Ann and I are preparing to move up to Geneva, New York, where I’ll be teaching a creative writing course as part of serving as the 2016-2017 Trias writer in residence for Hobart & William Smith Colleges. I’ve finally settled on the main texts for the class, which I’ve set out below. These texts require varying levels of involvement from the students and although I’ve set them out in alphabetical order, they map in interesting ways to the three modules I’ve listed. As usual, I don’t really care too much what genre something happens to fall into so long as there is collusion and contamination and cross-pollination that’s useful to discuss. Sadly, I had to cut a few stories I wanted to talk about, including work by Kojo Laing and Rachel Kushner, because there just wasn’t space. Next time.

The students will use what they learn from these texts and our discussions to create three major works: a short story in which each student takes the same basic plot elements and characters from a published story by an iconic writer and creates their own version; a “fan fic” specific to Aase Berg’s Dark Matter and Amelia Gray’s Gutshot (with the possible intermediary of Donor’s Into the Mysterium; and their own original short story, critiqued in class.

We’ll also be keeping an “Album Zutique,” similar to the one created by the decadents and they’ll get some exclusive new Wonderbook images, including a structural break-down of Adichie’s Americanah.

In addition to the texts listed below, I will be responsible for bringing to the students very brief passages from various books that are of use to their readings and their writing for the class—for example, John Durham Peters’ The Marvelous Clouds, Caroline Levine’s Forms, and Hofstadter’s Surfaces and Essences. Or, on the creative life side of things, Miyazaki’s Starting Point, Sally Mann’s Hold Still, and books on the lives of Tove Jansson, Leonora Carrington, and others. If they wish to follow up on anything of interest in those passages, they’re free to. But the burden of distilling out relevant meanings and echoes falls to me.

Modules

The Month of Mimicry

The Month of Secrets

The Month of Freedom

Epilogue: The Week of Revelations



Required Books

Dark Matter by Aase Berg

Normal by Warren Ellis

Gutshot by Amelia Gray (visiting Nov. 2)

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh (visiting Spring 2017)

Version Control by Dexter Palmer (visiting Oct. 6)

Wonderbook & Annihilation

(additional guests include Kyle Cassidy and Nancy Hightower)



Other Fiction Readings

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jumping Monkey Hill”

Claire-Louise Bennett, Pond (“Morning, Noon, and Night”)

Michel Bernanos, “The Other Side of the Mountain”

Hassan Blasim’s “The Green Zone Rabbit” and “The Reality and the Record”

Leonora Carrington, “White Rabbits”

Tomas Dobozy, “The Beautician”

Michele Oka Doner, Into the Mysterium

Julia Elliott, “The Rapture”

Brian Evenson, “The Prophets”

Angelica Gorodischer’s “The Unmistakable Smell of Wood Violets”

R. A. Lafferty’s “Nine Hundred Grandmothers” and “Thieving Bear Planet”

Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book (“The Magic Forest,” The Scolder,” and “The Neighbor”)

Ursula K. Le Guin, “Vaster Than Empires…”

Cixin Liu, “The Poetry Cloud”

Clarice Lispector, “Brasilia” and “The Fifth Story”

Ben Metcalf, Against the Country (first five chapters)

Vladimir Nabokov, “The Leonardo”

Nicholas Rombes, “dark drones” excerpt from The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing

Amos Tutuola, The Palm-Wine Drinkard (“Dead Babies and Terrible Creature in Bag”)

Catherynne M. Valente’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time”

Joy Williams, “The Farm”

Kai Ashante Wilson, “The Devil in America”

For The Month That Doesn’t Exist

Two ghost modules for independent study after class, in preferred reading/discussion order.

Ghost Module #1: (Not the Same) There

“The Salamander” by Merce Rodoreda

“Axolotl” by Julio Cortazar

“My Mother” by Jamaica Kincaid

“Reindeer Mountain” and “Pyret” by Karin Tidbeck

“The End of the Garden” by Michal Ajvaz