Elisa Gabbert
How to Be Interesting (to Ourselves and Each Other)
Part of the project of psychoanalysis is finding ways to “redescribe” our feelings and experiences so that we can live with them. In this light, we don’t need to solve all our problems (they may not be solvable), as long as we can make our problems interesting. Writing nonfiction can work in a similar way, giving us creative tools and processes to make the messy, painful, even boring stuff that fills our lives into thoughtful, artful texts: objects of beauty, fascination, and mystery that can be shared and interpreted. In this workshop, we’ll explore a range of strategies to make writing personal essays or memoir richer and more interesting both to ourselves and to readers, including decisions of form and structure, tone and mood, theme and motif, point of view, trust and authority, and incorporation of outside material or research.
We’ll begin each discussion by simply describing the work: What is it, and what is it trying to do? What is it about, on a literal level and on other, subtextual or extra-textual levels? What works or traditions is the piece in conversation or in lineage with? This will serve as our way in to think about the piece’s possibilities, and the author’s opportunities for revision.
I hope to build this class around attentive, careful readings of each other’s work, focused more on observation than evaluation (though of course we should also share enthusiasms and confusions). Come to each session prepared to talk about the assigned pieces at length, a good writing skill in its own right. I trust that this goes without saying, but regardless: Be respectful of your classmates, their differences in perspective and experience, and the vulnerable position of sharing unfinished work, especially nonfiction which is often personal in nature. Kindness and support are not in opposition to challenge and growth, or to healthy disagreement. Before sharing an opinion or impression, consider how personal bias might inform it, and whether you’re responding to the work on its own terms. When accepting critique, keep an open mind and professional spirit, knowing that not all feedback will be helpful, a natural consequence of being read.
Safia Elhillo
In these multi-day workshop sessions, we will critique, interrogate, and celebrate participants’ new works and ongoing work-in-progress. Students should submit a selection of new work/drafts (up to 5 poems, no more than 10 pages) for review by Safia and their fellow participants, as well as an introductory statement about the status of the work, any questions they may have, things they are already working on, or feedback they have previously received.
Each day we will set aside sessions for workshopping individual students’ work. Each student will receive a session where we carefully look at individual pieces from their manuscript, and give general commentary on the manuscript as a whole. Students will read each other’s manuscripts before the sessions begin, and should prepare thoughts to provide to one another during. There will be three student critique sessions per day, over the course of four days (the first day will be introductory and not have a critique session).
In between the student critique sessions, Safia will give generative writing prompts, and offer more open-ended discussion time to discuss aspects of craft and the publishing industry.
Stephen Amidon
Getting Better
An intensive course in fiction writing in which participants will submit work to be discussed by their peers. Over the course of four three-hour sessions, we will examine each participant’s work in depth, looking at such elements as voice, characterization, theme, and narrative structure. We will also discuss a few didactic principles, such as Freytag’s Pyramid and Joyce’s ideas about the epiphany. Through our collective analysis, we will strive to provide each writer with a strategy for composing further drafts, with an eye toward arriving at a finished story. One fundamental question will guide our examinations: what is the writer trying to do, and how might they do it better?
Each participant will be expected to submit a 20-page piece of written work before we begin, preferably in the form of a short story, although first chapters of a novel are acceptable. Please choose a piece of work that is both important and problematic to you, so we can help you bring it to fruition. Students will also be expected to read the stories of their classmates in advance and comment robustly - and respectfully - during the workshop.
