Richard O'Reilly

This workshop operates from the premise that whether compelled by memory, gossip, witnessing, or revelation, people have a need to tell stories, and so we work on making the telling of our tales more resonant, purposeful, and entertaining. We draw from the short stories of Annie Proulx and Uwem Akpan, monologues of Suzan-Lori Parks, prose poems of Joe Wenderoth, essays of Toni Morrison and Virginia Woolf, the comedy of Hannah Gadsby, the investigative local podcast The Constant: A History of Getting Things Wrong and folk tales from a variety of cultures. Course work includes generative writing exercises and short, frequent presentations of your work with attention to its aural presentation; one academic paper comparing two pieces we have read for class; and a presentation of a final project. Workshops focus on ways to make your work better, clearer, and more understandable through discussion and rewriting.

This course includes some of the best ingredients of research, close reading and the eye of working between prose, playwriting and storytelling toward professional practice. We will examine prose works and career practices of Edward P. Jones, Nancy Mairs, Nin Andrews, Dylan Thomas, Maria Irene Fornes, Wallace Shawn, Anton Checkhov and Suzan-Lori Parks, taking them apart to study language, rhythm and clarity in completion. What are the blood and bones that carry the work? Where are the surprises, lessons and insight to be found in these pieces? How is conflict and plot created and resolved? How did they succeed in the profession? Once we have explored these published works, we will begin making new work of our own, leaning into the lessons gleaned. We will begin, complete and perform new work in this class! Recommended for short story writers, playwrights and those working in personal essays.

This is a 'doers' workshop, designed to address the problems that present themselves when a writer is faced with a public performance or presentation of her or his work. We will investigate tactics and techniques essential for making those presentations stronger. How do I take the stage? How do use my voice well? How do I use the microphone? How do I relax in front of people? What do I wear? Do I use a prop? Do I memorize? How do I hold the text? We will view known performers' work and then examine your work, shaping and refining it until it feels complete. Class will conclude with a public performance of your work.

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.