ENGL 7430.01: Graduate Fiction Workshop 

Lydi Conklin

T 4:15 - 7:15 PM 

This course takes up the study of fiction writing at the graduate level. Each student will workshop three stories, the third being an optional exercise or a third complete story. Students will engage in workshop in an open, safe environment, critiquing elements of craft, theme, and content at a high level. We will engage in in-depth readings of published works that reflect the interests of the cohort, reading one or two short novels and handful of short stories. [4]  

ENGL 7440.01: Graduate Poetry Workshop 

Didi Jackson

T 1:15 - 4:15 PM 

The aim of this workshop is to encourage a regular writing routine by crafting and workshopping a new poem each week for class. Writing prompts will be given and emphasis will be placed on each student’s independent approach to these prompts. Students will keep in mind themes and methods that already infuse their poems yet will be granted as much freedom as possible to explore ways in which to improve and develop their writing. Strengths and weaknesses of each poem will be identified. There will be an emphasis and attention paid to voice, diction, figuration, sound, imagery, and structure. Readings used for discussion in class will come from various literary periods of both early and contemporary poets. This will encourage ways of expanding various influences on student work and will enforce an understanding of the means and techniques of previous generations of poets. By the end of the course, students will have a collection of at least ten new and revised poems, a poetic statement, and a small anthology of poets/poems of influence. [4]

ENGL 7450.01: Graduate Nonfiction Workshop: Adventures in Creative Nonfiction

Major Jackson

M 4:40 - 7:40 PM 

This course is designed for the writer of fiction or poetry who wishes to enhance their practice in their proclaimed genre or to test its boundaries through the reading and writing of creative nonfiction. We will examine literary style, voice, structure, and form by reading and discussing personal essays, autobiographies, literary memoir, nature writing, cultural criticism, and hybridized forms. We will read an exciting cross-section of diverse authors whose works offer insight into the process and ethics of telling a story, yet also profoundly underscore the human journey. Our aim is to observe and learn advanced strategies of lyric composition, narrative, and research-based storytelling and to consider the multiple functions of literary devices deeply in the service of fact as well as the writers’ imagination and authority. [4]

ENGL 7997.01: Creative Writing Pedagogy Seminar: Teaching Creative Writing

Kate Daniels

W 12:20 - 3:20 PM 

This is a course for first year MFA students in the pedagogy of creative writing at the university level.  It is intended as preparation for the teaching of the undergraduate introductory creative writing workshops during the second year of MFA studies.  We will begin by taking a look at some general pedagogical theories of creative writing, as well as the challenges of teaching it.  Then we will focus on practical issues, relating to the teaching that you will be doing here at Vanderbilt.  These will include the development of your own fully-articulated pedagogy of how to teach CW; CW textbook review; syllabus preparation; evaluation and grading; technology support; classroom management; psychological issues in CW courses; and identity and authority in the classroom.  The class will be very interactive.  Students will be working in groups in and out of class, making presentations, and responding to guest lecturers.  The semester will conclude with a live teaching demonstration by each class member.  There will be plenty of reading.  The final project is the preparation of a final portfolio of the semester’s work that includes a comprehensive Teaching or Pedagogy Statement, and the working copy of the syllabus for that each student will actually use for their course. [4]

ENGL 7430.01: Graduate Fiction Workshop 

Nancy Reisman

M 3:35 - 6:35 PM

This workshop is a central creative meeting space for MFA fiction writers, a place to develop new work and continue existing long projects.  My hope is for a collaborative and flexible workshop in which writers will take part in shaping process and will contribute to recommended readings.  Along with the group’s original fiction, we’ll read  published stories, essays, and two or three novels (one path to discussion of novel-writing and structure).  I’ll ask writers to submit to the group twice with ‘full’ submissions of stories, novel chapters, or related forms; and a third time with either a similar submission or with our one assignment, a short-form piece taking on material or approaches new to the individual writer.  The Graduate Fiction Workshop is reserved for and required of first and second -year fiction MFAs. Third years fiction writers are eligible; MFA poets with advanced fiction background may apply. [4]

