About Our Creative Writing Program

The Creative Writing Program at Grossmont College fosters the development of creative writers at all skill levels in a supportive, professional, and dynamic atmosphere. It is our mission to serve and engage students, faculty, and the community actively through a rich variety of readings and other literary events that are always free and open to the public. The Creative Writing Program seeks to cultivate a diverse literary community and to celebrate and promote literature and its vital role in our culture.

All courses focus on the reading of established authors, classic and contemporary, and provide the opportunity for extensive feedback on original work, attendance of literary events, publication in the college literary journal, Acorn Review, participation in student performance events, and inclusion in on-line event programs.

Creative Writing: English 126
Introduction to the basic elements of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and drama writing, including study and analysis of techniques in the works of contemporary and established writers. Practice in writing in the four genres as well as introduction to the workshop method. Transfers to CSU, UC.
 
Short Fiction Writing: English 130-131-132-133
Repeatable writers workshop focused on the composition and revision of short fiction, as well as an analysis of genre, structure, techniques, and style. Transfers to CSU, UC (credit limited).
 
Creative Nonfiction Writing: English 134-135-136-137
Repeatable writers workshop focused on the composition and revision of creative nonfiction, including memoir, the personal essay, literary journalism, cultural criticism, music, travel, and nature writing. Transfers to CSU, UC (credit limited).
 
Poetry Writing: English 140-141-142-143
Repeatable writers workshop focused on the composition and revision of free verse and formal poems, as well as an analysis of the fundamental tools, techniques, and forms of poetry. Transfers to CSU, UC (credit limited).
 
Acorn Review Editing: English 145-146-147-148
Reading, selecting, editing, proofreading and arranging student creative writing and art for Acorn Review, the Grossmont College student literary journal. Transfers to CSU, UC (credit limited).
 
Drama Writing: English 160-161-162-163
Repeatable writers workshop focused on the composition and revision of writing for the stage and screen, as well as an analysis of genre, structure, dramaturgy, and style. Opportunities to participate in local productions. Transfers to CSU, UC (credit limited).
 
Novel Writing: English 175-176-177-178
Repeatable writers workshop focused on the composition and revision of novels, as well as an analysis of novel construction, character development, plot outline, scenes, and themes. Transfers to CSU, UC (credit limited).
 
 

CREATIVE WRITING FACULTY

Sacramento native JULIE CARDENAS co-coordinates Grossmont College’s Puente Program and teaches a variety of subjects for the English Department, including composition, creative writing, and Chicano literature. She also serves as advisor to the student-produced literary journal, Acorn Review, for which she also teaches English 145-148: Acorn Review: Editing and Production. Julie holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and Spanish from California State University, Sacramento, and a Master’s Degree in English from the University of San Diego. In addition to having served as the faculty advisor of a college newspaper for two years before coming to Grossmont, she edited a variety of professional newsletters and trade journals. Her writing career includes the publication of news and feature articles, poetry, and short fiction. Her writing career includes the publication of news and feature articles, poetry, and short fiction.
 
RYAN GRIFFITH holds an MA degree in Creative Nonfiction from Fresno State and an MFA degree in Creative Writing from San Diego State University.  He served as resident storyteller for The Lounge on KPBS radio, where he read from his acclaimed series, The Midnight Pharmacy.  His stories and poems have also appeared in a variety of literary journals, and in 1997 Ryan received the Editor’s Choice prize for best fiction in The Beacon Street Review and an Honorable Mention in the 1995 Raymond Carver Short Story Contest. Wigleaf Magazine selected his story “Thrill of Fire” as one of the top fifty short stories of 2012.  During July 2012, he served an artistic residence at the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony in Woodstock, NY, where he worked on a novel, and, during the 2015-2016 school year, Ryan took sabbatical leave to work on his novel while living abroad in Iceland, Russia, Turkey, and other countries. His current project is a multimedia narrative installation, “Relics of The Hypnotist War,” which developed out of his sabbatical project and is now on display at Space4Art studios in downtown San Diego.
 
KARL SHERLOCK carries an M.A. degree in Creative Writing from Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and an M.F.A. in Writing from University of California, Irvine. A Fulbright alumnus and a recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, he obtained his M.A. degree in Creative Writing from Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, received his Master of Fine Arts in Writing from University of California, Irvine, and completed a year of Doctoral studies in English at Binghamton University. His play, "Things I’m Afraid Of," was scripted into a short film in 1992. His queer and disability themed poetry and literary nonfiction have been published, or are forthcoming, in a variety of journals and anthologies, including Cream City Review, The Jacaranda Review, Matador Review, Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature, Dickinson Review, South Coast Poetry Journal, The Alsop Review, Far East: Everything Just As It Is, The Radvocate, The James White Review, Assaracus, Lime Hawk, Easy Street Magazine, Temple University's TINGE Magazine, Embodied Effigies, and others. His personal essay, “Clear,” about his pre-Prop 8 marriage to a torture survivor of electroconvulsive conversion therapy at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, was a 2014 finalist for Sundress Publication's Best of the Net. He currently co-coordinates the Creative Writing Program.
 
DANIELA SOW is co-coordinator the Grossmont College Creative Writing Program and teaches English 126: Creative Writing. She received her Master’s of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing (Poetry) from San Diego State University, and her Post-secondary Reading and Learning Certificate from California State University, Fullerton.  Her poetry has been published in San Diego Poetry Annual, A Cappella Zoo, and Encompassing Seas. As a spoken word artist, Daniela has competed in the National Poetry Slam. She also coordinated events as VP of Publicity on the Greater San Diego Council of Teachers of English, celebrating and awarding talented young writers through the annual CATE Creative Writing Contests.

RICH FARRELL is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and earned a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. In addition to leading workshops on narrative for San Diego Writers, Ink, he is the Creative Non-Fiction Editor at upstreet and a Senior Editor at Numéro Cinq. His work, including fiction, memoir, essays, interviews and book reviews, has appeared, or is forthcoming in, Potomac Review, Hunger Mountain, New Plains Review, upstreet, Descant, Contrary, Newfound, Numéro Cinq, and elsewhere. His first novel, The Falling Woman, was recently acquired by Algonquin Books and is expected to be released in 2019.

ADAM DEUTSCH carries a Master of Arts degree from Hofstra University (2005) and a M.F.A. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2008). This Long Island New Yorker has held editorial positions on a variety of small presses and journals, including Ninth Letter and Barn Owl Review. Adam lives in San Diego, instructs college composition and writing, and has work that is recently published or forthcoming in Across the Margin, Thrush, Spinning Jenny, Ping Pong, and Typo. He's also active in the neighborhood of Normal Heights and can be found there, and at www.adamdeutsch.com. The owner of Cooper Dillion Books, Deutsch has been instrumental in the launch of Chest-O-Drawers Press, the official press of the Grossmont College Creative Writing Program. He is planning a nationwide tour this spring to promote his new poetry collection.