandeis.edu. Include your name, email and preferred phone number. 

Recommendations for honors in the creative writing major will be made to the English department by the creative writing faculty, based on the student's work as exemplified by the senior thesis.

A student majoring in creative writing may double-major in English or minor in English.

Along with the book-length manuscript, all thesis students are required to produce an annotated bibliography. You should not think of it as a mere addendum to your thesis, but rather as the cornerstone. It is an opportunity for you to articulate what it is you aspire to in your writing, to think about the role literature has played in your life, and the role you hope to play some day in literature. The best bibliographies pull together the themes of your poetry collection and unify the thesis.

The bibliography is not an academic paper in the traditional sense. Rather, it is a thoughtful, well-constructed personal essay in which you discuss the books that have influenced your own writing. For the most part, the books you discuss should be ones you read while working on your thesis: collections of poems, anthologies and literary journals, perhaps a work of literary nonfiction. Works of fiction or other genres that traverse the boundaries of poetry may be included as well. Some might be books suggested by your advisor, other authors, and works you discovered on your own. You might reach back a little farther to include one or two books you read at a pivotal point in your life, books that made you want to write, made you feel you could write, books that inspired you in some way as an artist. This bibliography might be best thought of as a sort of field exam, an extension of the point of your own inquiry.

You should discuss a minimum of ten books in the essay, although you can certainly list many more in your bibliography. Typically, the bibliography is between 10 and 15 pages long.

The style can be similar to what it might be in a final paper for an academic course, if this is what you're most comfortable with. Or, you might choose a more conversational style that reflects your personality. Whatever style or tone you choose, you must be clear, precise, focused, and detailed. This is a structured essay, not a rambling meditation. You must use quotes from the books to illustrate your points. Discuss specific technical matters that you learned from author X, and then choose a line, a stanza, or an entire poem that illustrates what you're discussing: grammar, syntax, structure, form, and so on. Why was this work inspiring? What did you learn from author A? Some books might have inspired you to tackle certain theme, forms, or subject matter.

Most students write the bibliography toward the end of their second semester senior year, as their thesis is nearing completion. However, it would be most helpful to you to keep notes on your reading throughout the two years of the thesis process, as both a way of keeping track of what you read and as documentation of the trajectory of your interests as a writer over time.

Along with the book-length manuscript, all thesis students are required to produce an annotated bibliography. You should not think of it as a mere addendum to your thesis, but rather as the cornerstone. It is an opportunity for you to articulate what it is you aspire to in your writing, to think about the role literature has played in your life, and the role you hope to play some day in literature. The best bibliographies pull together the themes of the stories (if you're working on a collection) and unify the thesis.

The "bibliography" is not an academic paper in the traditional sense. Rather, it is a thoughtful, well-constructed personal essay in which you discuss the books that have influenced your own writing. For the most part, the books you discuss should be ones you read while working on your thesis: collections of stories, novels, perhaps a work of literary nonfiction. Some might be books suggested by your advisor, other authors, and works you discovered on your own. You might reach back a little farther to include one or two books you read at a pivotal point in your life, books that made you want to write, made you feel you could write, books that inspired you in some way as an artist.

You should discuss a minimum of ten books in the essay, although you can certainly list many more in your bibliography. Typically, the bibliography is between 10 and 15 pages long.

The style can be similar to what it might be in a final paper for an academic course, if this is what you're most comfortable with. Or, you might choose a more conversational style that reflects your personality. Whatever style or tone you choose, you must be clear, precise, focused, and detailed. This is a structured essay, not a rambling meditation. You must use quotes from the books to illustrate your points. Discuss specific technical matters that you learned from author X, and then choose a sentence or a passage that illustrates what you're discussing: dialogue, point of view, setting, and so on. Why was this work inspiring? What did you learn from author A? Some books might have inspired you to tackle certain themes or subject matter.

Most students write the bibliography toward the end of their second semester senior year, as their thesis is nearing completion. However, it would be most helpful to you to keep notes on your reading throughout the two years of the thesis process, as both a way of keeping track of what you read and as documentation of the trajectory of your interests as a writer over time.