Class Description
Thinking about applying for an MFA? Feeling ready to publish? In this intensive forum, you will polish and/or complete at least two short works of fiction by refining craft elements such as narrative point of view, story arc, dialogue, specificity of language, openings, and good sentence-making. The class will consist primarily of extensive peer workshop along with short lectures. We’ll also examine published short fiction that speaks to specific issues raised in students' work or that illustrates a novel approach to an element of craft. Authors discussed in class will range from older masters such as Donald Barthelme, James Baldwin, Walter Mosely, and Alice Munro to newer voices such as Robert Lopez, Kelly Link, Blake Butler, and Helen Oyeyemi.
The course will be open to students working on short fiction and flash fiction; novel chapters will be discouraged. You will be in the company of other serious writers and an experienced instructor dedicated to providing comprehensive and insightful feedback. Only students who have taken previous fiction workshops at GrubStreet or elsewhere should apply. Space is limited to 9 students in order to foster a more rigorous and intense learning experience.
*The application deadline for this class has passed. Applicants will be notified of our decisions by Friday, September 4th.
Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
For more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. After registering, a yellow Resources tab will appear in this section containing a link to join class. Please note that you will need to be logged into view the Resources tab.
Zoom Participation:
In our experience, the intimate nature of a writing workshop benefits from on-camera participation. Students are of course welcome to turn their camera off whenever they need to, but it is a community norm for cameras to be on most of the time. You can learn more about using Zoom here.
Zoom Accessibility:
You can enable closed captioning at any time during the meeting by clicking the CC button at the bottom of the screen. If you'd like to access the transcript after class, please make sure to let your instructor ahead of time that you'd like a copy.