Fall 2026 Course Topics
MANHATTAN
CWL 510.S60(92190) – Forms of Fiction with Marlon James, Reaction/Fiction
Mondays, 6:00 PM-8:50 PM
Manhattan
“Books come out of books,” Cormac McCarthy once said. He’s right of course; fiction has always come out of fiction. Sometimes to uncover a marginalized voice, or to humanize a demon (Jane Eyre/Wide Sargasso Sea). Sometimes to make troublingly round, the reassuringly flat (Great Expectations/Jack Maggs). And sometimes to view a story from back then in a point of view that reflects us now (Huckleberry Finn/Huck Way Out West). All these stories came out of stories that compelled the author to respond.
This is what you will be doing next semester: writing Fiction as a response to Fiction. The dismissed voice, the monster with a soul, the character without agency, the character everybody but you forgot. The villain. The punch line. The caricature. The racist joke. Who can you uncover? What can you take (or reject) and make your own? Which story demands another view? What was merely hinted at, that you could bring to the fore? Reaction/Fiction will be conducted for the most part in workshop format with the emphasis on continuing to develop writing skills, but it will also involve extensive readings and discussion of several examples of short and long fiction.
Reaction/Fiction is where you will twist, turn and violate, but also uncover, re-humanize and dignify. In this class, the “ending” is just the beginning of where your imagination will take you.
FLM 526.S60 (#92847) Topics in TV Writing for Film with Scott Burkhardt, Pilot
Mondays 5:30-8:20 pm 3 credits
Manhattan
Scott Burkhardt
Students learn how to write a pilot. Students will learn how to brainstorm story ideas, structure an outline and write scenes with dialogue, all in a constructive, supportive workshop atmosphere. The class covers both half-hour comedies and one-hour dramas. In addition, the class will watch, deconstruct and discuss a wide variety of TV shows in order to better understand how a successful episode is built. All the basics of TV writing are covered and the workshop is designed to closely mirror a professional writers room on a prime-time series.
CWL 565.S60(92205) Special Topics in Writing with Susan Minot, Combing Hair: Self-Editing and the Case for Drafts
Tuesdays, 6:00 PM-8:50 PM
Manhattan
Flaubert wrote, “Prose is like hair; it shines with combing.” In this workshop we will discuss student work each week with attention toward editing and what choices might be made in the refinement of drafts toward improving a piece of writing.
Outside reading will include examination of manuscripts (Ernest Hemingway, Elizabeth Bishop, Leo Tolstoy) and work focusing on the nuts and bolts of the writing process. Authors will include Annie Dillard, Gustav Flaubert, Flannery O’Conner, E.B. White, Julian Barnes, Virginia Woolf, Stephen King.
CWL 560.S60(92202)—Topics in Literature with Genevieve Sly Crane—The Ghost in the Machine
Wednesdays, 2:30 PM-5:20 PM
Manhattan
This course covers fiction with a slightly supernatural bent -- think less "werewolves", more "collective haunting". We'll tackle Lincoln in the Bardo, Wuthering Heights, The Bee Sting, The Wax Child, and an array of short fiction. This is a reading intensive course but the workshop component has flexibility: writers are not required to tell a ghost story if they prefer to work on something else, though all are encouraged to consider how cultural and personal fears inform character.
CWL 500.S60(93922)—Intro to Grad. Creative Writing with Robert Lopez
Wednesdays, 6:00 PM-8:50 PM
Manhattan
Part ethics, part studio, part special guest appearances and craft conversations, this course is designed to get you thinking about how you would like to exist in the creative world, both in this program and beyond. You’ll explore recent and current events in writing, dig into literary magazines, and spend time generating work. You’ll explore craft. You’ll engage with contemporary writers in and outside of our faculty. The course is designed with you and your MFA experience at the forefront.
CWL 510.S61 - Forms of Fiction with Karen Bender, Creating Characters: A Lab in Writing Characters You Can't Stop Reading About
Thursdays, 2:30-5:20 PM, 4 credits
Manhattan
How do you create characters from the inside out? How do you create them through interiority, dialogue, action, interaction? In this class we will read two or three short stories per class, examining ways that writers create great and memorable characters. We will see how motivation leads to action, how "unlikable" characters can be compelling, how characters exist across time. We will read stories by writers including Tillie Olsen, Mavis Gallant, Haruki Murakami, Yiyun Li, Edward P. Jones, Eve Babitz, Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, Lucia Berlin, Bernard Malamud, Banu Mushtaq, Oguz Atay, and others. The class is also a workshop, and each student will turn in two pieces, stories, or chapters, which we will read with an eye to developing both major and minor characters within a work.
