Courses
New and revised course descriptions are available from the registrar's site.
CRWR 201 - Introduction to Creative Writing
Making Fiction
In this course, students will learn about and experiment with the tools of fiction writing. Students will complete numerous generative, exploratory forays into the world of fiction, honing their craft as well as considering the ethical, political, and personal implications that arise when one transmits language to the page. Our reading list will be comprised of work by contemporary writers who represent the range of what gets classified as fiction today, such as Carmen Maria Machado, Percival Everett, Stephen Graham Jones, Claire-Louise Bennett, N.K. Jemisin, and Poupeh Missaghi. Class sessions will be used primarily for discussion of assigned readings and student work.
The Short Story
In this course students will write short stories, and read the work of their classmates as well as that of published authors. Close attention will be paid to the narrative strategies (e.g. variations in narration, temporal manipulation and point-of-view) used by writers such as Alice Munro, Jamaica Kincaid, Lydia Davis, George Saunders and Ted Chiang to help the students in writing their own fiction. We will consider and employ various strategies when reading and responding to the work of peers. Class sessions will be used for discussion of assigned readings and student work in progress, along with exercises and broader discussions.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.);
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts;
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
CRWR 207 - Introduction to Creative Nonfiction
The Personal Essay
For many of us, our first impression of the personal essay is that it's basically autobiography, or maybe memoir. And this is often the case. But "personal" is also about a tone, a relationship with the reader, a sense of intimacy established through the use of the first person. Which is to say that the personal essay may look outward as much as it looks inward. In this workshop students will write personal essays that cover a range of genres (such as memoir, analytic meditation, and portrait) and discuss the work of writers such as Montaigne, Didion, and Baldwin, as well as more contemporary essayists. Students will also read and discuss the work of their peers. We will consider and employ various strategies when reading and responding to student work. Class sessions will be used for discussion of assigned readings and student work in progress, along with exercises and broader discussions.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
CRWR 224 - Poetry Studio I: Introduction to Poetry
Introduction to Poetry Workshop This is an introduction to writing and workshopping poems. Students will engage with weekly writing exercises and in-depth class discussion while reading a wide range of published works to develop critical skills and creative strategies beneficial to a sustainable writing practice. Emphasis will be placed on encouraging and reviewing student work within a workshop format.
Global poetics: extending traditions In this semester-long course, we will study global poetic tradition, forms, and consider questions of literary culture in the context of English-language, multi-lingual and translated poems across time, with particular emphasis on the texts of contemporary poets and contemporary translation. We will learn about the cultural construction of global forms, from encoded oral tradition to poems of survivance and resistance. Students will be expected to write 10-16 new poems over the course of the semester.
Inside Matters Writing Home and Relation. In this semester-long course, will consider the representational powers and complexity of familial relations and domestic spaces, community and filial roles, queer and alternative family structures including chosen family, and the inhabitation and reclamation of public and private lives in the context of contemporary lyric poetry. Students will be expected to write 10-16 new poems over the course of the semester.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.);
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts;
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
CRWR 321 - Special Topics Studio
Fiction Now!
No matter how far into the future or back into the past we set our fiction, we are always writing from the now. How do we consciously and unconsciously bring the present moment to the page? How do contemporary events, aesthetics, technologies, and cultural and political understandings shape the fiction we write? How might being attuned to our selves-our bodies-in the present open up new possibilities in our work? In this class students will tune in to the contemporary through generative exercises and the writing and workshopping of short stories. Our reading of published authors will focus on writing published within the last decade, including works by Adania Shibli, Megan Milks, Amina Cain, Brandon Shimoda, N.K. Jemisin, and early-career writers in print and online journals. Class sessions will be used primarily for discussion of assigned readings and student work.
Flash Nonfiction
This workshop is designed for students with considerable experience in writing short prose. Students will read essays by authors such as Ross Gay, Lydia Davis, Sei Shōnagon, Sarah Manguso, and Brian Blanchfield in order to learn to manage effects economically and to write with maximum efficiency and suggestion. Students will write one short piece of prose every or every other week; critically responding to others' work, and the revision of one's own stories, will also be emphasized. Class sessions will be used for discussion of assigned readings and work in progress.
