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2025 Creative Writing

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Tobias Wray’s "No Doubt I Will Return a Different Man" won the Lighthouse Poetry Series Competition. His work has been published in Blackbird, Poem-a-Day, Impossible Archetype, Hunger Mountain, and The Georgia Review. He currently serves as director of the creative writing programs at the University of Central Oklahoma, where he teaches creative writing with research interests in experimental poetics, queer and speculative literatures, and literary translation.

Tobias Wray

2024 CREATIVE WRITING INSTRUCTOR

Creative Writing students explore writing techniques through practice, group discussion, and individual critiquing sessions with faculty. Emphasis is placed on developing a keen awareness of the sound, shape, and connotative possibilities of the written word. Various types of creative writing may be explored, but there will be a strong emphasis on poetry. Applicants should be aware that class discussions are on a collegiate level and may contain mature subject matter. Up to 16 students are accepted.

Writers with strong storytelling abilities and an interest in filmmaking are encouraged to audition for both film & video and creative writing.

Requirements for Applicants

To apply to the creative writing program, applicants will submit a sample of previously written work and a new work created for this audition. Writing submissions may be any combination of poetry, fiction, personal essay, and/or an excerpt from a longer work. The sample of previously written material should not exceed 750 words and the new work should not exceed 500 words. The new work must include all of the following elements: an animal, an irritating sound, and a soft light.

Application Deadline: Monday, February 17, 2025 at 11:59 p.m.

Download Complete Creative Writing Applicant Guide

Funding for the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute creative writing program is generously provided, in part, by the Neustadt Charitable Trust Writing Endowment Fund.

OAI Quartz Preview Days

Interested in auditioning for the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute but don’t know where to start? Each fall, OAI is offers free workshops as part of the OAI Quartz Preview Days!

Fall 2024 Preview Days are listed below. 

Please note: All OAI Quartz Preview Day dates and locations are subject to change.

ALTUS

Friday, January 10, 2025 | 12:30 - 4:30pm
ALTUS HIGH SCHOOL
400 N Park Ave
Instructor: Tobias Wray, University of Central Oklahoma

MOORE WAITLIST

Friday, December 13, 2024 | 8:30am - 12:30pm
MOORE HIGH SCHOOL
300 N Eastern Ave
Instructor: Tobias Wray, University of Central Oklahoma

TAHLEQUAH

Wednesday, January 22, 2025 | 12:30pm - 4:30pm
TAHLEQUAH HIGH SCHOOL
591 Pendleton St.
Instructor: Tobias Wray, University of Central Oklahoma

TULSA

Monday, January 13, 2025 | 8:15am - 12pm
BOSTON AVENUE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
1301 S Boston Ave.
Instructor: Tobias Wray, University of Central Oklahoma

REGISTER TODAY

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