Department of English > Graduate Programs

English Department Faculty by Area of Specialization: Creative Writing

Creative Writing at NIU

Study in creative writing at NIU offers the opportunity for students to develop their artistic work in a rigorous and nurturing environment that encourages searching, aesthetic diversity and intelligent engagement. The department of English offers workshops in both creative nonfiction and poetry as well as graduate seminars in the study of literature and theory with active writers and teachers Drs. Amy Newman and Joe Bonomo.

The Lyric Impulse

Dr. Amy Newman is the author of four books of poetry: Order, or Disorder (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1995), Camera Lyrica (Alice James Books, 1999), fall (Wesleyan University Press, 2004/2006) and Dear Editor (Persea Books, 2102). Her work has been translated into Italian and Romanian, and anthologized in The Hide-and-Seek Muse, Lit from Inside, Diagram 4, The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry, An Introduction to the Prose Poem, TextBox, The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries and elsewhere. Newman's recent and ongoing research includes twentieth century American and British literature, biography, theodicy, art as epistemology, the relationship of content to form across the arts and the nature of the poetic impulse.

Her most recent book, Dear Editor, is a collection in the format of cover letters written by a poet unable or unwilling to relinquish the vital lyric impulse (and submitted to an invisible editor); the book seeks to isolate poetry's intrinsic energy and tension, what R. P. Blackmur calls its “animating presence.” Newman remains engaged in scholarship on poetry, writing, and the arts, placing poems, reviews and articles about contemporary poetry and poets in The Missouri Review, The Georgia Review, Narrative, The Kenyon Review, The Chicago Sun-Times, Image Journal, College Composition and Communication, the University of Michigan Press's “Under Discussion” series, and elsewhere.

The Fourth Genre: Creative Non-Fiction

Dr. Joe Bonomo is the author of four books of nonfiction: This Must Be Where My Obsession With Infinity Began: Essays (Orphan Press, 2013); AC/DC’s Highway to Hell (33 1/3 Series, Continuum Books, 2010); Jerry Lee Lewis: Lost and Found (Continuum, 2009/2011; also published in French, Camion Blanc, 2013); Sweat: The Story of The Fleshtones, America’s Garage Band (Continuum, 2007; published in French as The Fleshtones: Histoire d’un Groupe Garage Américain, Camion Blanc, 2012). Bonomo has also published a book of prose poems, Installations (National Poetry Series, Penguin Books, 2008), and he is the editor of Conversations With Greil Marcus (Literary Conversations Series, University Press of Mississippi, 2012). Bonomo’s recent and ongoing research involves creative nonfiction—especially the essay, book-length autobiography, and music criticism/biography—modern and contemporary American literature, and popular culture.

Bonomo is engaged in scholarship in creative nonfiction, having published personal essays, reviews, and commentary at The Georgia Review, Fourth Genre, and Creative Nonfiction and elsewhere, and been named a contributing editor and music columnist for The Normal School, a member of the Board of Directors of Quarter After Eight, and a contributing editor at Defunct Magazine. He has been interviewed widely about his work, and in 2008 appeared on a documentary on The Fleshtones, Pardon Us For Living But The Graveyard’s Full. He maintains an active blog, No Such Thing As Was, devoted to autobiography, the essay, teaching, art, photography, and music.

Faculty Honors

Both Bonomo and Newman are highly acclaimed in their fields. Bonomo's recent honors and awards include the Orphan Press Creative Nonfiction Book Award and publication with Orphan Press, the National Poetry Series and publication with Penguin Books, Notable Essays citations in Best American Essays, Music Book of the Year from Outsideleft Magazine, two Illinois State Arts Fellowship grants, and Nonfiction Writer-In-Residence in the Program in Creative Writing at Ohio University.

Newman's honors and awards include a Presidential Research Professorship from Northern Illinois University, Arts and Sciences Distinguished Visiting Writer at Bowling Green State University, Virtual Poet-in-Residence for Guardian UK, the Cleveland State University Poetry Center Award and publication with Cleveland State University Press, the Beatrice Hawley Award and publication with Alice James Books, the Perkoff Prize in poetry from University of Missouri, the Lexi Rudnitsky Prize and publication with Persea books, State Artists fellowships from both Ohio and Illinois, and a fellowship from The MacDowell Colony.

If you study Creative Writing at NIU

You are mentored by two of the most respected professors on the NIU campus. Newman and Bonomo are both winners of NIU’s campus-wide awards for outstanding teachers.

Newman's teaching interests include: poetry; the links among prose, poetry, and biography; literature of the Modern and Confessional periods; exile in literature; and the novel, graphic and otherwise. She welcomes participation on thesis and dissertation committees on any of these topics. Bonomo’s teaching interests include creative nonfiction, especially personal essays and autobiographies of the last 100 years; American Literature since 1960; music criticism/biography; and popular culture. He welcomes participation on thesis and dissertation committees on any of these topics.

For More Information

If you have any questions, please call (815-753-1608), email (valtmaier@niu.edu), or stop by the Department of English Graduate Studies office in Reavis 215.

M.A. in English requirements < http://catalog.niu.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=19&poid=3300&returnto=454>