ENGL 7440.01: Graduate Poetry Workshop 

Major Jackson

W 3:35 - 6:35 PM 

This graduate workshop is designed to enhance your development and growth as a writer of poetry, to increase your creativity and fluency in composing verse. Together, we will engage in a search for literary excellence.  Our task is to generate poems but to also read, listen, debate and exchange ideas about what constitutes a perceptive and evocative work of art in our time. What historical, social, and political forces impinge upon or animate our efforts as writers of poetry? What formal, linguistic, and rhetorical powers can we enact to potentially increase the reception of our poems. Your weekly poems will trigger much of this dialogue, but we will include in our conversations, poems written by compelling voices of yesterday and today. In addition to reading model poems, we will listen to podcasts, read critical essays, visit museums, take walks, engage in any activity that enhances our perceptions of the world, that activates our imagination. Ultimately, our aim is to acquire the artistic discipline and professional attitude requisite to creating new works of literary merit but to also cultivate curiosity, risk, uncertainty, and openness as essentials to the act of creation. [4]

ENGL 7460.01: Literature and the Craft of Writing: Our Poetry Ancestors

Didi Jackson

T 1:15 - 4:15 PM

W.S. Merwin said “poetry is a way of looking at the world for the first time.” By studying the poetic movements of the 20th and 21st centuries, we can discover what ignited and motivated the generations of poets before us. By doing so, we enrich our own poetic practice and discover how we might contribute to the evolution of our craft. We can better understand how our poetry ancestors saw the world and what informed their work. Some influences were political, some environmental, others personal, and some purely aesthetic. The movements and schools we will look at in this course include but are not limited to Harlem Renaissance, Beat Poetry, The New York School, Imagism, Black Mountain, Confessional Poetry, Black Arts Movement, Cave Canem, Dark Room Collective, Feminist, Objectivists, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Poetry, Ecopoetics, etc.. By reading our poetic ancestors, we gain inspiration, an understanding of tradition, and a potential for dialogue across time. [4]

ENGL 7460.03: Literature and the Craft of Writing

ZZ Packer

T 4:15 - 7:15 PM

One hallmark of literary fiction is the preponderance of a singular style--often one that invites multiple readings to simply savor the pleasure of how a writer’s sentences unfold.

In this graduate-level fiction course we will concentrate on style, syntax, and sentences. We will read the works of a variety of prose stylists to examine how style works on the level of the sentence and its underlying syntax. We will also explore how rhythm and syntax undergird imagery and trace the lineage of images and symbolism in prose to their roots in lyric poetry. 

Above all, we will collect stunning sentences, and attempt to write our own. [4]

ENGL 7430.01: Graduate Fiction Workshop 

Lorrie Moore

T 3:35 - 6:35 PM 

May be repeated for credit. [4]

ENGL 7440.01: Graduate Poetry Workshop 

Didi Jackson 

T 1:15 - 4:15 PM 

In this graduate poetry workshop, students will be encouraged to adopt and maintain a regular writing and reading routine. They will be expected to craft and workshop a poem each week for class. And although prompts will be given, emphasis will be placed on each student’s independent approach to these prompts. Strengths and weaknesses will be identified. Students will examine and expand upon social, historical, political, and environmental influences that inform and shape their work but not at the expense of craft. As Helen Vendler states, poems “spring from moments of disequilibrium: something has happened to disturb the status quo. Hope has come to rebuke despair; love has come to thaw coldness; envy has come to upset happiness; shame has come to interfere with self-esteem.” It will be our job to identify and amplify the piece of life in each poem. [4]   

