Cut-ups, collage, use of dream images, and heightened language are often the provenance of poetry. In this class, experimentation with words and text is applied to the writing of fiction. Building upon pre-existing narratives, stories, or characters--or creating them--students learn to produce an exploded prose that opens up new avenues for creation and interpretation. Model readings--Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Bataille's The Impossible, and Cisneros' House on Mango Street--are paired with writing assignments (the events of one day, an obsession, vignettes of childhood) and in-class writings (cut-ups, "exquisite corpses") to provide new ideas and methods for composing fiction.

Cut-ups, collage, use of dream images, and heightened language are often the provenance of poetry. In this class, experimentation with words and text is applied to the writing of fiction. Building upon pre-existing narratives, stories, or characters--or creating them--students learn to produce an exploded prose that opens up new avenues for creation and interpretation. Model readings--Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Bataille's The Impossible, and Cisneros' House on Mango Street--are paired with writing assignments (the events of one day, an obsession, vignettes of childhood) and in-class writings (cut-ups, "exquisite corpses") to provide new ideas and methods for composing fiction.