Writers' Studies in Literature (403-0-20)

Instructors

Juan M Martinez

Meeting Info

University Hall 018 English: Tues 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

We can safely assume a familiarity with most aspects of craft. We know how point of view works, for example, or how revision can dramatically alter our sense of a short story or an essay--I mean, we know, sort of, and to a point, and beyond that point we all do our best. The purpose of this course is two-fold: to bolster our understanding of the building elements of prose, and to push those elements further by focusing on affect, on figuring out the various ways in which a kind of intentionality in navigating tone--when we draft and revise--can allow our creative work to flourish. While we'll focus on "comic" and "horrific" approaches, the understanding is that most work is never fully working in just one mode, and we'll figure out the advantages of each, and of modulating one into the other.

We'll work through a considerable deal of material together, and we'll help each other find ways to explore the possibilities of that material. But I'll also ask each of you to bring in a short published piece that you love that we'll all read; it should be a piece---a short story or a poem or an essay---that you feel best exploits a particular affect (something "funny" or "scary" or "sad"), and we'll all read novels and story collections where this intent is front and center, including Mona Awad's Bunny and Gretchen Felker-Martin's Manhunt.