ENGL 7450.01: Graduate Nonfiction Workshop: Adventures in Creative Nonfiction 

Major Jackson

TR 11:00 - 12:15 PM

This course is designed for the writer of fiction or poetry who wishes to enhance their practice in their proclaimed genre or to test its boundaries through the reading and writing of creative nonfiction. We will examine literary style, voice, structure, and form by reading and discussing personal essays, autobiographies, literary memoir, nature writing, cultural criticism, and hybridized forms. We will read an exciting cross-section of diverse authors whose works offer insight into the process and ethics of telling a story, yet also profoundly underscore the human journey. Our aim is to observe and learn advanced strategies of lyric composition, narrative, and research-based storytelling and to consider the multiple functions of literary devices deeply in the service of fact as well as the writers’ imagination and authority. [4]

ENGL 7997.01: Teaching Creative Writing  

Nancy Reisman 

W 12:20 - 3:20 PM 

Graduate level instruction in the pedagogy of creative writing. [4]

ENGL 7430.01: Graduate Fiction Workshop

ZZ Packer

T 3:35 - 6:35

*Course description coming soon

ENGL 7440.01: Graduate Poetry Workshop

Major Jackson

T 3:35 - 6:35

This graduate workshop is designed to enhance your development and growth as a writer of poetry, to increase your creativity and fluency in composing verse. Together, we will engage in a search for literary excellence.  Our task is to generate poems but to also read, listen, debate and exchange ideas about what constitutes a perceptive and evocative work of art in our time. What historical, social, and political forces impinge upon or animate our efforts as writers of poetry? What formal, linguistic, and rhetorical powers can we enact to potentially increase the reception of our poems. Your weekly poems will trigger much of this dialogue, but we will include in our conversations, poems written by compelling voices of yesterday and today. In addition to reading model poems, we will listen to podcasts, read critical essays, visit museums, take walks, engage in any activity that enhances our perceptions of the world, that activates our imagination. Ultimately, our aim is to acquire the artistic discipline and professional attitude requisite to creating new works of literary merit but to also cultivate curiosity, risk, uncertainty, and openness as essentials to the act of creation. [4]

ENGL 7460.01: Literature and the Craft of Writing: Poetry

Kate Daniels

M 12:20 - 3:20 PM

This MFA seminar will undertake a historical study of selected long form poems beginning with The Prelude and concluding with recent book-length collections which organize themselves as poetic sequences.  We will read them closely, as poets do, and then we’ll take them apart, also as poets do, to figure out how they work.  Ongoingly, we’ll put out minds to imagining the process and execution required to bring the poem into being, and we will focus on the particular (peculiar) demands incurred by working in long poetic forms.  This will be half our work.  The other half will be devoted to the writing of a long poem – at least 15 pages in length. Reading will include: Leaves of Grass (Whitman), Book of the Dead (Rukeyser), The Anniad (Brooks), Howl (Ginsberg) The Book of Nightmares (Kinnell), Thomas and Beulah (Dove), Citizen, (Rankine), “The Voyage of the Sable Venus” (Lewis), and The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded (Brown), et al. [4]

ENGL 7460.02: Literature and the Craft of Writing: Fiction

Lorrie Moore

W 12:20 - 3:20

A tri-part ad hoc reading class for graduate creative writing students.  We will look at some short novels and the films that were made from them.  The closing section of the semester will focus on gaps in literacy/reading, which we all have.  This course is designed to aid and supplement one's own narrative writing and should not involve a burdensome amount of work but instead the perfect amount. [4]

ENGL 3891/5290.01: Special Topics in Creative Writing: The Achievement of Contemporary Women Poets                 

Didi Jackson

T 12:20-3:20

As Carolyn Forché said, “poetry is the voice of the soul, whispering, celebrating, singing even.” In this class we will closely examine the work that has emerged into such songs of several extraordinary contemporary women who faithfully make exceptional contributions to American poetry and literary culture. Our list of poets will include women such as Carolyn Forché, Natasha Trethewey, Ada Limon, Sharon Olds, Tracy K. Smith, and Joy Harjo among others. By exploring seminal works, listening to and reading interviews, and studying available memoirs, we will identify original approaches to the art of poetry that amplify the unique joys and challenges of living as a woman in the 21st century. [4]

ENGL 3891/5290.02: Special Topics in Creative Writing: Verve and Vision: Writing Creative Nonfiction                         

ZZ Packer 

T 2:45-5:45

In this course we will read and write both fiction and creative non-fiction, concentrating on the craft and aesthetics of stories and essays. Our goal is to discover how  writers transform words into works, and how literary prose seeks to encompass the wealth and range of human emotion, cognition and consciousness. 

