Writing and Applied Arts
(Bachelor of Fine Arts)
Overview
Series like Game of Thrones and Harry Potter spend decades on bestseller lists. Movies inspired by comic books break box office records. Markets are exploding for literary fiction, sci-fi and fantasy, poetry, screenplays, game narratives, graphic memoirs, podcasts, and YA fiction. To meet industry demand for exceptional writing skills infused with creativity, UW-Green Bay offers the first and only degree of its kind in the UW-System: The Bachelor of Fine Arts in Writing and Applied Arts.
Craft-Focused Workshops, Community-Facing Opportunities
The B.F.A. in Writing and Applied Arts is a craft-focused, community-facing program offering a range of writing workshops, including novel writing, novel revision, romance writing, poetry, screenwriting, creative nonfiction, memoir, and flash fiction. Small class sizes (10 to 25 students) place student work at the center of discussion. Students can write and revise a novel, poetry manuscript, or memoir with mentored feedback for class credit. In addition, through its focus on Applied Arts, the BFA in Writing and Applied Arts offers opportunities for students to discover and tell our region’s untold stories—connecting a student's love of reading and writing to real-world problem-solving, advocacy, and change.
The Business of Writing
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of writers is projected to rise 8 to 14% over the next seven years in fields like technical writing, public relations, nonprofit fundraising, social media, library sciences, and community relations. Markets are growing for books in all formats and platforms. As emerging professionals, B.F.A. students develop expertise transferrable to any workplace. They also gain skills in communication, audience awareness, listening, empathy, communicating complex ideas and critical thinking — skills ranked in the top 10 most sought-after qualities by job recruiters. In the final year of the B.F.A in Writing and Applied Arts, students engage in at least nine credit hours of hands-on expertise in areas such as small press publishing, copywriting, grant writing, podcasting, project development, journal editing, digital and social media, and marketing.
Choose One of Three Emphases
Students choose one of three interdisciplinary emphases:
- Community-Outreach Emphasis. Students in the Community-Outreach Emphasis bring writing to broader communities by organizing regional events, developing community workshops, and advocating to tell untold stories.
- Editing and Publishing Emphasis. Students in the Editing and Publishing Emphasis learn the business of storytelling in preparation to become copyeditors, content developers, comic book publishers, and promotional and marketing professionals.
- Digital and Public Humanities Emphasis. Students in the Digital and Public Humanities Emphasis gain hands-on experience digitizing, researching, and making texts available and accessible in preparation for careers in podcasting, digital storytelling, graphic book designers, library science, museum curation, or further scholarly research.
Program Outcomes for B.F.A. Students
- Students will create, draft, and revise original works in multiple genres and forms.
- Students will analyze the techniques, construction, and production of various written expressions.
- Students will critique works by peers and published authors alike in various classroom settings, including the writing workshop.
- Students will situate their work and the works of other writers within multiple larger audiences of readers, writers, the publishing industry, and other relevant markets.
- Students will identify sources of funding for arts and humanities projects, including their own individual projects.
- Students will interpret, research, and evaluate works of literature and related media by placing them in historical, philosophical, psychological, intertextual, and other contexts appropriate to the discipline.
- Students will articulate their aesthetic choices using appropriate artistic and professional terms.
- Students will develop proficiency in producing, copyediting, selecting content for, and disseminating various kinds of projects in an effort to engage communities within and outside of UWGB.
- Students will use reading, writing, editing, and producing literary texts or related media as an opportunity to deepen their insight into their own experiences and as vehicles for personal intellectual and imaginative growth.
Major
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Supporting Courses: | 18 | |
Required: | ||
| Arts Entrepreneurship | ||
| Introduction to Creative Writing | ||
| Grammar | ||
| Literary Studies | ||
Arts in Society (choose one course): | ||
| Arts in the Community | ||
| Introduction to Design and Culture | ||
| Introduction to Digital and Public Humanities | ||
Lower-level Literature (choose one course): | ||
| Women in Literature | ||
| Introduction to English Literature I | ||
| Introduction to English Literature II | ||
| Introduction to American Literature I | ||
| Introduction to American Literature II | ||
| World Literatures | ||
| World Literatures II | ||
| Upper-Level Courses: | 30-32 | |
Required: | ||
| Intermediate Creative Writing | ||
Writing workshops (choose three courses): | ||
| Short Fiction Writing Workshop | ||
| Advanced Poetry Writing Workshop | ||
| Creative Nonfiction Writing | ||
| Novel Writing Workshop | ||
| Novel Revision Workshop | ||
| Topics in Creative Writing | ||
Historical Literary Context (choose one course): | ||
| Topics in Publishing | ||
| History of the English Language | ||
Upper-level Literature (choose two courses): 1 | ||
| The British Novel | ||
| Major Drama | ||
| Major Poetry | ||
| Topics in Literary Criticism | ||
| Topics in Publishing | ||
| Major American Prose Fiction | ||
| Literary Themes | ||
| Literary Eras | ||
| American Ethnic Literature | ||
| World Literatures | ||
| History of the English Language | ||
| African American Literature | ||
| Literary Topics | ||
| Shakespeare | ||
| Major Author(s) | ||
Publication practicum (choose one): | ||
| Sheepshead Review Practicum | ||
| Book Editing Practicum | ||
Two Internships or community-based learning in Applied Arts area of emphasis: | ||
Community Outreach | ||
Editing and Publishing | ||
Digital and Public Humanities | ||
| Total Credits | 48-50 | |
| 1 | Historical Literary Context courses not used to fulfil that requirement may be used as a Literature elective. |
Faculty
Paul Emmett; Professor; Ph.D., University of Chicago
Rebecca A Meacham; Professor; Ph.D., University of Cincinnati, chair
Charles A Rybak; Professor; Ph.D., University of Cincinnati
Ann Mattis; Associate Professor; Ph.D., Loyola University
Valerie Murrenus-Pilmaier; Associate Professor; Ph.D., Marquette University
Rebecca L Nesvet; Associate Professor; Ph.D., University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
Jessica VanSlooten; Associate Professor; Ph.D., Auburn University
Jennifer Young; Associate Professor; Ph.D., Case Western Reserve University
Emily Ransom; Assistant Professor; Ph.D., University of Notre Dame
Sarah Schuetze; Assistant Professor; Ph.D., University of Kentucky
