Founded in 1947, the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars is an academic program offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in writing in the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts & Sciences at

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

. It is the second-oldest creative writing program in the United States. Notable faculty of the program have included

Edward Albee Edward Franklin Albee III ( ; March 12, 1928 – September 16, 2016) was an American playwright known for works such as ''The Zoo Story'' (1958), ''The Sandbox (play), The Sandbox'' (1959), ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' (1962), ''A Delicat ...

John Barth John Simmons Barth (; May 27, 1930 – April 2, 2024) was an American writer best known for his postmodern and metafictional fiction. His most highly regarded and influential works were published in the 1960s, and include '' The Sot-Weed Facto ...

Madison Smartt Bell Madison Smartt Bell (born August 1, 1957, Nashville, Tennessee) is an American novelist. While established as a writer by several early novels, he is especially known for his trilogy of novels about Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolutio ...

J. M. Coetzee John Maxwell Coetzee Order of Australia, AC Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, FRSL Order of Mapungubwe, OMG (born 9 February 1940) is a South African and Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, and translator. The recipient of the 2003 ...

, Stephen Dixon,

Mark Hertsgaard Mark Hertsgaard (born 1956) is an American journalist, the co-founder and executive director of Covering Climate Now. He is the environment correspondent for ''The Nation'', and the author of seven non-fiction books, including ''Earth Odyssey'' ...

Brad Leithauser Brad E. Leithauser (born February 27, 1953) is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and teacher. After serving as the Emily Dickinson Lecturer in the Humanities at Mount Holyoke College and visiting professor at the MFA Program for Poets & W ...

, John Irwin, J.D. McClatchy,

Alice McDermott Alice McDermott (born June 27, 1953) is an American writer and university professor. She is the author of nine novels and a collection of essays. For her 1998 novel '' Charming Billy'' she won an American Book Award and the U.S. National Book Aw ...

Mark Crispin Miller Mark Crispin Miller (born 6 November 1949 ) is a professor of media studies at New York University. He has promoted conspiracy theories about U.S. presidential elections, the September 11 attacks and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting as we ...

, Wyatt Prunty,

Mary Jo Salter Mary Jo Salter (born August 15, 1954) is an American poet, a co-editor of The '' Norton Anthology of Poetry'' and a professor in the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins University. Life Salter was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and was ...

, David St. John,

Mark Strand Mark Strand (April 11, 1934 – November 29, 2014) was a Canadian-born American poet, essayist and translator. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1990 and received the Wallace Stevens Award in 2004 ...

, Robert Stone, and

Edmund White Edmund Valentine White III (January 13, 1940 – June 3, 2025) was an American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer, and essayist. A pioneering figure in LGBTQ and especially gay literature after the Stonewall riots, he wrote with ra ...

. Writer Eric Puchner currently chairs the program, which has a strong reputation. It has been ranked "One of the Top Ten Graduate Programs in Creative Writing" by

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

, and in 2020 was ranked as the #1 creative writing program by creativewritingmfa.info. In 1997, '' U.S. News & World Report'' ranked the program second in the United States out of sixty-five eligible full-residency MFA programs. In 2011,

Poets & Writers Poets & Writers, Inc. is one of the largest nonprofit literary organizations in the United States serving poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers. The organization publishes a bi-monthly magazine called ''Poets & Writers Magazine'' ...

ranked Hopkins seventeenth nationally out of 157 eligible full-residency MFA programs. The long respected Science Writing program was closed down in 2013 as an on-campus program, but was re-established as an online/low residency program shortly thereafter.

Degree programs

* Writing Seminars B.A. Degree * MFA in Fiction and Poetry

Notable graduates

The Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars has produced many prominent authors and writers including

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (born Grace Ngozi Adichie; 15 September 1977) is a Nigerians, Nigerian writer of novels, short stories, poem, and children's books; she is also a book reviewer and literary critic. Her most famous works include ''Purple ...

Gina Apostol Gina Lourdes Delgado Apostol (born 1963) is a Filipino-born writer based in the United States. She won the 2023 Rome Prize in Literature for her proposed novel, ''The Treatment of Paz''. Biography Early life and education Gina Lourdes Delgado A ...

John Astin John Allen Astin (born March 30, 1930) is an American actor and director who has appeared in numerous stage, television and film roles, primarily in character roles. He is widely known for his role as patriarch Gomez Addams in ''The Addams Famil ...

, Jami Attenberg, Beth Bachmann,

Russell Baker Russell Wayne Baker (August 14, 1925 – January 21, 2019) was an American journalist, narrator, writer of Pulitzer Prize-winning satirical commentary and self-critical prose, and author of Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography '' Growing Up'' (1 ...

