INTRODUCTORY WORKSHOPS
This popular introductory workshop offers an exciting introduction to the basic elements of poetry and fiction, with in-class writing, take-home reading and writing assignments, and substantive discussions of craft. The course is structured as a workshop, which means that students receive feedback from their instructor and their fellow writers in a roundtable setting, and should be prepared to offer their classmates responses to their work. 4 points.
CRWRI-UA.815 Creative Writing: Introduction to Fiction & Poetry
Section 001, Mon/Wed: 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM, Jasmin Sandelson Provisional Syllabus
Section 002, Tues/Thurs 9:30am-10:45am, Ron Huett Provisional Syllabus
Section 003, Mon/Wed: 8 AM - 9:15 AM, Christopher Whitehead Provisional Syllabus
Section 004, Mon/Wed 9:30am-10:45am, Gustavo Aguiar Provisional Syllabus
Section 005, Mon/Wed 2pm-3:15pm, Sarah Lieberman Provisional Syllabus
Section 006, Tues/Thurs 11am-12:15pm, Christine Marella Provisional Syllabus
Section 007, Tues/Thurs: 12:30 PM - 1:45 PM, Eddy Kosik Provisional Syllabus
Section 008, Mon/Wed 8am-9:15am, Namkyu Oh Provisional Syllabus
Section 009, Mon/Wed 3:30pm-4:45pm, Raphael/le Linden Provisional Syllabus
Section 010, Tues/Thurs: 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM, Matthew Tuckner Provisional Syllabus
Section 011, Mon/Wed 2pm-3:15pm, Jonathan Perry Provisional Syllabus
Section 012, Tues/Thurs: 12:30 PM - 1:45 PM, Margaret Wright Provisional Syllabus
Section 013, Tues/Thurs 8am-9:15am, Blake Levario Provisional Syllabus
Section 014, Mon/Wed 9:30am-10:45am, Emma Bushmann Provisional Syllabus
Section 015, Tues/Thurs 3:30pm-4:45pm, Casey Leeds Provisional Syllabus
Section 016, Mon/Wed: 2 PM - 3:15 PM, Michelle Butcher Provisional Syllabus
Section 017, Mon/Wed: 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM, Abby Mengesha Provisional Syllabus
Section 018, Mon/Wed: 4:55 PM- 6:10 PM, Ash Sanders Provisional Syllabus
Section 019, Tues/Thurs 11am-12:15pm, DeeSoul Carson Provisional Syllabus
Section 020,Tues/Thurs: 8:00 AM - 9:15 AM, Bailey Cohen-Vera Provisional Syllabus
Section 021, Tues/Thurs 8am-9:15am, Tian Yi Provisional Syllabus
Section 022, Tues/Thurs 9:30am-10:45am, Alan Fang Provisional Syllabus
Section 023, Tues/Thurs 8am-9:15am, Dalia Elhassan Provisional Syllabus
Section 024, Mon/Wed: 8AM - 9:15AM, Amir Hall Provisional Syllabus
Section 025, Mon/Wed 7:45pm-9pm, Jessica Williams Provisional Syllabus
INTERMEDIATE WORKSHOPS Click here for information about the Creative Writing Program's course offerings abroad at NYU's Accra, Buenos Aires, London, and Sydney sites.
The intermediate workshops offer budding prose writers and poets an opportunity to continue their pursuit of writing through workshops that focus on a specific genre. The workshops also integrate in-depth craft discussions and extensive outside reading to deepen students’ understanding of the genre and broaden their knowledge of the evolution of literary forms and techniques.
