Message from Creative Writing Director

Welcome to the Marist College Summer Pre-College Creative Writing Institute! I am looking forward to working with you and hope you are eager to share your creativity with us. This course will introduce you to the college-level creative writing classroom. The stories, essays, and poems you will read will be used as models from which to spring into and progress your own writing.  Regardless of your background or abilities, our classroom is a place of constructive instruction and encouragement. I want each student to feel comfortable and confident in exploring their ideas and challenging themselves as they work towards building their creative skills. The course is composed of writing studios, field trips, workshops, and craft talks with professional writers.  

I am excited to meet you and look forward to our two-week long creative conversation! Our program will take place on campus, and students will participate in inspiring exercises, discuss published works, and share their own writing in workshops with peers and professors, gaining a real sense of a writer’s creative community. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. 

Warm regards, 

Lisa R. Neilson, M.A., Director
Lecturer, English & Writing Department, Marist College

About Professor Lisa R. Neilson

Professor Lisa R. Neilson was born and raised in the Hudson Valley. Before joining the English and Writing Department faculty at Marist College, Professor Neilson showcased her writing talents as a sportswriter for the Hudson Valley's Daily Freeman for seven years, where her work appeared in well over 400 publications. She frequently presents her research on baseball and various aspects of the game at the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. She teaches Writing for College, Introduction to Literature, the First Year Seminar, Nonfiction Writing Workshop, as well as other literature and writing courses. She is an avid baseball fan and enjoys watching and writing about what she considers to be the greatest game ever invented.