8-Week: Intermediate Speculative Fiction

As our reality becomes more of a dystopia, what counts as fantasy anymore? Octavia Bulter’s Parable of the Sower once read like a violent reimagining of the future, but as all manner of climates have changed, the line between the dreamspace and reality is blurrier and Butler’s novel feels more like prophecy. Collapse, resurrection, and the absurd are complace, and perhaps this is why speculative fiction seems to have become even more important in our imaginative landscape. This class will explore the big and small moments written in speculative fiction from writers including Stephen Graham Jones, Pemi Aguda, and Maria Lioutaia. As we write stories for workshop and deliver feedback to our peers, we’ll also be asked to enter each narrative from a place of image and structure. Be prepared to create ecosystems, characters, and language of your own! Writers in this class can expect to be workshopped twice, as well as some in and out of class reading, and discussion.