Experimental Writing for Non-Experimental Writers [Porochista Khakpour]

What does it mean for writing to be experimental? The great writer Margaret Atwood defines it as writing “that sets up certain rules for itself . . . while subverting the conventions according to which readers have understood what constitutes a proper work of literature.” In making its own rules, a lot of the old rules have to be tossed out, of course, and so this workshop provides a few examples of the most innovative, rule-busting, eclectic works of the postmodern, absurdist, metafictional and transgressive canon. We’ll look at a wild and gutsy array of passages, old and new, that dare to be different. We’ll also generate multi-genre experimental writing of our own through a series of exercises.