Writing the New Seattle [Charles Mudede]
All Levels | Seattle has changed a lot over the past seven years. Its population is now over 725,000. Many of its neighborhoods have been gentrified. Working-class people have been displaced. And the most common job in the Seattle area is programming computers. We are no longer known as the Emerald City. We are now the nation’s cloud city and a city with two of the richest humans in history. What do these changes mean? And, most importantly, how can we write about them? Does this new Seattle demand a new language? This class will explore these questions in two ways. One, by examining the literature of other cities that experienced sudden tremendous change (for example, Second Empire Paris); and, two, writing workshops that produce our own new texts (poems, personal essays, short fiction) about this tumultuous moment. If you are new to Seattle, this class is for you. If you are not, this class is still for you.