Fiction-Writing: States of Mind

This course invites creative writers to explore how subjectivity can be evoked in fiction––that is, how consciousness finds distinctive utterance in a story. Primary readings will feature short fiction by such authors as Conrad Aiken, Samuel Beckett, Raymond Carver, Willa Cather, Ted Hughes, Doris Lessing, Clarice Lispector, Vladimir Nabokov, Leo Tolstoy, John Updike, and Virginia Woolf, as well as a novel by Lawrence Shainberg. Supplementary readings will include inquiries into neuropsychology and philosophy of mind by such authors as William James, Oliver Sacks, Daniel Schacter, and John Searle. Students will experiment with strategies for evoking mindscape in one short sketch and two longer stories that will undergo serial revision.

The course will be conducted as a seminar for the first seven weeks, during which syllabus readings will be explored in depth and notions of craft developed from the sampler of student-generated sketches. The remainder of the term will be devoted to workshop, in which student stories will be our primary texts.

Students who elect this class should be energized by the prospect of public reading, writing, and response. Those who shrink from class participation and/or courteous critical engagement of their writing are advised to reconsider their interest in this course. Similarly, students whose consistent attendance from 1:30 to 4:00 P.M. on Fridays may be compromised by other activities are regretfully discouraged from applying.

Prerequisite:
No prior courses in creative writing are required. Please submit a 2-to-5-page sample of creative prose, via hard copy or email Word attachment (to sbenston@haverford.edu), by January 3, 2005. Whether you send a hard copy or an attachment, please be sure to put your name and preferred email address at the top of the document. I’ll be in touch with you by email on January 14, 2005, right before the start of spring term.

Class enrollment is limited to 15.