C W 101 1 Introduction to Creative Writing M 4-6:45 p.m. TBD
C W 101 3 Introduction to Creative Writing ONLINE Matthew Davison
C W 101 4 Introduction to Creative Writing ONLINE Matthew Davison
C W 101 6 Introduction to Creative Writing T 12:30-3:15 p.m. Anne Galjour
C W 101 7 Introduction to Creative Writing W 4-5:30 p.m. ONLINE Steve Dickison
This introductory course focuses on the creative writing process of generating material through writing exercises in poetry, fiction, and playwriting. It also examines for craft selected readings of exemplary stories, poems, and plays. Open to all students. CROSS-GENRE COURSE.
C W 301 1 Fundamentals of Creative Writing M 4-6:45 p.m. Junse Kim
Prerequisite: English 114, or equivalent. Priority enrollment given to Eng: Creative Writing; Eng: Ed w/ Creative Writing concentration; and Cinema 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. CROSS-GENRE COURSE.
CW 302 1 Fundamentals Creative Reading ONLINE TH 12:30-2 p.m. Steve Dickison
C W 302 2 Fundamentals Creative Reading M 12:30 – 3:15 p.m. Anne Galjour
Prerequisite: English 114, or equivalent. Enrollment limited to creative writing majors; non-majors admitted with consent of instructor. Students learn to read like writers through lecture-discussion and reading assignments. Submerges the student in literature and asserts the importance of reading to learn craft and art forms of creative writing.
C W 506 1 Business of Creative Writing ONLINE W 7-8:30 p.m. Chanan Tigay
Prerequisites for C W 506: C W 101 or C W 301 with a grade of C or better. Enrollment limited to C W majors; non-majors admitted with consent of instructor. Covers agents, corporate and small publishing houses, E-publishing, markets, publicity, etc. Students write letters to agents/editors, press releases for book tours, and several short papers. (This is a paired course offering. Students who complete the course at one level may not repeat the course at the other level.)
C W 510 1 American Poetics T 12:30-3:15 p.m. Paul Hoover
Prerequisite: C W 301 or C W 101 with a grade of C or better. Examination of the creative process, emphasizing techniques, style, and structure. May be repeated when topics vary. This process course will help students recognize and articulate the concerns of their own writing as well as reading. Beginning with Emerson, Whitman, and Dickinson, the course will survey the development of an American aesthetic in the letters, statements, and poems of Pound and Niedecker; Williams and Ginsberg; Bishop and Moore; Olson and Creeley; Zukofsky and Stein; Hughes, Brooks, and Baraka; Stevens and Ashbery; and multicultural poetics, among others. After examining these and other diverse approaches, students will make their own exploratory statements.
C W 510 2 Investigating Voice W 12:30-3:15 p.m. Joseph Cassara
Prerequisite: C W 301 or C W 101 with a grade of C or better. This process course will focus on the ways that writers of fiction and non-fiction utilize narrative voice on the page. What does it mean when we say that a text is voice-driven? How do writers create a consciousness on the page that feels uniquely its own? We will read short stories, novel excerpts, personal essays, reportage, and criticism with an eye towards style, syntax, and form. We will analyze both the stories being told and the manner in which they are conveyed by analyzing tone, the anatomy of the scene, modes of narration, and the ways details are rendered. Assigned authors include: Maggie Nelson, Eve Babitz, James Baldwin, Hilton Als, Junot Diaz, David Sedaris, Miranda July, Pedro Lemebel, Annie Proulx, Alexander Chee, Roxane Gay, Bryan Washington, among others. Emphasis will be on assigned readings, with some creative assignments. At the end of the semester, students will write a craft analysis essay.
C W 512GW 1 Craft Of Fiction - GWAR ONLINE TH 4-5:30 p.m. Matthew Davison
Prerequisites: C W 301; ENG 114; ENG 214; B.A. majors in ENG, Creative Writing and ENG, Edu. (Creative Writing). 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. Satisfies the General Education GWAR/C WEP requirement. An exploration of how writers translate their vision onto the page. (Emphasis on HOW). Students use the text Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway, along with essays by Michelle Carter and stories from The Pushcart Anthology to learn basic craft elements of fiction, including: precise/concrete detail, active portrayal in scene and summary, effective dialogue (and others). Emphasis is on assigned reading material, but some student work will also be discussed in small groups.
