***********First Come, First Served***********
Dear Students:
Are you interested in writing short stories, poems, memoirs, and novels? Have you been wanting to experiment with a new form? Sign up for INTRO!
INTRO is a FREE non-credit creative writing workshop taught by graduate students in the School of the Arts. These introductory peer workshops are the perfect no-pressure way to try something new and receive feedback from your fellow students.
INTRO classes meet once a week for 2 hours and will begin Monday, October 5th in Dodge Hall. The Course Schedule is attached, and course descriptions can be found below.
Register Soon!
Register Soon!
Course Descriptions
Speed Writing
Mondays, October 5th-October 26th
6:30 pm-8:30 pm, Dodge 413
Instructor: Carla Blumenkranz
This class is focused on practicing writing within time limits. We’ll jump start our writing with quick readings, prompts, and exercises and respond to each others’ work by the end of each two-hour class. All genres welcome.
Fundamentals of Crafting a Short Story
Wednesdays, October 7th-October 29th
6:00 pm-8:00 pm, Dodge 413
Instructor: Karolina Waclawiak
We will look at the most important elements of storytelling – character, setting, dialogue, tension, POV. We will look at how certain authors have chosen to artfully solve the problem of creating fresh approaches to fiction. We will also look at how authors have created flawed characters battling the human condition and how they function within the narrative. We will be doing in class writing assignments based on the following authors’ work:
Lydia Davis, Christine Schutt, A.M. Homes, George Saunders, Denis Johnson, Patricia Volk, Tim O’Brien, Junot Diaz, Sam Lipsyte, Joyce Carol Oates, Ernest Hemingway, John Cheever and others.
We will also be reading and critiquing students’ work. There will be an opportunity to have 2-3 pieces submitted by each student for critique.
Storytelling: Narrative Nonfiction
(aka: Writing Sense into Ourselves )
Thursdays, October 15th-Novermber 5th
6:00 pm-8:00 pm, Dodge 409
Instructor: Bridget Potter
We all have stories. In this workshop you will write them.
Whether you are a literature fanatic or a math whiz, whether an empty page (or screen) fills you with ambition or anxiety, whether your story writing is in need of tickling, tightening or teasing out, this workshop will be fun.
Lopate’s introduction to his voluminous The Art of the Personal Essay will be required reading before the first workshop to provide context for our discussions. Other readings, few and fabulous, will evolve from the interests and proclivities of the group. But mostly we will write and workshop our stories with a special focus on voice and narrative
At the heart of the class will be our own work, the giving and the getting of constructive criticism. One revision will be required. But should you choose to work on just one piece through the whole progression, that’s fine.
Writing is re-writing, ’tis said.
Shoplifting and Short Fiction
Fridays, October 9th-October 30th
10:00 am-12:00 pm, Dodge 407
Instructor: Alyssa Barrett
In this class, we will employ thievery as a technique to help generate ideas for our fiction writing—whether it be stealing details or events from your own reality and weaving them into a work of fiction, imitating the structure of a story you admire, or pocketing a conversation you overheard on the subway to later use as dialog for your characters. We will focus on craft and structure: building up what you imagine around what you already know.
Students will submit their own writing for workshop and will provide constructive feedback to their peers. We will also read and discuss selections from writers such as Junot Díaz, Amy Hempel, Haruki Murakami, Grace Paley, Lorrie Moore, Clarice Lispector, Julio Cortázar, AM Holmes, Jamaica Kincaid, George Saunders, Charles Baxter and Donald Barthelme. Students who have not previously written fiction are welcome.
INTRO TO FICTION: A Vision of John Cheever
Fridays, October 9th-October 30th
10:00 am-12:00 pm, Dodge 409
Instructor: Bill Adelson
Economy and simplicity are two things that often get lost when we start out to write fiction. The temptation to write and show more than is necessary is the downfall of many young writers. In this introductory class we will write and workshop your work, and explore the work of one of, if not the master of the American short story, John Cheever (1912-1982). Highly lauded and widely read in his time, Cheever’s work has been relegated to the sidelines of the literary canon, and he remains relatively unknown by young students- Cheever’s biographer, Blake Bailey (whose book Cheever: A Life I highly recommend, but will not assign) has said that Cheever’s six or seven best stories are among the ten best short stories ever written. Cheever was a pioneer in fiction, experimenting with and bending the form before it was either fashionable or easily accepted- oftentimes it happened without anyone knowing. The stories we will read will, I hope, inspire you as you go on to create your own work, here at Columbia.
All are available in paperback and hardcover in The Stories of John Cheever. The thick red covered book should be a staple of any home library.
Week One: Read Preface to the Stories of John Cheever and The Swimmer
-Discussion and workshop
Week Two: Read The Common Day and Reunion
-Discussion and workshop
Week Three: Read Goodbye, My Brother
-Discussion and workshop
Week Four: Read O Youth and Beauty
-Discussion and workshop
Blending, Fending, Mending, Rending:
Where will writing take you?
Fridays, October 9th-October 30th
10:00 am-12:00 pm, Dodge 411
Instructor: Alexandra Sears
What is a “story?” How do we write one? How do we read what’s been written and venture our own separate ways? We will examine and discuss a variety of literary sources, old and new, familiar and unexpected. We will read from Robert Coover, Joe Brainerd, Brian Joseph Davis, and then some. We will perform in-class exercises and rely both on age-old prompts and more exacting and strange methods of composition. We will bring fresh work to class and dissect it (never cruelly), and learn how to revise in a productive and exciting way. Most importantly, we will relax and enjoy ourselves, our language, and our respective modes of storytelling in the company of great literature. Conferences will, of course, be available for those interested.
