Creative Writing at Oakton

Happy New Year! I am teaching EGL 201 as a 16-week, online synchronous course if you are looking for a creative writing class this semester. The focus will be on memoir writing and playwriting and we will read selections such as Kiese Laymon's How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America and Pultizer-Prize winning, Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar. It will run on Mondays and Wednesdays from 11:00am-12:15pm. I hope to see some of you in the new year and hope you are doing wonderfully!

Best,
Tina Fakhrid-Deen
Oakton Professor

Oakton's student literary magazine is seeking submission for their first issue since the pandemic. Submit your work now!

Oakton student writers represented at the Skyway Writer's Festival last week, held at Moraine Valley Community College.

Congrats to all of these finalists, and to Betty Slatkoff, especially, for taking home a 2nd place medal for their nonfiction essay!

Let’s write about the holiday season. I facilitate a session next week. It’s online and free. Join me!

Events Our workshops offer social and emotional support to teens/adolescents around peer/family relationships, self esteem, grief, bullying and other daily stressors. 

Evanston Writers Conference seeking student volunteers! See below.



My name is Debbie Fligelman and I run a local 501(c)3 NFP. We are holding a writer’s conference 11/3-11/5 at the Deerfield Hyatt www.inthetrenches2023.com. I’m reaching out to you for two reasons. First, we are looking for student volunteers to help us out sitting the registration desk, processing donations, general helping out. They will also have the opportunity to sit in on the workshops. Second, we are offering an inexpensive student rate for students that want to attend the entire conference and take advantage of the opportunity of speaking to publishers, agents and editors. Our normal conference price is $375 but we are offering students a no meal price of $100 for the entire weekend and $225 if they want meals (that is our cost since we are offering 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, a cocktail party and a sit-down dinner).



If anyone wants to volunteer, please let me know as soon as possible. They can email me directly at this address.



If they want to register for the conference, the discount codes are StudentOnly100 for the no meals and StudentMeals225 for the full conference.

Writers Workshop 2023 | Writer conference | Chicago, IL, USA In The Trenches conference 2023 brought to you by Evanston Writers Workshop November 2-5 2023 at the Hyatt Deefield, IL. This weekend long workshop is designed to put writers in front of industry professionals. Talk to editors, learn from other writers, network and have fun!

The Skyway Writers Festival is upon us, and we need your work to represent Oakton! Please consider submitting your poetry, creative nonfiction, fiction, and drama by October 13th.

There's still time to enroll in our Introduction to Creative Writing course for this coming semester! EGL 201 gives students the opportunity to stretch their creative writing muscle in many genres, including creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry.

Join us on Mondays, 11-12:15, at Des Plaines!

Are you interested in writing plays? Take Oakton's new offering for fall: EGL 205 - Introduction to Playwriting

Course offers students the opportunity to develop an individual style as playwrights. Content includes basic elements and techniques of playwriting: format, character development, dialogue, narrative structure, tone, plot and scene development. Emphasis will be on writing and revising dramas of the student’s own creation. Course may be repeated up to three times. Prerequisite: EGL 101 with a minimum grace of C or consent of instructor. 3.000 Credit hours

The course will run 16 weeks from 9:30 am - 10:45 am on Mondays and Wednesdays at the Skokie campus. Classes begin Aug 21, 2023 - Dec 13, 2023. Register today!