A few topics we'll explore: Incipits and Beginnings, The Reader-Writer Arc, Imagery, Event vs. Experience, Plot vs. Story, Point of View vs. Perspective, Mimesis and Diegesis, Time and Temporality, Transcendent Structure, Voice, and Theory of Mind.

We'll read from books such as: Craft in the Real World (Matthew Salesses),  What Stories Are (Thomas Leitch), Artful Sentences (Virginia Tufte), The 3 A.M Epiphany (Brian Kiteley), Several Short Sentences about Writing (Verlyn Klinkenborg) and Steering the Craft (Ursula LeGuin).

The first component of the class will require students to analyze how stories and essays function thematically, metaphorically, and stylistically. We’ll do this by means of close readings, critical responses, and classroom discussions. The second component will involve students completing assigned short exercises (one page or less each per class). [4]

ENGL 7430: Graduate Fiction Workshop                                                         

Tony Earley  

T 1:15-4:15

Start with this supposition: the answer to every question in fiction is a craft answer. How do we assemble worlds out of component parts? How do stories function on a cellular level? How do we make people out of atoms? We’ll take stories apart and put them back together. We’ll see if our work answers the questions it asks. We’ll read and write. [4]

ENGL 7440: Graduate Poetry Workshop                                                         

Rick Hilles 

T 3:35-6:35

The primary focus of this intensive graduate workshop in poetry writing will be your poems in progress; we will also read and discuss various volumes of poetry, contemporary and otherwise. All workshop members will be expected to: be fully prepared for each class; contribute significantly to class discussions; prepare in advance substantial and substantive written comments on your peers’ work in progress; attend regular conferences with the workshop leader; and, by the end of the semester, produce of a significant body of new work. Additional texts include recent poetry collections by Jill Bialosky, John Murillo, and Carolyn Forché, who will be presenting their work this semester as part of VU’s Visiting Writers Series. Subject to change. [4]

ENGL 7997: Teaching Creative Writing

Didi Jackson 

W 12:20-3:20

This seminar covers approaches to teaching creative writing workshops at the beginning level and includes methodologies, strategies, theory, techniques, and practical tasks, i.e. lesson-planning, record-keeping and using online resources. We’ll start with goals and objectives for beginning workshops and map how to get there from here. We will then cover course design: text selection; syllabi construction; proactive policies and procedures; productive activities and assignments; community building; and approaches to complex and/or challenging situations.  Further, we will develop guidelines for establishing boundaries, achieving work/life balance, and managing time effectively. 

This seminar is also a conversational working group.  Faculty, colleagues, and consultants from the Center for Teaching (CFT), Writing Studio (WS), the Dean’s Office, and Brightspace will visit, and you will have the opportunity for “field research,” i.e., to observe an undergraduate workshop in your genre. [4] 

ENGL 7430.01: Graduate Fiction Workshop

Lydia Conklin

T 3:35 - 6:35 PM

This course takes up the study of fiction writing at the graduate level. Each student will workshop three stories, the third being an optional exercise or a third complete story. Students will engage in workshop in an open, safe environment, critiquing elements of craft, theme, and content at a high level. We will engage in in-depth readings of published works that reflect the interests of the cohort. [4]

