In-Person @ Wendys Subway, Mondays in April, 6-8pm ET.

$100-200 sliding scale.

During these weeks together, I hope to foster an exciting and comfortable place for us to come together and discuss how fiction works, as well as ways to improve your own writing. Learning to write, finding your voice, and discovering what you want to write about takes years, and the best way forward is to continue writing while assimilating the experience from class as you continue working. It is also important to read a lot, as much as possible, and think about what you enjoy about the things you really enjoy reading and discussing.

We will close read and discuss authors such as Mary Gaitskill, Margaret Atwood, Donald Barthelme, Angela Carter, Dennis Cooper, and more.

General questions/notes:

1. Find techniques and strategies that the writer uses that you can use in your own writing. What details are they focusing on about people places and things, and where do those details guide us.

2. Find the things you, as a writer, notice first (observe without judgment).

3. Read the story twice consecutively.

4. Short stories usually arrange themselves around the “event.” Think about the event and what effect it has on the characters. How does the world the story builds give them space to react? In novels, characters are brought from one condition to another. Short stories don’t have this space. Maybe we should ask, what events in the story (and ideas about the world) is the space of a short writing accommodating?

We will workshop on a rotating basis, everyone will submit twice over the four weeks.  Submissions should be limited to 20 pages max (double spaced).

In this class we will write and submit poems each week, then meet and discuss them. We will close-read poems by published authors as well, time permitting. Meets beginning March 2.