Welcome to London

So our summer class begins! The focus of this creative writing course in prose fiction is on the narration of cities, specifically, the fiction we might produce set here in London.

First, some housekeeping!

To the right you'll find our syllabus, which is subject to change with advance notice.

Please check this blog before class, and become familiar with it. I will be sending you all administrative privileges to the blog so that you can post your fiction for workshop sessions.

I'll use the blog to post additional readings separate from our text, The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories, and the occasional video or website link that will be useful to us. 

Finally, I'll try to put links to the right that you might find helpful during your time in London.

In Class on Tuesday, 5/21

On Tuesday, we'll be doing some introductory writing activities, as well as using childhood memories as jumping off points.

First, let's talk a bit about the history of the short story with these two examples in mind:

Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher."

Chekhov's "The Chorus Girl."

Let's follow this link to read an excerpt of Barry Unsworth's Losing Nelson.

Activity (to be done in class):

Think of a childhood memory where an animal is at the center of the memory.

Now, think of a realization you had about an adult in your life. This realization should be a separate memory, one unrelated to the animal memory.

Write a 2 page scene in which you conflate these two memories, with the animal memory triggering the revelation. Do feel free to loosen the shackles of truth here. By that I mean--this isn't nonfiction. Use your real memories to INVENT new scenarios and characters.


Homework for 5/21:

Elizabeth Bowen. I do not really know if she believed in ghosts;)

For now, our first reading is Elizabeth Bowen's "Mysterious Kor," in which we'll talk about time as a kind of setting, the "size" of the modern short story, and how character is developed through action. Here is the full text of the story in case you don't yet have the book.

It will be helpful to know that the "mysterious Kor" in the story is taken from a poem by Andrew Lang:

She

To H. R. H.

Not in the waste beyond the swamps and sand,
The fever-haunted forest and lagoon,
Mysterious Kor thy walls forsaken stand,
Thy lonely towers beneath the lonely moon,
Not there doth Ayesha linger, rune by rune
Spelling strange scriptures of a people banned.
The world is disenchanted; over soon
Shall Europe send her spies through all the land.
Nay, not in Kor, but in whatever spot,
In town or field, or by the insatiate sea,
Men brood on buried loves, and unforgot,
Or break themselves on some divine decree,
Or would o'erleap the limits of their lot,
There, in the tombs and deathless, dwelleth SHE!

Creative Response #1 will be a brief 2-3 page scene in which two characters interact with one another in wartime London. To help with setting the scene, we'll be visiting the Museum of London on 5/23, and specifically, looking at the People's City exhibit. Extra points if you can work in a line of poetry into your scene!

But don't worry about writing this response tonight. Let's visit the museum on Thursday for inspiration. Remember to bring your notebooks and pens.