C W 513 1 Craft of Playwriting – GWAR T 4-6:45 p.m. Anne Galjour
Prerequisites: C W 301; ENG 114; ENG 214; B.A. majors in ENG, Creative Writing and ENG, Edu. (Creative Writing). CW 513 GWAR Craft of Playwriting is the study of the principles used in the craft of dramatic writing. Emphasis is placed on various techniques used in writing good dialogue. We also focus on action, character, subtext, conflict, crisis, climax, structure, scene, setting, plot, and story. We will look at the origins of play writing through the study of OEDIPUS by Sophocles, all the way to modern master works by August Wilson, Nilo Cruz, David Mamet, David Henry Hwang, Claire Chaffee, Adam Bock and Annie Baker. Students will write critical essays in response to these playwrights’ use of language, strategies in craft elements, themes, individual voice, and sources of inspiration for their works. In short we will discover for ourselves why these works continue to get produced to this day. Students will learn proper page formatting for playwriting. They will write scenes, monologues and short plays generated from in class and take home writing assignments throughout the entire semester. A minimum of at least 3 revised scenes and/or monologues, 2 revised essays and 1 revised short play will be generated.
C W 600 1 Uses of Personal Experience M 4-6:45 p.m. Donna De La Perriere
Prerequisite: C W 301 or consent of instructor. C W 600, Uses of Personal Experience, blurs genres. We will deepen our practice of incorporating what we see and experience in the world, into our writing. Through the iterative process of freewrites, art exercises, poetry, craft discussions, and readings of published works written by diverse authors, we will hone our skills as writers and, simultaneously, learn to access personal experiences with a sense of agency, and with the necessary 'distance' to be able to write about it. This generative course will provide different tools to help artists more closely observe their surroundings, to write into the micro-universes that shape how our characters (real or imagined) move through the world. Ultimately, this course will be useful for writers of all genres who are interested in world-building, in moving their characters on the page, and more deeply understanding and crafting the unique motivations of their characters.
C W 601 1 Work In Progress W 4-6:45 p.m. Donna De La Perriere
Prerequisite: Senior standing in Creative Writing. Enrollment is limited to undergraduate majors in English: Creative Writing and English: Education (Creative Writing). Work In Progress is an advanced process course that offers senior creative writing majors the opportunity to delve into an extended writing project of their own design. Our emphasis and focus will be on the critical (and exciting) exploratory phase of the writing process. We’ll study and try out a variety of creative practices that writers can use to keep their projects alive, open, and dynamic over the long haul. These practices will also enhance the work of deepening, extending, and re-envisioning our projects. Most writers do their work under the intense pressures of earning a living and in a society that has little sympathy with the long, time-consuming, and deeply eccentric creative process. Yet it is precisely the stimulation and challenge of this rich process that can sustain us as writers over the years. This course will focus on the creative process as it extends past the first burst of inspiration into the longer haul. We’ll do that by reading process essays as well as creative work by poets, essayists, and fiction writers, and through writing practice and class discussion.
C W 602 1 Playwriting W 7-9:45 p.m. Anne Galjour
Priority enrollment given to Eng: Creative Writing, Eng: Ed w/ Creative Writing concentration and Cinema 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.
C W 603 1 Short Story Writing W 12:30-3:15 p.m. Junse Kim
Prerequisites: C W 301; C W 511GW or C W 512GW or C W 513GW. Enrollment limited to creative writing majors; non-majors admitted with consent of instructor. This course will explore different aspects of fiction writing craft by critically analyzing published short stories, as well as fellow students’ creative writing. Students will then apply and hone these craft concepts through in-class writing exercises and homework assignments, transforming conceptual knowledge of craft into “how to” applicable knowledge. Each student will then explore their creative process and consider how it can include critical thinking, consciously applying craft in three written assignments and a complete short story.
C W 609 Directed Writing BA Student By Arrangement
Permission of the instructor is required to take this course; you will be dropped without prior consent of the instructor. By the middle of 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 on leave, please email your writing sample to them. Class times to be directly arranged with the instructor.
