EGL 70 — Reading as a Writer: A One-Week Intensive
Summer
Monday-Friday
12:30—5:30 pm
Date(s)
Jun 22—Jun 26
1 week
Drop By
Jun 15
2 Units
Fees
$510
Limit
21
Open
One of the best ways to become a skilled writer is to become a skilled reader. In this special immersion seminar, you will learn to read in a way you were probably never taught in literature classes—not as a critic but as a craftsperson, an apprentice in the guild. You will learn how to X-ray any piece of writing from its design to its prose, so that you can make its strategies your own. Examining contemporary masters like Alice Munro, Joan Didion, and George Saunders, you will learn, for example, what makes a particular physical description effective, how to advance plot with dialogue, and how to subtly develop a piece’s insight.
Since the aim of skilled reading is skilled writing, you will try out techniques in short exercises, but we will not critique manuscripts. We will discuss traditional and experimental approaches to fiction and creative nonfiction. And we will look at design elements (like plot, point of view, and image systems) and prose elements (patterns that help produce narrative voice, style, and tone). Other authors we will consider include Adam Gopnik, Alice Walker, Michael Pollan, Stanley Elkin, Cheryl Strayed, Dave Eggers, and Jhumpa Lahiri.
Since the aim of skilled reading is skilled writing, you will try out techniques in short exercises, but we will not critique manuscripts. We will discuss traditional and experimental approaches to fiction and creative nonfiction. And we will look at design elements (like plot, point of view, and image systems) and prose elements (patterns that help produce narrative voice, style, and tone). Other authors we will consider include Adam Gopnik, Alice Walker, Michael Pollan, Stanley Elkin, Cheryl Strayed, Dave Eggers, and Jhumpa Lahiri.
Jonah Willihnganz, Director, Stanford Storytelling Project; Bruce Braden Lecturer in Narrative Art, Stanford
Jonah Willihnganz has taught courses in writing and literature at Stanford since 2002 and is a former fellow of the Stanford Humanities Center. He has published fiction, essays, and literary criticism, and occasionally performs for the Porchlight Storytelling Series in San Francisco. He received an MFA in creative writing from Hollins University and a PhD in English from Brown University.Textbooks for this course:
(Required) Francine Prose, Reading Like a Writer (ISBN 978-0060777050)
(Required) Catherine Brady, Story Logic and the Craft of Fiction (ISBN 978-0230580558 )
(Required) Madison Smart Bell, Narrative Design: Working with Imagination, Craft, and Form (ISBN 978-0393320213)
(Required) Catherine Brady, Story Logic and the Craft of Fiction (ISBN 978-0230580558 )
(Required) Madison Smart Bell, Narrative Design: Working with Imagination, Craft, and Form (ISBN 978-0393320213)