CREATIVE WRITING DEPARTMENT

CREATIVE WRITING DEPARTMENT

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS FALL 2008

Class schedule online at wwww.sfsu.edu/online/clssch.htm

UNDERGRADUATE CLASSES:

101.01 Introduction to Creative Writing X Wed 410-655pm Brian Thorstenson

This course is an introduction to the creative writing process, in which you’ll do exercises in writing poetry, fiction, and dramatic scripts. There will also be selected readings of exemplary stories, poems, and plays. Open to all students.

301.01 Fundamentals of Creative Writing X Thurs 1235-320pm TBA

301.02 Fundamentals of Creative Writing X Thurs 7-945pm TBA

301.03 Fundamentals of Creative Writing X Mon 410-655pm TBA

Prerequisite: English 114, or equivalent. Priority given to Creative Writing majors. Instruction and extensive practice in writing poetry, fiction, and plays, with selected readings of exemplary stories, poems, and plays. This course is the prerequisite to Short Story Writing, Poetry Writing, and Playwriting. See the Creative Writing Department for the names of the teachers.

NOTE: The prerequisite for all the undergraduate writing workshops (CW 403, 404, 405, 603, and 604) is CW 301, Fundamentals of Creative Writing (or CW 101 Introduction to Creative Writing), with a grade of "C" or above. Enrollment in undergraduate writing workshops is limited to undergraduate majors in English: Creative Writing. Non-majors are admitted only with consent of instructor.

302.01 Fundamentals of Creative Reading X Tues. 410-655pm Steve Dickison

This course will emphasize developing methods and habits of reading, by focusing on exemplary writings in poetry, narrative prose, and drama (with possible forays into its extension cinema). A course in basic elements: time, space, sound, rhythm, silence, texture, color, movement, shape, weight, etc. Poetry (as poesis = making) is intrinsic to all modes of written art, whether narrative prose with its modes of telling, or drama that incorporates action, “the play.” Students will get exposed to writings historical and contemporary, come to cultivate a habit of active reading and interpretation, build one’s desire for reading, and learn ways to talk and write about another’s writing (key to reading one’s own). Writing assignments will be in response to the assigned readings.

302.02 Fundamentals of Creative Reading X Mon 1210-255pm Brian Thorstenson

What is it to read as a writer? How can reading broaden and inform a writing practice? In this class we'll engage with a wide variety of published texts in order to learn as much as we can from their approaches, their strategies, and their assumptions. Guest writers will speak with us about the works that changed the way they write. A large part of the class will be devoted to opening up our writing practice, writing in imitation of, or in dialogue with, or in response to published works. We'll also engage critically with each other's creative work in mini-workshops. The ultimate goal of the class will be to explore new territory in our own creative work.

497.01 Modern Greek Literature X Thurs 410-655pm Martha Klironomos

Prerequisite: ENG 214 or equivalent. Introduction to Greece's major modernist and postmodernist writers. Exploration of experimental writing techniques using 20th Century literature. Also offered as MGS 497.

506.01 The Business of Creative Writing X Wed 7-945pm Bob Glück

In this class we will explore some aspects of the "business" of creative writing--how writers find and create audiences for their work, find editors and publishers, and pay the rent--as well as how they create lives in which art and the creative process are central. This is a survey class, not a seminar, so while this class will not teach you how to become a best-selling writer in ten easy steps, it will provide you with a larger sense of the business side of creative writing, while encouraging you to develop your ability to distinguish between the business of creative writing and the art. The first half of each class period will involve lecture & discussion by guest speakers (poets, writers, literary agents, book editors, literary journal publishers, reading series curators, book distribution managers, free lance writers and editors, literary nonprofit managers, and the like). You will be given a writing and research assignment the week before each presentation to lead you into the speaker's field. During the second part of each session, we'll meet to discuss the speakers' ideas as well as your responses to your writing assignments. Sometimes we'll do this as a whole class; sometimes we'll break up into smaller groups to do it. Consistent attendance and participation as well as on-time weekly assignments are essential for passing this course.