Prerequisite for fiction: CRWRI-UA 815, OR CRWRI-UA 9815, OR CRWRI-UA.816, OR CRWRI-UA 818/819, OR CRWRI-UA 9818/9819, OR CRWRI-UA 9828/9829, OR CRWRI-UA 860, OR COSEM-UA 118 or equivalent. Prerequisite for poetry: CRWRI-UA 815, OR CRWRI-UA 9815, OR CRWRI-UA.817, OR CRWRI-UA 818/819, OR CRWRI-UA 9818/9819, OR CRWRI-UA 9828/9829, OR CRWRI-UA.870, OR FRSEM-UA 388 or equivalent. Prerequisite for creative nonfiction: CRWRI-UA 815, OR CRWRI-UA 9815, OR CRWRI-UA 818/819, OR CRWRI-UA 9818/9819, OR CRWRI-UA 9828/9829, OR CRWRI-UA 825, OR CRWRI-UA.880 or equivalent. 4 points.
FICTION
CRWRI-UA.816.001 Intermediate Fiction Workshop
Jocelyn Lieu, M 4:55pm-7:40pm
Stories that Matter. Why write fiction? This workshop course starts with the premise that we have stories within us that need to be told. These stories may be seeded by haunting experiences, people, images, moments from our lives, or moments from the news or our communities. They also may proceed from dreamed-to-life narratives unspooling in our imaginations that for us have all the immediacy of a film seen in a surround-sound theater. This course is an exploration of fiction craft with an emphasis on the production of stories that really matter—first to you, the writer, then, because they come from an authentic place in you, your readers. Student writing is our focus; class time also includes discussions of texts by contemporary and modern writers writing in or translated into English. Craft elements studied include the management of point of view, plot, structure, characterization, the handling of time, the use of telling detail to create fictional worlds, and syntax and diction as they contribute to that mysterious thing called voice. We also will look at how writers solicit our suspension of disbelief, whether within the densely referenced mirror-world of socially realistic fiction or the no-holds-barred atmosphere of the surrealist or fabulist narrative. The semester’s work begins with short weekly exploratory assignments, which build toward the drafting and revision of a 15-page story or series of short linked stories. Students interested in experimenting and taking creative risks in service of finding the best genre, form, structure, or voice for stories that matter to them are encouraged to join the course.
CRWRI-UA.816.002 Intermediate Fiction Workshop
Sharon Mesmer, R 3:30pm-6:15pm
Is it possible to write, as novelist Clarice Lispector suggested, both "squalidly and structurally"? I say yes. Both ends of the trajectory are possible ... and necessary, really, in order to produce surprisingly inventive writing. In this workshop, we will explore and exploit the fertile (oftentimes untouched) mud of our imaginations through a series of five writing exercises paired with model texts, each utilizing a different prose form into which even the muddiest, most inchoate and problematic ideas, images and language can be flowed.
CRWRI-UA.816.003 Intermediate Fiction Workshop
Mohammed Naseehu Ali, M 4:55pm-7:40pm
In this intermediate fiction workshop, the primary focus will be on your writing. Most of the class time will be dedicated to discussing your work and exchanging critiques and ideas on how to improve a draft and also your writing skills in general. Through in/out-of-class writing, primary text and assigned readings, class discussions and presentations, we will examine the structure of the short story and the novel, as well as the basic elements of fiction such as characterization, dialogue, plot, theme, and viewpoint. Additionally, we will be taking an in-depth look at form and style, the role of humor in fiction, and lastly, the fundamental grammar and language of fiction writing. The secondary focus of this workshop will be on you, the writer. George Orwell once wrote that, "There are four great motives for writing," which he listed as sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose. In 1980, another writer of lesser fame than Orwell, Arturo Vivante, also wrote: "One writes fiction in order to know." Using the above quotations as springboard for a class symposium, we will be asking ourselves two questions: (1) Why do we write? and (2) Why fiction in particular? During the first two weeks students will be encouraged to carry out a personal analysis of what motivates, inspires, or informs their writing. The goal of this exercise is to assist students in their continued effort to develop an original voice, language, and style that are unique to their personal aesthetics. And finally the fun part: we will discuss the use of eavesdropping as a writing tool. In my opinion, eavesdropping is the surest means for writers to put their fingers on the pulse of their contemporary environment. Some may disagree and may even think of this "art" as unethical. This and other topics will keep us busy and engaged throughout the semester.
