CRWR 321 - Special Topics Studio

Advanced Fiction
In this course, we will revel in fiction’s powers to enchant and delight. We will bask in the performance of language and explore what Jean-Paul Sartre meant when he said, “Every sentence is a risk.” We will attempt to understand this enchantment and how such knowledge can help us craft good stories. To aid us in this quest, we will analyze the works of writers such as Ling Ma, Morgan Parker, Arinze Ifeakandu, Zeyn Joukhadar, Octavia Butler, Morgan Talty, and Ted Chiang. Students will submit their own creative work for discussion and analysis, as well as expand their craft toolbox through in-class exercises. Come prepared to be careful readers and curious writers.

Dancing in the Mud: Ecological Play and the Playful Imagination
This creative writing workshop embraces the role of the amateur. What does it mean to be an amateur - from the French amateur and the Latin amator which means “lover”; from the Latin amare, “to love.” What does it mean to be lovers of the world, of life, of one another? We shall bask in the pleasure of being amateur scientists, amateur artists, and amateur researchers. We shall use this intense love affair with the world around us to fuel our creative writing. This course seeks to engage all the senses as well as harness the power of poetic imagination and scientific inclination - in all their diverse histories and cultures - and use them power our writing. What does it mean, to quote writer and botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, to learn how to speak the language of a place? We shall harness the practice of serious play and playful seriousness; the amateur’s delight for intricate mazes, dead ends, unforeseen detours, and transcendental experiences. How do we embrace the natural human impulse to learn and borrow from one another in ethical and purposeful ways - in ways that honor what Kimmerer calls “the gift economy”? Weekly workshops will include experimenting with eclectic research and creative processes such as sketching of the non-human world, tinkering in the archives, experimenting with various knowledge systems, and playing with narrative and poetic forms. How might these eclectic forays enrich our creative writing? How might we harness them to sharpen our prose and innovate metaphor? We shall workshop works-in-progress and provide rigorous feedback on our creative process. Readings will include works from eclectic writers who have engaged robustly with our human and non-human worlds, including Richard Powers, Joan Naviyuk Kane, Rajiv Mohabir, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Ted Chiang, Sabrina Imbler, Rachel Carson and Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, among others. Classes may include visits to places of ecological interest such as the Reed Research Reactor and the Reed Canyon, among others.

Mastering Point-of-View
In this workshop, we shall explore the complexities of point of view. We seek to answer the questions, Who speaks? To Whom? In What Form? At What Distance? We seek to explore all that point-of-view has to offer, from classic omniscience to first person point-of-view to works that explore the world from the point-of-view of objects, animals, and other non-human entities. In this way, we seek to master this tricky yet most fundamental of fiction elements. We shall read eclectic works by writers such as Ceridwen Dovey, George Saunders, Alexia Arthurs, Morgan Thomas, Jamil Jan Kochai and Lesley Nneka Arimah, among others. Students will submit their own creative work for discussion and analysis, as well as expand their craft toolbox through in-class exercises. Come prepared to be careful readers and curious writers.

Narrative Forms
This workshop shall look at three interrelated narrative forms-fiction, autofiction, and memoir-and the ways in which they employ story telling strategies for varied effect. How do writers draw from their lives in fiction? How do they employ fictional strategies in autobiographical writing to produce autofiction? What do narrative strategies such as vivid scenes and story arcs do for memoir? Is it true what E. L. Doctorow said, that there is no fiction or non-fiction as we commonly understand it, only narrative? We shall read eclectic works from writers such as Mary Karr, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Isle McElory, Claudia Rankine, Simukai Chigudu, and Raquel Willis, among others. Drawing from these writers and their works for inspiration, we shall experiment with these narrative forms and explore their capacity to illuminate the real or fictive self. Assignments will include weekly reading of published works, writing for workshop, in-class exercises, and a portfolio of creative work.

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.

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.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Prerequisite(s):

A writing sample of three to five pages, one 200-level CRWR course, and instructor approval, unless indicated otherwise.
Revision and Beyond: A writing sample of one short story or creative nonfiction essay of any length, one 200-level CRWR course, and instructor approval

Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Repeatable for Credit: May be taken up to 3 times for credit if different topics.
Notes: Enrollment limited to 15. Not all topics offered every year. Review schedule of classes for availability.
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

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).