CRWR

Writing is information in sequence but how is that information generated and subsequently sequenced? This studio course is interested in the process of synthesizing larger pieces of narrative writing from smaller, non-narrative components. The process will begin with students generating 'fragments', loose bits of seemingly unconnected prose, poetry, found language, bullet points, and raw information. Students will go on to iteratively draft until they complete one or several emergent narrative works. In this course, students will study fairy tales, oral traditions such as the Arabian Nights, Roland Barthes' Hermeneutic Code, graphic novels such as The Barn Owl's Wondrous Capers by Sarnath Banerjee, and authors such as Tim O'Brien, Sayaka Murata, and Ray Bradbury.

This creative writing course, focused on the art of writing and reading literary nonfiction, addresses the fundamentals of craft. Through creative writing exercises and assignments, students will explore narrative, voice, imagery, and the relationships between ethics and art, form and content, and the self and the subject matter. Students can expect to read deeply, respond creatively, and to engage with their peers in a workshop setting. This course is designed both for writers with a passion for the genre and those who are interested in gaining experience. Successful completion of Literary Nonfiction Workshop I is a prerequisite for enrollment in Literary Nonfiction Workshop II.

This creative writing course, focused on the art of writing and reading literary nonfiction, addresses the fundamentals of craft. Through creative writing exercises and assignments, students will explore narrative, voice, imagery, and the relationships between ethics and art, form and content, and the self and the subject matter. Students can expect to read deeply, respond creatively, and to engage with their peers in a workshop setting. This course is designed both for writers with a passion for the genre and those who are interested in gaining experience. Successful completion of Literary Nonfiction Workshop I is a prerequisite for enrollment in Literary Nonfiction Workshop II.

According to Mel Brooks, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.” It isn’t easy to argue with Brooks, yet there exist numerous wildly successful marriages between violence and comedy for which his maxim doesn’t fully account. In this class, we will explore such marriages—works by Helen Garner, Juan Pablo Villalobos, Laura Vasquez, Daniil Kharms, Franz Kafka, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, Isaac Babel, Ralph Ellison, and more—and we’ll attempt to better understand their success. In the process, we’ll seek to develop a clearer sense of the twisting border that separates comedic from tragic violence. Students will read the assigned works closely, discuss them with rigor, and write violent and comic fiction of their own.

All excellent fiction is made of strong sentences, strong strings of words that tempt us to linger even as they push us toward the next strong string. This class will focus on how to make such sentences. We’ll read exemplary fiction by various authors—Garielle Lutz, Lydia Davis, Gayl Jones, Paul Beatty, J.D. Salinger, Jose Emilio Pacheco, and more—and discover and discuss how their sentences operate. We’ll do exercises, in and out of class, to master our intentions. We will read student sentences and take them apart. We will force student sentences to box and do yoga and sleep and sing opera. We will smash them up and twist them to find their strengths. If they have no strengths, we will put them to death, and feed their cold bones to other, better sentences in need of more calcium. We will find all the fun and have it.

This creative writing course, focused on the art of writing and reading fiction, addresses the fundamentals of craft. Through creative writing exercises and assignments, students will explore characterization, point of view, plot, scene work, and worldbuilding. Students can expect to read deeply, respond creatively, and to engage with their peers in a workshop setting. This course is designed both for writers with a passion for the genre and those who are interested in gaining experience. Successful completion of a Fiction Workshop I is a prerequisite for enrollment in Fiction Workshop II.

This creative writing course, focused on the art of writing and reading literary nonfiction, addresses the fundamentals of craft. Through creative writing exercises and assignments, students will explore narrative, voice, imagery, and the relationships between ethics and art, form and content, and the self and the subject matter. Students can expect to read deeply, respond creatively, and to engage with their peers in a workshop setting. This course is designed both for writers with a passion for the genre and those who are interested in gaining experience. Successful completion of Literary Nonfiction Workshop I is a prerequisite for enrollment in Literary Nonfiction Workshop II.

Research is often cited as a core component of nonfiction writing, but what exactly do we mean when we say research? Where is the boundary between personal experience and intentionally sought-after knowledge? And how can a limited notion of this critical feature hold our work back? In this nonfiction workshop, we will explore the breadth of research methodologies available to nonfiction writers. From experiential learning and deep archival work to the more familiar mode of online research, this class will require students to engage both intellectually and corporeally with their chosen subjects. In class, we will read and examine texts that employ a range of methods professional writers have used to incorporate research, noting how information can be blended, woven, and rendered in unexpected ways. Students will practice employing these methods by writing and workshopping two creative writing pieces with distinct approaches to conducting and incorporating research. Representative authors include Benjamin Labatut's The Maniac, Helen Macdonald's H is For Hawk, and Hanif Abdurraqib's Go Ahead in the Rain.

From Lauren Oyler’s Fake Accounts to Patricia Lockwood’s No One is Talking About This, there has been a recent surge of popular fiction that not only employs online-based communication as a narrative device, but explores the Internet as a new field of literature: a field with its own rhetoric, network of referents, and unique poetics. In this Writing Studio, we will explore the evolution of Internet Literature from early Internet-focused works—such as Dennis Cooper’s Sluts and Jeanette Winterson’s The PowerBook—to contemporary works such as Olivia Laing’s Crudo, Esther Yi’s Y/N, and B.R. Yeager’s Amygdalatropolis. We will also hone our craft understanding of Internet Literature through writing exercises that engage with Internet forms, including social media, message boards, and various iterations of AI. The course will include reading discussions, short weekly written responses, and workshopping of original student work.