C W 609 1 Directed Writing BA Students ARR Michael David Lukas
C W 609 2 Directed Writing BA Students ARR Michelle Carter
C W 609 3 Directed Writing BA Students ARR Chanan Tigay
C W 609 4 Directed Writing BA Students ARR Maxine Chernoff
C W 609 5 Directed Writing BA Students ARR Paul Hoover
C W 609 6 Directed Writing BA Students ARR Donna DeLaPerriere
C W 609 7 Directed Writing BA Students ARR Andrew Joron
C W 609 8 Directed Writing BA Students ARR Nona Caspers
C W 640 1 Transfer Literary Magazine ONLINE T 4-6:45 p.m. Dodie Bellamy
Prerequisite: C W 301; C W 302; C W 511GW or C W 512GW or C W 513GW; or consent of instructor. Join the staff of Transfer, the literary magazine of the Creative Writing Department, established in 1950, and one of the longest-running student literary magazines in the US. The course is designed to give you a working taste of what it takes to put out a literary magazine (including critical 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. In order to bring Transfer into the 21st Century, in addition to assisting the editors publish the print magazine, class members will create, design, and edit an accompanying webzine, where they will publish their own work and works of others. If you’re interested in being an editor of Transfer, at the end of the semester you will be given the opportunity to apply for an editor position for the next issue. This is a process course (not a lab) and can be used to fulfill 3 units of the Creative Process requirement. CROSS-GENRE COURSE.
C W 675 1 Community Projects-Literature TH 7-9:45 p.m. Maxine Chernoff
Prerequisite: C W 101 or 301 with a grade of C or better. Community Projects in Literature is an opportunity to gain experience in the fields of publication, teaching and arts administration, which will make valuable additions to your resume. Though each internship will be individually shaped, you will make a commitment of at least six hours a week for the length of the semester to earn three units credit. If you make that commitment, you will be expected to keep it. The instructor will approve the project and confer with the internship supervisor. Check out our Community Projects in Literature Internships Leads at http://creativewriting.sfsu.edu/internships Fall 2020, the instructor will help students find a project they can do remotely, if necessary—e.g., prison teaching remotely, community online writing projects, etc. May be taken twice for up to 6 units of credit. CROSS-GENRE COURSE.
C W 685 1 Projects in Teaching Creative Writing TBA Michelle Carter
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 an instructional aid, (I.A.) in a specific undergraduate class for 3 units of credit. Email the course instructor the first two weeks of the semester in which you wish to be enrolled in Projects Teaching Creative Writing. Please include all of the following information in your email: your first and last name, your enrollment status (major; undergraduate status), your sfsu id number or sfsu email address, the instructor’s name and class. You will receive an email response with the schedule and permit numbers to use to enroll in this class. CROSS GENRE COURSE. Please contact Michelle Carter, mcarter@sfsu.edu, with any questions.
C W 699 Independent Study By Arrangement
Prerequisite: Consent of instructor and a 3.0 GPA. Upper division students may enroll in a course of Independent Study under the supervision of a member of the Creative Writing department, with whom the course is planned, developed, and completed. This course may be taken for one, two, or three units. No priority enrollment; enrollment is by petition, and a copy of your unofficial SFSU transcript. Petition Individual Study forms are available online http://www.sfsu.edu/~admisrec/reg/formstoc.html under the section titled Records and Registration Forms, choose Independent Study (699, 899). This form must be signed by the instructor you will be working with, and the department chair. Your instructor will give you the schedule and permit numbers to add the course during the first week of the semester.
Graduate Classes
Note: Preference in all Creative Writing graduate courses will be given to students admitted to either the M.A. or the M.F.A. programs in Creative Writing. Preference in M.F.A. level courses will be given to students admitted to the M.F.A. program. Priority in M.A. and M.F.A. writing workshops and creative process courses will be given to students admitted in the genre of the course. Other Creative Writing M.A./M.F.A. students may enroll in these courses only with the permission of the instructor.
C W 785 Graduate Projects in the Teaching of Creative Writing ARR Michelle Carter
Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. Consent of Instructor; 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 (GIA) in the course for 3 units of credit. Email the Creative Writing Department the first two weeks of the semester in which you wish to be enrolled in Projects Teaching Creative Writing. Please include all of the following information in your email: your first and last name, your enrollment status (major and graduate program), the instructor’s name and class. You will receive an email response with the schedule and permit numbers to use to enroll in this class. CROSS-GENRE COURSE.
C W 803 1 Advanced Short Story Writing W 4-6:45 p.m. Michael David Lukas
Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. Priority enrollment given to graduate Creative Writing fiction students; open to Creative Writing students in other genres only on a space available basis, to be determined at the first class meeting. An advanced short story writing course taught in a workshop setting. There will be an emphasis on developing critical thinking skills from the perspective of a writer and the conscious application of narrative craft for the purpose of fulfilling one’s artistic intent.
C W 806 1 Business of Creative Writing ONLINE W 7-8:30 p.m. Chanan Tigay
Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. 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. 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/or research assignment the week before each presentation to lead you into the speaker’s field.
