Life Is Short—Art Is Shorter [David Shields]

An intensive course emphasizing the importance and excitement—in contemporary writing—of compression, concision, and velocity. You will read several exemplary mini-essays and short-short-stories, then write and read aloud your own (1000-1500-word) attempt to the class. Your fellow students will offer a critique of the piece. The course is an immersion in brevity but also in the larger principles of prose composition (such as tone, tension, motif, metaphor, reprise, structure, closure); how to build a series of seemingly disconnected prose passages into a larger whole; and how and where to publish both very brief work and book-length collage.

This class is full. Please sign up for the waitlist in case of cancellations and to help us gauge demand for this class format.