Ned Balbo Ned Balbo (born November 19, 1959, Mineola, New York) is an American poet, translator, and essayist. Life Ned Balbo grew up on Long Island, New York. He was raised by Betty and Carmine Balbo, his birth mother's half-sister and her husband. His ...

Frederick Barthelme Fredrick Barthelme (born October 10, 1943) is an American novelist and short story writer of minimalist fiction. He is the director of the Center For Writers at The University of Southern Mississippi and editor of ''New World Writing'' (formerl ...

Jill Bialosky Jill Bialosky (born Jill Robin Bialosky, April 13, 1957 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American poet, novelist, essayist and executive book editor. She is the author of four volumes of poetry, three novels, and two recent memoirs. She co-edited with H ...

Jeffrey Blitz Jeffrey Blitz is an American film director, screenwriter and producer best known for the documentary '' Spellbound'' (2003), ''The Office'' (2007 - 2010), the fiction film '' Rocket Science'' (2007) and ''Comedy Central’s'' ''Review'' (2014 - ...

Paul Harris Boardman Paul Harris Boardman is an American screenwriter and film producer, best known for his work in the horror genre. Boardman has written screenplays and produced projects for various studios, networks, and production companies, including Netflix, TriS ...

Jennifer Finney Boylan Jennifer Finney Boylan (born June 22, 1958) is an American author, transgender activist, professor at Barnard College, and a former contributing opinion writer for the ''New York Times''. In December 2023, she became the president of PEN America ...

Lucie Brock-Broido Lucie Brock-Broido born "Lucy Brock" (May 22, 1956 – March 6, 2018) was an American poet, widely acclaimed as one of the most distinctive and influential voices of her generation. Noteworthy for her work as a teacher, Brock-Broido served as ...

, John Gregory Brown,

Vikram Chandra (novelist) Vikram Chandra (born 23 July 1961) is an Indian-American writer. His first novel, ''Red Earth and Pouring Rain'', won the 1996 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book. Early life Chandra was born in New Delhi in 1961. His father Navin ...

Iris Chang Iris Shun-Ru Chang (traditional Chinese: 張純如; March 28, 1968November 9, 2004) was an American journalist, historian, and political activist. She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanjing Massacre, ''The Rape of Nankin ...

Wes Craven Wesley Earl Craven (August 2, 1939 – August 30, 2015) was an American film director, screenwriter and producer. Amongst his Wes Craven filmography, prolific filmography, Craven worked primarily in the Horror film, horror genre, particularly sla ...

Erica Dawson Erica Dawson is an American poet and professor. She is the author of three poetry collections. Biography Dawson grew up in Columbia, Maryland. After earning a B.A. degree at Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Poetry ...

Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn is an American author and journalist who covers science, health, and society. She is the author of ''The Empty Room'', a memoir of the death of her older brother, Ted DeVita, who lived for eight years in a plastic bubble ...

Louise Erdrich Karen Louise Erdrich ( ; born June 7, 1954) is an American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians of North Dako ...

, Nell Greenfieldboyce,

Martha Grimes Martha Grimes (born May 2, 1931) is an American writer of detective fiction. She is best known for a series featuring Richard Jury, a Scotland Yard inspector, and Melrose Plant, an aristocrat turned amateur sleuth. Early life and education Marth ...

Rachel Hadas Rachel Hadas (born November 8, 1948) is an American poet, teacher, essayist, and translator. Her most recent essay collection is ''Piece by Piece: Selected Prose'' (Paul Dry Books, 2021), and her most recent poetry collection is ''Ghost Guest'' (Ra ...

Gil Scott-Heron Gilbert Scott-Heron (April 1, 1949 – May 27, 2011) was an American Jazz poetry, jazz poet, singer, musician, and author known for his work as a spoken-word performer in the 1970s and 1980s. His collaborative efforts with musician Brian Jackso ...

Elin Hilderbrand Elin Hilderbrand (born July 17, 1969) is an American writer of beach reads that are often focused on Mystery fiction, mystery and Romance novel, romance. Her novels are typically set on and around Nantucket, where she resides. In 2019, New Yor ...

Lawrence Hill Lawrence Hill (born January 24, 1957) is a Canadian novelist, essayist, and memoirist. He is known for his 2007 novel '' The Book of Negroes'', inspired by the Black Loyalists given freedom and resettled in Nova Scotia by the British after the A ...

Richie Hofmann Richard "Richie" Joseph Hofmann, is an American poet, Guggenheim Fellow, winner of the Alice James Award, and the Pushcart Prize. He is regularly published in The New Yorker, and has been featured in The Atlantic, The New York Times and The New ...

