Welcome to the English Department

The English department at UMass Lowell provides a rigorous, broad, and innovative education in writing, literature and theatre.


Why Study English at UMass Lowell?

  • You will build on your abilities to think, read and write critically in sophisticated and thoughtful ways. A degree in English prepares you for careers in teaching, journalism, law, corporate communications, media, technical writing and set design. If creative work is your forte, our faculty will help you find your voice, style and vision. 
  • Choose between four concentrations: Creative Writing, Journalism and Professional Writing, Literature, and Theatre Studies. Each concentration offers a focused curriculum designed to develop career-ready skills. And you can take classes in other concentrations as well.
  • Our curriculum mixes traditional and innovative courses and programs. You can study Shakespeare as well as Percival Everett and Toni Morrison; Old English and Artificial Intelligence; write poetry, fiction and journalism or design a theatre set; learn how to create social media campaigns and write for the web. We honor the past, analyze the present and look toward the future.
  • We meet you where you are and take you where you want to go. Choose from dozens of internships and the opportunity to help manage our literary journal, The Offering. You’ll learn how to become a teacher or journalist, how to hone your creative writing for graduate school or publication. If you don't know where you want to go, we will help you envision and plan your pathway!
  • Our award-winning faculty are laser-focused on teaching. Our faculty publish in major presses, design sets for well-known theatres and give scholarly presentations all over the world. But our focus is on teaching and mentoring our students. Keeping up to date in publishing and creative practice helps our faculty support students — modeling the scholarly and creative work they teach. 
  • Join a supportive, student-centered department that builds community inside and outside the university. We host multiple events each year, partnering with other departments and the community. We deliver the resources and connections you need to succeed.

English Department Events

  • A young woman holds a framed certificate while posing for a photo with a woman and man in front of a TV screen.

    English Major Earns Prestigious Lipman Award for Writing

    Senior English major Julia Magee has won the 2025 Elinor Lipman Award for Writing for her short story “A Little Less than Halfway to Boiling,” which impressed judges with its vivid first-person voice and earned her recognition from the Pollard Memorial Library Foundation.
    Featured Story
  • A young bearded man smiles for a photo on a football field while wearing a Patriots stocking cap and an NFL media vest.

    ‘I Can’t Believe I Get to Work Here’

    As digital and social media coordinator for the New England Patriots, English alum Carter Hochman ’19 has turned his student-athlete experience at UML and media passion into a dream job in the NFL.
    Featured Story
  • Maureen Stanton leaning with one arm on a window frame and gazing out the window.

    New Memoir from Creative Writing Professor Wins Awards

    English Prof. Maureen Stanton’s new memoir, “The Murmur of Everything Moving,” about young love, death, caretaking and grief, has won major literary awards. One resulted in the book’s publication this month, 25 years after she first wrote it.
    Featured Story
  • A display of multiple copies of Elizabeth Strout's book Tell Me Everything

    In Campus Visit, Noted Author Elizabeth Strout Extols the Ordinary

    Elizabeth Strout, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton novels, gave clear and simple advice to young writers in a conversation with author and Prof. Andre Dubus III: Listen. Keep writing. And keep your reader in mind.
    Featured Story

Transferring to English?

Our flexible program makes it easy to change your major to English and graduate on time.