Department of English

In this fiction writing workshop, we will be making a conscious effort to transcend our personal reading and writing preferences to be apprenticed by visceral, divergent literature—aesthetic achievements centered around objective life, subjective reality, and ecstatic confession and play! Most of the works that tend to affect us deeply are the ones that might have wearied us, or even greatly disturbed us. But in time, upon further reflection, we find them rather informative—or even illuminating! We will do a lot of new weekly writing, which will result in a draft and a final version of an original prose piece. You and another classmate will be “hosting” at least two classes in open discussion of a weekly reading or film and critiquing each other’s drafts—focusing on craft rather than content, aesthetics rather than plot. You will challenge your self-censorship in a safe and supportive environment and will read weekly what you write to develop your observational and listening skills in determining the effects of the spoken word: you will emote! emote! emote!