CRWRI-UA.816.004 Intermediate Fiction Workshop
Ann Hood, Thurs 4:55pm-7:40pm
Course description forthcoming.
CRWRI-UA.816.005 Intermediate Fiction Workshop
TBA, R 11am-1:45pm
Course description forthcoming.
CRWRI-UA.816.007 Intermediate Fiction Workshop
Eliza Minot, M 7:55pm-10:40pm
This workshop will focus on voice. Through reading one another’s work and thoughtfully responding to it, consistently writing new pages, and absorbing and discussing outside readings, we will attempt to join up with the voice within us that is most effective and most engaging. All writers have their varying issues. While one writer might be struggling with issues surrounding character, another might be hung up on problems with pacing, while someone else is overly lyrical to the point of distraction or is grappling with having absolutely nothing to say. In this workshop we will learn from each other what we, both as writers and as readers, respond to. We will encourage one another to write as freely as possible to get the words on the page, and then, from there, we will hopefully begin to discover where it is we would like to be heading.
CRWRI-UA.816.008 Intermediate Fiction Workshop
Charles Bock, F, 11am-1:45pm
Class is divided into short lectures, exercises, and workshop. Lots of time will be spent on technical stuff, how characters work, the way in which a story develops, language, structure, etc. We'll build from the basics. The first half of the class will be spent with a lecture and then some sort of exercise based on the lecture. Then workshops for the second half of the class. Workshops are structured so every student will comment on a story, and participation is a big part of a class. We care about improving stories and why they work and how they can be improved; we care about supporting our fellow students in their creative ventures and being daring and moving into uncharted narrative territories. There are weekly reading assignments that you are responsible for. When you come out from the other side of this thrilling little amusement park ride, the matter inside your fused together skull is going to have a better understanding of how fiction works. This class is recommended for inspired and motivated students.
POETRY
CRWRI-UA.817.001 Intermediate Poetry Workshop
Matt Rohrer, W 2pm-4:45pm
This course will thrust students headlong into the dark cobwebby interiors of the modern poem. We’ll look closely at how modern poems became modern, looking at several revolutions in thinking about what poems are --- beginning in England in 1798, coming to Walt Whitman’s and Emily Dickinson’s America in the 1850s, stopping in Harlem in the 1920s and ending up online. We’ll look at how modern poems are actually put together, considering such elemental concerns as image, voice, structure, etc. We’ll cover three main themes: the Demotic; The Raw VS the Cooked; and the idea of Language as Material. And we’ll also write our own poems, sometimes with these examples as our models.
CRWRI-UA.817.002 Intermediate Poetry Workshop
Maya C. Popa, W 4:55pm-7:40pm
Course description forthcoming.
CRWRI-UA.817.003 Intermediate Poetry Workshop
Robert Fitterman, T, 3:30pm-6:15pm
Today, contemporary poetry is reaching to articulate its place among a new digital language that is often defined by new media art, net art, and new writing experiments that mirror the language-based technologies of the day. In other words, poetry is advancing to keep up with the times, and these advances occur through many types of expressions, including the innovations of new poetic forms and strategies: e.g. can your texting thread be a poem? can you make a love poem out of online dating site messages? In this class, we will study some of these new poetry strategies and use contemporary and historic models to propel writing experiments, such as: sampling, procedural writing, mixed media, visual (concrete) texts, collaboration, erasure, constraint, etc. The course also requires that you present your writing 2-3 times during the semester, participate in a collaborative project, and turn in a small "book" of your writing at the end of the term.
