Masters of Professional Writing Program

The MPW Experience

Continuing and Executive Education

Executive Education

Helping you master your story.

Since 1971, the USC MPW program has graduated hundreds of successful screenwriters, novelists, dramatists, poets, memoirists, and essayists. Now our award-winning faculty brings key creativity tools to organizations everywhere facing 21st century communications challenges. Our custom-built sessions help teams strengthen narrative abilities, build closer interpersonal ties, and express your vision in fresh and captivating ways.

For more information on how the USC Master of Professional Writing program can help you master your story, please call Susan Kamei at 213-740-3250. Or email us.

It was an outstanding and refreshing program and something I would love to do again and cover additional material. Kudos to the entire USC team!

Process

Your company deserves strong storytelling.

Successful business people are creative thinkers. But too often, corporate communicators fall back on clichés that make on-the-job writing read like a chore.  Which is a shame, because most organizations have a great story – in their history, their people, their competitive edge, their vision and their ideals.

The USC MPW program offers leading companies the writing strategies we have shared with hundreds of successful writers since 1971. Our award-winning faculty can help make your company’s story a must-read.

We would absolutely recommend expanded use of
this workshop to other communicators throughout
the company.

Custom engagements

Custom engagements are written with you in mind.

In a custom engagement, we get to know the character and setting of your business by interviewing senior management and researching you and your competition. We look at your:

  • Founding story
  • Current challenges
  • Existing narrative
    (what you say, and what others say about you)
  • Opportunities
  • Vision for the future

Then we write a plot that turns these elements into a fun and interactive seminar (1, 2, or 3 days) that has everyone working on the communications issues most important to you.

This was a wonderful learning experience for both new and seasoned communicators. Bravo!”

Open registration programs

Writing in Los Angeles 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009 Writers’ Conference
University of Southern California, University Park Campus
7:30 a.m to 8 p.m.

Distinguished Visiting Writer
National Book Award winner Denis Johnson

Workshops and Seminars in
Fiction
Creative Nonfiction
Poetry
Screenwriting
Playwriting
Television Writing

 “Flash Fiction” writing contest sponsored by the USC Master of Professional Writing Program and the Los Angeles Times.

Reconnect with your work during this intensive one-day conference for writers, by writers. 

  • Craft-based workshops (maximum 8 participants) with conference faculty provide new assignments and individual feedback to push your thinking and take your work to the next level.
  • Seminars explore aspects of the writing genres and the practical information you need to succeed in the business of writing.
  • Panels bring together working writers to talk about beginning a novel, adapting fiction and nonfiction for the screen, breaking into TV writing, opportunities in Los Angeles, and other topics in the art and the business of writing.
  • A pitch meeting gives fiction writers and screenwriters the opportunity to connect with agents and get feedback.  (Limited number, subject to availability.)
  • Informal networking connects you with other participants and Los Angeles writers and editors.
  • Reception, booksigning, and reading by Denis Johnson conclude the day.

Click here to receive signup info about next year’s Conference.

I found this session to be a great refresher and a great test of my skill set as a 16 year PR practioner.
Lewis Brinson, Boeing Sr. Manager Space & Intellingence Systems.

Capture the Storyexeced_mpw4
Three twisted case studies that put you through the wringer

Popular Sunday evening expose show “16 Minutes” has gone after its latest target – and it’s you. Now it’s the next morning. What do you and your team do?

After a morning of creative writing instruction, three teams from your company tackle fun scenarios that are all too relevant:

  • Having seized control, Tilton Hotels heiress and celebrity party girl Roma Tilton promises a fresh marketing approach: personally sleeping around in the entire Tilton chain.
  • Transistor Town’s public image fizzles out when CEO Richard J. Rich makes the shocking decision to offer his downsized workforce their old jobs back – at 50% off.
  • The packaging of Fresh Life Organix for Kids says “100% goodness” – but when “16 Minutes” asks exactly what is in the food, CEO Mark Levitan turns an unhealthy shade of green.

Includes:

  • Annual reports for “Tilton Hotels,” “Transistor Town,” and “Fresh Life Organix”
  • Broadcast episode of “16 Minutes” mockumentary profiling all three scenarios, plus irrational commentary from Andy Looney
  • Half-day writing instruction with takeaway materials
  • Half-day breakout sessions mentored by USC writing instructors
  • A fun high-energy finale of written work, shared on the spot, including:
    • Press conference with roleplaying
    • Press statement
    • Op ed
    • Letter to the editor
    • Email to shareholders, colleagues, or client

Also available:

  • One-on-one mentorship meetings the day after the engagement
  • After-dinner reading engagement by literary luminary, with Q&A

This 1-day session is perfect for
annual meetings and off-sites

For more information on how the USC Master of Professional Writing program can help you master your story, please call Susan Kamei at 213-740-3250. Or email us.

Faculty

Working writers.

Highly trained in the artful use of language.

Deeply conscious of meaning, and how to express it.

Every day of the year, the words of our faculty members fill the culture, from the bestseller lists to the cineplex, from the stage to the page to the digital age.

Many of our faculty members have also led successful careers in business, as entertainment executives, publishers, editors, corporate communicators, marketing writers, and business consultants.

USC's MPW program clearly would help the great majority of corporate communicators improve the quality of their work.

Sample faculty:

Syd Field is acclaimed as the “guru of all screenwriters” by CNN. His book Screenplay is considered “the Bible” of the film industry, published in 23 languages and used in more than 400 colleges and universities. He has conducted screenwriting workshops all over the world, including AFI, the Disney Studios, 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios, the Nike Corporation and annually conducts The Visual Art of Storytelling for the scientists of JPL and NASA.
Judith Freeman is a novelist, essayist and critic, and most recently the bestselling author of The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved. Her novel Red Water was named one of the 100 best books of 2002 by the Los Angeles Times. She is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction a visiting Fellowship from the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford.
mullins Brighde Mullins received the Pinter Review Gold Medal for her play Fire Eater. Her plays have been produced in London, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Her 2003 chapbook of poems, Water Stories, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In 2006 she started a reading series at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater, housed in downtown’s Disney Concert Hall.
vanlowe Ehrich van Lowe was Co-Producer on NBC's Emmy Award winning The Cosby Show and wrote the Academy Award nominated Cadillac Dreams. He served as Executive Producer on the Emmy nominated Even Stevens, Fox TV's Roc and Co-Producer/Creator of the ABC sitcom Where I Live. His other credits are, for TV, The Robert Guillaume Show; for film, Stompin' at the Savoy; and, on stage, The Running of the Wolves.
Lee Wochner is an award-winning playwright, director, and producer. His plays have been produced in London, New York, Los Angeles, and around the U.S. As co-founder of the theatre Moving Arts, he directed, produced, or workshopped more than 150 new plays in 10 years. He has written, produced, or consulted for scores of clients including the City of Los Angeles, the State of California, the City of Santa Monica, the WB Network, 20th Century Fox, City National Bank, and others.

I haven't laughed so much or enjoyed an offsite as much since joining Boeing.

For more information on how the USC Master of Professional Writing program can help you master your story, please call Susan Kamei at 213-740-3250. Or email us.