UH will begin offering the first doctorate in Spanish with a Creative Writing concentration in the U.S. in Fall 2017. The program will offered by the Hispanic Studies Department within the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.

UH alumna Cristina Rivera Garza, an award-winning author, created and will lead the program. Rivera Garza has written six novels, three collections of short stories, five collections of poetry and three non-fiction books.

“It seemed to me that the conditions were just right for a program like this, and I am very glad this is happening in a huge city, in a truly urban center such as Houston, with a very diverse population, where you could actually see, live, breathe in Spanish all over,” Rivera Garza said. “So this is the ideal place for a program like this.”

The University already hosts Arte Público Press, the largest publisher of Hispanic authors in the nation, and one of the highest-ranked masters and doctoral programs for creative writing in English.

Rivera Garza said these factors, in addition to a high number of bilingual faculty, make UH the ideal place to start such a program.

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