CWL 520.S60(92208)—Poetry with Julie Sheehan, Sound and Fury
Fridays, 4:00 PM-6:50 PM
Manhattan
This course explores the technical aspects of meter, line, rhyme, and refrain, as well as some of the uses to which formal devices–and informal ones–are put. What are the motives behind various forms and why do we continue to adopt and adapt them? We’ll praise, we’ll rant, we’ll judge, we’ll laugh, we’ll obsess. We’ll take a deep dive into the characteristics of words and how we can use those characteristics to create patterns of sound, making it a good way to investigate the medium from which we all make our art, the English language. We’ll come away with a solid sense of, in Theodore Roethke’s words, “What shapes a bright container can contain.”
SOUTHAMPTON
CWL 500.S01 Intro to Graduate Creative Writing with Robert Reeves, Carla Caglioti
Mondays, 6:00-8:50 PM, 4 Credits.
Southampton
A seminar that introduces students to one another, to the faculty, to the program in Creative Writing and Literature, and to issues in contemporary writing. Offered in conjunction with the "Writers Speak" lecture series. Students will attend the regular series of readings sponsored by the Creative Writing program and meet at weekly intervals under the direction of a faculty advisor to discuss and write about topics raised in the lecture series, as well as issues generated from seminar discussions and assigned readings.
CWL 535.S01(92216)—Writing in Multiple Genres with Robert Reeves, Finish. Finish. Finish.
Tuesdays, 6:00 PM-8:50 PM
Southampton
Our bookshelves may overflow with guidance on the craft of writing, but “finish it” may be the only advice that truly matters. This course is designed for writers of any genre eager to move their projects toward completion. Each week, we will discuss excerpts from works-in-progress, staying attuned to each writer’s vision while offering thoughtful, constructive feedback aimed at advancing the work on its own terms. If we get stuck from time to time, we won’t be above using prompts to generate new material and keep the pages flowing. Our guiding principle? As James Thurber put it, “Don’t get it right, get it written.”
CWL 540.S01(93926)—Creative Nonfiction with Lou Ann Walker, The Ways of the Memoir
Seven Saturdays, 10AM – 4PM:
August 29; September 12; September 26; October 17; November 7; November 14; December 5
4 credits
Southampton
We could even retitle this course “Life: A Story.” In addition to reading new masters of the memoir form, you’ll be writing in order to discover themes in your life. We’ll be touching on narrative subjects such as the reliability of memory, point of view, tackling the accuracy of dialogue, how to portray other characters in your life—memoir is not just about the “I.” You’ll be surprised at how much you can accomplish during this semester. Our reading list will be finalized at the beginning of our class meetings, depending upon what will be most useful to you as writers. Excerpts of some of the works we’ll be considering include: The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom; Educated by Tara Westover; The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer; The Color of Water by James McBride; Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey; When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanith; Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks; The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls; Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah; Easy Beauty by Chloe Cooper Jones; Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy.
ONLINE
CWL 582.S30(92209)—Publishing Practicum with Lou Ann Walker
Tuesdays, 11:00 AM-1:50 PM 1-4 credits
Online
Under the guidance of editors and advisors, students will be exposed to the hands-on process of editing and publishing TSR: The Southampton Review. Yes, the P & E Practicum is designed to give you experience in editing a literary and arts review. But here’s the secret: This practicum also provides an excellent means for you to build your skills as a writer. For example, as you read submissions in Submittable, you’ll be seeing what works and doesn’t work in cover letters. You’ll be examining successful structures in fiction, non-fiction, memoir, and poetry. You’ll be acquiring editing diagnostic tools. And you’ll be drilling down to what works line by line throughout a creative piece. We’ll discuss word choices, juxtapositions, imagery, symbolism, all that good stuff.
CWL 535.S30(93923) Writing in Multiple Genres with Kaylie Jones, Memoir/Fiction “Writing Trauma”
Thursdays, 6:00 PM-8:50 PM
Online
We are living through difficult times, surrounded by violence and injustice. Writing about how trauma affects us is extremely difficult indeed, whether the trauma is large or small; whether it happened to us personally; or to someone we love; or perhaps even to complete strangers. We are nevertheless witnesses to our own troubled times, and writing down our experiences or the experiences of others is a necessary and absolutely valid undertaking.
This writing workshop will explore different ways in which writers can approach the subject of trauma in memoir or in fiction – past and present – big and small. We will focus on specific tools of the craft with which to approach this difficult subject. Your submissions will be read and discussed in-depth each week. Writing prompts will be offered weekly, or bi-weekly, depending on the size of the class.