CRWRI-UA.817.004 Intermediate Poetry Workshop
Jean Gallagher, M, 11:00am-1:45pm
The focus of the workshop will be weekly poems by workshop members. We’ll experiment with a number of ways to shape poems (including, but not limited to, traditional forms), practice rewriting them, keep daily journals (which will include responses to outside readings), listen closely to each other’s work, and provide observations on what we hear. Workshop members will also attend poetry readings or performances. Throughout, we’ll be engaging the generative energies of attention and the pleasurable powers of the shaping imagination.
CRWRI-UA.817.005 Intermediate Poetry Workshop
Geoffrey Nutter, M, 9:30am-12:15pm
Surprising, disorienting, beautiful, lyrical, dream-like, fantastic, difficult, intense—a poem exists in a strange realm of ambiguity and can be all of these things at once. And poets in 14th century England, 10th century China, or 18th century Japan used the same raw materials as poets in 21st century America: dreams, strong or ambivalent emotions, the natural world, experience in its many forms, and language. In this class we will look with fresh eyes at some of the most amazing poems of the past, present, and future, asking not what they mean, but rather how they mean and what they do. We will also discuss the kinds of things that poems are uniquely capable of doing—those things that make poetry exceptional in the world of the creative arts. In other words, we will approach the reading of poems as writers of poems. Focused and rigorous discussions of our fellow students’ poems will further help us hone our craft.
CRWRI-UA.817.005 Intermediate Poetry Workshop
David Eye, T 7:55pm-10:40pm
The Shape of You: Place and Poetic Form In this workshop, we delve into our own places—those we love, those we might be uncomfortable in, even those we are excluded from—to discover their suitable poetic shapes. Is your backyard a sonnet, neatly hemmed in on all sides? What about the inside of your childhood home? Do the lines hold together, or do things fall apart? What sounds or events occur over and over in your apartment building, or on the street, which demand the repetition of a villanelle? Or: do certain environments defy meter and rhyme, requiring the (relative) freedom of a prose poem—or even some newly invented poetic shape? What’s your poetic form? In this class, we’ll study the ways various poems paint emotional and sensory landscapes. You will leave with a working knowledge of poetic forms, and how to bring external inspirations (including works from other artistic media) into your own body of work.
CREATIVE NONFICTION
CRWRI-UA.825.001 Intermediate Creative Nonfiction Workshop
Charles Taylor, R 4:55pm-7:40pm
"I'm frequently asked why I don't write my memoirs," the film critic Pauline Kael said in the piece that closed out her years at The New Yorker. "I think I have." The division between the critical and the personal essay seems to collapse when we allow that both are motivated by sensibility. And that while each start in the personal, each suggests a breadth of concern and features a range of reference that goes beyond the insularity of "I." Through close reading, vigorous class discussion, and writing assignments which we will later workshop together, students will be encouraged to define their own sensibilities and apply them to subjects that are explicitly personal and those not traditionally considered personal. The writers we will read, among them Kael, Jo Ann Beard, George Orwell, Quentin Crisp, Paul Fussell, Greil Marcus, Albert Murray are those who bring a defined sensibility to bear on a variety of subjects from movies to war to race to being an elderly gay immigrant in New York City. Your three writing essays will be a personal essay, a political or social essay, and a critical essay. Your final project will be to turn in all three tweaked, buffed, edited, and rewritten to the finest, clearest state you can bring them. The great French filmmaker François Truffaut said that for him a movie must express an idea of the world and an idea of cinema. Substitute "writing" for cinema, and you have a succinct description of the territory we're headed for together.
CRWRI-UA.825.002 Intermediate Creative Nonfiction Workshop
Susan Shapiro , W 4:55pm-7:40pm
Many publications like The New York Times, New Yorker, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Newsweek, Salon, The Atlantic, Lithub, Esquire, Elle and Wired are surprisingly open to publish literary nonfiction by young writers. And many short essays have led to interest in memoirs from literary agents and book editors. This exciting 14 week nonfiction class, taught by a serial memoirist who has freelanced for all of those publications, will focus on reading and writing the type of narratives that current editors are looking for. The short assignments we'll workshop will include a personal essay, regional essay, opinion piece, book review and a profile. Guest speakers are tops editors and a former student whose short published piece led to an upcoming Penguin Random House book.
