Course syllabus

This is an art and craft class for students interested in developing skills in writing fiction and creative non-fiction. We’ll study a range of local and international models, write weekly exercises and longer pieces and cultivate the ability to read as a writer rather than as a critic.

In the weekly seminar we focus on key aspects of technique, including narrative structure, point of view, character, setting and use of dialogue. We’ll discuss work by a range of contemporary practitioners (available in set texts and a course reader) to explore the demands and possibilities of creative prose. In weekly workshops, students will workshop drafts of a 3000-word short story and a 2500-word personal essay. In both seminar and workshops, students are expected to be active participants and committed readers.

In the first workshop, you will commit to workshop dates for both pieces of creative work. You will be expected to workshop complete drafts of those pieces, as well as writing responses to the workshop submissions of your peers.

Please note that there is a large amount of reading for this class of both published and peer work. You will spend three hours a week reading published work, as well as two hours a week reading peer stories for workshops. There are weekly quizzes to assess your engagement with the published work, and these count towards your final grade.

Course delivery format: Two-hour seminar and one-hour workshop per week. Note: workshops start week one.

(Timetable and room details can be viewed on Student Services Online)

Prescribed Texts:

You should buy the 344 coursebook at UBS as soon as possible and bring it with you to the first class. We’ll go through the syllabus in detail then.

You’ll also need to buy The Journal of Urgent Writing ed. Nicola Legat (Massey University Press, 2016) and Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose. If you decide to buy the latter online and from overseas, make sure it arrives it time. You will need it IMMEDIATELY.

Workload:

A 15-point course means students are expected to spend 10 hours per week on the course. Three of those hours are in class (seminar and workshop). The rest is for reading and writing.