Southern Utah University

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Southern Utah University
Southern Utah University
Fall Semester 2026

Advanced Creative Nonfiction Writing (Face-to-Face)

ENGL 4030-01

Course: ENGL 4030-01
Credits: 3
Term: Fall Semester 2026
Department: English
CRN: 31573

Course Description

Advanced study in the theory and practice of the modern essay and extended nonfiction prose. Particular attention to prose style. Enrollment is restricted to 15 students. (Fall) [Graded (Standard Letter)] Prerequisite(s): ENGL 3040 - Prerequisite Min. Grade: C-

Required Texts

We will decide together the required book. Set aside/budget about $40.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

  1. research and identify publications that advance your own writing and publishing goals,
  2. identify and articulate the characteristics of successful CNF pitches,
  3. compose three successful pitches/cover letters for your own work,
  4. write and revise one essay, incorporating and responding to editor feedback in multi-stage revision,
  5. develop professional skills including self-promotion and networking, and
  6. communicate critically and professionally with peers and editors.

Course Requirements

Discussion Prep, 30%


For each reading we have in class, you are responsible for providing evidence that you read by annotating and preparing comments and questions to contribute to discussion.

Pitches and Peer Feedback, 30%


You will come up with a lot of initial ideas for pieces to pitch, then refine and develop at least three of them into full, written pitches directed toward specific and named publications. Once in the semester, you may substitute a cover letter and completed essay for one pitch.


This grade category is also includes a publication presentation, the feedback you'll give your peers during pitch meetings (most of which will be done live in class), and workshop.

Essay Progress, 25%


About half way through the semester, posing as your editor, I will "accept" one of your pitches. That it is the essay you will spend roughly the last half of the semester developing, revising, editing, and proofreading. You will be responsible for demonstrating sufficient progress on your project, showing up and being prepared for your one-on-one editorial meetings, and creating a thoughtful, final reflection on the developmental editing process.

Final, 15%


By the end of the semester you will create and populate an author website or, with approval, a similar public-facing profile; complete three literary citizenship activities; and submit one of your pitches or essays to a real publication. All of these activities should directly support your specific, articulated writing goals.


Course Outline

  • Weeks 1-2: Students will self-assess their writing goals. Class discussion will focus on the benefits of pitching in creative nonfiction and learn its basic characteristics. Students will be introduced to tools for finding and assessing professional publications that suit their writing goals.
  • Weeks 3-7: Students will also present on the publications they're most interested in. Together, the class will read and analyze essays from those publications, further refining student understanding of the traits of publishable CNF. Students and will draft three pitches with specific publications in mind and submit them to the instructor for assessment and feedback. Student will work together to choose a single-author book to read.
  • Weeks 8-14: Instructor will choose a pitch for each student to go through the editing process with. While in class, students will discuss the single-authored collection. Outside of class, students will meet one-on-one with the instructor through multiple rounds of revision and editing before writing a reflective letter on the pitching and developmental editing process.
  • Weeks 15-16: Students will re-assess and define their writing goals, then create their website, wrap up their literary citizenship activities, and submit a pitch or a finished essay to a publication.

Instructor's policies on late assignments and/or makeup work

Each assignment has a due date. That date is the date on which I will begin grading. You have a natural, built-in grace period though. If I haven’t finished grading the assignment yet, you can still turn your assignment in. Once I’ve entered a zero for your grade, that means I’m done grading that assignment and the grace period has ended. It’s a bit of a gamble to turn something in late; get your work done ASAP. If you really need to, email me and ask me how far out I am on grading. I can give you a rough ballpark. (Note that this late policy does not apply to the final or time-dependent assignments like workshop.)

Accepted late work will be given no feedback, only a grade, and may take significantly longer to be returned.

If you have something exceptional going on, talk with me ASAP. I may be able to work with you, but I also have to be fair to all students, so there are some issues on which my hands are tied.

Computer or user error is not a legitimate excuse for late work, so submit early and double-check that your submissions were uploaded correctly and that they are the correct submissions.

I do not offer extra credit. If you haven't done as well on an assignment as you'd like or as well as you need to in order to maintain the grade you need, get in touch with me as soon as possible so we can discuss how you can do better in the future. 

Attendance Policy

Regular attendance is required. In order to pass the class, your final attendance percentage will need to be at or above 70%. That's very lenient. If someone is missing 30% of class, they're likely to fail without this intervention.

Of course, occasional absences will happen. If you are ill (with anything) or suspect you may be, please stay home and rest. Contact a classmate for notes on what you missed.

