Instructors: Neel Mukherjee and Laura van den Berg
Monday & Wednesday, 10:30-11:45 am | Location: TBD
Enrollment: Limited to 45 students
Course Site
There is no writing without reading. This is an unimpeachable and incontrovertible fact that all writers know. Ask any writer why they became a writer, and they'll tell you that it's because they read. Octavia Butler, who came from a poor family, once said that she became a writer because she had access to public libraries. Books, in other words; they showed her what was possible. What kind of training in reading prepares one to become a writer? This is an open-enrollment creative writing course that will introduce you to some extraordinary writers who will inspire you, make you think, make you quarrel with them, fill you with wonder and awe and, sometimes, bafflement. It is by no means representative in any way, nor is it exhaustive, nor does it have any historical ordering. It is meant to be a stepping-stone to possibilities, to greater imaginative and creative worlds.
The list is diverse in terms of genres. We will read sci-fi (Ursula K. Le Guin, Butler), fairytale inspired fiction (Angela Carter, Helen Oyeyemi), metaphysical fiction (Leo Tolstoy), realist fiction (Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant). We will consider fiction through the lens of race and gender and politics (Mavis Gallant, Edward P. Jones, Vivek Shanbagh, Annie Ernaux), and read several writers who wrote in languages other than English (Anton Chekhov, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar). We will learn how to read closely, to interpret stories and novels, to figure out what literary works mean and, most importantly, how they embody their meanings in form. We will look at the wide spectrum of effects writers create in their texts. We will also be asking ourselves throughout the semester: How do writers read other writers? What are the technical things they look out for when they are reading? These conversations will, in turn, inform the creative work you generate this semester.
This class will be co-taught by two creative writing faculty members, Professors Laura van den Berg and Neel Mukherjee. The lecture component of the course will meet twice a week, Mondays and Wednesdays, for 75 minutes per session; one of those classes will be largely devoted to craft Q & A and workshopping student writing. You will also meet for an hour-long section (separate from the weekly lectures) each week where you'll have the opportunity to do your own creative writing. This will involve writing exercises, imitations of writers we will be reading, flash fiction, and other writing prompts.