, Jay Hopler, Kimberly Johnson, Pagan Kennedy,

Porochista Khakpour Porochista Khakpour ( Persian: پوروچیستا خاکپور, born January 17, 1978) is an Iranian American novelist, essayist, and journalist. A refugee from Iran whose family fled the Iran-Iraq War and the Islamic Revolution, Khakpour grew ...

Wayne Koestenbaum Wayne Koestenbaum (born 1958) is an American artist, poet, and cultural critic. He received an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature in 2020. He has published over 20 books to date. Koestenbaum works as a Distinguished Profess ...

, Tim Kreider,

Phillis Levin Phillis Levin (born 1954 Paterson, New Jersey) is an American poet. Life Levin is the daughter of Charlotte E. Levin and Herbert L. Levin of Yardley, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1976, and Johns Hopkins University i ...

David Lipsky David Lipsky (born July 20, 1965) is an American author. His works have been The New York Times Best Seller list, ''New York Times'' bestsellers, ''New York Times'' New York Times Notable Book, Notable Books, ''Time (magazine), Time'', Amazon's ...

Richard Macksey Richard Alan Macksey (July 25, 1931 – July 22, 2019) was Professor of Humanities and co-founder and longtime Director of the Humanities Center (now the Department of Comparative Thought and Literature) at The Johns Hopkins University, where ...

, Rosemary Mahoney,

Emma Marris Emma Marris (born January 15, 1979) is an American non-fiction writer. She grew up in Seattle, Washington, and attended Roosevelt High School, where she worked on the school newspaper. She earned a BA in English at the University of Texas at Austi ...

Michael Martone Michael Martone (born August 22, 1955 in Fort Wayne, Indiana) is an American author. Since 1977, he has written nearly 30 books and chapbooks. He was a professor at the Program in Creative Writing at the University of Alabama, where he taught fro ...

P.J. O'Rourke Patrick Jake O'Rourke (November 14, 1947 – February 15, 2022) was an American author, journalist, and political satirist who wrote twenty-two books on subjects as diverse as politics, cars, etiquette, and economics. '' Parliament of Whores'' ...

ZZ Packer Zuwena "ZZ" Packer (born January 12, 1973) is an American writer, primarily of works of short fiction. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, a Whiting Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her book ''Drinking Coffee El ...

Molly Peacock Molly Peacock (born Buffalo, New York 1947) is an American-Canadian poet, essayist, biographer and speaker, whose multi-genre work includes memoir, short fiction, and a one-woman show. Career Peacock's latest book is ''Flower Diary: Mary Hies ...

, Joanna Pearson,

Hollis Robbins Hollis Robbins (born 1963) is an American academic and essayist. Robbins is professor of English and also serves as Special Advisor for Humanities at the University of Utah; she was formerly dean of humanities. Her scholarship focuses on African-Am ...

Mary Robison Mary Cennamo Robison (born January 14, 1949, in Washington, D.C., United States) is an American short story writer and novelist. She has published four collections of stories, and four novels, including her 2001 novel ''Why Did I Ever'', winne ...

, Deborah Rudacille,

Karl Shapiro Karl Jay Shapiro (November 10, 1913 – May 14, 2000) was an American poet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1945 for his collection ''V-Letter and Other Poems''. He was appointed the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to ...

Tom Sleigh Tom Sleigh () is an American poet, dramatist, essayist and academic, who lives in New York City. He has published nine books of original poetry, one full-length translation of Euripides' ''Herakles'' and two books of essays. His most recent books ...

, Elizabeth Spires,

Lorin Stein Lorin Hollister Stein (born April 22, 1973) is an American critic, editor, and translator. He was the editor in chief of ''The Paris Review''Dave Itzkoff (March 5, 2010)"Paris Review Names New Editor" ArtsBeat, ''The New York Times''. but resigned ...

, Susan Stewart, Rosanna Warren,

Rachel Wetzsteon Rachel Todd Wetzsteon (; November 25, 1967 – December 24/25?, 2009) was an American poet. Life Born in New York City, New York, the daughter of editor and critic Ross Wetzsteon, she graduated from Yale University in 1989 where she studied with ...

, Greg Williamson, and

Jenny Xie Jenny Xie is an American poet and educator. She is the author of ''Eye Level'', winner of the 2018 Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets and a finalist for the National Book Award in 2018, and of '' The Rupture Tense'', a final ...

. Graduates from the Writing Seminars have won the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

, the MacArthur “Genius” Award, the

National Book Award The National Book Awards (NBA) are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. ...

, the

National Book Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction (formerly the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction and Library of Congress Lifetime Achievement Award for the Writing of Fiction) is an annual book award presented by the Librarian ...

, the

Whiting Award The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, ...