510.02 Introduction to Narrative Wed 1210-255pm Barbara Tomash

Introduction to Narrative: This course explores the nature and aims of narrative in a cross genre context. What is narration? Is it present in all forms of "telling?" How do we distinguish between narrative and non-narrative literary art? In order to explore these and other questions we will read a wide selection of writers working with narration in prose poetry, lined poetry, short short story, and short story. Our aim will be to uncover and study diverse narrative techniques--including those that can be called "traditional" and

those that can be called "innovative." Students will then apply these powerful strategies to their own writing in assigned exercises. This is a process course, not a workshop class, so the focus will be on the reading of assigned material and the discussion of it in class. However, small groups will meet as time allows to

respond to each others' newly-written exercises. Assigned readings will include a collection of short fiction (Heavier than Air by Nona Caspers), anthologies of prose poems and short short stories, and a course reader. With a deeper understanding of the art of narrative students can begin to jettison their usual writing habits and move into new territory in form and content--our investigations will offer students opportunities for surprising and delighting themselves and their readers.

511.01 Craft of Poetry Tues 7-945pm Camille Dungy

In this course we will explore some of the fundamental craft elements of poetry including imagery, rhythm, figurative language, voice, and form. Through close readings of published poetry as well as critical and creative assignments, you will access tools that will prove useful for your own work.

512.01 Craft of Fiction Thurs 1235-320pm Matthew Davison

Prerequisite: CW 301 or 101 with a grade of C or better, or consent of instructor. Enrollment limited to Creative Writing majors. Using Janet Burroway's WRITING FICTION as a guiding text along with a contemporary anthology, we explore craft elements of fiction: plot, dialogue, character, point of view, place, etc. Focus is on published writing and exercises. Some student work is discussed.

513.01 Craft of Playwriting Mon 410-655pm Anne Galjour

Prerequisite: CW 301 or 101 with a grade of C or better, or consent of instructor. Enrollment limited to Creative Writing majors. Non-majors admitted with consent of instructor. This course focuses on the basic craft elements of playwriting: scene, story, dialogue, character, and conflict. Lectures supplemented by discussions of student and professional writing.

514.01 Contemporary World Poetry Tues 1235-320pm Paul Hoover

This paired graduate/undergraduate process class will focus on world poetry since 1945 and include such figures as Pablo Neruda and César Vallejo; María Sabina and Cecilia Vicuña; Carlos Drummond de Andrade and Fernando Pessoa; Anna Akhmatova and Gennady Aygi; Mahmoud Darwish and the Tammuzi poets; Kamau Brathwaite and Aimé Césaire; Rainer Maria Rilke and Paul Celan; Bei Dao and Wang Ping; and Jacques Roubaud and Harryette Mullen as representative of Oulipo and its influences.

520.01 Writers on Writing X Mon 7-945pm Truong Tran

Enrollment open to all! No prerequisites. Faculty and visiting writers representing a wide range of styles and subjects will visit the class to read and discuss their writing. Students will respond to the readings and visits on an ongoing basis through critical essays and creative writing exercises. Paired with CW 820. Note: this course can be used to fulfill 3 units of the “creative process” requirement. It can only be taken once for credit. Students who have completed CW 820 may not take CW 520 for credit.

550.01 Poetry Center Workshop Thurs 335-620pm Steve Dickison

The course is organized around the Poetry Center reading series, with students writing in response to the work of visiting poets throughout the semester, and each student’s final project devoted to the work of a selected writer. In addition, we’ll make use of the Poetry Center Archives, auditing and viewing recorded work from the Poetry Center’s 50+ year history.

600.01 Uses of Personal Experiences X Tues 7-945pm Frances Phillips

We are going to examine and experiment with writing three kinds of creative work in this class, each of which suggests different relationships between the author or narrator and time. We'll begin with work honed from fresh, immediate daily experience; move on to develop creative nonfiction essays; and close by writing short memoirs or memoir excerpts. Along the way we'll read and pull writing ideas from a wide array of authors--everyone from Jorge Luis Borges and Pablo Neruda to Etel Adnan, Jamaica Kincaid and Lyn Hejinian. One text for the class will be the anthology The Business of Memory, edited by Charles Baxter. Any of the class writings may be rendered as poetry, prose, or dramatic work.

601.01 Work in Progress X Tues 410-655pm Barbara Tomash

Prerequisite: Senior standing in Creative Writing. Enrollment limited to Creative Writing majors.

