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About the department

For over forty years, the creative writing program in the Department of English has offered students an extraordinarily rich artistic and literary experience. Dedicated faculty, and visiting writers and writers-in-residence as diverse as Austin Clarke, Mordecai Richler, C.D. Wright, Irving Layton, Ben Lerner, Michel Tremblay, Jorie Graham, George Saunders, and Ann-Marie MacDonald have shared their knowledge of writing as art and profession in workshops, master classes, and one-on-one sessions with our students. Those students, in turn, have won or been finalists for major Canadian and international literary prizes. As editors and publishers, they have brought new talent to the fore. Studying creative writing at Concordia is a goal, and an opportunity to learn from accomplished writers, teachers and fellow students whose wealth of experience makes participation in the program a unique and rewarding experience.

Full-time faculty

  • Professor, English
    creative writing / poetry / the long & the serial poem / ekphrasis / "ruin porn"
  • Assistant Professor, English
  • Associate Professor, English
    creative writing / international literature
  • Professor, English
    Professeur titulaire, Études françaises
  • Professor, English
    fiction & nonfiction writing / culture, politics & history of the former Yugoslavia
  • Professor, English
    poetry writing / fiction & narrative writing / entre-genre / Canadian poetry / women’s literature
  • Associate Professor, English
    creative writing / 19th century drama & literature / anatomical waxworks / botanical gardens / medical history
  • Assistant Professor, English

Master classes with visiting writers

Here, Joseph Boyden gives a master class.

Master Classes are a signature aspect of Concordia’s flagship literary series, Writers Read. Students in our Creative Writing program are offered the unique opportunity to meet with, and ask questions of, renowned writers such as:

  • Colm Toibin
  • George Saunders
  • Miriam Toews
  • Jorie Graham
  • George Elliott Clarke
  • Mary Gaitskill
  • Lydia Davis

Writing in Montreal

Reading at Drawn and Quarterly Bookstore, Mile End, Montreal. Reading at Drawn and Quarterly Bookstore, Mile End, Montreal.

Writing, performance, music, visual arts, and digital media all thrive in Montreal’s multicultural environment. Concordia University’s creative writing program is at the centre of the city’s vibrant literary scene.

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