Maya Sonenberg

ENGL 484A, Winter 2016

 

Course Description

In this advanced workshop, you will take a single longer story or piece of creative nonfiction from initial idea to finished product—or as close as you can get in 10 weeks.

Focusing on one longer piece (15-20 pages) will enable you to explore complex issues or forms, fully build characters or plot, and thoroughly investigate one of your passions. It will require you to be ambitious and ultimately to commit to the writerly decisions you make. Developing a revision process will help you acquire or improve one of a writer’s most valuable skills. While we will leave some time at the end of the quarter for copy editing (the final, fine-tuning stage of revision), we will devote most of the quarter to earlier stages of composition and revision, discovering ways to generate and deepen material.

Expect to write 2-3 short exercises at the start of the quarter and then 3 complete drafts of your longer story or essay.

Texts

Ron Carlson Writes a Story (required)

Draft: A Journal of Process, Issue IV (required)

The 3 A. M. Epiphany (optional)

The 4 A. M. Breakthrough (optional)

Prerequisites:

ENGL 383, 384