, the

PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction The PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction is awarded by PEN America PEN America (formerly PEN American Center), founded in 1922, and headquartered in New York City, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose goal is to rais ...

, the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Fiction, the

Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism The Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism is awarded for literary criticism by the University of Iowa on behalf of the Truman Capote Literary Trust. The value of the award is , and is said to be the largest annual cash prize for literary criti ...

, the

Rea Award for the Short Story The Rea Award for the Short Story is an annual award given to a living United States, American or Canada, Canadian author chosen for unusually significant contributions to short story fiction. The Award The Rea Award is named after Michael M. Rea ...

, the

Pushcart Prize The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are ...

, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the

Giller Prize The Giller Prize (known as the Scotiabank Giller Prize from 2005-2023) is a literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English (including translation) the previous year, after an annual juried co ...

, the

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

, the

Anisfield-Wolf Book Award The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award is an American literary award dedicated to honoring written works that make important contributions to the understanding of racism and the appreciation of the rich diversity of human culture. Established in 1935 by Clev ...

, the Dramatic Director Prize at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

, a

Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award The Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award is a special Grammy Award The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achiev ...

, and other accolades.https://writingseminars.jhu.edu/about/alumni/

Turnbull Lectures

The Writing Seminars hosts the Turnbull Lectures, a yearly lecture series on the topic of poetry. The series was established in 1891 and has run almost continuously between the years 1891-1984 and 2000–present. Over the history of the series, lectures have been given by

Ramón Menéndez Pidal Ramón Menéndez Pidal (; 13 March 1869 – 14 November 1968) was a Spanish philologist and historian."Ramon Menendez Pidal", ''Almanac of Famous People'' (2011) ''Biography in Context'', Gale, Detroit He worked extensively on the history of t ...

T.S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

, W.H. Auden,

Marianne Moore Marianne Craig Moore (November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was an American Modernism, modernist poet, critic, translator, and editor. Her poetry is noted for its formal innovation, precise diction, irony, and wit. In 1968 Nobel Prize in Li ...

Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American Colloquialism, colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New E ...

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida;Peeters (2013), pp. 12–13. See also 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was a French Algerian philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in a number of his texts, ...

W.S. Merwin William Stanley Merwin (September 30, 1927 – March 15, 2019) was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose and produced many works in translation. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematic ...

Helen Vendler Helen Vendler (née Hennessy; April 30, 1933 – April 23, 2024) was an American academic, writer and literary critic. She was a professor of English language and history at Boston University, Cornell, Harvard, and other universities. Her aca ...

, and many others. Recent lecturers have included

Anne Carson Anne Patricia Carson (born June 21, 1950) is a Canadian poet, essayist, translator, classicist, and professor. Trained at the University of Toronto, Carson has taught classics, comparative literature, and creative writing at universities across ...

Natasha Trethewey Natasha Trethewey (born April 26, 1966) is an American poet who served as United States Poet Laureate from 2012 to 2014. She won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her 2006 collection ''Native Guard'', and is a former Poet Laureate of Missi ...

, Robin Coste Lewis,

Alice Oswald Alice Priscilla Lyle Oswald (née Keen; born 31 August 1966) is a British poet from Reading, Berkshire. Her work won the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2002 and the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2017. In September 2017, she was named as BBC Radio 4's second ...

, Tracy K. Smith,

Terrance Hayes Terrance Hayes (born November 18, 1971) is an American poet and educator who has published seven poetry collections. His 2010 collection, ''Lighthead'', won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2010. In 2014, he received a MacArthur Fellowship ...

Richard Wilbur Richard Purdy Wilbur (March 1, 1921 – October 14, 2017) was an American poet and literary translator. One of the foremost poets, along with his friend Anthony Hecht, of the World War II generation, Wilbur's work, often employing rhyme, and c ...

Paul Muldoon Paul Muldoon is an Irish poet. He has published more than thirty collections and won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. At Princeton University he has been both the Howard G. B. Clark '21 University Professor in the Humani ...

Stanley Plumly Stanley Plumly (May 23, 1939 – April 11, 2019) was an American poet and the director of University of Maryland, College Park's creative writing program. Biography Plumly was born in Barnesville, Ohio in a working class family with a farmla ...

Edward Mendelson __NOTOC__ Edward Mendelson (born March 15, 1946) is a professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. He is the literary executor of the Estate of W. H. Auden and the auth ...

, and

Edna Longley Edna Longley, (born 1940) is an Irish literary critic and cultural commentator specialising in modern Irish and British poetry. Early life and education Born in Cork in 1940, the daughter of mathematics professor T. S. Broderick and a Scott ...

External links

Writing Seminars homepage at the JHU website

References

{{Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars 1947 establishments in Maryland Creative writing programs