Due to the attached Mercer School of Medicine and the outstanding reputation of the engineering department, it is unsurprising that a large percentage of the undergraduate student body at Mercer University studies in STEM fields. What may come as more of a surprise is that there is another powerful major gaining traction on Mercer’s campus — creative writing. Out of the over 4,000 colleges and universities that populate the U.S.’s education landscape, only approximately 125 offer creative writing as a degree option. Not only is Mercer one of the few institutions to teach creative writing, but it also does quite well for itself: though a small department, it has been home to such acclaimed instructors as Chelsea Rathburn, Poet Laureate of Georgia; James May, recent National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant recipient and Anya Silver, 2018 Guggenheim Fellow.