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Creative Writing 2: Short Story and Intro to Personal Essay

This class focuses on the short story and introduces students to the personal essay. This is a fast-paced course with a heavy reading load.

In the first half of the course, students will produce a short story for workshop, and in the second half they will write a piece of personal nonfiction – a personal essay.

People interested in this class should have some experience in writing fiction, and some experience in fiction or writing workshops, but it is not expected that anyone is familiar – or has even heard of – the personal essay, the “freest form in literature.”

Overview

We read great fiction and personal essays – classic and contemporary – each week, meant to inspire and influence you. Some early exercises – based on the readings – will take place to help you familiarize yourself with nonfiction writing and the essay form.

Many people teach the personal essay as a side-project to stay distracted while between fiction projects. It is taught here as an art form in its own right, as ambitious as any piece of fiction, and the reading selections reflect that attitude.

As with CW1, the first half of every course is used for a discussion of the fiction and essays handed out, and the second half is dedicated to a discussion of your own writing.

Structure

Weeks 1 – 5: A short story workshop takes place. Each week new volunteers will hand in stories, those stories will be taken home and read, and they’ll be discussed the following week. Each piece is discussed for twenty minutes.

During this time, there will be a handful of exercises that everyone will complete each week – and which we’ll discuss in class – designed to help you ease into nonfiction writing and develop a mentality that is crucial for essayists.

Weeks 6 – 10: A personal essay workshop takes place. This workshop functions exactly like the fiction workshop. Each week new volunteers will hand in stories, those stories will be taken home and read, and they’ll be discussed the following week. Each piece is discussed for twenty minutes.

Who should take this course?

This course assumes that you have written short stories before, and are prepared to write a new, complete short story from the first week, though it is not necessary for people with workshop and writing experience to have taken CW1 before CW2. This is also a very good course for people who are less interested in the short story and more interested in nonfiction (personal essay, memoir), since it sets the foundations for nonfiction writing that will continue into CW3.

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