Writing, Editing, and Publishing, MALS

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Program Structure

The Writing, Editing, and Publishing Program offers an innovative curriculum specially designed for people from diverse backgrounds committed to sharing their work with a wider audience. The program cultivates a mature workshop environment, both challenging and nurturing writers as they draft, refine, and market their work. Focused on the craft of writing, the ways forms of writing are related to and can be transformed into one another, and the process of bringing personal and professional projects to fruition, the program also builds crucial professional skills in editing and managing. It offers writers practical strategies for navigating today’s wide-open writing environment and for understanding the entrepreneurial spirit, elements of design, and aspects of the digital world that will help them do so. The program’s breadth and flexibility, its concern with the importance of writing for career and community, and its conviction that writers today must be able to write in many forms and for many audiences are carefully balanced with the individual writer’s desire for self-expression, for mastery of specific genres and content areas, and for locating popular and literary markets where well-crafted work is appreciated.

Common Core (9 hours)

Emphasis Courses (15 hours)

Project or Thesis (3 hours)

Elective Courses (6 hours)

Students are strongly urged to take courses from any of the emphasis courses in the other programs within MALS. For example, students interested in writing on public and policy issues, should seriously consider courses in the Ethics and Public Service program. The growing need for people to understand health care argues for taking the course MLS 562 - The U.S. Healthcare System and Patient Advocacy . Other core courses in the EPS program take on the importance of public interest groups, city planning, and the environment. Other MALS courses help students build expertise in such issues as race and ethnicity, gender, ethics, or science. And the importance of new media suggests that students consider MLS 648 - Social Consequences of New Media if they have not already taken it as one of the emphasis courses above.

Many of the emphasis courses may connect students to internships or other hands-on experiences in writing, editing, or publishing, but students may also choose MLS 695 Internship as one of their elective courses as well as MLS 599 or MLS 693 - Independent Study .

If students want more work in a particular writing form, they may also choose one of the ENG 400-level writing courses in poetry, fiction, or creative non-fiction with approval of the MALS program coordinator and the course instructor. Extra work, specified by the course instructor, will be required to attain graduate credit. Finally, any of the courses in the Sports Leadership course of study in the Master of Leadership Studies degree would be appropriate for those interested in sports writing.