The Art of the Novella

Catalog description

The novella, at its best, combines the urgency of the short story with the cumulative power of the novel. The novella is a form that may be of particular interest to young writers who are thinking about how to transition from the writing of stories to the writing of longer narratives. In this course, we will read novellas (or long stories or short novels—there is no precise definition of the form) by writers including Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, D. H. Lawrence, Franz Kafka, Gabriel García Márquez, Carson McCullers, Jean Rhys, Sandra Cisneros, and Philip Roth. We will endeavor to read as writers, thinking closely about how these works can inform our own fiction. Though formally a small lecture, this will be a discussion-based course in which every student will be expected to participate in our conversations about the readings. In weekly group conferences, students will share their own writing in a spirit of mutual appreciation and support. Dream Logic