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View details for Inauguration Day and access the full schedule of events.
View details for Inauguration Day and access the full schedule of events.
Ohio Wesleyan offers three different concentrations in English to meet your individual interests and goals. In all of these concentrations, you will develop valuable skills in writing and oral expression, critical thinking, research, and analysis.
Undergraduate research, performed under the mentorship of expert faculty, is a central component of The OWU Connection.
We emphasize intellectual curiosity, creativity, initiative, and synthesis. OWU provides opportunities, including traveling abroad, for you to explore an existing problem or develop a totally new avenue of exploration. You can work with a faculty mentor and apply for grant funding—and present your research at the Student Symposium in the spring.
From your first year on campus, you can get off campus with Travel-Learning Courses and Study Abroad. Journey to a distant land and immerse yourself in another culture. Learn how classroom theory truly connects with real-world experience.
Recent Travel-Learning Courses and Study Abroad programs have taken English students to Hawai'i, Ireland, England, and New Orleans.
Build your experience and connections to the professional world with internships both on and off campus. OWU English faculty use their connections in the field to help students secure valuable internships.
English students have also received University-funded Theory-to-Practice Grants for research projects from New York to Thailand.
In addition to learning from publishing writers, students studying creative writing have ample opportunity to attend readings, lectures, and engage in lively discussions in intimate classroom settings with some of the world's leading writers. Recent guests include New York Times bestselling authors, National Book Award winners, Guggenheim Foundation recipients, National Endowment for the Arts recipients, and MacArthur Genius Grant recipients, including Ta-Nehisi Coates, Terese Marie Mailhot, Leslie Jamison, Dave Lucas, Kiese Laymon, Alissa Nutting, Donovan Hohn, Maggie Smith, Traci Brimhall, Kerry Howley, Jennifer Percy, Damien Ober, John D'Agata, Adrian Matejka, and Poet Laureate of the U.K. Carol Ann Duffy.
OWU faculty are outstanding scholars and researchers—and passionate teachers. They will push you, challenge you, inspire you, and work with you on your own research and creative projects.
They can even pack a 3-minute lecture with ideas, insight, and imagination. Check out our unique I³ lectures.
Students can spend a semester living and working in New York City with OWU's renowned New York Arts Program. Recent graduates Shannon Dean '14 had an editorial internship at a fantasy and science fiction publishing house called DAW Books, and Kathleen Dalton '13 interned with Dance Magazine.
OWU's student-run literary journals, The OWL and its online version, Night OWL, publish work by students, alums, and other writers. The magazine accepts submissions for poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, academic writing, plays for both stage and screen, and fine art. Students who serve as OWL editors earn one unit of course credit.
Students and faculty post writing, photography, memes, and more in "The Sturges Script," the OWU English Department blog. Read what's happening with OWU English students in their own words.
To become more involved in the English Department, you may apply to be on the English Student Board, which is the bridge between faculty and students. They distribute faculty evaluations, plan department events, and choose the Laureate Awards for freshman writing.
Lee is teaching and working toward her MFA in Creative Writing at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.
Poet Maggie Smith '99 earned international acclaim for her poem "Good Bones," read by an estimated one million people, and her 2020 book "Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change" is a best seller. Creative writing graduates have studied writing at such schools as Columbia, Cornell, and Ohio State University, and they include published writers of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.
Kate Shannon '08 is I'm now an editor at America's Test Kitchen, which she calls a dream come true for a writer who likes to cook. The company has two magazines, two cooking shows on public television, and a slew of cookbooks. Other graduates have become editors at such publishers as Random House, McGraw-Hill, and Little, Brown, and magazines such as Paris Review, New York Review of Books, Village Voice, and Poets & Writers.
Studying English at OWU can be good preparation for law school and careers in public service. Ryan Lark '13 is a legislative correspondent in Washington, D.C. Jacob Miller '14 earned his law degree at Northeastern University and is an attorney in Rochester, N.Y.
The English Department can help you find local, regional, and national opportunities. Many English majors participate in the New York Arts Program, working side-by-side with professional writers, and editors.
Ohio Wesleyan Students Attend Nation's Largest Writers' Conference and Bookfair
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Join Ohio Wesleyan to Hear These Writers Speak, Sign Books
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