Publishing Today

Catalog description

Publishing Today, generously funded by the National Endowment of the Humanities, will offer students a chance to study contemporary literature while also better understanding the process of making and distributing contemporary literature out in the world. We will be engaging with some of the key players in producing cutting edge literature, scholarship and journalism that centers underserved communities. The course is grounded by a handful of longer works: Black Women Taught Us, the new edition of On Strike Against God, Lifting as We Climb, House of Cotton and Big Fiction by Dan Sinykin. The rest of the secondary readings will be provided on Canvas and connected to guest speakers from: LA Review of Books, The Asian American Writers Workshops literary magazine The Margins, Publisher of the Kokila Imprint at Penguin Random House, The Paris Review, Lampblack Literary and others. In this course we will read a broad mix of genres: fiction in the form of short stories as well as two novels, nonfiction essays, reporting and book chapters, as well as memoir. When reading Black Women Taught Us students will answer probing questions like: How are writers shifting cultural conversations around anti-Blackness, politics and the expected norms of the memoir genre? What are the ways in which writers from multiple, intersecting marginalized communities are subverting readers' expectations of a memoir? When talking with an editor, students will be able to ask about both the editorial vision for a book, the acquisition process, as well as how that press sees the text as part of its larger collection and mission.