ENGL 7440.01: Graduate Poetry Workshop

Didi Jackson

T 3:35 - 6:35 PM

The aim of this workshop is to encourage a regular writing routine by crafting and workshopping a new poem each week for class. Writing prompts will be given and emphasis will be placed on each student’s independent approach to these prompts. Students will keep in mind themes and methods that already infuse their poems yet will be granted as much freedom as possible to explore ways in which to improve their writing. Strengths and weaknesses of each poem will be identified. There will be an emphasis and attention paid to voice, diction, figuration, sound, imagery, and structure. Readings used for discussion in class will come from various literary periods of both early and contemporary poets. This will encourage ways of expanding various influences on student work and will enforce an understanding of the means and techniques of previous generations of poets. By the end of the course, students will have a collection of at least ten new and revised poems, a poetic statement, and a small anthology of poets/poems of influence. [4]

ENGL 7460.01: Literature and the Craft of Writing: Groundbreaking Modern & Contemporary American Books of Poetry-(Mostly) First Books

Rick Hilles

M 12:20 - 3:30 PM

This graduate seminar is designed for all MFA students putting together a first book; to this end, we will focus on seminal groundbreaking Modern and Contemporary American books of poetry (many of them first books), including: the 1855 Edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass; William Carlos Williams’ Spring & All; Frost’s North of Boston; Langston Hughes’ The Weary Blues; Robert Lowell’s Life Studies; Elizabeth Bishop’s North & South; Gwendolyn Brooks’ Annie Allen; Robert Hayden’s A Ballad of Remembrance; Anne Carson’s Glass, Irony, and God; Nathalie Diaz’s Post-Colonial Love Poem; Destiny O. Birdsong’s Negotiations. Grading will be based on class participation and writing seven 2-3 page reader responses; a seminar presentation; and a final writing project. Subject to change. [4]

ENGL 7460.02: Literature and the Craft of Writing: Space for Conversation? Questions in Novel Form, Quetions in the Narrative Mix

Nancy Reisman

W 12:20 - 3:30 PM

I think of this course as its own conversation about narrative form, authority and power, art and politics, the legacies of Modernism (in both visual and literary work) the degree to which fiction – novels in particular – may be transparent (or not) about their own subjectivity.  In what ways might different texts create or occlude space for different readers?  To what degree is questioning integral to the form itself?  (At the other end of the spectrum:  where might authority slide toward authoritarianism? Where/how does cultural assumption become propaganda?)  What kind of relationships (or contradictions) might we find between the ways writers tell stories and democracy?  And what about the limits, trade-offs, or unexpected effects of particular innovations? The late German writer W.G. Sebald told the writer and critic James Woods, “I think that fiction writing which does not acknowledge the uncertainty of the narrator himself is a form of imposture and which I find very, very difficult to take.”

In this semester-long conversation, we’ll read some of Sebald, and several other 20th century and early 21st century works that employ assemblage, documentary, and other strategies, and that highlight power dynamics, raise internal questions, and/or focus the intersection of politics and art. Our reading list will include work by Toni Morrison, Manuel Puig, Chris Bachelder, Susan Choi, Rachel Cusk, and others. Writing for the course will include weekly discussion forum posts, occasional brief response papers, and a final writing project (analytical or creative with an analytical component). [4]

ENGL 5290 Special Topics in Creative Writing

Major Jackson

R 12:20 - 3:20 PM

In this course, we will survey the rich and varied poetic movements and schools of the 20th century as an inheritance of Modernism, whose emergence led to the diversity of styles currently practiced today. We will examine the manifestoes, personages, and pioneering poems with the intent of contextualizing the sociopolitical and aesthetic ferment that gave rise to such rich flourishing. From Black Mountain School to Undocupoets, from New York School to Dark Noise Collective, we will situate American poetics within a history of experimentation by assessing the innovations and debates that surround its growth as a vibrant artistic practice and instigative cultural phenomenon. Our primary texts will include correspondences, documentaries, podcasts, and live readings. The course is reading intensive and will require students to exercise critical and close-reading skills as a means of mapping the nation’s literary inheritances. Our journey will inevitably teach us something about creative expression and the role of the imagination in the development of a national identity and individual consciousness. [3] (HCA)

