Creative Writing

Creative writing is the artistic practice of composing and refining fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction. It is an area of study very different from others within English. Creative writing students generally take workshop courses in which they submit their own work for constructive critique by their classmates, as well as by faculty with a strong national profile in publication.

The creative writing faculty at the University of Nevada, Reno specialize primarily in fiction and poetry, though we offer periodic courses in other areas such as creative nonfiction and screenwriting. Our fiction writers create and are familiar with a wide range of approaches (including YA fiction and work written within commercial genres such as fantasy, mystery, horror and so on). Our poets write in a broad spectrum of poetic styles and have published books in narrative, lyric and experimental modes.

Tablet, keyboard, plant, open blank book, coffee closed notebook and pencils sit on a marble desk

Interested in exploring creative writing more? Consider applying for our Master's program.

Major in writing MFA in creative writing

Opportunities for students

A range of resources and opportunities are available for students to become involved in publishing and professional experience and to teach writing to the community. Many of our graduate students have presented their work at local readings and events.

Professor David Fenimore holds clipboard and teaches class

Teaching assistantships and financial support

Most of our students are awarded teaching assistantships (which pay a stipend and tuition waiver in exchange for teaching first-year classes in the Core Writing Program); other opportunities for teaching and campus employment are frequently available.

Student and professor show off book art in press lab

Publishing and professional experience

MFA students can work on a number of publishing projects via the program’s relationships with Reno-based Baobab Press and the University’s Black Rock Press. Several of our students have applied internship credit toward their degree and have worked for the University of Nevada Press and other local organizations.

Community outreach

We encourage our students to be active members of Reno’s vibrant and active literary community, as well as good literary citizens. MFA students take part in Reno’s annual Literary Crawl, give readings to benefit charities, offer workshops for organizations such as Reno’s Holland Project and help run the annual University of Nevada, Reno Summer Youth Writing Program.

MFA students and professor stand next to Gabby Rivera

Visiting writers

Every year, between five and seven prominent writers visit campus to read from their work and visit with our creative writing students, including yearly short-residency visitors in both fiction and poetry. Recent short-residency visitors have included Saladin Ahmed, Cai Emmons, Manuel Gonzales, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Patricia Smith, Justin Torres, Srikanth Reddy and Robert Wrigley. Many other writers visit Reno frequently.

Faculty in creative writing

Casey Bell

I’m a fiction writer with a passion for helping students discover and hone their unique voices. My writing is sometimes literary, sometimes slipstream, and always feminist. I primarily write short stories, and my work has appeared in Sequestrum, Cream City Review, New South, The Boiler, Reed Magazine, The New Limestone Review, Timber and elsewhere. My short-story collection, Little Fury, is forthcoming from Metatron Press in spring of 2023. I also co-direct a summer music camp for self-identified girls, trans and gender-expansive kids called Girls Rock Reno. Currently, a novel is very hard at work on me.

Casey's Bio

Michael Branch

I write creative nonfiction, usually with an environmental emphasis, and often crossing over into the neighboring territories of popular science, humor, and memoir. I’ve published over 300 essays and reviews in venues including CNN, San Francisco Chronicle, Slate, Outside, Pacific Standard, Huffington Post, Bustle, Utne Reader, Orion, Ecotone, National Parks, The Scientist, High Country News, Terrain.org, Places Journal, Whole Terrain, and Red Rock Review. My books include Raising Wild, Rants from the Hill, How to Cuss in Western, and On the Trail of the Jackalope.

Michael's Bio

Christopher Coake

I’m a fiction writer; I’ve published two story collections—We’re in Trouble and You Would Have Told Me Not To—and a novel, You Came Back, which was adapted into a feature-length, Italian-language film in 2020. My work is literary, and often edges into genre territory; I’ve had stories published in mystery, horror and fantasy anthologies (including Best American Mystery Stories and The Best American Noir of the Century), and I’m working on a fantasy novel, as well as a realist love story.

Chris' Bio

Linzy Garcia

I am a fiction writer who fell in love with both (very) short-form and long-form literary fiction. My fiction explores female pleasure, shame, experience, and memory. My flash fiction appears in The Dollhouse (print), Lady/Liberty/Lit, Thin Air Magazine, NV Humanities, and The Normal School. I am currently working on a novel about a young woman who revisits her hometown and her past, unsure if they know the dark secret she ran away from: a secret affair with her high school teacher. Now, as an adult, she is forced to return and grapple with the lasting and interwoven threads of trauma and love.

Linzy's Bio

Steven Gehrke

As a poet, my interests include ekphrastic poetry, elegiac poetry, poetry about illness and recovery, poetry about fatherhood, and poetry about faith and religion. I am currently working on a new collection, tentatively titled Football in America, that touches on many of these interests. I look for expansiveness and inclusiveness in poetry and am drawn to poetry that is able to tell a story while maintaining the intensity and linguistic invention of the lyric. I’ve also written several full-length screenplays, the latest of which details the life of the inventor of the dialysis machine.

Steven's Bio

Ann Keniston

I’m a poet, essayist, and scholar of contemporary North American poetry, with a particular interest in hybrid forms that combine research with introspection. I’m at work on a collection of poems about art forgery, the art market, and the self-portrait genre, and on a collection of hybrid personal-researched essays topics including collecting, the autopsy form, and more.

Ann's Bio

Joanne Mallari

I write poetry, and I am currently working on a full-length collection. My debut chapbook, Daughter Tongue, was published by Kelsay Books. As a teacher, I believe in making arts education more accessible, because I discovered my love of language through public programs like the Southern Nevada Writing Project. Outside the classroom, I enjoy collaborating with fellow readers, writers, and artists in the Reno community.

Joanne's Bio

Claire Stanford

I am a fiction writer, and my debut novel, Happy for You, was published in 2022. I am primarily a novelist, but I also write short fiction, flash fiction, and nonfiction. In both my teaching and my work, I am particularly interested in the political meaning of craft and form. Along with my MFA, I also hold a PhD in English, and my scholarship is focused on science fiction studies, Asian American literature, and posthumanism. I am currently at work on my second novel, which has a speculative bent.

Claire's Bio

Jared Stanley

My poems explore the ways spiritual traditions help us navigate the profound, ongoing weirdness of climate change. I’ve written four books of poetry, most recently So Tough, winner of the 2022 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. I'm always looking for ways to present poetry outside of books, so I often collaborate with visual artists, making artworks that play with museums, archives, and monuments, which take various forms including billboards, decks of cards, ceramics and prints. I’m currently working on my fifth collection of poems as well as a novel, Leave Here Satisfied.

Jared's Bio