First-year poetry workshop. Poems can be conversations with others, media, pop culture, and our interests beyond the page. In this course, students will explore forms such as ekphrasis, epistolary, after poems, vis ual poetry, and the cento, while sharing media that inspires their work. We ll engage with self-portraits, letters, and contemporary poems about art, music, and film. This multimedia workshop emphasizes generative exercises and looking beyond literature for formal inspiration, while students draft, workshop, and consider what their poetry is in conversation with.

First-year fiction workshop. Characters like Humbert Humbert,Raoul Duke,and Annie Wilks disgust and enthrall their way into readers minds not only because they are unpredictable but also because they're eerily recognizable. In this class, we'll explore how writers craft characters whose madness and obsessions drive their actions in irrational and sometimes menacing ways. We'll read voice-driven narratives by writers like Flannery O'Connor, Patricia Highsmith, and J.D. Salinger, paying close attention to how characters within the stories shape the narrative. Through generative writing exercises and workshop, you'll experiment with building characters and narrative personas whose lives extend beyond the page.