Writing and Reading Fiction

Catalog description

A novelist once began a lecture by asking how many people in the audience wanted to be writers. When almost everyone raised a hand, he said, “So why the hell aren’t you home writing?” The novelist was asking the right question. The only way to improve as a writer is to write a lot. You might have all the talent in the world. You might have had a thousand fascinating experiences. But talent and experience will not get you very far unless you have the ability to sit down, day after day, and write. Accordingly, the main goal of this course will be to encourage students to develop or sustain the habit of steady writing. Students will share a very short story with the class every week in response to provided prompts and will produce an additional story for conference every two weeks. We will also be learning from writers who have come before us, reading a mix of both classic and contemporary writers including Isaac Babel, Anton Chekhov, Danielle Evans, Ernest Hemingway, Katherine Mansfield, Lorrie Moore, ZZ Packer, and Grace Paley. Grow Up! Depictions of Childhood in Literary Fiction