Courses

All stories—fiction or nonfiction—require the manipulation of time into narrative. In this course, we will be sharpening our time-management skill set. How do we decide between condensing events into a summary or writing them out as a scene? How do we include flashbacks without losing sight of the present-day narrative? When do we speed up the flow of time? When do we slow down? What might nonlinear stories teach us? And what of imaginary time?

To learn from great models, we will read from a variety of fiction and nonfiction with different approaches to time, including works by Edward P. Jones, Toni Morrison, Alice Munro, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Tobias Wolff, and Virginia Woolf. Writing exercises paired with these readings will allow you to put a range of techniques into practice and receive individual feedback, culminating in a longer final assignment of 10 pages. The skills cultivated will serve any creative prose practice: novels, short stories, memoir, or journalism. This course is accessible to a range of experience levels. You may come with specific projects you wish to refine or decide to produce new material for each assignment. By the end of the course, you will feel more confident and capable of making decisions about the shape and flow of your narratives.