Fall 12
2:00-4:00 T Th
217 Hinsdale

Mary Quade
Office Hours: 11:40-1:40 T Th, Bonney Castle Room 10
Email: quadeMR@hiram.edu
Phone: 330-569-5325

The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction: Fifty North American Stories Since 1970, Lex Williford and Michael Martone, editors
Poets of the New Century, Roger Weingarten and Richard Higgerson, editors
The Next American Essay, John D’Agata, editor

This course introduces the principles and practices behind the creative exercise of using words. Students will examine the forms of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction through readings and analyze the craft involved in creative writing. Ideally, students will produce their own inventive responses to writing assignments, applying techniques discussed in class. Students will have a chance to share their work with others and gather responses through workshops in order to make thoughtful and effective revisions. In turn, they will evaluate the work of fellow students and make recommendations of their own.

Writing of any kind takes alertness, and creative writing especially demands its creator to be truly awake, so students should approach the course ready to think. Students are required to complete the assigned readings and to turn in all written assignments. I DO NOT ACCEPT LATE WORK, so it is always better to turn in something than nothing; I will, however, grant extensions—if I feel they are deserved and I am warned well in advance that such a thing may be needed. All assignments should be typed in 10-12 pt font with serif, double-spaced for fiction or nonfiction, single-spaced for poetry, and emailed to me as an attachment by class time.

Workshop

An important part of the course is sharing your writing with others. There will be many opportunities to get feedback on portions of your work in either all-class or small-group workshops. This is a chance to give and receive constructive criticism, and I expect you to participate fully in workshop conversations about your classmate’s writing with informed and respectful input.

Journals

Part of being a writer is actually writing things down. For this course, you are required to keep a journal. I strongly suggest that you keep this record of ideas with you at all times during the course. Writers’ block is not an acceptable excuse for a missing assignment, and a notebook full of interesting observations, thoughts, words, articles, or conversations helps prevent lack of inspiration. A good, smallish sturdy notebook works well, especially one with no spiral (saves sweaters); I discourage you from creating compositions on paper napkins, which is both silly and dangerously temporary. I will collect your journals a few times during the semester at random. Your journal is where you should also have your in-class writing exercises.

Tests

There will be three short tests involving identifying author and title for quotations from the readings.

Participation

We will spend much of class time in conversation. Participation grades are based on the quality of a student’s contributions to discussion and on percentage of classes attended.

Shorter assignments (20%)
Workshop and class participation (20%)
Five- to eight-page nonfiction (13%)
Five- to eight-page short fiction (13%)
Three poems (13%)
Journal (5%)
Quote ID tests (6%)
Final exam—revised piece (10%)

I take the issue of academic and creative honesty very seriously. Plagiarism—in the case of this course, taking another’s creative work and presenting it as one’s own—will be penalized with failure of the assignment and possible failure of the course. We will discuss appropriate ways one might use another’s words in creative contexts. “Recycling” work from other courses will also have dire consequences.

If you are confused about a grade, absolutely please come see me and I will try to make my concerns as clear as possible. My foremost goal is to be your guide to better writing, not to baffle you with some secret agenda.

Th 8/24
Introduction

T 8/29 Image, Character
RD: Marianne Boruch, “Piano Tuning” (poetry)
Mark Cox, “Like a Simile” (poetry)
Sherman Alexie, “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” (fiction)
WR: A list of ten distinct images. A list of ten metaphors.

Th 8/31 Setting, Narrative
RD: Jim Daniels, “My Mother’s See-Through Blouse” (poetry)
Rodney Jones, “Raccoon Time” (poetry)
Raymond Carver, “Errand” (fiction)

T 9/5 Voice, Point of View
RD: Billy Collins, “The Country” (poetry)
Keith Ratzlaff, “Group Portrait With Ukuleles” (poetry)
Amy Tan, “Two Kinds” (fiction)
George W.S. Trow, “Needs” (essay)
WR: A short scene drawing on your experiences in which you are a character, but written in either third person limited or third person omniscient. If you use limited, you should not be the character whose thoughts we know.

Th 9/7 Nonfiction
RD: David Foster Wallace, “A Ticket to the Fair”

T 9/12 Nonfiction
RD: Joan Didion, “The White Album” (As you read this, look up the names/places you don’t know, so that you have a context for the events that take place; if you don’t, you’ll be confused.)
WR: A paragraph or two based on an experience you have, knowing you will write about it. A paragraph or two about a memory.

