An introductory course in which students will write both poetry and short fiction and read published examples of each. We will experiment with the formal possibilities of the two genres and look at what links and separates them. The course is workshop-based, with an emphasis on steady production and revision. Through exercises and/or open and directed writing assignments, students will produce a portfolio of short fiction and poetry.
This section of Intro to Creative Writing emphasizes analytical reading of literature as a powerful stimulant to creative production. The good writer is, first of all, a good reader whose writing responds to the contemporary literary landscape and to the inheritance of literary history.
units
Why write?: Creative living
Short fiction: Ekphrasis
Short fiction: Character and dialogue
Poetry: Apocalypse
Short fiction: Perspective, setting, memory
Poetry: Grief and national belonging
Poetry: Lyric life
- Allison Adair, The Clearing (2020)
- Victoria Chang [pictured], Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief (2021)
- Franny Choi, The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On (2022)
- David Gorin, To a Distant Country (2025) [chapbook]
- Vladimir Nabokov, The Stories (2008)
- Solmaz Sharif, Customs (2022)
- Elizabeth Willis, Alive: New and Selected Poems (2015)
- James Wood, How Fiction “Works”, updated ed. (2018)
[pictured: Victoria Chang]
Eric Weiskott 