If you are every having issues that are keeping you from regular attendance (hospitalization or prolonged, serious illness, etc.) let me know as soon as possible. We will see what we can work out. Note, though, that coming to me at the end of the semester to highlight an issue that began in the early weeks of the semester leaves us with little wiggle room. Even if all you can do is jot a quick email that tells me something is up and you can't even work with me on it yet is better than nothing.

For University-Excused Absences, be sure you're following policy 6.30.

If you have to miss class for any reason, get notes from a classmate, not me. You can always email me with specific followup questions after getting notes from a classmate, but I will respond to "Did I miss anything?" emails with this section of the syllabus.

Course Fees

$18

AI Policy

The Policy


The Author’s Guild has issued a position statement about the use of AI in publishing, and I teach with those principles in mind. AI tools could take a writing gig away from you one day or keep you from selling a book. In line with the industry standard, I do no allow use of AI in this class. If you use AI on an assignment, you will have to have a face-to-face meeting with me, then redo the assignment from scratch with stricter parameters. If it happens again, you may fail the class. Do not use AI in this course.

Again, use of AI is fundamentally antithetical to our course outcomes, so use of AI, specifically LLMs (large language models) and generative AI, is not allowed in this course.

Similarly, never submit or expose someone else's intellectual property to AI without explicit permission for that person. In this class, that means absolutely not submitting my or your classmates' work to an AI without their explicit, written permission. (I don't think you should submit published work to an AI-driven tool, either, though I carry less responsibility in this.) This includes programs like Speechify (to listen to a text read aloud) and feeding an essay to an AI to ask for a summary or to ask it to generate talking points. I expect you to do this work yourself, as it is the work of the class, and it is professional and personally irresponsible to blow someone else's chance at publication because you violated their intellectual property rights.

The Details


For the purposes of this class, do not use any AI to generate or edit work. This includes using AI to help you generate topics or prompts as well as generate whole essays, paragraphs, sentences, or words. (Yes, I would love if you'd turn off predictive typing in google docs
Links to an external site..) While I and most other professionals and publishers do not consider word processor-based spelling and grammar checks to be AI, tools like Grammarly are considered AI and, therefore, off the table. Why? Because writers should know grammar and be able to write relatively error-free language on their own. It's a skill you're in this class to develop, and if you outsource it to AI now, you aren't learning grammar rules and how to edit for them.

For this course, you are required to use Google Docs to compose all your essays, their reflections, and your final. When you begin a new work, including the final, you will make a copy of the template I've created for you. You are required to add me as an editor using my university email. If I’m not a named editor/collaborator, I will not accept the assignment. Use that exact same document for the whole drafting and editing process for the entire assignment. Don't cut and paste your writing into the document. (You can of course, copy and paste it OUT.) 

When you submit each essay, including the final, you will submit the Google Doc as both a static document by uploading it directly from Google Docs or exporting it before uploading it to Canvas, but you also must share the Google Doc URL in a comment.

At any point in the semester, you may be asked to discuss your piece with me in a formal or informal meeting. Be prepared to explain what you did with your writing, when you did it, how you did it, and why you did it. If you cannot sufficiently explain your work, that may impact your grade with a grade reduction—up to a zero. The outcomes in this class aren't merely to generate good, interesting work, it's metacognition about that work.

Grey Areas and Exceptions


If you feel you're in a grey area or have an exception my AI policy and required procedures, talk to me before you begin a new project, and we'll record the parameters of the exception in an email so we'll both have a written copy of what is and is not approved. For instance, if you prefer to use MS word or som other word processor instead of Google Docs, that can work. We just need to talk about it before you begin your project. If you hand write your drafts first, I can work with that. Just talk to me. If you want to use an LLM as a co-author in your experimental essay and have a good reason to do it, awesome. Talk to me in advance and we'll work it out.

Regarding email: Obviously, I've seen an uptick in students using AI to generate email for them. Emails aren't (usually) coursework, but nonetheless, I ask you refrain from using AI even for email drafts. You're a writer and your whole thing is taking your ideas and figuring out how to articulate them to an outside audience. Email is as good a time as any to practice that.

ADA Statement

Students with medical, psychological, learning, or other disabilities desiring academic adjustments, accommodations, or auxiliary aids will need to contact the Disability Resource Center, located in Room 206F of the Sharwan Smith Center or by phone at (435) 865-8042. The Disability Resource Center determines eligibility for and authorizes the provision of services.

If your instructor requires attendance, you may need to seek an ADA accommodation to request an exception to this attendance policy. Please contact the Disability Resource Center to determine what, if any, ADA accommodations are reasonable and appropriate.