Th 9/14 Nonfiction
RD: Sherman Alexie, “Captivity”
Paul Metcalf, “…and nobody objected”
Eliot Weinberger, “The Dream of India”

T 9/19 Nonfiction
RD: Annie Dillard, “Total Eclipse”
David Antin, “The Theory and Practice of Postmodernism: A Manifesto”
WR: Describe a scene from your everyday life that reflects what you feel is characteristic of our current times. Remember to show, rather than tell. This should be an actual moment, not an idealized one.

Th 9/21 Nonfiction/Quote ID Test
RD: John McPhee, “The Search for Marvin Gardens”

T 9/26 Personal Belongings/Nonfiction
WR: Bring a working draft of your essay to class.

Th 9/28 Campus Day

T 10/3 Steven Bognar visit/Fiction
WR: Five- to eight-page essay due, emailed to me by class time.

Th 10/5 Fiction
RD: Toni Cade Bambara, “Raymond’s Run”
Jamaica Kincaid, “Girl”
WR: Using your character from class (or a version of that character), create a short scene that sets that character in motion.

T 10/10 Fiction
RD: Margaret Atwood, “Death by Landscape”
Ethan Canin, “The Year of Getting to Know Us”
WR: Two scenes, not sequential, involving the same character/s.

Th 10/12 Fall Weekend

T 10/17 Fiction
RD: Tim O’Brien, “The Things They Carried”
WR: A short story of under 500 words that contains character, setting, conflict, climax.

Th 10/19 Fiction
RD: Robert Olen Butler, “A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain”
Alice Walker, “Nineteen Fifty-five”

T 10/24 Fiction/Quote ID Test
RD: Sandra Cisneros, “Woman Hollering Creek”
Stephanie Vaughn, “Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog”
Amy Hempel, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried”
WR: Bring a working draft of your story to class.

Th 10/26 Fiction
WR: Five- to eight-page short story due, emailed to me by class.

T 10/31 Poetry
RD: Marianne Boruch, “Smoking”
Lynn Emanuel, “The White Dress”
Richard Cording, “Fashion Shoot, Frijoles Canyon”
Mark Doty, “Fish-R-Us”
Stuart Dybek, “Inspiration”
Barry Goldensohn, “The Bat”
Jonathan Holden, “Teaching My Son to Drive”
Chase Twitchell, “Road Tar”
WR: Write a 10-12 line poem that begins with a single image. Think about how imagery reflects idea without stating it outright.

Th 11/2 Poetry
RD: Marianne Boruch, “The Vietnam Birthday Lottery”
Mark Cox, “Joyland”
Jim Daniels, “Night-Light”
Barry Goldensohn, “The Summer I Spent Screwing in the Back Seats of Station Wagons”
Bob Hicock, “Miscarriage and Echo”
Gary Soto, “Raisin Factory”
Charles Harper Webb, “Did That Really Happen?”
WR: A 15+ line poem that narrates a moment.

T 11/7 Poetry
RD: Stuart Dybek, “Narcissus”
Beth Ann Fennelly, “Madame L. Describes the Seige of Paris”
Yusef Komunyakaa, “Outside The Blue Nile,” “Queen Marie-Theresa & Nabo”
Kevin Young, “Campbell’s Black Bean Soup”
WR: Think of an historical (or mythological) person or event you would like to write about in a poem. Do some background research on this person or event and bring your findings to class.

Th 11/9 Poetry
RD: Robin Becker, “Why We Fear the Amish”
Campbell McGrath, “Capitalist Poem #38,” “Capitalist Poem #36”
Alberto Rios, “Writing from Memory,” “Some Extensions on the Sovereignty of Science”
James Tate, “How the Pope Is Chosen,” “The New Ergonomics”
Kevin Young, “Negative”
WR: Develop your ideas from Tuesday’s class into a completed poem.

T 11/14 Poetry/Quote ID Test
RD: Robin Becker, “Rustic Portrait”
Richard Katrovas, “Love Poem for an Enemy”
Robert Pinsky, “Samurai Song”
Michael Ryan, “In the Sink”
Lee Ann Roripaugh, “Transplanting”
WR: Bring working drafts of your three poems to class.

Th 11/16 Poetry
WR: Three completed poems due, totaling at least forty lines, emailed to me by class time.

Final: By Monday, November 20 1:00 p.m., email me a revision of one of your three longer pieces.