Spring Fiction Workshop: A Century of Novellas

Course Description

Summary

The novella is a pleasing narrative container, more flexible than the short story, less meandering than the full-length novel, and often composed with a kind of pleasing internal poetry. This rigorous course, part seminar, part fiction workshop, will be devoted on one hand to the study of fourteen postmodern and contemporary novellas, on the other to the production of students’ own, ambitious long-form fiction projects. One book-length work of fiction will be assigned per week. Students will be expected to write weekly responses to each of these. Approximately half of each week’s class time will be devoted to workshop, during which we will discuss not only the week’s student submission(s), but also a specific element of craft, often specifically relevant to to the given piece (e.g. dialogue, character, setting, exposition / scene). Letters of critique will be due in advance of each week’s workshop, but will be subject to generous addenda after class discussion. Final projects will consist of one long story, to be drafted, refined, and significantly expanded on, over the course of the semester.