Courses

People like to be liked. And writers obsess about likability in fiction. But is it that important? What about visionaries, iconoclasts, stragglers, strangers, weirdos, and cringe-inducers? What happens when there is friction between a person and their surroundings? Between people? What if a character throws aside motivations to be liked and impulses to comply?

At its heart, this is a class focused on analyzing and crafting characters. We’ll look at loners and lonely hearts, articulate big mouths, and introverted self-imploders. We’ll observe their circumstances and question how their desires encourage them to think and act. Students will regularly respond to prompts and workshop their own writing.

Our discussions will consider what choices writers make to render, shape, define, and refine characters. We’ll take on craft-oriented concerns such as: How is dialogue used to differentiate characters? How does a writer demonstrate a character’s compassion, even if their attitude stinks? How do the story's events affect the reader’s understanding of character? What elements in the narrative change—or don’t—over time to signal to the reader that a character is developing?

Throughout, students will investigate how emerging writers move from maintaining characters’ status quo and progress to allowing characters to do the unexpected. With every question, we will advance our comprehension of building dynamic representations of people in the world, how they act out, and what it takes to fit in.

Readings may include:

Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter, Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, “Speech Sounds” by Octavia Butler, McGlue by Ottessa Moshfegh, True Grit by Charles Portis, Distant Star by Roberto Bolaño, Home Land by Sam Lipsyte, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders, “Friday Black” by Nana Kwame Adje Brenya, “Emergency” by Denis Johnson, “Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta” by Kate Braverman, “Me and Miss Mandible” by Donald Barthelme, The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li, Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker, Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson, No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

In this course, we’ll take literary and literal tours of New York City as readers and writers. We will consider New York City as both the subject of a variety of literatures and as a style of writing. How have poets, fiction writers, essayists, playwrights, and journalists documented and imagined the city in the 20th and 21st centuries? What literary movements and communities were born or reimagined here? What larger ideas about urban life or American culture have been established or challenged by New York City literature? We will read and write works across genres and across the city in an effort to engage deeply and creatively with some of the varied histories and practices of writing (in and about) New York City.

In this class we will consider the various forms and functions of humor in written prose, discussing techniques and approaches to humor writing. Students will write their own humorous stories and essays which we will read and discuss in class, focusing not only on what is or isn't funny, but on how humor can be advantageously used to increase the power of an overall piece. The class will also break down stories, novels, and essays from a variety of authors-Bill Hicks' political satire; the darkly comedic fiction of Barry Hannah and Paul Beatty; the absurd humor of Tina Fey and Baratunde Thurston; Anthony Lane's charming British snarkiness; Spy Magazine's sharply parodic voice; Woody Allen's one-liners; Lena Dunham's zeitgeist comedy-in an effort to better understand what makes their humor work. Students will be asked to write stories inspired and influenced by these authors. As we critique each other's work, we will investigate strategies related to the craft of humor writing, including self-deprecation, political satire, humor and the other, going blue, dark comedy, schtick, humor as a means vs. humor as an end, crossing the line, and how to write funny without sacrificing substance.