- Total price
€400.00
8 sessions
- Schedule
Every Thursday
Oct 8 – Nov 26
- Time
19:00–21:30
- Class size
Min 5 · Max 12
Do you want to learn more about the possibilities and tools of fiction writing and practice applying them to your own work? Do you seek to learn and grow in a community of peers?
Our aim is to explore and create richly imagined and technically elegant fiction. Over 8 weeks, we’ll analyze published works from a writer’s standpoint: asking ourselves what effect a text has on us as readers, and then seeking to understand what choices the author made to achieve this effect. We’ll turn this same questioning eye to our own fiction as we write and rewrite among community, exploring what is possible on the page.
The first two weeks will be devoted to readings of published works, discussions on craft and form, and writing exercises, in order to learn some foundational tools of fiction writing. Then, we’ll focus on workshopping: each participant will have at least two opportunities to submit their own writing for an in-depth class discussion, where we’ll describe how each piece currently functions and brainstorm about what it might do differently. By being attentive, thoughtful, and passionate readers of others’ work, we will become better readers of our own drafts, and, ultimately, better writers of the work we produce.
Oct. 8: Opening Exercises. Why Do We Write? Exploring Poetry, Short Fiction, and Openings
Oct. 15: Workshop Procedures. Exploring Tension and Interposition. Handout and Discussion: Elements of Fiction
Oct. 22: Group A First Workshop. Exploring Story Structure. Exercise 1 Due
Oct. 29: Group B First Workshop. Exploring POV (1st Person)
Nov. 5: Group C First Workshop. Exploring Character
Nov. 12: Group A Second Workshop. Exploring POV (3rd Person)
Nov. 19: Group B Second Workshop. Exploring Plot. Exercise 2 Due
Nov. 26: Group C Second Workshop. Exploring World and Setting
Class Readings (Short Stories & Excerpts):
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi, Apollo
Barthelme, Donald, The School
Carson, Anne, The Glass Essay
Davis, Lydia, Conversation in Hotel Lounge
Evenson, Brian, Two Brothers
Glaser, Rachel B. Pee on Water
Hayes, Terrance, American Sonnet for my Past and Future Assassin
Kelly, Donika, Self-Portrait as a Door
Lahiri, Jhumpa, Hell-heaven
La Plante, Alice, The Making of a Story
Lin, Tao, A poem written by a bear
McCarthy, Cormac, The Road
McKee, Robert, Story
Ogawa, Yoko, Afternoon at the Bakery
Paley, Grace, Mother
Packer, ZZ, Brownies
Rich, Adrienne, Nights and Days
Russell, Karen, Engineering Impossible Architectures & Reeling for the Empire
Salesses, Matthew, Craft in the Real World
Saunders, George, Rise, Baby, Rise
Siken, Richard, Scheherazade & Visible World
Szybist, Mary, There interposed a-
Truby, John, Anatomy of Story
Vuong, Ocean, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
*All materials will be provided digitally by email. Reading list subject to change.
About Theresa Hottel
Theresa is the author of Dust, a literary fantasy novel forthcoming in 2027 from Algonquin/Little, Brown in the US and Abacus/Little, Brown in the UK. Born in Taipei and raised in Oklahoma, she's passionate about the intricacies of storytelling. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University, where she taught writing over 6 years to 200+ students in undergraduate and high school creative writing programs. She's published stories and essays with publishers like Catapult Books, SmokeLong Quarterly and Bright Wall/Dark Room, and received support for her writing from arts organizations and institutions including Art Omi: Writers, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference, and the US National Park Service. Theresa also edited the documentary film Truth Be Told, a collaboration with Emmy award-winning director Nneka Onuorah, which premiered at Outfest LA and won the 2023 Social Impact Award.