College of Arts and Sciences

English

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College of Arts and Sciences

Department of English

Exploring language, shaping the world

English at USD offers students the opportunity to explore a wide range of genres — poems, plays, novels, essays, letters, films and new media — from a variety of historical contexts, medieval to contemporary, illuminated by timely theoretical and philosophical questions. Explore and discover the complexities of the human experience and come to appreciate the power of language to shape thought through creative writing, literary histories, culture and theory courses.

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Program

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Featured Speakers

2025-26 Lindsay J. Cropper Memorial Writers Series

The Cropper Center for Creative Writing at the University of San Diego is excited to share a preview of its lineup of readers for the Lindsay J. Cropper Memorial Writers Series for the 2025-26 academic year!

March 12, 2026

Cintia Santana

Cintia Santana’s debut poetry collection, The Disordered Alphabet (Four Way Books, 2023) received the 43rd Annual Northern California Book Award in Poetry, the 2024 IPPY Bronze Medal, the 2023 North American Book Award's Silver Medal and was short-listed for the 2023 California Independent Booksellers Alliance “Golden Poppy” Award. Santana's work has appeared in Best New Poets 2016 and 2020, Best of the Net Anthology 2023, Poets.org, Poetry Daily, Poetry Foundation, Split this Rock, and numerous journals. She is the recipient of fellowships from CantoMundo, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Sewanee Writers’ Conference and was selected as a 2025 Kenyon Review Peter Taylor fellowship. Dr. Santana teaches literary translation, poetry and fiction workshops in Spanish and English at Stanford University.

Join us for a reading on March 12, 2026 at 6 p.m. in the Manchester Hall Auditorium. A Q&A, book signing and dessert reception will follow.

Nov. 6, 2025

Tom Bissell

Tom Bissell was born in Escanaba, Michigan, in 1974. He is the author of eleven books, including The Father of All Things, Extra Lives, Apostle, and Creative Types. With Greg Sestero, he cowrote The Disaster Artist, with was a New York Times bestseller and was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated film. As a screenwriter, he cocreated The Mosquito Coast, based on Paul Theroux’s novel of the same name, for Apple TV+ and wrote three episodes for the second and final season of Andor: A Star Wars Story for Disney+. He has also written for numerous video-game franchises, among them Battlefield, Uncharted and Gears of War. His awards include the Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a WGA Award for Excellence in Videogame Writing, and nearly a dozen appearances in The Best American series. He lives in Los Angeles with his family.

Oct. 2, 2025

Claire Vaye Watkins

Claire Vaye Watkins is the author of two novels: I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness and Gold Fame Citrus, as well as the short story collection Battleborn, winner of the Story Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Watkins is a professor in the Programs in Writing at the University of California, Irvine. She lives in Orange County and the Mojave Desert.

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A Play on Words

Alcalá Review

The Alcalá Review is the official, student-run literary journal of USD, committed to fostering creative community by showcasing exceptional creative works by undergraduate students, and through hosting a variety of literary events through USD's Department of English. Founded in 2015, the Alcalá Review is published semi-annually.

Read the Alcala Review

Paving Your Way With English

Hear from our English Community

Jake Zawlacki '13 (MFA)

English lecturer, translator, writer and Interdisciplinary Humanities/Art History double major

Jake Zawlacki joined USD as a lecturer in the English Department in 2026. Jake earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Louisiana State University in 2023 and his MA in Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies from Stanford University in 2019. He was the recipient of a Fulbright fellowship to the Kyrgyz Republic and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mongolia. In addition to publishing two scholarly monographs on comic studies, Jake recently translated a book of Kazakh poems, Moquito by Akhmet Baitursynov.

Chelsea McLin '17

English major with Creative Writing emphasis, store owner

Chelsea McLin opened a small pop-up and online bookstore called Jubilee Books. Jubilee was named and born in honor of her grandmother who passed on Juneteenth in the summer of 2020. She seeks to celebrate voices that often go unheard and ignored.

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Charlie Daly '12

English major, author

Charlie Daly celebrates the publication of his father's memoir that he co-authored, Make Peace or Die: a Life of Service, Leadership, and Nightmares. An early draft of the book and interview with Charlie's father appeared on a podcast hosted by USD alumnus and English major, bestselling author and retired Navy SEAL, Jocko Willink '03.

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Your Career Options

Where USD English Grads Work

Below are just a few places where recent USD English grads have gone.

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What's Happening in English

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