C W 808 1 Novel Writing M 4-6:45 p.m. May-lee Chai
Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. In this class we'll be exploring multiple ways to put together a novel, reading and analyzing works by established and emerging authors, with exercises for students to explore ways that they might want to choose to organize their own long-form creative works. We'll also be meeting with several authors so that students may ask them directly about their own creative process and paths to publication. Novels may include works by Joseph Cassara, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, C Pam Zhang, among others. Students will also have an opportunity to share and receive feedback on their own works-in-progress.
C W 809 Directed Writing for Graduate Students By Arrangement
Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. 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 email. If the instructor is on leave, please email your writing sample to her or him. C W 809 1 Directed Writing For Grad Students ARR Michael David Lukas
C W 809 2 Directed Writing For Grad Students ARR Michelle Carter
C W 809 3 Directed Writing For Grad Students ARR Chanan Tigay
C W 809 4 Directed Writing For Grad Students ARR Maxine Chernoff
C W 809 5 Directed Writing For Grad Students ARR Paul Hoover
C W 809 6 Directed Writing For Grad Students ARR Donna DeLaPerriere
C W 809 7 Directed Writing For Grad Students ARR Andrew Joron
C W 809 8 Directed Writing For Grad Students ARR Nona Caspers
C W 810 2 The Novella M 12:30-3:15 p.m Maxine Chernoff
Prerequisite: Classified graduate status in creative writing or consent of instructor. This course will examine seven novellas and include work by Muriel Spark, Roberto Bolano, Octavia Butler, Jane Smiley, Michael Ondaatje, Sigrid Nunez, and Rachel Ingalls, as well as an opportunity to select a group novella presentation. Students will respond to generative exercises and write 7-10 pages of a novella due late in the semester.
C W 840 1 14 Hills Literary Magazine TH 4-6:45 p.m Dodie Bellamy
Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. Fourteen Hills is a working small press and literary journals as well as a course. Each year we publish two issues of Fourteen Hills: the SFSU Review, a nationally recognized literary print magazine, as well as a chapbook. We also curate and participate in readings and events around the Bay Area, publish author interviews, book reviews, and craft essays on our blog, run a competitive national poetry contest, and work together to promote, distribute, and sell our books and magazines. Fourteen Hills is run entirely by students with support from a Faculty Advisor.
The course is designed to give students an opportunity to observe and participate in many aspects of running a literary magazine, from editorial decisions to distribution logistics, from public relations and event planning to selecting issue artwork and conducting author interviews. Students in the class serve as staff for the journal, working closely with the editors to consider and evaluate work for publication in the upcoming issue as well as learning about copy editing, visual art selection, cover design, sales, and promotion.
Please contact Faculty Advisor Dodie Bellamy at dbellamy@sfsu.edu for more information, and/or to get a permit code. CROSS GENRE COURSE.
C W 852 1 MFA Workshop in Creative Nonfiction ONLINE W 12:30-2 p.m. Chanan Tigay
Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in M.F.A. Creative Writing. M.F.A. course, priority given to M.F.A. students; open to M.A. students only on a space available basis, to be determined at first class meeting. In this workshop, we are going to explore the exciting possibilities of the growing genre of creative nonfiction. We will be reading works by established and emerging authors to examine different forms of CNF from lyric essays to literary journalism and narrative nonfiction to personal essays and memoir to exciting hybrid forms from around the world. Students will turn in examples of their own creative nonfiction for feedback and will have opportunities to try new forms and approaches in short classroom writing exercises.
C W 853 1 MFA Workshop in Fiction TH 4-6:45 p.m. Joseph Cassara
Prerequisite: Classified graduate status in the M.F.A. in Creative Writing or consent of instructor. In this course, you will delve into your fiction, explore and hone your voice, and take large, daring leaps toward your most cherished goals as a writer. We’ll turn close attention to each student’s manuscript in an atmosphere of aesthetic rigor and mutual support. We’ll pay attention to a range of factors at play, including characterization, plot, point of view, developing and sustaining narrative tension, internal/external conflict, evocation of setting, treatment of time, and the range of possibilities for dialogue, theme, structure, imagery, voice, and style. As a springboard for discussion, and to fill our wells, we’ll also read a few short stories and novel excerpts, with an eye toward strategies relevant to the writing of all fiction. You are encouraged to experiment, explore, and be open to inspiration and the sparking of ideas. May be repeated for a total of 18 units.
