Fiction Workshop

The most delicate choices a writer makes significantly affect a story or novel. In this workshop, we'll take a close-up look at your fiction. We'll focus on precision of language, explore the mysteries and mechanics of point of view, and talk about building a stable world with words. We'll treat our stories as laboratories of the imagination that accommodate daring and complex experiments. Empathy is a prerequisite for effectively discussing each other's work. In workshop discussions, we'll cultivate articulate critiques that always keep the writers' intentions in mind. Revision will be emphasized; over the course of the semester, each student will revise a story or novel excerpt at least twice and will have the option to workshop different drafts. The published stories that we read will be chosen in response to students' writing and may include work by authors such as Ann Beattie, Gary Lutz, Denis Johnson, Robert Lopez, Blake Butler, Anton Chekhov, Junot Diaz, Barry Hannah, and Joy Williams. We may also read essays by Lutz, Italo Calvino, Jo Ann Beard, and others.