Articulating Grief (Poetry/Nonfiction/Fiction)
Fridays, October 9th-October 30th
12:00 pm-2:00 pm, Dodge 407
Instructor: Fayre Makeig
How do writers effectively communicate pain, whether their own or that of others? In this course, we will read exemplary poetry and prose about personal loss, genocide, and societal imbalance. In each case, we will discuss what makes these writings readable, no matter the difficulty of their subject matter. In most cases, we will find unflinching precision and surprising flashes of wit, even humor. As we analyze suggested readings to inform our own writing exercises, we will focus on cadence, characters, and scenes. How do effective writers establish connection with the reader, strengthening our humanity in the process of reading? How do they describe horror, yet steer clear of self-pity and the sensationalist techniques used to sell TV news and popular “entertainment”? Finally, is there a reason to read about the grief of others—and to write about our own? Readings might include selected poems by Emily Dickinson, Paul Celan, Stéphane Mallarmé, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Simin Behbahani; nonfiction by José Martí, Virginia Woolf, Primo Levi, and Joan Didion; and fiction by Tayyib Salih, Jhumpa Lahiri, Dave Eggers, and Ha Jin.
Other People’s Stories
Fridays, October 9th-October 30th
12:00 pm-2:00 pm, Dodge 409
Instructor: Liz Topp
Writers not only tell stories from their own lives and imaginations, but they often tell other people’s stories—staying faithful to the facts for a magazine article, or altering them for a short story or movie. Perhaps you have a family member or friend whose anecdotes you’ve always wanted to explore and develop. Or, you might have your own story that you just can’t seem to shape on paper, and would like to offer it to another writer. In this workshop, we will focus on the way structure, pacing, and tone can help you write the best version of someone else’s material (perhaps a classmate’s), either as fiction or nonfiction. We will discuss and read brief excerpts from such writers as Truman Capote, Jo Ann Beard, Studs Terkel, and David Foster Wallace.
After Narrative: Contemporary Lyric Styles (poetry)
Fridays, October 9th-October 30th
12:00 pm-2:00 pm, Dodge 411
Instructor: Justin Boening
“What’s broken commands attention. Glass shatters and there is surprise, danger, sharp edges, and the scattered pieces reflect light in unexpected ways. A disturbance of wholeness and immediately we are provoked to wonder: what was it before it broke? The contemporary poem has been decisively shattered by various techniques such as fragmentation, juxtaposition, collage, ellipsis and manipulation of space on the page.” (Joan Houlihan)
In this workshop, an investigation into current innovators and techniques will inform and develop our own approach to creating lyric experience. Each student will generate a weekly poem in response to the style of one of our subjects. Reading will include (but not be restricted to) poems by:
Louise Gluck
Michael Palmer
Marie Howe
James Tate
Mark Strand
Lucie Brock-Broido
Emily Wilson
Mark Levine
and Jorie Graham
Fantastic Fiction Workshop
Saturdays, October 10th-31st
11:00 am- 1:00 am, Dodge 407
Instructor: Heather Monley
In this class, we’ll explore the different ways authors use fantastic/supernatural elements, and give students a chance to explore the fantastic in their own writing and get advice from their peers. We’ll read and discuss short pieces of fiction, both those that would be called science fiction and fantasy genre fiction, and those that would be considered “literary.” Students will turn in one or two (depending on time/size of the class) pieces of their own work, and we’ll spend a portion of each class discussing student work and offering helpful critiques.
A very tentative syllabus:
Week 1:
Introduction
Read excerpts from Ray Bradbury’s “The Martian Chronicles” and Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”
Week 2:
Workshop
Discuss Aimee Bender’s “End of the Line” and “Ironhead”
Week 3:
Workshop
Karen Russell’s “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” and Matthew Derby’s “The Sound Gun”
Week 4:
Workshop
Donald Barthelme’s “Me and Miss Mandible” and “The Balloon” and excerpt from Italo Calvino’s “Invisible Cities”
Imagine You are a Dog
Saturdays, October 10th-31st
11:00 am-1:00 pm, Dodge 409
Instructor: Sarah-Jane Martin
One of the ways to release new ideas is to Experiment. This does not necessarily mean reading ‘experimental’ work or trying to write in that style.
It means many writers claim to at one point feel stuck, blocked or incredibly bored with their own work. They need something to get them going again, besides coffee and bouts of melancholia.
The aim of this group is for us to try something completely different. To give ourselves permission to write anything we chose. Our emphasis is on risk and less so on perfecting ideas right away.
In addition to experimenting wildly, we will look at some of the fundamental elements of craft and discuss what we hope to achieve with our writing. What to expect:
Writing Exercises designed to generate new ideas. Exercises may include music, prompts, fieldtrips and visual art. Reading from a variety of work including poetry, prose and non-fiction. This may include news articles. Writing in class and turning in short pieces to be work-shopped. In addition to a wide range of published excerpts, we will read from at least one suggested text from each participant.
Please note: There will be cookies.
To register, please contact Chris Garrecht-Williams at: writingcats@gmail.com with your…
1. NAME
2. UNI/EMAIL
3. CLASS PREFERENCES (please list two classes to ensure placement)
and any questions you may have.
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