C W 854 1 MFA Workshop In Poetry M 7-9:45 p.m. Andrew Joron
Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in M.F.A Creative Writing; open to M.A. Creative Writing students on a space available basis. A poem instigates a revolution in language, a miracle in words. How do poets bring about such transformations? Students will explore, through assigned readings and their own work, various ways of creating and destroying the very substance of language in order to make poetry happen. Readings will focus on manifestos and prose statements on poetics by innovative poets, emphasizing poetry as a radical act of imagination.
C W 859 1 Practicum In Teaching M 4-6:45 p.m. Michelle Carter
Students working for the first time as Graduate Instructional Aides in undergraduate Creative Writing courses are required to take this Practicum course concurrent with their teaching semester. Students meet as a group once every three weeks and post teaching journals and case studies on iLearn on a weekly basis. This course provides pedagogical grounding for pragmatic classroom teaching work and offers students a structured forum in which to discuss their teaching under the supervision of an experienced teacher and in collaboration with other Graduate Instructional Aides. Open to both M.A. and M.F.A. Creative Writing students. Undergraduates accepted by special permission.
C W 860 1 Teaching Creative Writing ONLINE T 12:30-2 p.m. Matthew Davison
Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. 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. CROSS GENRE COURSE.
C W 866 1 Craft of Translation T 2:30-3:30 p.m. Carolina De Robertis
Prerequisite: Classified graduate status in creative writing or consent of instructor. Literary translation is an exquisite training ground for creative writers of all genres; in this class, you are invited to intensify your love affair with language, and your capacity to wield it with precision and power. We will delve into the rich, nuanced, ever-evolving world of literary translation—which is a creative act of its own, one that draws not only one’s knowledge of language, but on one’s sensitivity to its music, aesthetics, connotations, and cultural layers. To unfurl these themes, we will engage in comparative translation, taking a tour of international literature and the vast range of choices made by translators, while developing our own unique philosophies of what it means to carry text from one language into another, and how to do it. A core component of this class will be your own original work as a translator, and participation in workshops where the rubber meets the road. Fluency in the language you’ll be translating from is wonderful, but not required.
C W 875 1 Community Projects-Literature TH 7-9:45 p.m. Maxine Chernoff
Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing in Creative Writing. Community Projects in Literature is an opportunity to gain experience in the fields of publication, teaching and arts administration, which will make valuable additions to your resume. Though each internship will be individually shaped, you will make a commitment of at least six hours a week for the length of the semester to earn three units credit. If you make that commitment, you will be expected to keep it. The instructor will approve the project and confer with the internship supervisor. Check out our Community Projects in Literature Internships Leads at http://creativewriting.sfsu.edu/internships May be taken twice for up to 6 units of credit. CROSS-GENRE COURSE.
C W 880 1 Voices within Voices: Interiority and Polyphony W 12:30–3:15 p.m. Michael David Lukas
Prerequisite: Classified graduate status in M.F.A. in Creative Writing or consent of instructor. Writers often speak about "voice" in quasi-mystical terms. And with good reason. Voice is what grabs you and makes you keep reading when you should be sleeping or eating or walking the dog. But how does voice actually work? What are its various components and how can we put them to use in our own writing? In this multidisciplinary course, we will examine two fundamental concepts related to voice, interiority and polyphony. Reading work by authors such as Mohsin Hamid, Jennifer Egan, Zadie Smith, Sigrid Nunez, and Jesmyn Ward alongside craft essays and excerpts from literary theory, we will dig into a wide variety of voices, looking at how they work, and how we can best craft our own.
C W 880 3 Art of Subtext in Fiction T 7–9:45 p.m. Carolina De Robertis
Prerequisite: Restricted to graduate student in the M.F.A. in Creative Writing or consent of instructor. May be repeated for a total of 18 units when topics vary. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines subtext as “implicit or metaphorical meaning (as of literary text).” Subtext is what hums and breathes between the lines, into the white space, under the surface of your creative work, giving your fictions resonance, so they can haunt, probe, lift, sing. Whether through style, metaphor, symbols, allusions, structural approaches, or any other narrative technique, we are always making meaning in more ways than one. In this class, we’ll read fictions together with an eye toward how a dazzling range of writers wield subtext to bring power to their work, and to speak what can’t be spoken. As always, we’ll use these readings as a springboard for inspiration and our own creative work. We’ll focus specifically on Latin American and Latinx literary traditions, including works by Juan Rulfo, Clarice Lispector, Roberto Bolaño, Silvina Ocampo, Helena María Viramontes, Kali Fajardo-Anstine, and many more. We will not seek definitive answers, as that’s not what Fiction writers do; rather, our exhilarating task is not to answer questions, but to explore them—to dive into them and swim through them, letting them carry us, like currents, toward new realms and new creations.
