Nelly Reifler

Writing begins with our bodies in present time and space: Our minds are nestled in our bodies, and our imaginations are nestled in our nervous systems. In this class, we will consider present bodies as mediums, sources, oracles, and anchors. From autofiction to high fantasy, all our stories are born this way; speculation itself is imaginative projection. Every aspect of writing—from the sounds of our words to the objects of our characters’ desires to the use of punctuation—can be found in our own present embodiment. We will generate new writing through experiments during and outside of class. These include experiential exercises such as immediate sensory awareness work, dream logs, and studies of inexplicably vivid memories. We will explore ways to release our writing from cerebral control while mindfully steering it: breaking fallback linguistic patterns, collaborating with other writers, and working outside our usual forms. In individual and small-group conferences, we will discuss your fiction, along with your writing processes and practices. Authors we will read may include Franz Kafka, Yasunari Kawabata, Eugene Ionesco, Karin Tidbeck, Philip K. Dick, Octavia Butler, Uchida Hyakken, Carmen Maria Machado, Paul La Farge, and Rivka Galchen. Texts by Pema Chodron, Peter Levine, Richard Schwartz, Natalie Goldberg, and others will support our projects.

This large seminar looks at the ineffable nature of voice and its intertwining relationships with narrators, authors, and interpretations. We will build stories and their inhabitants using source material that is meaningful to each of us: literature, of course, but also music, film and video, visual art, semiotics, fashion, architecture, games, urban myths, podcasts and voiceovers, family lore and history, and more. Through this process, we’ll identify and deepen voice as the vernacular of our imaginations. Students’ writing will be workshopped in small-group conferences. We will read work by writers such as Samuel Beckett, James Hannaham, Garielle Lutz, Carmen Maria Machado, Bhanu Kapil, Edouard Leve, Philip K. Dick, Robert Lopez, William Saroyan, Denis Johnson, and Shelly Oria. We will also listen to music, watch videos and excerpted films, look at art, and examine popular culture and our own families as if we were anthropologists. We will work to shed ideas of what we should be writing and discover what’s already inside us ready to be written.

What were the first works of speculative fiction that made you want to travel through worlds of your own creation? In Origin Stories, we’ll look at our earliest influences and trace the threads from those works to our current projects. Students will lead discussions of stories or excerpts of novels that sparked their writing. We will also explore dreams, early memories, daydreams, and our bodies as sources of speculative fiction. Each student will have two workshop dates. While two different pieces may be given to the group, revisions are also welcome for the second round of workshops. In addition to the students’ literary influences, we will read authors such as Ray Bradbury, Ursula Le Guin, and Gilbert Hernandez. 

Although every work of fiction is a fantasy, fiction writers often strive to portray a cohesive reality. In this workshop, we will focus on writing and reading fiction that embraces fantastic, splintered, and speculative realities. We will focus on creating worlds from our dreams, daydreams, collective myths, and imagined technologies. We'll treat our stories as laboratories that accommodate daring and complex experiments. We’ll talk about subjectivity and the scope of human perception—and explore how much of what we agree to call reality is itself a fantasy. We will also examine the precedents set in science fiction, fantasy, and other areas of literature that deal with the realms of the unreal. Authors whose work you may be assigned for class or conference include Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Philip K. Dick, William Burroughs, Octavia Butler, Judy Budnitz, Helen Oyeyemi, Karin Tidbeck, Cathy Park Hong, William Gibson, Paul LaFarge, Shelly Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Ursula LeGuin, David Ohle, Samuel Delaney, Yasunari Kawabata, Angela Carter, and Dolan Morgan—along with theorists and philosophers such as Jean Baudrillard and Markus Gabriel. We’ll identify and discuss conventions within genres, both working within them and pushing against them.

The first part of this yearlong class will be modeled after a graduate-level craft fiction class. We will examine and discuss fundamental craft terms, as well as the generally accepted contemporary rules for writing fiction. We’ll look at how some writers explode those rules—and we’ll see how we can exploit the rules in our own writing. The craft class will segue into a workshop, in which we will discuss student work each week using what we’ve learned about craft rules and rule-breaking. We’ll be reading work by published authors, such as Katherine Anne Porter, Anton Chekhov, Octavia Butler, Raymond Carver, Robert Lopez, E. M. Forster, Samuel Beckett, Helen Oyeyemi, Maurice Kilwein Guevara, Joy Williams, Barry Hannah, Denis Johnson, Renee Gladman, Elizabeth Crane, Shelly Jackson, Gary Lutz, and others.

