Center for Excellence in Writing

Greetings from the Director

Welcome to Portland State University's Center for Excellence in Writing.

The Center exists to serve local writers. It offers Portland's first and only graduate program in writing leading to a master's degree. At the same time, it conducts craft workshops and seminars for people who want to participate in a supportive writing community without joining an academic program. It provides a clearinghouse of information on local activities of interest to writers. But most importantly, it seeks to help those who want to make writing a career. The Center's master's degree and outreach activities include creative, nonfiction, and technical writing. If you are a technical writer aspiring to sell that first novel, or a novelist looking for a steady day job until the big break comes, the Center is designed with your needs in mind.

I hope that you will access our web site regularly to gain information about Portland's writing community. You can get a description of the MA/MS Program, see what courses are scheduled for the next academic quarter and what non-academic workshops and activities are being planned, meet our faculty and advisory board, and link to important resources and organizations that you should know about. Each month, we will profile a local writer whose work deserves our support.

If you are sponsoring an event and want to get the word out, tell us, and we'll post your announcement to our e-distribution list so that hundreds of interested writers get the news. If you want to be included on that list so that you get direct announcements of what's available, let us know at CEW.

Leading members of the local literary community serve on the Center's Advisory Board to help identify talented professional writers who can teach in the program. The faculty mix of professionals and professors, the innovative combination of creative, nonfiction, and technical writing in the city's first graduate degree program in writing, and the participation and support of key players on the local literary scene make the Center a nationally unique model for serving people who want to earn a living by writing.

Thank you for your interest in the Center and for your comments and suggestions.

W. Tracy Dillon, Ph.D.
Director, Center for Excellence in Writing