This is an advanced class that offers graduating senior Creative Writing students the opportunity to take a creative project of their own design through various stages of development, extension, and revision. The course objectives are to help students 1) identify their deepest aims and interests as writers; 2) learn how to formulate extended projects arising from these powerful impulses; and 3) practice the development and revision techniques and methods with which to patiently nurture these projects over time. Through the semester we will investigate the creative process which has at its heart the art and craft of re-visioning. In the first weeks of class each student will look through drafts of past work to discover the seeds of an extended, long term project that he or she will design, develop (though not necessarily finish) and re-enter (repeatedly), over the course of the semester and beyond.

601.02 Work in Progress X Thurs 7-945pm Alice La Plante

Prerequisite: Senior standing in Creative Writing. Enrollment limited to Creative Writing majors.

In Work In Progress students will identify, investigate and work to revise and re-see a creative project of their choice. Students will spend the semester working on this particular body of work, not to bring it to completion per se, but to help the work illuminate itself. Students will participate in large group discussions and small group investigations and should possess a sincere commitment to reading and writing. The course will help students establish both a rigorous and creative revision practice.

602.01 Playwriting Tues 410-655pm Anne Galjour

Prerequisite: CW 301 and CW 513. Enrollment limited to Creative Writing majors. The study of act design and character analysis in selected contemporary classic plays. Writing exercises will explore voice, character development, structure and dialogue. Students will write a one act play.

603.02 Short Story Writing Thurs 410-655pm Dodie Bellamy

Prerequisite: CW 301 and CW 512. Enrollment limited to Creative Writing majors. The course includes the writing and analysis of short fiction in a workshop setting, with emphasis on developing character and voice.

604.01 Poetry Writing Mon 1210-255pm Truong Tran

Prerequisite: CW 301 and CW 511. Enrollment limited to Creative Writing majors. The aim of this poetry writing workshop is to foster your growth as a working poet. Class meetings will be spent engaging in the development of the poetic craft. It will also be a time devoted to experimentation as we enter or re-enter your work and that of your classmates. We will examine the effectiveness of voice, form and the word as it relates to the page. The workshop will hone your craft as both writer and reader, poet and editor through the process of discussions and feedback. Through a series of process oriented exercises, the workshop will enable you to generate new works.

609.02 -12 Directed Writing: B.A. Student ARR

CW 609 Directed Writing BA Student: Permission of the instructor is required to take this course; you will be dropped without prior consent of the instructor. The semester before you plan to enroll in Directed Writing, submit a sample of your writing in the instructor’s mailbox along with a note explaining that you want to take their Directed Writing class. Be sure you include your name, address, phone number and e-mail. If the instructor is off campus, the Creative Writing Office will mail your writing sample for you.

609.02 Directed Writing: B.A. Student ARR Fiction, Playwriting Michelle Carter

609.03 Directed Writing: B.A. Student ARR Fiction Nona Caspers

609.04 Directed Writing: B.A. Student ARR Fiction Maxine Chernoff

609.05 Directed Writing: B.A. Student ARR Playwriting Roy Conboy

609.06 Directed Writing: B.A. Student ARR Poetry Stacy Doris

609.07 Directed Writing: B.A. Student ARR Poetry Camille Dungy

609.08 Directed Writing: B.A. Student ARR Fiction Bob Glück

609.09 Directed Writing: B.A. Student ARR Poetry Paul Hoover

609.10 Directed Writing: B.A. Student ARR Poetry Dan Langton

609.11 Directed Writing: B.A. Student ARR Poetry Toni Mirosevich

609.12 Directed Writing: B.A. Student ARR Fiction Peter Orner

640.01 Transfer Literary Magazine X Wed 410-655pm Nona Caspers

Prerequisite: CW 301 and either CW 602, 603, 405 or consent of instructor.

"The important thing to do is to commit to writing as much as possible . . . Make a commitment to an independent magazine or publication . . . We're all connected to this large community and we all need to take an active part in it. If writers can make those kinds of commitments, they'll feel connected" (Jewelle Gomez). Join the staff of Transfer, the literary magazine of the Creative Writing Department. The course is designed to give you a working taste of what it takes to put out a literary magazine (including critical 640.01 Transfer Literary Magazine (cont.d)analysis and discussion of short-listed submissions, proofreading, solicitation and distribution) and to make you think about the world of literary magazines and your own beliefs in literature. Come prepared to analyze and discuss text and investigate your own literary aesthetics. This is a process course (not a lab) and can be used to fulfill 3 units of the Creative Process requirement.