ADVANCED WORKSHOPS
Advanced workshops provide emerging writers with the opportunity to hone their individual voice and experiment with different aesthetical strategies in a genre-specific workshop taught by an eminent writer in the field. The workshops focus on innovative revision techniques, the development of a sustainable writing process, and the broadening of students’ literary knowledge of classical and contemporary masters. Each advanced workshop has a distinct emphasis and area of exploration—students are advised to pay close attention to the course descriptions, which are available online prior to registration.
Prerequisite for fiction: CRWRI-UA 816, OR CRWRI-UA 818, OR CRWRI-UA 9818, OR CRWRI-UA 9828, OR CRWRI-UA 820, OR CRWRI-UA 860 or equivalent. Prerequisite for poetry: CRWRI-UA 817, OR CRWRI-UA 819, OR CRWRI-UA 9819, OR CRWRI-UA 9829, OR CRWRI-UA 830, OR CRWRI-UA 870 or equivalent. Prerequisite for creative nonfiction: CRWRI-UA 825, OR CRWRI-UA 850, OR CRWRI-UA 880 or equivalent. 4 points.
FICTION
CRWRI-UA.820.001 Advanced Fiction Workshop
Marcelle Clements, T 2:00pm-4:45pm
In this intensive class, we will work at reaching the next level. We will talk about pacing and structure and the possibilities of form, how to create strong beginnings and endings, how to delineate character by using place and detail. We will work on sentences, paragraphs and stories. We will think and talk about how to temper boldness with discretion, emotion with restraint, and vice versa. Our class discussion is central to this enterprise, and participation is required, as are weekly assignments of writing and reading.
CRWRI-UA.820.002 Advanced Fiction Workshop
Chuck Wachtel, M 2pm-4:45pm
A broad look at fiction and its craft: the most purposeful approach to reading and discussion of texts comes from a job description for fiction writers derived from Lionel Trilling's wonderful essay on Isaac Babel: "...to reveal the human fact within the veil of circumstance." Our job, through this semester, will be to explore ways fiction writers have done this, both in text readings and discussion, and in your own writings in response to them. Requirements: Weekly readings from course packet (supplemented when necessary). Assignments: responses to our discussions of how different authors employ the craft of fiction. I feel the best way to absorb and further comprehend a writer's tools is to try using them. The assignments can assemble into a story. I will return them the week after receiving them with editorial notes, narrative possibilities and suggestions for revision.
CRWRI-UA.820.003 Advanced Fiction Workshop
Jonathan Vatner, M 7:55pm-10:40pm
The emphasis of this course is on the discovery, encouragement and development of each student's individual voice. The aim is to facilitate the clarity and momentum of their writing so their stories may gain a cohesive form without being forced into formulaic "perfection" of style or structure. Students will submit three stories or chapters of a novel during the course of the semester. (I will be meeting with them to discuss their work one-on-one the week after each of their submissions is workshopped.)
POETRY
CRWRI-UA.830.001 Advanced Poetry Workshop
TBA, F, 2:00pm-4:45pm
Course description forthcoming.
CRWRI-UA.830.002 Advanced Poetry Workshop
Catherine Barnett, W, 8:00am-10:45am
In this challenging workshop, we'll invent and re-invent and dodge and entertain and investigate "the accursed questions" as a way to generate new material for poems and to read more deeply. We'll consider James Baldwin's notion that "the purpose of art is to lay bare the questions hidden by the answers" and push for that which is "not unforeseen enough." Through thinking about and playing with the resources of questions, we'll try to subvert conventional notions of what is important and unimportant; we'll try to redeem incongruities; discover the mysteries behind physical appearances; and find ways to apprehend the real without distorting "the incomprehensibility of the real." We'll consider what Yeats has said: "Only that which does not teach, which does not cry out, which does not persuade, which does not condescend, which does not explain, is irresistible." Students will be asked to write two poems every week and to respond generously and rigorously to each other's work. In addition, students will give a presentation on a poet/question of their choice and put together an anthology and a chapbook.
