CRWR

Brevity is the soul of wit, and in some definitions, it’s also an essential characteristic of lyric poetry. In this course, we’ll read diverse examples of relatively brief poetic forms, such as  epigrams, aphorisms, haikus, tankas, prose poems, sonnets, and other “micro” or “tiny” poems. We’ll also consider the way short forms can be linked to form longer, iterative poetic sequences. Finally, we’ll also practice revising poems for economy: that is, cutting as many words as possible from every draft. Using our readings, students will try out several short forms, revise work, and complete short critical writing exercises. 

Many creative writers who are conversant in more than one language find that literary translation offers an affinity mode of writing. Employing skills that span language study, literary analysis, and creative writing, literary translation offers young writers a way of inhabiting other voices, sharpening their writing without the burden of invention, and reading far beyond the contemporary American canon. But how do you get started translating? This studio will offer students the space to explore their sensibilities as readers so that they may discover new international literature that speaks to them as writers. We’ll start with research activities that seek to survey current literary practices in the language or world area that each student is interested in. Then, we’ll read our way into a few potential projects by bringing in tools of critical reception, close reading, and literary analysis. Finally, we’ll embark on the first phases of translation praxis through language work and creative imagining in English. Students will leave the studio with an invested project that they may continue independently or within the structure of a translation workshop.

How do we hear the voice of a text when we’re reading in another language? What makes a voice intrinsically itself? And where can we locate those qualities in the language that the voice speaks in? This workshop explores what translators read for when constructing a narrative or poetic voice in English. Students will select a long-form literary text to translate, and we will work through the drafting process by breaking the text down into short extracts that we will close-read together each week in class. In doing so, we’ll listen through the translation for evidence of how the source wants to sound, in order to discern its voice, its tendencies, and how it behaves in language. Our own translation work will be accompanied by assigned readings that represent a range of contemporary world literature in translation, paying attention to what the translator does with English to sketch a cohesive voice. We’ll build toward the polished translation of a short prose text or a selection of poems, which students will submit as part of a final portfolio, along with a translator’s note that provides critical commentary on their reading of the source text and their treatment of it in translation.

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.

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.

Fiction Thesis Workshops are open to Creative Writing Intensive Majors, Creative Writing Legacy Majors and Minors completing an optional thesis, and MAPH Creative Writing Specialists. Students will build off a project already in-progress to complete 15-30 pages of polished prose—typically in the form of short stories or an excerpt from a longer work. Students are expected to have at least 50% of an initial draft of their project completed prior to the first day of class.  

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.