675.01 Community Projects in Literature X Thurs 7-945pm Paul Hoover

CW 101 or 301 with a grade of C or better. Enrollment limited to Creative Writing majors. Non-majors admitted with consent of instructor. Take this course if you want to do an internship. Students are placed in work positions in community literary organizations such as Intersection for the Arts, City Arts and Lectures, Mercury House, and other centers so that they acquire practical knowledge of writing in the larger social context. May be repeated once for up to 6 units of credit.

685 Projects in Teaching Creative Writing X ARR

Prerequisites: Advanced undergraduate standing, grade of B+ or better in the course in which the student will be an aide, and approval of the department Chair. Students are placed with a creative writing faculty member in a supervised practicum/internship experience, in which they explore the theoretical and practical aspects of teaching creative writing. This is the course to sign up for if you want to be a Instructional Aid (I.A.) in a specific undergraduate class for 3 units of credit. At the beginning of the semester come to or email the Creative Writing office to get the enrollment permit numbers.

699 Independent Study X ARR

Prerequisite: Consent of instructor and a 3.0 GPA. Upper division students may enroll for special work under the supervision of a member of the Creative Writing department. This course may be taken for one, two, or three units. Enrollment is done through the Creative Writing Department office using the following forms: Individual Study Petition, a copy of your SFSU transcript, and an Add form. Individual Study Petitions and Add forms are available in the Creative Writing department office, and must be signed by the instructor you will be working with, an advisor, and the department chair.

GRADUATE CLASSES:

Prerequisites to enrollment in all CREATIVE WRITING graduate courses:

*Classified graduate standing in M.F.A. Creative Writing or M.A. English, Creative Writing.

*Preference in M.F.A. level courses will be given to students admitted to the M.F.A. program. Other students may enroll in these courses only with the permission of the instructor.

*Priority in M.A. and M.F.A. writing workshops will be given to students admitted in the genre of the course. Students in other genres may enroll in these courses ONLY with the permission of the instructor.

785.01 Graduate Projects in the Teaching of Creative Writing X ARR

Prerequisite: Grade of B or better in the course or its equivalent in which the student will be an aide.

This course is an application of previously acquired knowledge through assisting instruction and learning pedagogical strategies--in other words, you will be a Graduate Instructional Aid (G.I.A.) in the course for 3 units of credit. Come to the Creative Writing Office at the beginning of the semester for the schedule and permit numbers.

803.01 Advanced Short Story Writing Wed 1210-255pm Maxine Chernoff

Immersion in the processes of writing, reading, discussion & critique is essential to learning to write fiction. This class combines a short story workshop with selected readings and class discussion about the structure and elements of short fiction. The primary focus will be student work, which we will discuss in an atmosphere of respect, trust, and reciprocity. Our workshop goal is fundamentally constructive: helping the author realize his or her intent, by sharing our thoughts and reactions to their work. We will also be open to 803.01 Advanced Short Story Writing (cont.d)supportive discussion of the blocks, failures, and moments of confusion we often encounter in the writing process. All students must be prepared to discuss the work of their fellow students, and will be required to give typed comments to the authors.

804.01 Advanced Poetry Writing Tues 335-620pm Dan Langton

Intensive reading of the poets’ work to fellow poets. General discussion of the reading, with remarks by the instructor on issues in prosody raised. Each poet will receive a detailed letter after each reading. Regular attendance is a basic requirement.

806.01 The Business of Creative Writing X Wed 7-945pm Bob Gluck

In this class we will explore some aspects of the “business” of creative writing—how writers create audiences for their work, find editors and publishers, and pay the rent—as well as how they create lives in which art and the creative process are central. While this class will not teach you how to become a best-selling writer in ten easy steps, it will provide you with a larger sense of the world of and the business of creative writing, while encouraging you to develop your ability to distinguish between the business of creative writing and the art. The first half of each class will involve lecture and discussion by guest speakers (poets, writers, literary agents, book editors, literary journal publishers, reading series curators, book distribution managers, library acquisition managers, free lance writers and editors, literary nonprofit managers, and the like). The second half will involve whole class or small group discussions. Students will complete weekly writing and research assignment that will lead them into each speaker’s field as well as a final portfolio of revised assignments. Note: Students who have completed CW 506 may not take 806 for credit.

