Explore the Beats, avant-garde cinema, and embodied poetics. Take an interdisciplinary approach to your writing by studying performance, film, and visual art. Draw on contemplative principles of interdependence and compassion to use writing as both a means of social change and self-revolution.
As Robert Bresson said, “Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.”
As a Creative Writing and Literature major in Naropa’s world-famous Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, you will have the chance to experiment with language, develop your analytical skills, and learn about yourself and your place in the world.
You will also have the chance to begin building a career through professional development courses and the completion of a creative manuscript and literary thesis.
The result? Many of Naropa’s alumni from the Creative Writing and Literature program go on to earn Master of Fine Arts degrees, win prestigious awards, publish works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, as well as become teachers, editors, and communications professionals.
Take part in Naropa University’s internationally recognized Summer Writing Program, a three-week intensive colloquium of workshops, lectures, and readings featuring Naropa faculty and visiting literary luminaries.
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Learn letterpress printing and bookmaking in Naropa’s very own print shop.
Get involved in Naropa’s student- and faculty-run literary journal, which has been publishing experimental poetry, prose, art, translations and interviews for more than forty years.
Your Creative Writing and Literature bachelor’s degree program consists of 120 credit hours. The Creative Writing and Literature degree program is a 36-credit major that combines writing workshops, the critical study of literature and other media with classes in professional development.
“Being a writer can be a solitary life, and while I value my privacy, my introversion, I'm utterly grateful for the writers I have in my life via Naropa. Community is never finite. Naropa served as the heart of so many future connections, including all the connections I have yet to make.”
— Sarah Elizabeth Schantz
BA, Writing and Literature, 2013; Author;
2016 Colorado Book Award Winner - Fig; Pushcart Prize Nominee
Professor and Dean of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics // Author of Beloved Integer, She, A Blueprint, Continuous Frieze Bordering Red, and co-author of TRI/VIA
— Michelle Naka Pierce, MFA
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Professor // Dean, Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics
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