Writing Courses

Writing the Human Predicament
K30.1210 4 CR SSI: TR 1:30-4:30 Nettie Jones

This course questions the boundaries of traditional discourse and asks what it means to write about life. We will travel vicariously, metaphorically, and physically—seeking grist for our creative mill. Our primary goal is to find fascinating and mind-expanding sources of inspiration for writing prose in everyday life. We will explore dramatic lifestyles and scenes through biographical and autobiographical naratives, as well as critical exposition. Texts may include Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex; Pauline Réage, Story of O; J.T. LeRoy, Sarah; Augusten Burroughs, Running with Scissors; Gabriel García Márquez, Living to Tell the Tale; Amy Bloom, Normal; Phoebe Hoban, Basquiat; and videos such as Bird, Paris is Burning, Piñero, and Basquiat.

Writing the Double
K30.1328 4 CR SSII: MW 1:30-4:30 Victoria Blythe

Maurice Blanchot observed, "When I am alone, someone is there." In this writing course, we will get acquainted with the "someone" who haunts (and sometimes sabotages) the scene of writing, the “Writing-I” who always participates in our "solo act" of writing. Writing from the place of the double, in subjective genres (the memoir, the letter, the confessional poem, the interior monologue), we will experience and analyze the writer's "double bind." We will also observe the “split-subject” in some well-known “double-writers” such as Rilke (Malte: Journal of My Other Self), Borges (Borges & I), Kafka (The Metamorphosis), Conrad (The Secret Sharer), and Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray). In a workshop format, students will work with a "double," writing and discussing a number of “doppelgänger" pieces, and will have the opportunity to develop a substantial work of fictional duplicity over the course of the semester. As our guides to the topography of the double, we will consult theorists such as Blanchot himself, Kristeva (the split subject), Freud (the Narcissus complex), Lacan (the mirror stage) and Jung (the Shadow), and we will not avoid Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Writing for Young Readers
K30.1350 4 CR SSII: TR 1:30-4:30 June Foley

This course guides students in writing fiction for readers age ten through adolescence. While writing, workshopping, and revising, students consider both theoretical and practical issues of writing for young people. We examine the academic journal Children’s Literature and the newsletter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Texts we read as models will likely range from “contemporary classics,” like Beverly Cleary’s Dear Mr. Henshaw, Karen Cushman’s The Midwife’s Apprentice, and Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted, to more recent works, such as Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and Peter Cameron’s Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You. We may attend a reading by a writer or editor of fiction for young readers; a writer or editor will be our guest speaker.   

Fiction Writing
K30.1550   4 CR SSI: TR 5:30-8:30 Steven Rinehart

Fiction Writing is a course in two parts. Each class will begin with a craft discussion, along with group exercises and some lecture. We'll go over reading assignments and short homework assignments designed to stimulate classroom discussion. The second half of each class is devoted to the workshop process, where we examine the writing of you and your classmates.  The craft portion will be concerned with the mechanics of writing fiction as well as analyzing the content of short stories; in other words, not only how to improve your fiction sentence-by-sentence, but also how to include the right details to do the job. Workshops involve very close reading and supportive discussion, and every member of the class is required to participate in that process as both an author and a reader.  Readings will include stories by Charles D'Ambrosio, Mary Gaitskill, George Saunders, and Mona Simpson.