Tumultuous times call for chroniclers who observe, distill, and reshape. “When reality is surreal, only fiction can make sense of it,” starts a New York Times story collection. We will hone these chronicling skills through exercises which tap the material around us to generate fiction rooted in a particular place and era, whether set in NYC today or a far- away land in the future. As seeds for new work, we collect naturally-occurring tales through interviews and eavesdropping; word-sketches of settings; and the noting of small joys and sorrows of daily life, inspired by Ross Gay’s Book of Delights. We’ll also study various components of storytelling by looking under the hood of a contemporary short story, graphic narrative, podcast, or personal essay, including work by Colson Whitehead, Jhumpa Lahiri, Zadie Smith, Viet Thanh Nguyen. Exercises and stories will be shared with the group, and we’ll discuss ways to get fiction beyond the classroom walls, including literary magazines and online platforms, informed by the instructor’s experience as a developmental editor of successful novels and story collections, and a magazine fiction editor. The semester culminates in a reading for invited friends. Course prerequisite: open eyes and ears.