Case 4: A Tradition of Creative Writing: Creative Writing at Queen’s

Until the mid-70’s Creative Writing was an extra- curricular activity at Queen’s; in response to sustained urging from students and creative faculty members like medievalist and women’s writing specialist Elizabeth Green, it has since become part of curriculum for a small group of promising writers whose portfolio submissions gain them a place in one of the five single-semester courses dedicated to the subject. Initial offerings were taught by Victor Coleman, then director of Queen’s National Film Theatre, who was succeeded by Bronwyn Wallace (B.A. 1967, M.A. 1969). Since 1989 the Department’s creative writing courses have been taught by Carolyn Smart, who also organizes both Lake Effect (a semi-annual anthology produced by her advanced writers’ workshop) and the on-going Writer-in-Residence program.