Courses

One of the best ways to become a skilled writer is to become a skilled reader. In this immersion seminar, you will learn to read in a way you were probably never taught in literature courses—not as a critic but as a craftsperson, an apprentice in the guild. You will learn how to X-ray any piece of writing, from its design to its prose, so that you can make its strategies your own. Examining contemporary masters like Alice Munro, Joan Didion, and George Saunders, you will learn, for example, what makes a particular physical description effective, how to advance plot with dialogue, and how to subtly develop a piece’s insight. Since the aim of skilled reading is skilled writing, you will try out techniques in short exercises, but we will not critique manuscripts. We will discuss traditional and experimental approaches to fiction and creative nonfiction. And we will look at design elements (like plot, point of view, and image systems) and prose elements (patterns that help produce narrative voice, style, and tone). Other authors we will consider include Tobias Wolff, Ocean Vuong, Louise Erdrich, James Baldwin, David Sedaris, Eula Biss, Cheryl Strayed, Ross Gay, Colum McCann, and Jhumpa Lahiri.