807.01 Developing the Novel Tues 7-945pm Dodie Bellamy

This class is a workshop geared toward the early phases of developing a novel. We will approach the novel as an open form with a wide range of possibilities. Though we will work against any set definition of what a novel is or should be, we will look at standard definitions of the novel and at characteristics we expect to see in a novel. Through writing exercises we will further explore some of these characteristics and other issues of style. We will examine how a range of authors set up the beginnings of their novels. Students will write 30 to 50 pages of a novel, and we will critique that work in class. In addition to writing, this course requires a sizeable amount of reading and critiquing.

809.02- 12 Directed Writing for Graduate Students X ARR

CW 809 Directed Writing for Graduate Students: Permission of the instructor is required to take this course; you will be dropped without prior consent of the instructor. The semester before you plan to enroll in Directed Writing, submit a sample of your writing in the instructor’s mailbox along with a note explaining that you want to take their Directed Writing class. Be sure you include your name, address, phone number and e-mail. If the instructor is off campus, the Creative Writing Office will mail your writing sample for you.

809.02 Directed Writing Graduate Students ARR Fiction, Playwriting Michelle Carter

809.03 Directed Writing Graduate Students ARR Fiction Nona Caspers

809.04 Directed Writing Graduate Students ARR Fiction Maxine Chernoff

809.05 Directed Writing Graduate Students ARR Playwriting Roy Conboy

809.06 Directed Writing Graduate Students ARR Poetry Stacy Doris

809.07 Directed Writing Graduate Students ARR Poetry Camille Dungy

809.08 Directed Writing Graduate Students ARR Fiction Bob Glück

809.09 Directed Writing Graduate Students ARR Poetry Paul Hoover

809.10 Directed Writing Graduate Students ARR Poetry Dan Langton

809.11 Directed Writing Graduate Students ARR Poetry Toni Mirosevich

809.12 Directed Writing Graduate Students ARR Fiction Peter Orner

810.02 Seminar-Craft of Poetry Tues 7-945pm Stacy Doris

We will explore the relations between poetry and memory, principally by committing poems to memory each week. We will experiment with using memory in our own approaches to poetic composition, and with using audio recording in relation to learning, developing and generating work from memory. We’ll keep and compare process notes and observations on the poems from the perspective of recitation. We may look into some techniques of (poetry) memorization as discussed by (Ignatius Loyola, Frances Yeats, A. B. Lord and Milman Parry, others) and the place of memory in culture today. The materials for memorization will range though the history of primarily English- language poetry to the present, with some possible excursions into
other languages traditions. Students will have input into constituting individual bodies of work to memorize.

810.04 Style in Fiction Mon 1210-255 pm Peter Orner

Faulkner: Before, During, After. We will be looking closely at certain of William Faulkner's novels, stories, and essays (As I Lay Dying, The Unvanquished, Sound and the Fury, Go Down Moses, "Dry September" "That Evening Sun" The Nobel Lecture), as well as reading those writers who influenced (Melville, Dickens) and were influenced by Faulkner (Ellison, Welty, Marquez, W.G. Sebald, McCarthy). An intensive reading process course for those with a particular interest in Faulkner's work.

814.01 Contemporary World Poetry Tues 1235-320pm Paul Hoover

820.01 Writers on Writing X Mon 7-945pm Truong Tran

Faculty and visiting writers representing a wide range of styles and subjects will visit the class to read and discuss their writing. Students will respond to the readings and visits on an ongoing basis through critical essays and creative writing exercises. Paired with CW 520. Note: this course can be used to fulfill 3 units of the CW 810 (creative process) requirement. It can only be taken once for credit. Students who have completed CW 520 may not take CW 820 for credit.

840.01 FOURTEEN HILLS Literary Magazine X Wed 7-945pm Matthew Davison

Through assigned reading on different aspects of American literary magazines, students will get an insider's view of the life of the magazine editor, and the particular challenges the job of editor entails. In addition, students will learn how to read and discuss work for the magazine (as differs from discussing work in a workshop), and learn the very marketable skills of double-proofing, copyediting, and proofreading. The students will then apply on a practical level the skills they have learned to the production of Fourteen Hills, taking part in discussions of material to be published, editing the text of the magazine, and constituting the on-campus sales force. It is hoped that by the end of the semester the students of the class will have gained a new understanding--as people applying for jobs in the field of publishing, as writers submitting their work to magazine editors, and as appreciative (and informed) readers of the literary magazine.

