FICT 88 W — Speculative Fiction: Writing Beyond Reality
Quarter: Fall
Course Format: Flex Online (About Formats)
Duration: 8 weeks
Date(s): Oct 2—Dec 1
Refund Deadline: Oct 5
Units: 2
Tuition: $825
Instructor(s): Yohanca Delgado
Limit: 19
Class Recording Available: Yes
Status: Closed
Fall
Flex Online(About Formats)
Date(s)
Oct 2—Dec 1
8 weeks
Refund Date
Oct 5
2 Units
Fees
$825
Instructor(s):
Yohanca Delgado
Limit
19
Recording
Yes
Closed
Increasingly popular as a genre, speculative fiction pushes the limits of the imagination, combining a literary attentiveness to language and characterization with story elements that occur outside of "realistic" fiction, opening up breathtaking possibilities. Grounding a character in time and space is especially important in imagined worlds (as in fantasy or science fiction), and well-chosen details can make these worlds feel as real as any place the reader has ever been. When writing speculative fiction, we must also ask ourselves whose perspective is most strategically useful to convey a new story reality and which sensory details will pull the reader into this surreal or fantastical setting.
As we set out to write our own works of speculative fiction, we will gain craft insight and inspiration by looking at exemplary writing by Jorge Luis Borges, Octavia Butler, Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado, Haruki Murakami, Karen Russell, and others. Each week, students will work on exercises designed to sharpen their sensory instincts on the page and add texture and detail to imagined worlds. Each student will also have the opportunity to workshop one full-length story or novel excerpt (up to 3,500 words) for instructor and class feedback.
As we set out to write our own works of speculative fiction, we will gain craft insight and inspiration by looking at exemplary writing by Jorge Luis Borges, Octavia Butler, Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado, Haruki Murakami, Karen Russell, and others. Each week, students will work on exercises designed to sharpen their sensory instincts on the page and add texture and detail to imagined worlds. Each student will also have the opportunity to workshop one full-length story or novel excerpt (up to 3,500 words) for instructor and class feedback.
YOHANCA DELGADO
Stegner Fellow in Fiction, Stanford
Yohanca Delgado is an NEA fellow and a Stegner fellow. Her work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, McSweeney's, The New York Times, Time, and in Janelle Monáe's New York Times bestselling collaborative fiction collection, The Memory Librarian. She has taught writing at the Stanford Hume Center, for One Story, and at Arizona State University's Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference. She received an MFA from American University and is a graduate of the Clarion Workshop.Textbooks for this course:
There are no required textbooks; however, some fee-based online readings may be assigned.