In this class, we will interrogate and test the rules for writing fiction. We’ll look at how some writers explode those rules. And we’ll see how we can do the same in our own writing by asking questions. What does it mean when we ask what’s at stake in a story? What makes dialogue believable? How do we create embodied characters? What makes an ending resonate? How do we build cohesive worlds? What is a beginning? An end? With an eye toward playfully disrupting the rules of fiction, we’ll use lists, footnotes, erasures, numbering, and omissions; we’ll study verb mood, unexpected points of view, and tense; and we’ll collaborate on other formulae that can help us and our readers find new paths to our imaginations. Students will work with writing assignments, play writing games, and do in-class exercises to generate stories. Conference work will focus on expanding and fine-tuning what we have written; each student will finish the semester with several complete pieces of fiction. We will read work by authors such as Maurice Kilwein Guevara, Yasunari Kawabata, Gari Lutz, Philip K. Dick, Anton Chekhov, Elizabeth Crane, Robert Lopez, Matthew Sharpe, Renee Gladman, D. Foy, Stefanie Sobelle, and members of the Oulipo movement.

In this class, we will interrogate and test the rules for writing fiction. We’ll look at how some writers explode those rules—and we’ll see how we can do the same in our own writing by asking questions. What does it mean when we ask what’s at stake in a story? What makes dialogue believable? How do we create embodied characters? What makes an ending resonate? How do we build cohesive worlds? What is a beginning? An end? With an eye toward playfully disrupting the rules of fiction, we’ll use lists, footnotes, erasures, numbering, and omissions; we’ll study verb mood, unexpected points of view, and tense; and we’ll collaborate on other formulae that can help us and our readers find new paths to our imaginations. Students will work with writing assignments, play writing games, and do in-class exercises to generate stories. We will read work by authors such as Maurice Kilwein Guevara, Yasunari Kawabata, Gari Lutz, Philip K. Dick, Anton Chekhov, Elizabeth Crane, Robert Lopez, Matthew Sharpe, Renee Gladman, D. Foy, Stefanie Sobelle, and members of the Oulipo movement.

This workshop will focus on the process of finding and deepening voice as the vernacular of your imagination. We will build stories and their inhabitants using source material that is meaningful to each of us: literature, of course, but also music, film and video, visual art, semiotics, fashion, architecture, games, urban myths, family lore and history, our ever-shifting identities, and more. We will work toward writing the voices that feel most true to us and shaping stories based on our own visions for narrative itself. We will read work by writers such as Samuel Beckett, Deb Olin Unferth, Etgar Keret, Clarice Lispector, James Hannaham, Garielle Lutz, Carmen Maria Machado, Robert Lopez, D. Foy, and Shelly Oria. We will also listen to music, watch videos and excerpted films, look at art, and examine popular culture and our own families as if we were anthropologists. We will work to shed ideas of what we should be writing and discover what’s already inside us ready to be written.

This workshop will focus on the process of finding and deepening voice as the vernacular of your imagination. We will build stories and their inhabitants using source material that is meaningful to each of us: literature, of course, but also music, film and video, visual art, semiotics, fashion, architecture, games, urban myths, family lore and history, our ever-shifting identities, and more. We will work toward writing the voices that feel most true to us and shaping stories based on our own visions for narrative itself. We will read work by writers such as Samuel Beckett, Jayne Ann Phillips, Virginia Woolf, Mitchell S. Jackson, Garielle Lutz, Carmen Maria Machado, Robert Lopez, D. Foy, and Shelly Oria. We will also listen to music, watch videos and excerpted films, look at art, and examine popular culture and our own families as if we were anthropologists. We will work to shed ideas of what we should be writing and discover what’s already inside us ready to be written.

All fiction is written taking into account the basic constraints of prose: grammar, punctuation, and the formal standards of style. In this class, we will explore the use of imposed structures to build compelling, surprising works of fiction. A writing constraint can be as hypnotic as an illusionist’s sleight of hand, freeing the writer’s mind for magic. We’ll cover a range of topics over the course of the semester—from point of view to the passage of time to embodied characters and beyond—and use our experiments to explore them fully. We’ll also take different approaches to intentionally breaking established rules. Students will work with writing assignments, play writing games, and occasionally collaborate to generate stories. There will be opportunities throughout the course to apply what we’re doing to works that students already have in progress. We’ll read pieces created using such techniques by authors such as Garielle Lutz, Shelley Jackson, Thomas Bernhard, Georges Perec, Robert Lopez, Maurice Kilwein Guevara, Renee Gladman, Jen Bervin, Matthew Sharpe, Elizabeth Crane, and others. We’ll also discuss some theories around constraints in writing. We’ll talk with contemporary authors about their writing processes, and each student will design a constraint that we will use for writing in class. Poets and nonfiction students are welcome in this class.