850.01 Poetry Center Workshop Thurs 335-620pm Steve Dickison

853.01 M.F.A. Workshop in Fiction # Tues 7-945pm Peter Orner

853.02 M.F.A. Workshop in Fiction # Mon 410-655pm Bob Gluck

A writing workshop in which students will be expected to concentrate on revision of fiction, on bringing work to a finished, publishable state. The course will emphasize the short story.

854.02 M.F.A. Workshop in Poetry # Mon 7-945pm Stacy Doris

Students will be expected to concentrate on revision of poetry, on bringing work to a finished, publishable state.

856.01 MFA Workshop in Short Plays # Wed 7-945pm Roy Conboy

In this course we’ll explore plays and playwriting as an active form of theater. We’ll shrink the distance between the written word and the acted word by putting the work we create directly on its feet. In this way we’ll be able to turn our attention not only to the solitary wiring experience, but also to the writer’s experience in the artistic interactions that bring plays to theatrical life. We’ll concentrate on short plays and scenes in order to focus our attention on the fundamental building blocks of plays and the theatrical experience; and we’ll work in an improvisational and free-wheeling atmosphere that is conducive to risk-taking and stylistic experimentation. While more of our work will be created and presented in the privacy of the workshop, we’ll also look for opportunities to present showcases of our work in public.

860.01 Teaching Creative Writing X, % Mon & Wed 1210-255pm Michelle Carter

(860 section 1 with Michelle Carter meets first ten weeks only)

860.02 Teaching Creative Writing X Wed 410-655pm Toni Mirosevich

This course introduces advanced graduate students to the art and practice of teaching creative writing. Creative Writing 301 will serve as our prototype. We’ll be reading essays and interviews, discussing aspects of creative writing pedagogy, and performing a variety of rigorous teaching activities. We’ll discuss giving useful feedback for student writers; designing effective writing assignments; use of texts and craft models; strategies for leading discussions of literary works and student works-in-progress. Students will also prepare and execute mini-lectures on a range of craft and process topics, and develop a detailed syllabus for an introductory creative writing course.

875.01 Community Projects in Literature X Thurs 7-945pm Paul Hoover

Take this course if you want to do an internship. Students are placed in work positions in community literary organizations such as Intersection for the Arts, City Arts and Lectures, Mercury House, and other centers so that they acquire practical knowledge of writing in the larger social context. May be repeated once for up to 6 units of credit.

880.01 Writing into Dailyness X # Tues 410-655pm Nona Caspers

"What is the everyday? In appearance, it is the insignificant and the banal, nothing more modest. The unrecognized-the everyday-still has some surprises in store for us." --Henri LeFebvre
In this process course, we will investigate writers and cultural thinkers who have focused on the soul and the drama in the everyday. We will closely read books and excerpts from authors such as Christopher
Isherwood (A Single Man); Lydia Davis (Almost No Memory and Varieties of Disturbance); Grace Paley (Collection of Stories); Alicia Partnoy (The Little Schoolhouse). Other authors may include Frank O'Hara, Charles Mungoshi, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Natalya Baranskaya. We will look at excerpts of M. Merleau
Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception and Henri LeFebvre's Toward a Leftist Cultural Politics. We will inform our view of dailyness with Hopi writings and writings of Mongolian herdsmen. We will brush our
teeth and dust our hair. We will ask questions: How does the day as container create a frame and inform tone, texture, voice, movement, and language? How do we as writers learn to see the extraordinariness
in ordinariness? Be prepared for writing assignments and perceptual experiments intended to stir up our perspectives of the everyday-plenty of room for imagination and stumbling.

880.02 Writing Public Context # % Wed 410-1030pm Michelle Carter

In this MFA process seminar for writers in all genres, we'll explore resonances between the "private" and the "public"--inner world and outer, familiar and unfamiliar, accessible and inaccessible, known and unknown. We'll target material outside the province of literal personal history, seeking out worlds and subjects that lure us for reasons we may not fully understand ("The other who paints my portrait"--Matthew Goulish.) Through reading and writing assignments, we'll consider strategies for engaging and questioning the material we collect, remaining alert to resonances in our own lives, personalities, and personal histories. Each class member will create a Contact Project grounded in one of the following contexts: an organization of special interest; a current or historical event or person of compelling interest; a nonliterary discipline of compelling interest; a collaboration with a creative practitioner working in a non-literary field; or one of several other options. Weekly writing assignments will not be genre-specific: you'll be asked in each case merely to catch a generative impulse and follow wherever it leads. The class will meet on Wednesdays for only ten weeks, from 4:10pm until as late as 10:45 pm. Typically, we'll assemble in the classroom for two hours, break for travel, and reconvene at a previously undisclosed location.

