Though officially founded in 1978 by professor and poet Ron Wallace, the Program in Creative Writing has been around for almost as long as the Department of English; over the years its students and faculty have included such distinguished writers as Jean Toomer, Eudora Welty, Delmore Schwartz, Wallace Stegner, Saul Bellow, Lorraine Hansberry, James Merrill, Gwendolyn Brooks, Joyce Carol Oates, Anthony Doerr, Lorrie Moore, Lauren Groff, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, and Danez Smith.
As an extension of its educational mission, the Program in Creative Writing aims to be the center of literary life in the Madison area. Its students, fellows, and graduates get involved in many campus and local writing-related happenings, including Division of the Arts programming, engagement with the University of Wisconsin Press through our book prizes, community outreach via the Wisconsin Prison Humanities Project, and an abundance of literary events through our partnership with the Wisconsin Book Festival and other local venues such as the Watershed Reading Series at Arts + Literature Laboratory and Madison’s independent bookstores A Room of One’s Own and Mystery to Me. For a calendar of upcoming readings and literary events, stay tuned to the events page.