Read Like a Writer: Five Fantastic Stories in Five Weeks. Robert Anthony Siegel, Instructor
Ended Feb 13, 2024
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Full course description
IOWA SUMMER WRITING FESTIVAL
Fall 2023–Winter 2024
Read Like a Writer: Analyze Five Fantastic Stories in Five Weeks (Five-Week Workshop)
Robert Anthony Siegel, Instructor
Dates/Time
Tuesdays on Zoom, January 9, 16, 30; February 6, 13 (no class January 23)
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6:00–8:00 pm Iowa/Central Time
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7:00–9:00 pm Eastern Time
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5:00–7:00 pm Mountain Time
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4:00–6:00 pm Pacific Time
Fee: $425
Course Description
Writers are readers—passionate, obsessive, highly analytic readers who delight in taking apart stories to figure out how they work. In this class, we will hone our critical reading habits together, looking at five short stories in five weeks, one per week. Each class will begin with discussion, then move on to a brief craft talk highlighting the story’s construction. We will end with an in-class writing exercise that we can share with the group—and store away in our notebooks as the seed of a new story.
This class requires nothing beyond a love of fiction and an adventurous spirit. Just read the assigned story in advance of each class and come ready to talk, listen, ask questions, and write in response to a creative prompt. All reading materials will be provided as PDF files.
Note: This generative class does not include individual conferences.
Takeaways:
- Critical reading skills
- Insights into story construction, including conflict, scene, exposition, irony, and subtext
- Five short in-class writing exercises that can become the bases of future stories
Schedule:
January 9: The uses of objects in storytelling: “Likes” by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
January 16: Stories that act like essays: “The Lazy River” by Zadie Smith
January 30: Minimalism to maximum effect: “The Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried” by Amy Hempel
February 6: The slow build of character: “Gold Boy, Emerald Girl” by Yiyun Li
February 13: The joke structure in fiction: “The School” by Donald Barthelme
Instructor
Robert Anthony Siegel is the author of a memoir, Criminals, and two novels, All Will Be Revealed and All the Money in the World. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian Magazine, The Paris Review, The Drift, The Oxford American, and Ploughshares, and has been anthologized in Best American Essays 2023, O. Henry Stories 2014, and Pushcart Prize XXXVI. He has been a Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan, a Mombukagakusho Fellow in Japan, a Writing Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and a Paul Engle Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a BA from Harvard.
Registration & Fees
The fee for this course is $425. Payment in full is required to register.
Registrations are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.
Class size is limited to 15.
Note: Your credit card payment will be processed by an external provider and will appear on your credit card statement as “UI Writing—Magid Center.”
Refund & Cancellation Policy
If you need to cancel your enrollment, please let us know as soon as possible. We can only offer full refunds if you cancel one week prior to the start of class. After that, before the start-date of class, we can offer a 50% refund. We cannot refund day-of cancellations, and we cannot refund or partially refund registration fees once the class has begun.
Terms & Community Policy
1. The Iowa Summer Writing Festival is a program for adults. You must be at least 18 years old to enroll in Festival workshops.
2. The Iowa Summer Writing Festival is a community built on an assumption of shared enterprise, in the spirit of mutual respect. We reserve the right to a) revoke the registration of or b) dismiss from the program any person who disrupts the learning/working environment of others. Participants in the Festival are subject to all University of Iowa policies governing conduct in our community, whether online or in person.
Questions?
Contact the Iowa Summer Writing Festival: iswfestival@uiowa.edu. Phone: (319) 335-4160.
Our small staff is out and about. If you phone and we miss you, please leave a detailed message!