Wednesdays, 6:40 to 8:30
Honors Hall 08

Office: Klapper 633
Office Hours: Tuesdays and Wednesdays 4:30 to 5:30
Office Phone: 718-997-4873
Email: [email protected]

Course Text
Matthew Salesses, Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping (Catapult 2021)

Note: You’re free to purchase the book wherever you want. It’s available through the QC Online Bookstore, likely for a decent price. There’s also Bookshop.org, where you can choose your favorite bookstore to order from. All other texts will be provided as PDFs on this site (either on the Calendar page or the More Readings page)

Course Goals
In this course you will:

• Experiment with a variety of approaches to creative nonfiction
• Explore creative approaches to conducting writing workshops–both workshops to generate writing and to discover ideas for revison
• Develop and facilitate a writing workshop
• Explore the relationship between fact and play in creative nonfiction
• Explore the relation between intuition and intention in your own writing process
• Write and revise a series of very short pieces of writing (from a sentence to a paragraph) that play with facts
• Write and revise a short work of creative nonfiction (approximately 10-15 pages)
• Reflect on relationships to spoken, sung, written, and visual voice.

MFA Program Statement on Integrity and Writing Communities
A number of linguists have claimed that each person actually uses a different language, unique unto themselves. But at the same time, languages of all kinds are part of the human commons, essential survival tools to communicate and relate to oneself and others. While we tend to value originality, many historical literary cultures have valued just the opposite, fostering the recognition and transmission of imitation, replication, and common codes over time. Writers in our program—and our cultural milieu—navigate these subtle lines between collectivity and originality.

While our program aims to foster a sense of common purpose and collaborative work, we understand that each voice is unique and that recognition of passages, forms, or ideas directly copied without permission can be a damaging and disturbing phenomenon. As members of a writing community, we are responsible to each other—and to the university’s academic integrity policies. We are signing on to be ethical and supportive audiences of each other’s work. So, rather than dictate more rules, we aim to consider the meaning and practice of limits and boundaries as part of our curricular approach. In our courses and community programming, we intend to nurture an awareness among faculty and students alike as to how we participate in common work and maintain the integrity of our own unique perspectives and contributions.