English 243A

Fiction Writing Workshop

Book List

Alison: Meander, Spiral, Explode ; Forster: Aspects of the Novel ; Gioa & Gwynn, Eds.: The Art of the Short Story

Description

The purpose of this workshop is to begin to write a novel or a story collection. It is unlikely that you will finish writing either in the three months we spend together. Fiction takes time. There are some reported exceptions to this, but given that the work is in the revision, we will keep our goal this semester to: “a start.” We’ll read some short stories, one novel, and one story collection in order to explore the shapes and sizes fiction can take. We will determine these together based on the interests and needs of the participants in the course. We’ll also read E.M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel (1927) and some essays on the short story form.

Only continuing UC Berkeley graduate students (and upper-division students with considerable writing experience) are eligible to apply for this course. To be considered for admission, please electronically submit a five-page, double-spaced excerpt of your fiction, by clicking on the link below; fill out the application you'll find there and attach the writing sample as a Word document or .rtf file. The deadline for completing this application process is 11 PM, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31.

(To read about when and where the results of the applications will be posted, click here.)

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