CRWRI-UA.830.003 Advanced Poetry Workshop
Miranda Field, M, 11:00am-1:45pm
In this course we will explore the incredibly wide-ranging field of contemporary poetry, as well as some of its sources and influences. Besides workshopping each other's poems, students will read books of contemporary poetry, as well as critical essays, and small groups will be assigned to give presentations on these to the class. We will discuss poems as writers, rather than as literature students, with a view to figuring out what each poet is doing, how he or she does it, and how we can do that. Writing exercises derived from the readings will help us get into the poets' heads. This is an advanced course, and students will be expected to do all of the reading, participate fully in the discussions, and generally contribute towards that elusive thing which is a workshop environment that is constructive and critical and ultimately generative for everyone. The goal of the course is for students to engage with the work of their peers and their contemporaries in a critical and hungry manner which will lead to a greater understanding of how their own poetry is working.
CREATIVE NONFICTION
CRWRI-UA.850.001 Advanced Creative Nonfiction Workshop
Marcelle Clements, R 2:00pm-4:45pm
In this intensive class, we will work at reaching the next level. We will talk about pacing and structure and the possibilities of form, how to create strong beginnings and endings, how to delineate character by using place and detail. We will work on sentences, paragraphs and stories. We will think and talk about how to temper boldness with discretion, emotion with restraint, and vice versa. Our class discussion is central to this enterprise, and participation is required, as are weekly assignments of writing and reading.
INTENSIVE SEMINARS
These advanced workshops and craft seminars—taught by acclaimed poets and prose writers—are open to select NYU undergraduates. Seminars are limited to 12 students and provide intensive mentoring and guidance for serious and talented undergraduate writers.
Seminar applications are made available via the program's undergraduate listserv. All who enroll in the prerequisite CRWRI-UA 815 Intro to Prose & Poetry are added to the listserv; students may also contact creative.writing@nyu.edu to be added and receive all program announcements.
Prerequisite for fiction: CRWRI-UA 815, OR CRWRI-UA 9815, OR CRWRI-UA 816, OR CRWRI-UA 818/819, OR CRWRI-UA 9818/9819, OR CRWRI-UA 9828/9829, OR CRWRI-UA 820, OR CRWRI-UA 860 or equivalent. Prerequisite for poetry: CRWRI-UA 815, OR CRWRI-UA 9815, OR CRWRI-UA 817, OR CRWRI-UA 818/819, OR CRWRI-UA 9818/9819, OR CRWRI-UA 9828/9829, OR CRWRI-UA 830, OR CRWRI-UA 870, OR FRSEM-388, or equivalent. Prerequisite for creative nonfiction:CRWRI-UA 815, OR CRWRI-UA 9815, OR CRWRI-UA 818/819, OR CRWRI-UA 9818/9819, OR CRWRI-UA 9828/9829, OR CRWRI-UA 825, OR CRWRI-UA 850, OR CRWRI-UA 880 or equivalent. Recommended prerequisite: CRWRI-UA 820 (for fiction), CRWRI-UA 830 (for poetry), or CRWRI-UA 850 (for creative nonfiction). Application required. 4 points.
Update 11/12/21: Applications have closed. Rosters for Spring '22 are now being finalized.
CRWRI-UA.861.001 Intensive Seminar in Fiction
Tim Murphy
CRWRI-UA.862.001 Intensive Seminar in Poetry
Terrance Hayes
CRWRI-UA.863.001 Intensive Seminar in Creative Nonfiction
Craig Teicher