The EMU creative writing program offers a number of unique writing workshops and seminars at the undergraduate and graduate level under the prefix CRTW.
Creative Nonfiction - Think memoir, gonzo, biography, and personal essay--the kind you want to and have to write because there's no other way to say what you're trying to say. This workshop concerns itself with alternative forms of making meaning out of the world; using the techniques of fiction, students make compelling stories out of real life. [back to list]
Experimental Prose - A writing workshop and reading discussion group that produces, interrogates, and theorizes creative prose, new approaches to fiction, and "mixed" genres. The goals of the course include: adding new techniques and processes to existing writing strategies, developing flexibility in prose and narrative writing, and working with non/narrative as an aspect of prose and creative essay writing. Assigned texts reflect the vivid intersection between cultural contexts for innovation, writing method, and technique. [back to list]
Fiction - This is a workshop in literary fiction. Student work is the soul and subject of this course, which operates on the typical creative writing workshop model in which students present their work to the group for critique. Significant writing, reading, and participation are required. Genre fiction must transcend its genre to find a place in this workshop. [back to list]
Interactive Narrative (also listed as Hypermedia or Hypertext Fiction) - This workshop focuses on writing intended for screens and not for the page. In class we'll read and emulate hypertext fiction and poetry, video games, interactive nonfiction, video art, etc. The class does not stipulate techno-prerequisites, but those taking the course should be aware that you will spend a significant amount of time learning technologies such as HTML, Javascript, Macromedia Flash, Adobe Photoshop, iMovie, Garage Band, and others. The goal of the class, however, is to make compelling narratives the likes of which the world has never read before. Collaborative projects are encouraged. [back to list]
The Lyric Essay - Find out: What is gained by foregrounding a lyric sensibility within a narrative or expository tradition? How might poetic, dramatic, and lyric strategies shape the essay? How might you balance necessary fact with a sense of wonder and speculation in your writing? The lyric essay is a genre perched at the axis of competing traditions-the lyric and the essay-thus troubling both. It is as interested in asking questions as it is in answering them, maybe more so. In this class we will read and discuss examples of the lyric essay-focusing mostly on structure and technique-in the service of writing your own. [back to list]
Method, Theory, and Practice - Assigned texts will provide a ground for reflecting upon innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to genre, writing process, and the significance of method within the overall context of a writer's practice. Workshop discussions of student writing will draw from assigned readings with the goal of expanding the understanding of contexts in which we write and of creating a meaningful bridge between the graduate classroom and the contemporary literary field. [back to list]
Mixed Media - Mixed Media explores an expansive view of language that focuses on the rich interplay and overlap of image, text, and materials in the world around us. We'll look at conventional definitions of reading, writing, texts, narrative, and publishing- and reinvent them. We'll examine issues of language, form and meaning in the context of contemporary visual art, artists' books, and graphic novels. This is a hands-on workshop/studio/discussion course that values inventiveness and experimentation. [back to list]
Multiple Media and Text - Students in this studio workshop course utilize mutliple media to create narrative. There are numerous exercises taken from the disciplines of art and creative writing that illustrate methods for understanding the procedure, process, and reading of stories told with multiple media. Past student projects included art books, films, multi-media electronic texts, sound projects, sculpture, performance pieces, graphic novels, and installations of various sorts. Collaborative projects are encouraged. [back to list]
Performance Poetry - We will look at what makes certain forms of poetry effective in performance, what draws us in as readers and listeners/writers. It will look at performance-based work, page-based work and multimedia poetry. The emphasis however will be on workshopping poems brought into class (both performatively and textually).The class may include additional assignments if the professor deems it to be helpful to course development. [back to list]
Performance Writing - An interdisciplinary and cross-genre approach to writing for performance and page-based writing with performative qualities. We will draw from performance theory, performance and visual art, poetics, Poets Theater, and drama literature to generate ideas for creating new works. [back to list]
Poetry - This advanced workshop will focus on intense readings and discussion of student’s work. The class will also survey new first books of American poetry. We will pay particular attention to extending poetic range beyond the short lyric by examining a variety of approaches to your own first manuscripts. We will also investigate your own work as well as published books in terms of thematic cohesion and arrangement of “content.” [back to list]
Poetry and the Body - This course asks students to explore their ideas regarding the body in order to think through and write poetry. Here are some questions we'll ask: What kind of bodies and activities are taboo? What is "the body"? How are bodies marked and what does this marking have to do with writing? Writing experiments will encourage students to become aware of their sensory experiences. This may include keeping a journal, taking photographs, or conducting experiments inspired by theatre and yoga. Readings in contemporary poetry will help students explore relationships between the writing process, sex, food, pleasure, pain, and beyond. Students will have plenty of practice writing and reading poetry, in addition to thinking through the poetry of their peers. Requirements include weekly writing and reading assignments, a midterm, and a final project. [back to list]
Procedure and Process
in Poetry and Painting -This course will focus on methods of generating texts and paintings in which meaning occurs as part of the process of composition. We will explore strategies for producing creative work structured according to systems of thought and expression derived from other disciplines, such as chemistry, music, industrial design, mathematics, textual studies, and computer science. We will practice creative reading and viewing techniques, designed to produce new, original works that expand and enrich the very notions of "reading" and "viewing." Every week students will choose from an experimental procedure in painting or poetry; the final project is collaborative. [back to list]
Sound Poetry - In this advanced workshop we will focus on various dimensions of sound in poetry and sound poetry. We will study poetry as soundscapes, training our attention to acoustic and phonetic aspects of language and speech. We will think about language as music following at least three models: formal (poem as fugue or blues for instance); sonic (Ezra Pound's melopoeia); and thematic (song cycles for instance). We will consider the relationship between text and performance as well as how traditional notions of poetry transformed by current music and technology? The purpose of the course is to introduce you to multiple ways of approaching the relationship between sound and poetry as writer. Our focus is your own creative output, including a final project that will transform at least one of your written poems into a fully aural sound piece. Because writing itself is process-driven, we will experiment both in and out of class with creative procedures and constraints. [back to list]
Steal This Poem:
Poetry and Appropriation - Poetry and Appropriation - Taking to heart Roland Barthes' notion that all writing is rewriting, this workshop will focus on techniques of appropriation in poetry-splicing, sampling, erasure, through-reading, détournement, quoting, collage, montage, and templating. We will discuss approaches, read models, question the ethics, and try our own hands at using various combinations of found texts/images. This advanced workshop will focus on larger projects or collections by students. [back to list]
Writing Environments - An interdisciplinary workshop and reading group that offers a range of approaches to thinking-in-writing about what has become a crucial word, "environment." We will consider perspectives from ecology and the natural environment to site specificity in art and writing practices. [back to list]
'Zines - Explore the diverse world of small self-published magazines (zines). We will examine the intersection of visual and written language, personal vision, creating community, and do-it-yourself culture. Your individual obsessions/passions/interests will fuel the writing, editing, production and publishing of your own zines. [back to list]
