Creative Writing
The Bay Area has a rich literary history and a vibrant contemporary writing scene. In this hands-on course, students practice the craft of writing in a lively, artistic atmosphere under the guidance of faculty from CCA’s Writing and Literature Program.
Using short works by great writers as models and drawing parallels and inspiration from the visual arts and music, students create their own poetry, stories, plays, and creative nonfiction. Through in-class prompts, draft writing, peer workshops, revisions, and instructor feedback, they develop their distinctive voices while investigating essential aspects of the craft: description, imagery, rhythm, point of view, character, tension, epiphany, and resolution.
Visits from published guest writers as well as field trips to the famous City Lights bookstore and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art enliven the class experience. The enrollment limit for Creative Writing is 18.
Creative Writing is an all-day course.
Field Trips & Visiting Writers
The Bay Area has a rich literary history and a vibrant contemporary writing scene. Its surroundings are fantastic and the resources that inspire the creative process are bountiful. From Jack London's stories of the wild to the counter-culture force of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the Beat poets, writers have been inspired by the landscape and energy of the Bay Area.
Spend this summer immersed in writing within a region celebrated for its pioneering originality and experience such sites as the legendary City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco's famous North Beach, San Francisco Center for the Book, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, to name just a few literary iconoclastic locations.
Visits from award-winning, renowned writers enrich the classroom experience. Previous guest writers have included slam poets from Youth Speaks, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, Ryan Harty, and Julie Orringer, among others.
- Youth Speaks, founded in San Francisco in 1996, is a premiere youth poetry, spoken word, and creative-writing organization responsible for creating the Teen Poetry Slam, Brave New Voices, and the Bringing the Noise Reading Series.
- Kathi Kamen Goldmark is perhaps best known in the publishing world for founding and performing with the all-author rock band the Rock Bottom Remainders. She is the author of And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You (Chronicle Books, 2002) and coauthor of Mid-Life Confidential (Viking/Signet, 1994), by and about the Rock Bottom Remainders, and The Great Rock & Roll Joke Book (St. Martin's Press, 1997) with Dave Marsh. At present she is producer of the national radio show West Coast Live.
- Ryan Harty's stories have been widely published in literary magazines, including Tin House and Missouri Review and have received a Henfield-Transatlantic Review award. His first collection, Bring Me Your Saddest Arizona (University of Iowa Press, 2003) received the Iowa Short Fiction award and the John Simmons Short Fiction award.
- Julie Orringer won a National Endowment for the Arts grant in 2004. Her debut collection, How to Breathe Underwater (Vintage Contemporaries, 2003). Her stories have appeared in Paris Review, Yale Review, Ploughshares, Pushcart Prize Anthology, and Zoetrope.
The San Francisco Bay Area is an inspirational mecca for creative writers.
North Beach is synonymous with the Beatnik generation
The Golden Gate Bridge continues to fascinate writers
The legendary Haight/Ashbury district attracts writers far and wide
Apply for Pre-College: Download form here
Photos provided by the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau