Thesis Workshop

This advanced fiction course is for BA and MA students writing a creative thesis or any advanced student working on a major fiction project. It is primarily a workshop, so please come to our first class with your project in progress (a story collection, a novel, or a novella), ready for you to discuss and to submit some part of for critique. As in any writing workshop, we will stress the fundamentals of craft like language, voice, and plot and character development, with an eye also on how to shape your work for the longer form you have chosen. And as a supplement to our workshops, we will have brief student presentations on the writing life: our literary influences, potential avenues towards publication, etc.

This class is required if you're writing a BA or MAPH thesis in nonfiction or working on your portfolio for the minor. The class itself is entirely workshop, meaning that you and your classmates will provide the vast majority of material for discussion. You'll spend as much time editing other people's writing as you will working on your own. I emphasize editing because writing is essentially rewriting, and editing other manuscripts is the fastest way to gain the objectivity and skill you need to edit your own. By teaching others you'll teach yourself, preparing you for the real life of the writer outside the academy. That's why your first assignment will be to create your own syllabus: your own, self-directed program of outside reading, with smart, succinct reasons for each choice. All writers are ultimately self-taught, and this class is intended to be a step in that direction.

This course is an advanced seminar intended primarily for students writing a Creative BA or MA thesis, as well as Creative Writing Minors completing the portfolio. Because it is a thesis seminar, the course will focus on various ways of organizing larger poetic "projects." We will consider the poetic sequence, the chapbook, and the poetry collection as ways of extending the practice of poetry beyond the individual lyric text. We will also problematize the notion of broad poetic "projects," considering the consequences of imposing a predetermined conceptual framework on the elusive, spontaneous, and subversive act of lyric writing. Because this class is designed as a poetry workshop, your fellow students' work will be the primary text over the course of the quarter.

This advanced fiction workshop is for Creative Writing majors, minors, and MAPH students and other advanced students working on a substantial fiction project. It will be primarily a workshop class and all students are expected to enter this course with a story collection, a novel, or a novella already in progress, ready to be submitted and critiqued. The class will stress narrative arc and different kinds of conflict, though we will also discuss such fundamentals as POV and narrative distance, voice, character development, structure, setting, and dialogue as needed, in order to best shape a given work toward the writer's own vision of that work. Keep in mind that writers don't work in a vacuum-we should have a strong sense of how our own work fits in with the work of other writers. With this in mind, each student will also be expected to make several short presentations on the writing life: literary influences, writers' processes, explorations of craft elements, literary journals, etc.

This advanced fiction workshop is for Creative Writing majors, minors, and MAPH students and other advanced students working on a substantial fiction project. In workshop discussions, we'll read and critique student work with an eye toward solidifying what you've learned and produced in previous writing courses. We'll continue to address fundamental principles of storytelling and prose writing, but hope to bring a further degree of subtlety and curiosity to our discussions. We'll also refine and expand our tastes as readers and writers by considering fiction by the likes of Tolstoy, Roberto Bola-o, Lydia Davis, Alice Munro, and James Baldwin. Finally, students will choose outside texts that have in some way influenced or informed their own creative projects and present and lead discussion on them.

This advanced fiction workshop is for Creative Writing majors, minors, and MAPH students and other advanced students working on a substantial fiction project. Each of you will work on two chapters and the outline of an individual, book-length manuscript. Together, we will use the workshop to explore strategies for creating new material, revising the pages you have, and building structures that sustain and support long-form works. Readings include works by Baldwin, Carson, Hemon, Yan, and Wharton.

This advanced fiction workshop is for Creative Writing majors, minors, and MAPH students and other advanced students working on a substantial fiction project. It is primarily a workshop, so please come to our first class with your project in progress (a story collection, a novel, or a novella), ready for you to discuss and to submit some part of for critique. As in any writing workshop, we will stress the fundamentals of craft like language, voice, and plot and character development, with an eye also on how to shape your work for the longer form you have chosen. And as a supplement to our workshops, we will have brief student presentations on the writing life: our literary influences, potential avenues towards publication, etc.

Form as Content

This course is primarily intended for students working on either a Creative BA, MA thesis, or Creative Writing Minors completing the portfolio. During the course of the semester we will examine various narrative forms, styles, frameworks and traditions and how they best accommodate, extend, challenge and complicate their corresponding content, as well as how --subsequently --they can be best applied to the writer's intended goals in their chosen projects.

Day/Time: Tuesday, 12:30-3:20 PM

This class is for nonfiction majors, minors, MAPH students, and anyone working on a substantial nonfiction project. It's a workshop, so you and your classmates will provide (almost) all the writing we'll analyze as a group. You’ll spend as much time editing and critiquing your classmates' writing as you will working on your own. I emphasize editing and critique because writing is essentially rewriting, and revising other people's work is the best way to gain the objectivity and skills you'll need to revise your own. By teaching others you'll teach yourself, preparing you for real life of the writer outside the academy. Writers are self-taught, ultimately, and this class is a step in that direction. That’s why your first assignment is to create your own syllabus: your own, self-directed program of outside reading, giving smart, succinct reasons why these books might teach you how to write your own.

Day/Time: Friday, 9:30 AM-12:20 PM

This course is an advanced seminar intended primarily for students writing a Creative BA or MA thesis, as well as Creative Writing Minors completing the portfolio. Because it is a thesis seminar, the course will focus on various ways of organizing larger poetic “projects.” We will consider the poetic sequence, the chapbook, and the poetry collection as ways of extending the practice of poetry beyond the individual lyric text. We will also problematize the notion of broad poetic “projects,” considering the consequences of imposing a predetermined conceptual framework on the elusive, spontaneous, and subversive act of lyric writing. Because this class is designed as a poetry workshop, your fellow students’ work will be the primary text over the course of the quarter.

Day/Time: Wednesday, 1:30-4:20 PM