Creative Writing
When you major in creative writing, words are your work. At KCAI, you will link original writing and critical thinking with an in-depth studio experience of your choice.
You will explore literary genres including fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, minute fiction, screenwriting, mixed genres, experimental, travel writing, essay and scholarly research, and you will experience a rigorous intellectual process that examines literature, aesthetics and philosophy while you develop technique and confidence as a writer.
Students choose from a wide variety of elective courses, including “Topics in Aesthetics: Sense & Sensibility,” “Topics in American Literature: Contemporary Drama,” “Topics in European Literature: Literature of the Holocaust,” “Topics in the Narrative: Twice-Told Tales,” “Topics in Global/Comparative Literature: The Japanese Novel,” “Creative Nonfiction Workshop: The New New Journalists.”
Paul Collins, Ben Lerner, Lore Segal, Janet Desaulniers and David Kirby are just a few of the nationally and internationally known writers who have spoken at KCAI and led workshops for creative writing majors. Recent lecturers have included author Temple Grandin, who wrote “Animals in Translation” and “Animals Make us Human” and poet Dana Gioia, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Creative Writing Faculty
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Phyllis Moore, Ph.D., associate professor and director, School of Liberal Arts
Phyllis Moore, Ph.D., associate professor and director of the School of Liberal Arts at KCAI, is an award-winning teacher and writer...
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Phyllis Moore, Ph.D., associate professor and director of the School of Liberal Arts at KCAI, is an award-winning teacher and writer. Her poems and short stories have appeared in The Georgia Review, The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Mississippi Review, Redbook and others. Her work has been listed in both "The Best American Short Stories" and The Pushcart Prize anthologies.
Before joining the KCAI faculty in 2003, she was co-chair of the MFA in Writing program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where her students nominated her twice for Outstanding Faculty of the Year. She has received arts council grants from the states of Illinois and Florida.
"A Compendium of Skirts," Dr. Moore's collection of short stories, received endorsements from authors Jane Hamilton, James McManus, Rosellen Brown and Padgett Powell, among others, and was praised by critics across the country.
Dr. Moore holds a Ph.D. degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has taught literature and writing for a quarter of a century, the last 18 of which she has chosen to spend teaching at visual arts schools. She says she enjoys what her students' visual abilities bring to their writing.
Contact: 816-802-3388 or pmoore@kcai.edu
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Rush Rankin, Professor
Rush Rankin, who joined the KCAI faculty in 1975, teaches creative writing, fiction, poetry and aesthetic philosophy.
Rankin...
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Rush Rankin, who joined the KCAI faculty in 1975, teaches creative writing, fiction, poetry and aesthetic philosophy.
Rankin earned a bachelor's degree from Duke University; an M.A.C.T. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and an M.F.A. degree from the University of Iowa.
His book of poems, "The Failure of Grief," was published in 2000. Another book, a poetic essay on the philosophy of postmodernism, "The Postmodern Comedy," was published in 1993 by Aldus Press of Massachusetts.
He has published fiction, essays and poetry in magazines in the United States, France and England. His poetry essays and fiction have appeared in Antioch Review, Epoch, Pleiades, New Letters, Poetry Northwest, Paris Review, Stand and Another Chicago Magazine. His poems have been anthologized over the years in The Carnegie Mellon Anthology, Seneca Review Anthology, A to Z, Voices from the Interior and Spud Songs. His poetry was presented in a performance in 1988, titled "GLEE" after one of his poems, at the Theater for the New City, New York. As a tribute to his teaching, he was selected to the National Faculty of the Union of Independent Colleges of Art in 1980.
Rankin's story "Smart Men," which was published by TriQuarterly in 1982, was listed by "Best American Short Stories," 1983, as one of the "distinguished" stories of the year. His essay on the poet Louise Gluck, published in New Letters Review, was selected for inclusion in the anthology "Contemporary Literary Criticism," 1987-88.
A work of aesthetic philosophy, called "In Theory," was published in January 2006 by Xenos Books with the collaboration of Chelsea Editions. Word Press also published Rankin's next collection of poems, called "Pascal's Other Wager," which appeared in December 2006. His book, "Bene-Dictions," selected by Rosanna Warren, won the Vassar Miller Prize and was published by UNT Press in 2003. Rankin's poetry has also been published in magazines in France and England, and in 2005 a translated chapter from "In Theory" appeared in Italy.
Contact: 816-802-3375 or email: rrankin@kcai.edu
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Patricia Catto, Associate professor
Patricia Catto has taught in the School of Liberal Arts for 20 years and has offered a collection of courses dealing with eco-...
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Patricia Catto has taught in the School of Liberal Arts for 20 years and has offered a collection of courses dealing with eco- psychological approach to literature. She teaches formal poetry writing centered around forms from the classical world to the contemporary marketplace. She came to Kansas City to provide support writing for early internet venues at Hallmark Cards Inc. and stayed to teach at KCAI.
In the late '90s she added the raks sharki dance element to her poetry classes and went to India to study this form in 2004 and 2006. Her courses in folk literature of the world are her signature courses and reveal a deep interest in the archetypal forms and soul motifs of our species.
In 2001 she began a series of dance/lectures entitled "Veil as Sacred Space" and gave this workshop around the country.
As a guest of Mad Hatter, Catto read from her magical realism novel, "Aunt Pig of Puglia." at the KGB club in New York's East Village in March 2007.
She has taught at SUNY SUCO, Bowling Green State and the University of Kansas. She is included in "Who's Who in American Teachers" and "Who's Who in Americam Women" and has served on the Missouri Arts Council's literature panel.
Her work has been published in Art &Academe, Ceramics Monthly, Wolf Head Quarterly, New Art Examiner, Cafe Solo and Mad Hatter Review. She also has published a book of poems, "Wife of Geronimo's Virile Old Age."
Contact: 816-802-3382 or pcatto@kcai.edu
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Jordan Stempleman, lecturer
Jordan Stempleman is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop where he was a Leggett Schupes Fellow in Poetry. He is the author of six...
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Jordan Stempleman is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop where he was a Leggett Schupes Fellow in Poetry. He is the author of six books of poetry: "Their Fields" (Moria, 2005), "What's the Matter" (Otoliths, 2007), "Facings "(Otoliths, 2007), "The Travels" (Otoliths, 2008) "String Parade" (BlazeVOX, 2008) and "Doubled Over" (BlazeVOX, 2009). He is also associate editor of The Continental Review, a video-only forum for contemporary poetry and poetics.
