We’re excited to announce new online classes for this October! Annesha Mitha is teaching a four-week fiction workshop. Matt Ortile will teach a one-day nonfiction craft class. Kiran Bath will lead a one-day poetry craft class.
More information is below, and you can browse the lineup of present and past classes here.
Literary Horror: Using Fear in Fiction with Annesha Mitha
Workshop:
Wednesdays, 6:00 PM–8:30 PM ET
October 1st–October 22nd
Open to all writers of color
This class will explore how horror tropes and “scary fiction” can be used in ambitious and socially conscious story-telling. Through discussing relevant texts, we will determine how we can use fear to illuminate something essential about the world around us. Readings include work by Mariana Enriquez, Octavia Butler, ‘Pemi Aguda, Gerardo Sámano Córdova, Bora Chung, and more. Students will generate and share new work, and can expect to come away with at least one full length story draft or novel chapter.
Writing the First-Person Travel Essay with Matt Ortile
Craft Class:
Saturday, 2:00 PM–4:30 PM ET
October 4th
Open to all writers of color
In this one-day seminar, students will study the fundamentals of the first-person travel essay. By reading published contemporary travel articles, we will study the use of the narrative “I” in travel magazine writing, as well as tried-and-true story “formulas.” Discussions of readings and generative exercises will offer students ideas for a travel essay of their own that they can continue to develop outside of class. For our purposes, we will distinguish between a first-person travel essay and a personal essay about travel: The latter privileges the self, emphasizes the writer’s intellectual and emotional discoveries; the former shifts its focus slightly, prioritizes instead the reader’s immersion in an exciting elsewhere by telling the story of that place—be it the local culture, history, environment, cuisine, or community. More than a matter of semantics, these distinctions can help us as writers 1) find multiple ways to tell a tale; 2) navigate the power dynamics between a journalist and their subject; and 3) sell an article to an editor for publication.
This class is for students who are new to travel writing or those who wish to hone their skills in narrative place-based nonfiction. No prior writing experience is required. Potential readings include works by Ligaya Mishan, Pico Iyer, Saki Knafo, Sarah Khan, John Wogan, and others.
School of the Asian Avant-Garde with Kiran Bath
Craft Class:
Sunday, 2:00 PM–4:30 PM ET
October 26th
Open to all writers of color
In this intensive class we will consider what the Asian Avant-Garde movement for experimental poetics is—who are its key figures and contributors, and what techniques and learnings we can take from this body of poetics and apply to our own writing. We will explore the potential of experimental poetics at its broadest (anything that breaks from tradition) as well as at its more specific iterations (docupoetics/auto-fiction/auto-theory & the New York School of poets). We will look at works from Bhanu Kapil, Nisha Ramaya, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Julietta Singh, Marwa Helal, Divya Victor and more. This workshop is not interested in being exhaustive or prescriptive about the genre. Rather participants can expect to broaden their understanding of what a poem can do and experiment themselves by considering how to bring archives, abstraction, memories and research into their writing practice.
All classes will take place on Zoom and the class times listed are in Eastern Time. There are scholarships available and deadlines are listed on the individual course pages.
View our full selection of online classes on our Online Classes Page.
See you online!