吃瓜网

For Jaiden Thompson ’27, a 吃瓜网 Theater major from Seattle, creative writing is an outlet, an inspiration and a source of connection with their peers. Plus, the classes are fun!

“I think I’ve had the most fun in all my Creative Writing courses, and I’m actually learning something along with that fun,” Thompson says. 

Thompson chose to minor in Creative Writing to stay connected to the English Department, and they appreciate the way it connects them with a community of writers at Whitman. 

“You get to read all this literature in all your other classes,” Thompson says, “but I think there’s something really important about reading the literature of those around you that you’re learning with.”

With courses that focus on poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction and playwriting—as well as opportunities outside the classroom to be published, work on literary magazines, live in community with other writers and much more, Whittie writers never run out of spaces to grow into. 

A Versatile Minor

Whitman’s Creative Writing courses aren’t just for English majors, says Katrina Roberts VanKouwenhoven, Mina Schwabacher Professor of English, Creative Writing and Humanities. 

“I love that a Chemistry major might write a villanelle exploring maternal inheritance, that a Religion major could read a story furnished with iconography and be inspired to craft an essay on sources of personal faith, that a Computer Science major might delight in designing a poetry broadside that speaks toward issues of gender, that a dancer might discover an architecture of stanzas in which to choreograph a body in motion,” she says. 

“The world needs creative thinking right now more than ever in all fields.”

Whitman’s course (ENGL-150) provides a broad foundation in a range of literary forms. Students complete weekly writing exercises, share their work aloud, and learn to give and receive peer feedback. From there, they can dive deeper into intermediate and advanced workshops in poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction; explore other literary crafts; or even develop their own work through a creative thesis.

There are opportunities to explore creative writing outside the English Department as well, with courses such as (THDN-330) and (ENVS-347).

A playwriting class allowed Thompson to connect their Theater major with their passion for writing—and unlock a new understanding of how the two can work together. 

“I’ve been doing Theater, and I’ve been doing Creative Writing, but I’d never really combined the two in a productive way,” Thompson says. “I’ve done playwriting before, but I’ve always looked at it as more like prose, until I got to learn more about the spoken act of it, the characters and putting it on stage.”

Thompson’s play, “Thank You, Eternity!”, will be performed this spring as part of the upcoming One-Act Play Festival, a biennial event featuring plays written, directed and produced entirely by students. 

“As an actor, I’ve never been involved in the creative process of theater this early on,” Thompson says. “I’m excited to have all this input and then take a step back and give others liberty with my work in a way that I haven’t before.”

Whitties in Print

The creative writing scene at Whitman also allows students of all majors to see their work in print, with a range of literary magazines that celebrate culture, language or a love of the outdoors. 

Beyond submitting their writing to a magazine, working on the staff of one of Whitman’s literary magazines gives students the opportunity to build leadership and teamwork skills without a huge time commitment. 

“Being an editor on a blue moon staff is a really good leadership opportunity, especially if you work well leading a team of people and facilitating discussion,” says English major Alexia Frederick ’26, from Fort Myers, Florida, Editor-in-Chief of blue moon.

Nicole Martinez Cespedes ’26, a Hispanic Studies and Psychology major and from Cabarete, Dominican Republic, has worked as the Editor of Azulejos since 2023, when Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies Mariana Ruiz-González approached her for help with the magazine. 

“I think Azulejos is important because it includes more of the Spanish-speaking community in a space where English is majorly predominant,” Martinez Cespedes says. “For me, this is really important because I arrived here without knowing any English, so I’ve been learning English while I’ve been studying here at Whitman.

“Having this space makes it much easier to connect with the Latino community, with the other people who are submitting their work, with the people in the Hispanic Studies Department and people who speak Spanish on campus.”

Building a Creative Community

For students who want to really immerse themselves in Whitman’s writing scene, the Writing House takes their creative passion all the way home. One of 13 houses in Whitman’s Interest House Community, the Writing House is an intimate, off-campus housing option for students who are enthusiastic about building a community of writers on campus. 

Residents not only live alongside other writers, but they also host writing-themed events for the broader campus community. 

“I think it’s the most productive environment I’ve ever been in, in terms of getting my reading and writing done,” says Thompson, a past resident of the Writing House. They encourage anyone to show up to events like the weekly Writer’s Colony on Sundays from 6:30–7:30 p.m. “It’s such a chill environment.”

The English Department’s Visiting Writers Reading Series (VWRS) provides another opportunity for students to connect with creative writing beyond Whitman. The annual series brings established and emerging writers to campus to share their work with the Whitman community. 

VWRS is a great opportunity for students interested in creative writing to learn more about writers’ works, as well as their inspiration and writing process. 

Discovering a Future

Frederick chose to take Creative Writing classes at Whitman because of the chance to explore what being a writer could look like for her. 

“When I was younger, I really wanted to be a writer, but I thought it was a really unattainable thing,” she says. “I wasn’t ready to commit to calling myself a writer, so I did the minor as a fun way to dip my toes in.” 

It fit easily into her English major studies, and she was even able to take a Creative Writing course while studying abroad in Ireland. While there, she wrote the first few chapters of a novel. 

“The more time I spent thinking about it and writing it, it became really important to me—not just like an assignment in class but as a life thing,” Frederick says. 

Back at Whitman, those first few chapters have become the start of Frederick’s senior thesis project and have showed her a possible future in creative writing as a career. 

“It really enlightened me on what I want to do with my life,” Frederick says. “I started doing my thesis, started writing my novel, and now I know I want to go to grad school for Creative Writing. I want to teach Creative Writing. And I think the minor, leading to the thesis, leading to grad school, has been a really good domino effect for me.”