All fiction is written taking into account the basic constraints of prose: grammar, punctuation, and the formal standards of style. In this class, we will explore the use of other structures to build compelling, surprising works of fiction. A writing constraint can be as hypnotic as an illusionist’s sleight of hand, freeing the writer’s mind for magic. We’ll examine the effects of lists, footnotes, erasures, numbering, and omissions; the impact of experiments with verb mood, unexpected points of view, and tense; different approaches to intentionally breaking established rules; and the ways in which other formulae can help us and our readers find new paths to our imaginations. Students will work with writing assignments, play writing games, and occasionally collaborate to generate stories. We’ll read fiction—created using such techniques—by authors such as Gertrude Stein, Thomas Bernhard, Georges Perec, Robert Lopez, Maurice Kilwein Guevara, Renee Gladman, Joshua Ferris, Matthew Sharpe, Elizabeth Crane, and others. We’ll also discuss some theories around constraints in writing. We’ll talk with contemporary authors about their writing processes, and each student will design a constraint that we will use for writing in class.

The most delicate choices a writer makes significantly affect a story or novel. In this workshop, we'll take a closeup look at your fiction: we'll focus on precision of language, explore the mysteries and mechanics of point of view, and talk about building a stable world with words. We'll treat our stories as laboratories of the imagination that accommodate daring and complex experiments.

Empathy is a prerequisite for discussing each other's work effectively. In workshop discussions we'll cultivate articulate critiques that always keep the writers' intentions in mind. Revision will be emphasized; over the course of the semester each student will revise a story or novel excerpt at least twice and will have the option to workshop different drafts. The published works we read for class and conference will be chosen in response to students' writing and will include authors such as Gary Lutz, Denis Johnson, David Bezmozgis, Rivka Galchen, Anton Chekhov, Junot Diaz, Barry Hannah, Octavia Butler, Katherine Anne Porter, David Ohle, Yasunari Kawabata, and Joy Williams.

In this class we will approach speculative fiction as an expression of daydreams, memories, nightmares, fantasies, anxieties, curiosities, projections, desires, and—most of all—the body. The primary focus will be building imaginary worlds with mindful attention to our unique lived experiences. We will work to put aside cerebral planning projects and rules that bind us to particular genres. And we will interrogate our assumptions about reality to expand our definitions of the unreal. Every class will include writing experiments that support each student’s imagination; each experiment will build upon the previous one. We will be reading work by published authors whose work reflects a similar process and may include Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Karin Tidbeck, Octavia Butler, Philip K. Dick, Helen Oyeyemi, Shelley Jackson, Renee Gladman, Chris Adrian, Amal El-Mohtar, Yasunari Kawabata, and others.

Although every work of fiction is a fantasy, fiction writers often strive to portray reality. In this workshop, we will focus on writing and reading fiction that embraces the fantastic. We will focus on creating worlds from our dreams and daydreams. We’ll treat our stories as laboratories of the imagination that accommodate daring and complex experiments. We’ll talk about subjectivity and the scope of human perception—and explore how much of what we agree to call reality is itself a fantasy. We will also examine the precedents set in science fiction, fantasy, and other areas of literature that deal with the realms of the unreal. Authors whose work you may read for class or conference include Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Philip K. Dick, William Burroughs, Octavia Butler, Judy Budnitz, Helen Oyeyemi, Karin Tidbeck, Cathy Park Hong, William Gibson, Paul LaFarge, Shelly Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Ursula LeGuin, David Ohle, Samuel Delaney, Yasunari Kawabata, Angela Carter, and Dolan Morgan, along with theorists and philosophers such as Jean Baudrillard and Markus Gabriel. We’ll identify and discuss conventions within genres, both working within them and pushing against them. 

This hybrid craft class/workshop will survey the topography of craft. Each week, we will focus on one term or topic that commonly arises in writing workshops and then will dig into its meaning and origin. We will identify established conventions attached to each topic and ask what it’s like to explode them. What do we really mean when we talk about the stakes of a story? What, on an essential level, is point of view? How do we distinguish the narrator from the author? What is a beginning, and what is an end? What shapes can hold narrative beyond the arc? How can sensory details drive a work of fiction rather than merely decorate it? And what is style? We will read stories, essays, and excerpts by authors such as Uchida Hyakken, Clarice Lispector, D. Foy, Deb Olin Unferth, Garielle Lutz, James Hannaham, Renee Gladman, Robert Lopez, Yasunari Kawabata, Rachel Cusk, Pema Chodron, Maurice Kilwein Guevara, and Arthur Bradford. We will also discuss songs, films, semiotics, and other projects that twine with fiction. Every exploration will be accompanied by at least one writing experiment. When we discuss pieces by students enrolled in this class as a workshop, the writers’ craft concerns will be our first focus—and we will bring the same curious and open-minded spirit to these works in progress as we will to the published prose.