4-Week: Writing the Nonhuman

Ever wonder what it’s like to be inside the mind of something other than our human selves? All writing is aiming toward an intelligence that’s beyond our control—think of Audrey Junior from Little Shop of Horrors and HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, even the toys from Toy Story. All these characters have a mind and a point of view all their own, and these perspectives help us better understand ourselves and our work. By yielding control in the human world and decentralizing the self as the authorial figure, we can take our preoccupation away from the human experience. In Writing the Nonhuman, writers will explore featuring non-human beings in our stories in ways that subvert common cliches and stereotypes and tackle the hurdles of how to make unreal characters real, relatable, and resonant.

In this four-week course, we'll read across genres that step outside of the humanoid perspective. Focusing on generative prompts, we'll practice building characters that are open to risk and experimentation, joy and grief, science and poetry. Open to writers of all genres who are eager to play with voice, dialogue, and point of view.