Writing at Lamar University
We can tailor your master's degree, bachelor's degree, or writing minor to launch you into a writing career path. For both academicians and creatives, we offer thesis-option master's degrees. What's more, we offer:
- Teaching assistantships and jobs as editors/proofreaders, web designers, tutors, writers and graders/assistants
- Readings by regionally and nationally-known writers and poets
- Small classes and individual instruction
- Graduate and undergraduate classes in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, feature article writing, technical writing, critical writing, rhetoric, and pedagogy
- A smooth transition from undergraduate to graduate study
- Editing and publishing opportunities in Pulse, Lamar Journal of the Humanities, Review of Texas Books.
For more information, contact Dr. Adrienne Blackwell Starnes, Director of Writing Programs.
Write With Renowned LU Authors
Writers and aspiring writers will find Lamar University's Department of English and Modern Language to be a unique place to study intimately with internationally published faculty, to grow as practitioners of writing craft, and to publish their work. Sponsored by our most generous donors, the department regularly brings poets and writers of national repute to the Lamar campus for readings. With grants from the Provost’s office, the Department invites guest writers and sponsors literary events.
Our student writers have won state and regional contests, published in state and regional journals, entered Ph.D. programs, and taken jobs in high schools, colleges, and businesses.
We are fortunate to boast a full faculty of published scholars and creatives, and four of our creative faculty writers are members of the Texas Institute of Letters. We invite you to seek out and read their work. We also invite you to meet with them to discuss mentorship and next steps in your journey to becoming a writer.
Members of Writing Faculty (post-early composition)
Adrienne Blackwell-Starnes — Rhetoric
Casey L. Ford — Poetry
Gretchen Johnson* — Fiction, Novel, Literary Criticism
Sara Hillin — Rhetoric, Literary Criticism
Katherine Hoerth* — Poetry, Literary Criticism
Sharon Joffe — Literary Criticism
Adam Nemmers — Literary Criticism
Damián Robles — Rhetoric, Literary Criticism
Amy Smith — Literary Criticism
Jim Sanderson* — Fiction, Nonfiction, Novel
*Three of our English professors are members of the Texas Institute of Letters. Lamar faculty members have published novels, short story collections, essay collections, poetry collections, articles, reviews, scholarship, manuals and textbooks. Check out their publications on Amazon.com and elsewhere.
Creative Writing Links of Interest
Texas Association of Creative Writing Teachers
The Association of Writers and Writing Programs
Texas Institute of Letters
Writers League of Texas