FICT 115 — Writing You Can't Put Down: Breakout Fiction Workshop
Quarter: Winter
Instructor(s): Angela Pneuman
Date(s): Jan 14—Mar 18
Class Recording Available: No
Class Meeting Day: Wednesdays
Class Meeting Time: 6:00—8:30 pm (PT)
Tuition: $1000
Refund Deadline: Jan 16
Unit(s): 2
Enrollment Limit: 18
Status: Closed
Quarter: Winter
Day: Wednesdays
Duration: 10 weeks
Time: 6:00—8:30 pm (PT)
Date(s): Jan 14—Mar 18
Unit(s): 2
Tuition: $1000
Refund Deadline: Jan 16
Instructor(s): Angela Pneuman
Enrollment Limit: 18
Recording Available: No
Status: Closed
What gives a piece of fiction its spark—the power to capture a reader’s attention from page one and in a way that won’t let go? In this workshop, we’ll learn how to produce that kind of writing, through vivid details, imperfect characters, and specific conflicts that unfold with urgency. We’ll read fiction by authors like Julie Otsuka, Yiyun Li, and John Edgar Wideman to see how their work engages us emotionally, intellectually, and stylistically. Each week, you’ll receive mini-lectures on craft and prompts inspired by the readings, helping you to build new material and sharpening your sense of what pulls readers in.
Students will receive instructor feedback on weekly exercises and have the opportunity to workshop up to 5,000 words of a story or novel chapter. We’ll ask generative, craft-focused questions about each work in progress: Would a shift in point of view deepen the story? Could place, subtext, or tension be sharpened? Whether you're new to fiction and want to experiment with short stories or stuck halfway through a novel and hoping for a breakthrough, this course offers the structure, feedback, and inspiration to reach your goal, crafting work that resonates from the first page to the last.
ANGELA PNEUMAN
Author
Angela Pneuman has taught at Stanford and in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College. She is the author of Lay It on My Heart and Home Remedies, and her fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, Glimmer Train, The Virginia Quarterly Review, New England Review, and Ploughshares. She contributes to Salon and The Rumpus. Pneuman directs the Napa Valley Writers' Conference. She was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford and received a PhD in English from SUNY Albany. Textbooks for this course:
(Required) Jesmyn Ward, Best American Short Stories 2021 (ISBN 978-1328485397)
(Required) Stephen Koch, The Modern Library Writer's Workshop (ISBN 978-0375755583)
(Required) Stephen Koch, The Modern Library Writer's Workshop (ISBN 978-0375755583)