Creative Writing at a Glance

Creative Writing at a Glance

• Option to take, during the first year, Introduction to Creative Writing lecture-and-workshop course
• Workshop-based courses in fiction, poetry, screenwriting and other genres taught by professional writers who guide students as they hone their skills and build a writing practice.
• Opportunities to experience author visits, the Munro Beattie Lecture, and international literary festivals such as VERSeFest and Ottawa International Writers Festival.
• Student-centred literary events that showcase students’ writing, and annual poetry competitions and prizes.
• Option to design, edit and publish Sumac Literary Magazine as part of the Publishing a Literary Magazine experiential-learning course.

The Creative Writing concentration offers students an inspiring selection of workshop-based courses in such genres as fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and screenwriting. These courses are taught by professional writers from the Ottawa area and are taken as a Concentration within a more broadly-based major in English. The Creative Writing concentration was established in 2012 and builds on a tradition of encouraging students in their creative-writing efforts. For many years, the Department has offered workshops in fiction, non-fiction, poetry and screenwriting. Additionally, students have benefited from faculty members who go out of their way to mentor students and to provide them with opportunities for showing their work within Ottawa’s vibrant literary scene. While the list opposite showcases some recent publications by English alumni, here are what a few writers had to say about their studies at Carleton.

Now an editor for Canthius, Manahil Bandukwala reports that her “writing life is greatly informed by my time at Carleton, from the creative-writing courses to my involvement with the student magazine.” Manahil’s first collection of poetry, MONUMENT (Brick, 2022), won the 2023 Alcuin Award (second place), was shortlisted for the 2023 Gerald Lampert Award, and that same year, was selected as a Writer’s Trust of Canada Rising Star. Her second poetry collection, Heliotropia (Brick, 2024), was shortlisted for the 2025 Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the 2025 Raymond Souster Award. Manahil notes that Carleton’s English awards “were the first literary awards I ever won, and they helped boost me as a writer so much.”

Ben Ladouceur, an English and Canadian Studies graduate, also began his publishing career as a poet. His first book, Otter (Coach, 2015), was selected as a best book of 2015 by the National Post, nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, and awarded the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. His second poetry collection, Mad Long Emotion (Coach, 2019), was awarded the Archibald Lampman Prize. He is the recipient of the Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize for emerging LGBT+ writers, and a National Magazine Award for Poetry. His first novel, I Remember Lights (Book*hug Press, 2025), is a queer-life story blossoming out of an exploration of Montreal’s renowned Expo 67. Ben’s experiences with extracurricular literary opportunities at Carleton taught him “that writing…could actually be a big source of community,” and credits Carleton’s writing community for helping ignite his passion for writing poetry and prose.

Some of our students have parlayed their English degrees into writing careers without taking the Creative Writing concentration. Matthew James Jones is a veteran and Carleton alumnus who writes and teaches in Paris. He is the author of the best-selling Predators, Reapers and Deadlier Creatures (Double Dagger, 2025), a work that reflects deeply on “dehumanization, poetics, monsters, masculinity, cross-cultural exchange, and healing.” Jones is “grateful to Carleton’s professors and creatives for their support, mentorship and encouragement” and carries that role forward as an instructor at the École Militaire and professor at SciencesPo in Paris, as well as editing for The Wrath-Bearing Tree and volunteering at the Paris-based Bodies of Work.

Some of our student’s publications and honours