880.03 Disc. & Dev.: Creative Non-Fiction # Tues 1235-320pm Toni Mirosevich

"We don't see what we see; we see what we are." --Anais Nin

In this M.F.A. creative process course we will read and discuss contemporary writers who--through various creative processes of discovery and development--explore the world of fictionalized nonfiction. We will

focus on autobiographical work, the true or semi-true story that "…shuttles between the world of fact and possibility" (Mimi Schwartz). We will experiment with stretching the truth, examining the role of research in writing creative nonfiction, and explore finding a balance between the use of objective facts and subjective takes. Authors whose works we'll read and discuss will include W.G. Sebald, Jamaica Kincaid, Michael Ondaatje, Anchee Min, Agnes Martin, Haruki Murakami, Joan Didion, Alain de Botton, and others.

881.01 Individual Vision: Poetry # Mon 410-655pm Camille Dungy

Once Upon a Time: Contemporary American Poets and History

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” said William Faulkner. How might contemporary American poets incorporate personal and collective histories in their work? Found text, appropriated materials, persona, revisionary thought, narrative series, formal experimentation: all of these are paths through which poets have managed to refresh what might otherwise be old news. Through close readings and creative assignments, we will access tools that might prove useful for your own work. Course texts will include TheAfflicted Girls, Nicole Cooley; Dancing in Odessa, Ilya Kaminski; Native Guard, Natasha Trethewey; Bandit Letters, Sarah Messer; and others.

882.01 Architectonics of Plays # Mon 7-945pm Brian Thorstenson

Architectonics: Of or pertaining to construction. In this MFA Creative Process course we delve into the "construction" of a variety of contemporary plays. How does the theme of a play help determine its construction? What are the organizing images the playwright is employing? What is the relationship, the dialogue, between the themes and images and the architecture of the play? We'll start with a discussion of traditional dramatic structure and then cast our net in ever widening circles looking at science, memory, music, poetry and architecture as possible structural examples. The course is limited to 11 with preference given to MFA playwriting students.

893 Written M.A. Creative Project (3 units)

This is not a course as such, it is the 3 units you sign up for when you are working on your thesis, which may be a collection of short stories, a group of poems, a novel or a play. Prerequisite: advancement to M.A. candidacy in English: Creative Writing. Your Graduate Approved Program (GAP) must be on file in the Graduate Division Office the semester before registration, along with a Culminating Experience Proposal form signed by the first and second readers you select to work with you on your thesis. Registration is with a Permit and a schedule Number you get from your first reader, which you use to add online or via touchtone, during the first two weeks of the semester or by Add Form, signed by your first reader, which form you submit to the Registrar’s. You must add this course or your will not receive credit for your thesis.

893 Written M.F.A. Creative Work (6 units)

M.F.A. students get 6 units for working on their thesis, which is expected to be a book length collection of short stories, or poems, or a novel or play of publishable quality. Prerequisite: advancement to M.F.A. candidacy in Creative Writing. Your Graduate Approved Program (GAP) must be on file in the Graduate Division Office the semester before registration, along with a Culminating Experience Proposal form signed by the first and second readers you select to work with you on your thesis. Registration is with a Permit and a schedule Number you get from your first reader, which you use to add online or via touchtone, during the first two weeks of the semester or by Add Form, signed by your first reader, which form you submit to the Registrar’s. You must add this course or your will not receive credit for your thesis.

899 Special Study

Prerequisite: consent of instructor and a 3.25 GPA. A special study is planned, developed, and completed under the direction of a faculty member. The course may be taken for one, two, or three units. Enrollment is done through the Creative Writing Department office using an Individual Study Petition, and a copy of your SFSU transcript. Individual Study Petitions are available in the Creative Writing department office, and must be signed by the instructor you will be working with, an advisor, and the department chair. After you submit the form, your instructor will give you the schedule and permit numbers to add the course.