This workshop-style class is an introduction to the pleasures of the writing process. You will benefit from in-depth readings and constructive critical support in a class that fosters a community of writers. We will spend half the semester writing fiction and the other half writing poems. Some of each class meeting will be devoted to discussing a short story or poems from our texts. These works will serve as springboards for your own writing. Growing, experimenting, and revising are key. Class participation and attendance are vital. There will be some brief in-class writing exercises designed to help you generate and shape work and a variety of brief written responses to assigned texts and student work.
Students will turn in a short story of about 7-8 pages and approximately 6 poems.
Texts: Selected short stories, which you will access online through Course Reserves, and four or so individual poetry collections by contemporary poets and occasionally a poet from the tradition.