Reminder! The deadline to submit proposals for our conference on Teaching Creative Writing at the Community College is August 1st!
TCWCC Proposals 2024
In 2023 Metropolitan Community College in Omaha hosted our first conference on Teaching Creative Writing at the Community College and Other Student-Centered Writing Programs.
We were energized to hear from colleagues across the country about innovative approaches to teaching, hands-on writing exercises, grading philosophies, and navigating the unique challenges that come with teaching in smaller and/or open-enrollment institutions.
In 2017, MCC began offering an Associate in Creative Writing. Our students enter the creative writing classroom with a vast range of experiences, skills, interests, and aspirations. Because we are a community college with a strong emphasis on teaching, we designed a program that intentionally disrupts what we saw as limitations in the traditional creative writing pedagogy. We practice meeting students where they are, teaching writing as a craft with core skills that can be taught/learned, embracing student interest in genre, and fostering workshops that encourage revision without discouraging writers.
We see the growth of the TCWCC Conference as a natural extension of our mission to support not just our students, but also the faculty teaching in our program and in similar programs across the country.
This year we are inviting proposals from instructors who teach or aspire to teach creative writing, especially those that center the needs of first-year writing students. We are interested in workshop practices, assignment ideas, grading philosophies, building reading lists, sharing syllabi and other artifacts. We are also interested in discussions about program administration, community outreach, and supporting the specific needs of CW faculty. Panel presentations, guided discussions, and collaborative sessions are all welcome.
Sessions will be 60 minutes and can include 1-5 presenters.
We strongly encourage past presenters to submit again. We know we have much more to learn from you and are eager to welcome you back to Omaha.
Proposal Deadline: August 1st 2024
General Registration: $85; Accepted presenters will be able to register at a discounted rate.
The TCWCC Conference will be held on our historic Fort Campus October 24-26. In addition to our daytime conference presentations, we hope to offer engaging offsite activities in the evenings. Furthermore, while the conference will wrap up the morning of the 26th, all attendees will receive complimentary tickets to our 8th annual Creative Writing Forum, which opens at noon on the 26th. Our Keynote at this year’s forum will be poet Nathan McClain.
Contact Liz Kay at eskay with any questions.