ENGL 7430 Graduate Fiction Workshop

Lorrie Moore

T 12:20 - 3:20 PM

Writing narrative fiction. A workshop for the graduate students in the MFA program. [May be repeated for credit.] [4]

ENGL 7440 Graduate Poetry Workshop

Rick Hilles

T 12:20 - 3:20 PM 

The primary focus of this intensive graduate workshop in poetry writing will be your poems in progress; we will also read and discuss various volumes of poetry, contemporary and otherwise. All workshop members will be expected to: be fully prepared for each class; contribute significantly to class discussions; prepare in advance substantial and substantive written comments on your peers’ work in progress; attend regular conferences with the workshop leader; and, by the end of the semester, produce of a significant body of new work. Additional texts include recent poetry collections by Shane McCrae, Kate Daniels, Lisa Russ Spaar, Mark Jarman, Cara Dees, and Vievee Francis who will be presenting their work this semester as part of VU’s Visiting Writers Series. Subject to change. [May be repeated for credit with the program director's approval] [4]

ENGL 7450 Graduate Nonfiction Workshop

Margaret Renkl

M 3:35 - 6:35 PM

[May be repeated for credit with the program director's approval] [4]

ENGL 7997 Teaching Creative Writing 

Nancy Reisman

W 12:20 - 3:20 PM

Graduate level instruction in the pedagogy of creative writing. Not open to students who have earned credit for 5290 section 01 offered spring 2019 or spring 2020. [4]

ENGL 7430.01 Graduate Fiction Workshop

Nancy Reisman

Monday 3:10 - 6:00 PM

I see the MFA workshop as a vital space for you to further develop your art, investigate new directions and material, take new risks, and refine your aesthetics.  We’ll consider the slippery and changing shapes of fiction, questions of architecture, narration and points of perception, time and space, distance/ proximity/intimacy, overall progressions and/or narrative patterns, the role of place, representations of consciousness, the music of prose, etc.  How do you -- or might you -- conceptualize “story”? What falls within the purview of what you call fiction? Which conventions are you most interested in exploring, reinventing, or abandoning in search of alternatives? We’ll consider published short prose fiction and novel structures, and how those respective writers approach their forms. To that end, among our readings I’ll include two or three novels. The core of the workshop is, of course, your original fiction and the thoughtful, engaged discussion of your work.  My aim is for the MFA workshop to be a collaborative community, a place of serious artistic engagement, serious artistic play, and mutual support as each writer works toward their own personal best.  At the beginning of the semester, we’ll discuss/tailor approaches for the group.

In advance of the workshop, I will be in touch with workshop writers about their current and emerging interests, and base some of the course readings on these responses. Because of the size of the workshop, we have the time and flexibility for each writer to submit work three times; that said, writers work at different paces, and I want to support risk-taking.  For two of the submissions, I ask writers to submit full-length stories, novel sections, or in some cases flash series. The one assigned piece for the workshop the short an individually designed “playground piece” for which I ask writers to take on a technique, craft element, approach, or subject they have not yet or not fully explored.  For the third workshop submission, writers may either submit their playground piece or a regular full-length submission.

ENGL 7440.01 Graduate Poetry Workshop

Major Jackson

Tuesday 3:10 - 6:00 PM

Much of our task in this demanding yet rewarding poetry workshop is the discovery of a set of values, themes, and approaches to writing poems that is distinctive and unique to each student in the course. Rather than a search for absolutes, we will read widely across literary periods and schools, experiment with forms, and incorporate research methods as a means of expanding the imaginative possibilities of language to construct a lyric self and serve as a force of humanistic inquiry. In classroom discussions, we are likely to touch upon the political, personal, and social valences of poetry as much as the usual realms of poetic technique: prosody, imagery, diction, figurative language, rhythmic patterning, and other acts of invention that help establish voice and style. While writing prompts and directed readings will drive much of our work, ultimately this course aims to help students hear their obsessions and delve further into the spirit of a curious and passionate mind. [May be repeated for credit with the program director's approval] [4]