Academic Credit

According to the federal definition of a Carnegie credit hour: A credit hour of work is the equivalent of approximately 60 minutes of class time or independent study work. A minimum of 45 hours of work by each student is required for each unit of credit. Credit is earned only when course requirements are met. One (1) credit hour is equivalent to 15 contact hours of lecture, discussion, testing, evaluation, or seminar, as well as 30 hours of student homework. An equivalent amount of work is expected for laboratory work, internships, practica, studio, and other academic work leading to the awarding of credit hours. Credit granted for individual courses, labs, or studio classes ranges from 0.5 to 15 credit hours per semester.

Academic Freedom

SUU is operated for the common good of the greater community it serves. The common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition. Academic Freedom is the right of faculty to study, discuss, investigate, teach, and publish. Academic Freedom is essential to these purposes and applies to both teaching and research.

Academic Freedom in the realm of teaching is fundamental for the protection of the rights of the faculty member and of you, the student, with respect to the free pursuit of learning and discovery. Faculty members possess the right to full freedom in the classroom in discussing their subjects. They may present any controversial material relevant to their courses and their intended learning outcomes, but they shall take care not to introduce into their teaching controversial materials which have no relation to the subject being taught or the intended learning outcomes for the course.

As such, students enrolled in any course at SUU may encounter topics, perspectives, and ideas that are unfamiliar or controversial, with the educational intent of providing a meaningful learning environment that fosters your growth and development. These parameters related to Academic Freedom are included in SUU Policy 6.6.

Academic Misconduct

Scholastic honesty is expected of all students. Dishonesty will not be tolerated and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent (see SUU Policy 6.33). You are expected to have read and understood the current SUU student conduct code (SUU Policy 11.2) regarding student responsibilities and rights, the intellectual property policy (SUU Policy 5.52), information about procedures, and what constitutes acceptable behavior.

Please Note: The use of websites or services that sell essays is a violation of these policies; likewise, the use of websites or services that provide answers to assignments, quizzes, or tests is also a violation of these policies. Regarding the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), you should check with your individual course instructor.

Emergency Management Statement

In case of an emergency, the University's Emergency Notification System (ENS) will be activated. Students are encouraged to maintain updated contact information using the link on the homepage of the mySUU portal. In addition, students are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the Emergency Response Protocols posted in each classroom. Detailed information about the University's emergency management plan can be found at https://www.suu.edu/emergency.

HEOA Compliance Statement

For a full set of Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) compliance statements, please visit https://www.suu.edu/heoa. The sharing of copyrighted material through peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, except as provided under U.S. copyright law, is prohibited by law; additional information can be found at https://my.suu.edu/help/article/1096/heoa-compliance-plan.

You are also expected to comply with policies regarding intellectual property (SUU Policy 5.52) and copyright (SUU Policy 5.54).

Mandatory Reporting

University policy (SUU Policy 5.60) requires instructors to report disclosures received from students that indicate they have been subjected to sexual misconduct/harassment. The University defines sexual harassment consistent with Federal Regulations (34 C.F.R. Part 106, Subpart D) to include quid pro quo, hostile environment harassment, sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking. When students communicate this information to an instructor in-person, by email, or within writing assignments, the instructor will report that to the Title IX Coordinator to ensure students receive support from the Title IX Office. A reporting form is available at https://cm.maxient.com/reportingform.php?SouthernUtahUniv

Non-Discrimination Statement

SUU is committed to fostering an inclusive community of lifelong learners and believes our university's encompassing of different views, beliefs, and identities makes us stronger, more innovative, and better prepared for the global society.

SUU does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, citizenship, sex (including sex discrimination and sexual harassment), sexual orientation, gender identity, age, ancestry, disability status, pregnancy, pregnancy-related conditions, genetic information, military status, veteran status, or other bases protected by applicable law in employment, treatment, admission, access to educational programs and activities, or other University benefits or services.

SUU strives to cultivate a campus environment that encourages freedom of expression from diverse viewpoints. We encourage all to dialogue within a spirit of respect, civility, and decency.

For additional information on non-discrimination, please see SUU Policy 5.27 and/or visit https://www.suu.edu/nondiscrimination.

Pregnancy

Students who are or become pregnant during this course may receive reasonable modifications to facilitate continued access and participation in the course. Pregnancy and related conditions are broadly defined to include pregnancy, childbirth, termination of pregnancy, lactation, related medical conditions, and recovery. To obtain reasonable modifications, please make a request to title9@suu.edu. To learn more visit: https://www.suu.edu/titleix/pregnancy.html.

Disclaimer Statement

Information contained in this syllabus, other than the grading, late assignments, makeup work, and attendance policies, may be subject to change with advance notice, as deemed appropriate by the instructor.