Literature & Writing
Everything you need to know to go from great manuscript to published work! Discover how to position your book in the marketplace. Learn about different types and sizes of publishers and which one is right for your book. Discover how to find and vet publishers, write a query letter, send a submission package, and navigate the process from the initial “comfort conversation,” to signed contract, draft delivery, the long conga-line of editorial revisions, proofs, ARCs, and at last, your release date! Instructor: Julie Castillo.
New section added: Sept 17–Dec 10!
Founded in 1925, the New Yorker magazine has been the wellspring of the American short story. The magazine’s current fiction editor, Deborah Treisman, has selected 78 stories by the country’s greatest fiction writers and compiled them in one volume titled A Century of Fiction in the New Yorker, 1925-2025. In this six-session course we’ll read and discuss 12 of these stories, ranging across the decades. Along the way we’ll learn about such basic fictional techniques as point of view, setting, plot and character development, dialogue, symbolism, and metaphorical language. Instructor: George Clack. Meets alternate weeks. No class 11/26.
Whatever stage your novel is in, this class will help you take it to the next level! Come with a spark of an idea: we’ll help get you to an outline. Bring an outline, we’ll guide you in finishing a draft. Got a draft? We’ll provide feedback as you revise, edit, and polish. If your novel is fizzling, bring it in and we’ll find out what’s needed to restore it to vigor! Instructor: Julie Castillo.
A solid introduction to the genres, forms, and elements of fiction with an emphasis on writing for the commercial marketplace. Students will learn character, conflict, arc, plot, three-act structure, beats, scenes, setting, dialogue, and more. Students will write a short story for group critique. Instructor: Julie Castillo. No class Nov 25.
Examine ghost stories—classic and modern—on page and screen, analyzing how ghosts and hauntings are used in storytelling. Contemplate themes such as mortality, morality, loss, time, memory, secrets, and justice. Examine haunted narratives from Shakespeare through to modern times, including stories from Charles Dickens, Edith Wharton, and Toni Morrison. We will consider what it means when the past refuses to stay put! Instructor: Ann Stephenson. No class 11/24.