Creative Writing at LSSU

An intimate program with enthusiastic faculty, we give undergraduate students opportunities to get publishing experience before graduation. Unlike larger programs where your work may be lost in large workshop classes, our faculty are excited to work one-on-one with undergraduate students. To encourage innovation and experimentation as students develop their voices, all majors complete coursework in prose, poetry, and performance writing. A junior course lets students refine their voices and practice their craft in their preferred genre in a class where they will get feedback from students of multiple genres. Seniors take the Creative Writing Portfolio course, a capstone class in which students write a unified collection of publication-ready work in their preferred genre, working with the instructor of their choice on an independent study basis.

Student publication is encouraged in the Creative Works Collective, an experimental zine written, edited, and published monthly by the English Club. You can also get involved in publication production through Border Crossing, LSSU's teaching journal, which may publish the very best student work alongside that of emerging and established writers. We host a Visiting Writers Series for which nationally recognized, award-winning writers and poets are invited to campus to give readings and master classes. We also organize trips to other literary events, and collaborate with LSSU’s fabulous theater program in providing students with opportunities for public readings and performances. Our creative writing courses were recently featured in the Soo Evening News!

In addition to our creative writing major, we also offer a creative writing minor.  Detailed descriptions of creative writing courses and their prerequisites are listed in the LSSU course catalog. Below is a list of the courses and semesters offered:

• ENGL 221 Introduction to Creative Writing (FALL, SPRING, and sometimes SUMMER)
• ENGL 301 Creative Prose Writing (SPRING)
• ENGL 302 Poetry Writing (FALL)
• ENGL 303 Performance Writing (EVERY OTHER YEAR IN THE SPRING, NEXT OFFERING: SPRING '13)
• ENGL 409 Advanced Creative Writing Workshop (EVERY OTHER YEAR IN THE SPRING, NEXT OFFERING: SPRING '13)
• ENGL 480 Creative Writing Portfolio (AS NEEDED)

Creative Writing Faculty

Julie Brooks Barbour teaches creative writing and poetry and edits Border Crossing, the program’s journal of art and literature, with Mary McMyne. She earned her MFA in poetry from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her chapbook, Come To Me and Drink, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Other honors include being endowed with an artist enrichment grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in New Zoo Poetry Review, roger, PigeonBike, UCity Review, Waccamaw, and Kestrel, and have been anthologized in Migrations: Poetry and Prose for Life's Transitions and Bigger Than They Appear: Anthology of Very Short Poems. Her book reviews have appeared in The Rumpus and Barn Owl Review. Before joining the LSSU faculty, she taught writing at the University of Kentucky and creative writing at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning. She was one of the founders of LSSU’s creative writing program, and a founding editor of Border Crossing . 12/11

Eric Gadzinski has taught English at LSSU since 1995. One of the founders of LSSU’s creative writing program and of the literary journal now called Border Crossing, he teaches creative writing and poetry. He holds a PhD in English from Temple University, where he wrote his dissertation on American soldier poetry of the Vietnam War. Aside from his academic research and publication in the poetry of war and modern American poetry generally, his own poetry has been published widely in a variety of online and print journals, and one of his poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2006.  He has been invited to give public readings locally, in public schools and at several universities, and has been a regular workshop leader at the annual Creative Writing Festival held at the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater. He is currently preparing a poetry collection for publication.  In addition, he is editing a collection of poems and stories by State Prison inmates, following a year and a half long workshop he was invited to conduct. Before coming to LSSU, he taught writing, developmental writing, and literature at Temple. 12/11

Mary McMyne teaches creative writing and fiction, and edits Border Crossing, the program’s journal of art and literature, with Julie Brooks Barbour. She earned her Master of Fine Arts in fiction from New York University, and another Master’s in English and creative writing from Louisiana State University, where she studied literature, theory, fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and screenwriting. She is currently finishing two novels, one of which won the Faulkner Prize for a Novel in Progress in 2007. Her other honors include winning the Robert Olen Butler Short Story Award in 2001 and the Tony Bill Screenwriting Award in 2002 while at LSU. Her fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and photography have been published or will soon appear in Double Dealer, New Delta Review, Exquisite Corpse: A Journal of Letters and Life, Country Roads, Web Del Sol, and The Nervous Breakdown. Before coming to LSSU, she taught expository writing, creative writing, and literature at New York University, ASACAP Columbia University, New Jersey City University, and South Louisiana Community College. For more information, please visit her website: www.marymcmyne.com. 12/11

Janice Repka teaches creative writing and fiction, organizes the Creative Writing Program’s Visiting Writer Reading Series. An author of novels, short stories, and poetry, she has a Juris Doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, and both a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and a Master of Arts in English from McNeese State University. Her first novel, The Stupendous Dodgeball Fiasco, published by Dutton Children’s Books in 2004, was a Junior Library Selection and a 2008 Nebraska Golden Sower Award Honor Book. It was also nominated for the Sunshine State Young Reader Award, the Young Hoosier Book Award, the Great Stone Face Award, and the Keystone to Reading Book Award. Her second novel, The Clueless Girl’s Guide to Being a Genius, was published by Dutton Children’s Books in 2011. Kirkus Reviews has called it a “fantastical and funny story” that is “equal parts silly and endearing.” Repka’s poetry and short stores have been published by Potomac Review, Writer’s Journal, and The Louisiana Review. Her short story, “Love’s Final Selection,” was the 2001 winner of the Antietam Review Literary Contest and was published in that journal. Before joining the LSSU faculty, she taught at McNeese State University and was a guest speaker and presenter at creative writing conferences, schools, and libraries across the county.  For more information, go to www.janicerepka.com. 12/11

Jillena Rose teaches creative writing and poetry. She earned an MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College in 2006. One of the founders of LSSU’s creative writing program, she serves as a liaison between the program and the local, regional, and academic creative writing communities, and organizes publicity and publication opportunities for Michigan and Eastern Upper Peninsula Writers. She has worked with the community to establish the Cabin Fever Writer's Group and the Superior Cafe Poetry Reading Series, which brings both regional and nationally known poets to Sault Saint Marie. Her poems have appeared most recently in The Bijou Poetry Review, Third Wednesday and PigeonBike. She has work forthcoming this Spring in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry Series. Before joining the LSSU faculty, she taught lyric and narrative poetry at Warren Wilson. She was a founding editor of Border Crossing. 12/11

Jim Zukowski teaches creative writing and poetry. He was one of the founders of LSSU’s creative writing program and of the literary journal now called Border Crossing. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh, where he wrote his dissertation on the Eighteenth-Century English Novel in relation to the period's literate practices. He obtained his M.F.A. from Warren Wilson College.  Some of his work appears in Provincetown Arts, Northwest Review, Water Stone Review, and Nimrod. Before coming to LSSU, he taught composition and literature at the University of Pittsburgh. 12/11