ENGL 7460.01: Literature and the Craft of Writing (Poetry)

Kate Daniels

Monday 12:10 - 3:00 PM

In this MFA seminar, we will read – closely – the complete poetry of Emily Dickinson.  We will also read one of the many biographies devoted to her life, along with various critical articles/literary essays, chosen to enhance our intense, poet-to-poet focus on this radical, groundbreaking body of work, so crucial to the birth of a distinctive American poetry.  Our goal will be to understand something about the startling emergence of one of the first original voices in American poetry (the other was her contemporary, Walt Whitman), and the experience of writing against the grain and in opposition to cultural contexts and literary expectations.  We will also examine selected technical aspects of her verse, and explore her influence on the poetry and poets who followed her, benefitting from a number of zoom visits from poets who will share with us a favorite ED poem, with comments about their choice. First and foremost, we will be reading Dickinson as poets, ourselves. 

Over the summer, you’ll be expected to read The Complete Poems of E., the R.W. Franklin edition, plus one of the biographies chosen from a list that will be distributed in May.  You may also enjoy having time to read in a leisurely manner Susan Howe’s extraordinary My Emily Dickinson, and Emily Dickinson: The Gorgeous Nothings, Marta Werner and Jen Bervin, editors.  Along with the list of biographies, I’ll be distributing a lengthy list of optional readings that may be of interest.    

ENGL 7460.02: Literature and the Craft of Writing: Writing the Body

Lydia Peelle

Wednesday 12:10 - 3:00 PM

How can we authentically write the experience of occupying a human body? How do we create work that deconstructs imposed “norms” of physicality and sexuality? This class will be a broadly interdisciplinary investigation of these questions. Our readings will center Queer experiences by focusing on texts from the LGBTQIA+ community. We’ll look at fiction, poetry and memoir by such writers as Randa Jarrar, Jericho Brown, Tommy Pico, Carmen Maria Machado, Raven Leilani and Myriam Gurba, as well as the work of artists such as Catherine Opie, choreographers Deborah Hay and STREB, and performance artist Annie Sprinkle. First, we will use these body-centered texts and works to discuss craft and launch fresh, fun and joyful modes of generative writing. Second, we will seek to embody new practices, and play with innovative physical approaches to the very act of writing. In what unforeseen ways will our work deepen and expand when we step away from the screen and out of the chair? [May be repeated for credit with the program director's approval] [4]

ENGL 5290.01 Special Topics in Creative Writing: Autobiography and Personal Memoir

Kate Daniels - Online Synchronous

R 3:10 - 6:00 PM

In this advanced workshop, we will explore the literary genre of autobiography.  Our particular focus will be on contemporary examples.  Readings include personal memoir, graphic narrative, hybrid nonfiction, and poetry.   Over the course of the semester, students will write their own extended autobiographical essay, working in stages and doing numerous process exercises.  Requirements: attendance, discussion, written responses to assigned books and writing exercises, two oral presentations, one short essay focused on one of the assigned books, and a final personal autobiography of 15 pages in length.  Reading list:  Fun Home, Alison Bechdel;  A Glass of Water Beneath My Bed, Daisy Hernandez;  Jane: A Memoir, Maggie Nelson; Tap Out, Edgar Kunz; and The Beautiful Struggle, Ta-Nehisi Coates.  NOTE:  Potential students must be approved for admission. Register for the class, and wait to be contacted by the professor. [3] (HCA)

