English 4011:  Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction--Spring 2012

Brian Kiteley

Class meets Th 4-7:40 pm ● bkiteley@du.edu ● My office hours: Th 1-2:30

NOTE: This graduate fiction workshop is OPEN ONLY to graduate students in the Ph.D. program in the English Department (sorry, no exceptions).

TEXTS: William Carlos Williams, Imaginations; Isaac Babel, The Collected Stories; Alphonso Lingis, Violence and Splendor; Brian Kiteley, The 3 AM Epiphany (which will be available in the book store by mid-April)

March 29: First class; read Babel (Line and Color, Dolgushov’s Death, and Guy de Maupassant) and the introduction to The 3 AM Epiphany

April 5: Joanna, Kameron, Katie, Meghan (to be handed in 3/29); read Lingis (and a review of Violence and Splendor by Graham Harman)

April 12: Patrick, Poupeh, Sam, Tarashea, Danielle (to be handed in 4/5); read Lingis

April 19: Yanara, Christopher, Julia, Seth, Eryn (to be handed in 4/12)

April 26: Meg (to be handed in 4/19)

May 3: Joanna, Kameron, Katie, Eryn; read Williams (Kora in Hell and Spring and All)

May 10: Patrick, Poupeh, Tarashea, Yanara, Danielle (to be handed in 5/3); read Williams (The Great American Novel and The Descent of Winter)

May 17: Sam, Christopher, Julia, Seth, Eryn (to be handed in 5/10); read Babel (The Public Library, My First Goose, Sashka Christ, and The Kiss)

May 24: Two fiction exercises each: Sam, Joanna, Kameron, Katie, Meghan, Patrick, Poupeh (to be handed in 5/17); read The 3 AM Epiphany

May 31: Two fiction exercises each: Yanara, Danielle, Christopher, Julia, Seth, Eryn, Tarashea (to be handed in 5/24)

ABOUT THE EXERCISES: I will ask you to write a handful of the exercises from The 3AM Epiphany during the term. We will also discuss the book as a teaching device.

ABOUT THE COURSE: In this course, we will read William Carlos Williams fascinating, hybrid texts, especially Spring and All and The Great American Novel and a handful of the great short stories of Isaac Babel, and Alphonso Lingis’ Violence and Splendor in advance of his visit to campus.

ASSIGNMENTS: You are each responsible for two 300-word critiques of work by your classmates. Give me a copy of these critiques. Bring these critiques to class the day of the discussion of work by your classmates.

I will also ask you to write a brief essay on or creative response to one of these texts (300-500 words), which we will discuss toward the end of the term.

And, of course, you will write fiction in the class, your own on-going projects or new material generated by the exercises. You will each submit four pieces of writing during the term (as well as the one exercise at the beginning). Your piece can be any length, although I suggest you try to stay under 25 pages for each piece under discussion. You may submit several smaller pieces. It would be best if these works were not completely new material, but they should also be writing that has not seen too many workshops.

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