The Realistic and the Fantastic
This workshop is designed for students with considerable experience in writing short fiction. Readings and discussion will focus on storytelling that relies upon a "realistic" depiction of our world, combined with narratives that contain events and situations that are exaggerated, surreal, speculative, and/or out of the "ordinary." How are such stories similar, and how are they different? Students will read published stories by writers such as Munro, Gaitskill, Hemingway, Cheever, Dybek, McPherson, Poe, Bradbury, Borges, Cortázar, Henry James, Octavia Butler, Kelly Link, Shirley Jackson, Haruki Murakami, and Angela Carter, as well as fairy tales, folktales, and other texts. Special emphasis will be given to individual voices, critically responding to others' work, and the revision of one's own stories. Class sessions will be used for discussion of assigned readings and work in progress.
Revision and Beyond
Often, we talk about writing as if the bulk of the work is in generating the first draft, and revision isn't much more than a final polish. But most writers eventually find that revision is as creative and gratifying a part of the writing practice as the earlier stages. In this course intended for writers of prose (fiction and creative nonfiction), students will practice and develop strategies for revision from sentence to overarching narrative level, focusing on elements of craft as well as considerations of audience, genre, and the ethical dimensions of prose writing. Students will generate new work through in-class exercises and will workshop longer pieces with an eye toward putting revision strategies into practice. The course will also offer students the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the contemporary literary landscape through discussion and research around publishing, literary community building, the practice of creative writing in the academy, and other timely conversations in the field.
Short Prose Forms
This workshop is designed for students with considerable experience in writing short prose. Students will read stories and essays by authors such as Ross Gay, Lydia Davis, Yasunari Kawabata, Hanif Abdurraquib and Sandra Cisneros in order to learn how to manage effects economically, and to write with maximum efficiency and suggestion. Students will write one short piece of prose per week; critically responding to others' work, and the revision of one's own stories, will also be emphasized. Class sessions will be used for discussion of assigned readings and work in progress.
Short Story Laboratory
This workshop is designed for students with considerable experience in writing short prose. We will read stories and essays by authors such as Paul Yoon, Anton Chekhov, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ling Ma, Steven Millhauser and Octavia Butler. Students will write fiction of various shapes and sizes; critically responding to others' work, and the revision of one's own stories, will also be emphasized (and various strategies employed). Class sessions will be used for discussion of assigned readings and work in progress, along with exercises and collaborative discussions of how to proceed-as the semester progresses, the shape of the course and its contents will be devised with attention to what our previous explorations have suggested, and what questions become most acute.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
CRWR 331 - Special Topics Studio
Advanced Poetry Workshop
The focus of this advanced workshop is to provide an intensive critical forum for students with previous poetry workshop experience to engage deeply with the practice of reading and writing poems. We will work diligently to further the development of each poem/poet, exploring various strategies to generate and extend new work, and giving close consideration to the different formal elements. Enrollment limited to 15. Prerequisites: Creative Writing 224, sophomore standing, a writing sample of three to five poems, and consent of the instructor.
Intermediate Poetry Workshop
The focus of this intermediate workshop is to provide an intensive critical forum for students with previous poetry workshop experience to engage deeply with the practice of reading and writing poems. We will work diligently to further the development of each poem/poet, exploring various strategies to generate and extend new work, and giving close consideration to the different formal elements. Enrollment limited to 15. Prerequisites: Creative Writing 224, sophomore standing, a writing sample of three to five poems, and consent of the instructor.
Cutting the River: Techniques for Stepping Away from Intent
In this semester-long course, we will look closely and learn about drafts of published poems in contemporary poetry and poetry of the recent contemporary era. We will study revision, develop compositional and generative strategies for allowing poems to be themselves on the page, and experiment with revision and serial poems. Students will be expected to write 8-12 new poems over the course of the semester and radically revise 4-5 poems.
More-than-human: poetic structures and the lyric
In this semester-long course, we will study and observe the ways in which more-than-human subjects (plants, ecosystems, geographies icy/watery/archipelagic and otherwise, animals, and other nonhuman phenomena) inform and emplace poetry. We will read contemporary English-language and other global poetries in translation alongside multimedia poetic forms. Students will be expected to write 8-12 new poems over the course of the semester and radically revise 4-5 poems.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
CRWR 481 - Independent Study
Independent writing projects.