ENGL 5290.02 Special Topics in Creative Writing: The Craft of Ekphrasis

Didi Jackson - In Person

T 3:10 - 6:00 PM

The Romantic poet William Blake said that poetry and art are ways to converse with paradise. So, it is no wonder that these two forms intersect and feed off of one another in his work and in the poetry of so many others. Poetry and the visual arts have been wedded since the ancient Greeks, and luckily the tradition of poems engaging in some sort of dialogue with visual works of art (be it paintings, sculpture, media installations, etc.) is still alive and well today in the works of such poets at Natasha Trethewey, Diane Seuss, Yusef Komunyakaa, Kevin Young, David Wojahn, Jorie Graham, Sylvia Plath, Robin Coste Lewis, and many others. In this course we will study a thematic array of ekphrastic poems based on several diverse ways to approach and engage with the visual arts. Once students immerse themselves in this poetic style, they then will apply these techniques to their own poetry. [3] (HCA)

ENGL 5290.03 Special Topics in Creative Writing: MFA Pedagogy

Lorraine Lopez - Online Synchronous/Asynchronous

M 12:10 - 3:00 PM

This pedagogy seminar (required for first-year MFA students) explores approaches to teaching creative writing and considers how the acquisition of knowledge and skills transpires, investigating best practices to create conditions for learning to occur.  As such, the seminar covers practical matters that include planning courses, designing syllabi, fostering creative production, developing community in the classroom, generating productive discussions, and confronting challenging and complex circumstances, as well as balancing the demands of teaching without neglecting commitments to art and life.  Additionally, the course provides an overview and cache of learning resources through evaluation of texts on craft, generative writing exercises, and productive classroom activities.  Finally, as a conversational working group, the seminar will host various seasoned educators in the creative arts to share their experiences and techniques. [3] (HCA)

ENGL 7430: Graduate Fiction Workshop

Tony Earley - Online Synchronous

W 12:10 - 3:00 PM

Start with this supposition: the answer to every question in fiction is a craft answer. How do we assemble worlds out of component parts? How do stories function on a cellular level? How do we make people out of atoms? We’ll take stories apart and put them back together. We’ll see if our work answers the questions it asks. We’ll read and write. May be repeated for credit. [4]

ENGL 7440 Graduate Poetry Workshop

Major Jackson - Online Synchronous

T 12:10 - 3:00 PM

Much of our task in this demanding yet rewarding poetry workshop is the discovery of a set of values, themes, and approaches to writing poems that is distinctive and unique to each student in the course. Rather than a search for absolutes, we will read widely across literary periods and schools, experiment with forms, and incorporate research methods as a means of expanding the imaginative possibilities of language to construct a lyric self and serve as a force of humanistic inquiry. In classroom discussions, we are likely to touch upon the political, personal, and social valences of poetry as much as the usual realms of poetic technique: prosody, imagery, diction, figurative language, rhythmic patterning, and other acts of invention that help establish voice and style. While writing prompts and directed readings will drive much of our work, ultimately this course aims to help students hear their obsessions and delve further into the spirit of a curious and passionate mind. [May be repeated for credit with the program director's approval] [4]

Advanced instruction in creative writing in emerging modes and hybrid genres. 

Previous Topics:

• Teaching Creative Writing 
• Creative Writing in Community
• S2021: Autobiography and Personal Memoir (Kate Daniels)
• S2021: The Craft of Ekphrasis (Didi Jackson)
• S2021: MFA Pedagogy (Lorraine Lopez)

May be repeated for credit with the program director's approval.

May be repeated for credit with the program director's approval.

Only offered in Spring semester. May be repeated for credit with the program director's approval.

Two sections are offered annually by MFA faculty members, one in poetry and one in fiction. Students must take ENGL 7460 (for their genre) during both the first and second years.

Previous Topics:

• F2020:Space for Conversation? Literary Documentary, Collage, and Questions in the Narrative Mix (Nancy Reisman)

Advanced instruction in creative writing, including new and emerging genres, special topic/author studies, professional aspects of creative writing, and interdisciplinary approaches to creative writing. May be repeated. [4]

Graduate level instruction in the pedagogy of creative writing. Not open to students who have earned credit for 5290 section 01 offered spring 2019 or spring 2020. [4]

Instruction with faculty adviser for MFA students teaching undergraduate courses.