Kathie Bergquist

This class serves as an entry into the historical, theoretical and practical concerns of creative writing as an art form in itself and as a vital element of interdisciplinary projects. We explore the possibilities of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays and hybrid practices and their intersections with performance, sound, installation, and visual art.

Readings include diverse examples of genre and form, as well as investigations of literary and thematic terminology.

Students generate weekly responses to reading and writing exercises that focus on understanding the mechanics of writing, and are introduced to workshopping techniques and etiquette.

This class serves as an entry into the historical, theoretical and practical concerns of creative writing as an art form in itself and as a vital element of interdisciplinary projects. We explore the possibilities of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays and hybrid practices as writing for the page, as well as for performance, sound, installation, and image-based pieces. Readings include diverse examples of genre and form, as well as investigations of literary and thematic terminology. Students generate weekly responses to reading and writing exercises that focus on understanding the mechanics of writing, and are introduced to workshopping techniques and etiquette.

Requiring more sustained attention than a short story, and a more exclusive and disciplined structure than a novel, middle-length fiction (spanning between 30-150 pages) has much to teach the developing writer about compression and story arc and what Nabokov described as 'diminishing large things and enlarging small ones'. In this workshop, students read and analyze several exemplary examples of novellas and novelettes that could include authors ranging from Franz Kafka and Nella Larsen to Rachel Ingalls and Justin Torres, among others. In addition to completing weekly journals based on their observations of craft and writerly process and weekly discussions centered on craft elements in the mid-length form, students will develop their own mid-length fiction draft, through student-centered and ethical critique and feedback practice.

What does it mean to write queerly? Is the personal truly political? What constraints do dominant structural expectations of form and craft place in the non-conforming imagination? Combining critical reading and reflection with writing and student-centered workshop practice, this course explores themes and aesthetics present in the work of contemporary queer personal narrative. Through the study of authors including Melissa Febos, Saeed Jones, Alexander Chee, Mattilda Sycamore Bernstein, Kai Cheng Thom, and Cooper Lee Bombardier, we contemplate the juxtapositions between intersectional identities, marginalization, and social and historical context in the art of personal writing. Weekly reading response journals and creative exploration combined with vigorous craft discussion culminate in composing and revising two potentially publishable personal essays.