C W 880 4 Discovery & Development T 4-6:45 p.m. or Online May-lee Chai
Prerequisite: Restricted to graduate student in the M.F.A. in Creative Writing or consent of instructor. May be repeated for a total of 18 units when topics vary. In this multi-genre class we'll be looking at various ways to develop an idea into a creative work of literature. We'll read published works in different genres and talk with both established and emerging authors to see how they discovered the form that they felt was the right one to develop their inspiration. We will also examine works that began in one genre but ultimately become another: for example, poems that are springboards to a memoir or a novel, an essay that develops into a book-length narrative, a short story that ultimately develops into a novel or vice versa, or an idea that needs to cross genres in new and exciting ways. Students will have multiple opportunities to experiment with form and genre with their own writing. We will be reading works by new and established authors, which may include Marcello Hernandez Castillo, Marguerite Duras, David Gessner, Valeria Luiselli, Haruki Murakami, Luis Alberto Urrea, Charles Yu, and C Pam Zhang, among others.
C W 881 1 Poets and Their Thinkers T 4-6:45 p.m. Andrew Joron
Prerequisite: Classified graduate standing MFA C W or consent of instructor. How do ideas, myths, and worldviews influence the creative process? In this course, students will examine this influence in the works of contemporary poets, and open their own writing process to the ideas of inspiring thinkers. The assigned readings will present famous encounters between poets and philosophers—Joanne Kyger and Descartes, Paul Celan and Heidegger—as well as poets' use of myth, politics, science, religion, drugs, and the human body for the purpose of poetic ideation. These readings will provide points of departure for students' own creative work.
C W 882 2 Contemporary American Playwrights W 4-6:45 p.m. Michelle Carter
Prerequisite: Classified graduate status in the M.F.A. in Creative Writing or consent of instructor. In this creative process course, we'll read and view plays by contemporary American playwrights representing a diverse range of voices and forms. Throughout the semester, students will experiment with writing assignments and creative exercises springing from works under discussion. We'll also explore generative methodologies developed by some of the country's most beloved teaching playwrights. Writers in all genres welcome. Playwrights under study will include Will Eno, Young Jean Lee, Quiara Alegria Hudes, Annie Baker, Jeremy O. Harris, Luis Alfaro, Chay Yew, Jackie Sibbles Drury, Ayad Akhtar, Taylor Mac, Christopher Shinn, Annie Baker, Will Arbery, Charles Mee Jr., Lucas Hnath, Martyna Majok, Sheila Callaghan, Anne Washburn, Christopher Chen, Jorge Cortinas, Samuel D. Hunter, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Nilo Cruz, and others.
C W 893 Written M.A. Creative Project (3 units) By Arrangement
Prerequisite: advancement to M.A. candidacy in English: Creative Writing. Advancement To Candidacy (ATC) and Culminating Experience Proposal forms must be on file in the Division of Graduate Studies the semester before registration. These 3 units M.A. students sign up for while working on the culminating experience/thesis/written creative project, which may be a collection of short stories, a group of poems, a novel or a play. To enroll: contact your thesis/written creative work committee chair the first week of the semester for the schedule and permit numbers to add the class. You must enroll in this course or you will not receive credit for your thesis.
C W 893 Written M.F.A. Creative Work (6 units) By Arrangement
Prerequisite: advancement to M.F.A. candidacy in Creative Writing; Advancement To Candidacy (ATC) and Culminating Experience Proposal forms must be on file in the Division of Graduate Studies the semester before registration. These 6 units M.F.A. students sign up for while working on the culminating experience/thesis/written creative project, which is expected to be a book length collection of short stories, or poems, or a novel or a play of publishable quality. Enrollment is by permission number during priority registration/enrollment: you will be emailed the correct class and permission numbers to enroll in your section. You must enroll in this course or you will not receive credit for your thesis.
C W 899 Independent Study By Arrangement
Prerequisite: consent of instructor and a minimum GPA of 3.25. A special study is planned, developed, and completed under the direction of a faculty member. This course may be taken for one, two, or three units. No priority enrollment; enrollment is by petition, and a copy of your unofficial SF State transcript. Petition Individual Study forms are available online on the registrar's website (699, 899). This form must be signed by the instructor you will be working with, and brought with an unofficial transcript for the department chair signature. Your instructor will give you the schedule and permit numbers to add the course during the first week of the semester.