Brian Morton

What is a novel? Different writers have defined the form differently. D. H. Lawrence said that the novel is “the one bright book of life.” Stendhal said that a novel is “a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects the azure skies, at another the mire of the puddles at your feet.” Randall Jarrell, admitting that even the greatest novels are flawed in some way, said that a novel is “a prose narrative of some length that has something wrong with it.” In this class, we’ll be reading a wide variety of novels published after 1970 in order to gain an appreciation of the richness and flexibility of the form. Writers whose work we’ll consider include Nicholson Baker, Octavia Butler, Italo Calvino, Teju Cole, Jennifer Egan, Milan Kundera, Ben Lerner, Sigrid Nunez, Jenny Offill, Padgett Powell, Mary Robison, Fran Ross, and George Saunders. I don’t have a treasure chest of craft lessons to offer; my hope is that if we spend the semester reading ambitious novels and talking about them as fellow writers, we’ll all learn something by the end. In conference, we’ll be looking at your writing. You’ll be asked to give me a finished short story or novel excerpt every two weeks.

A novelist once began a lecture by asking how many people in the audience wanted to be writers. When almost everyone raised a hand, he said, “So, why the hell aren’t you home writing?” The novelist was asking the right question. The only way to improve as a writer is to write a lot. You might have all the talent in the world, and you might have had a thousand fascinating experiences; but talent and experience won’t get you very far unless you have the ability to sit down, day after day, and write. Accordingly, my main goal is to encourage you to develop or sustain the habit of steady writing. You’ll be sharing a very short piece with the class every week in response to prompts that I’ll provide, and you’ll also be writing longer stories and essays that we’ll discuss in one-on-one conference meetings. In the fall semester, students will read and write short fiction; in the spring, students will read and write personal essays. Writers whose work we’ll study include James Baldwin, Anton Chekhov, Joan Didion, Jennifer Egan, Percival Everett, Carmen Maria Machado, Katherine Mansfield, Haruki Murakami, George Orwell, Philip Roth, George Saunders, and Zadie Smith. Given the range of writers that we’ll be reading, it’s safe to say that everyone in the class will be encountering stories they find disturbing and ideas they find objectionable at some point during the year. If you believe you can be harmed by exposure to points of view that differ starkly from your own, it would be best not to register for this class. We will meet in individual conferences every week until the October Study Days break, after which our conferences will meet every other week.

After reading a story by an older writer, the young James Joyce wrote, “Is this as near as [he] can get to life, I wonder?” You could say that Joyce was pointing toward a goal for which many great fiction writers strive: the goal of bringing to the page one’s unique way of apprehending life rather than relying on formula and convention. Something like this striving lay behind Chekhov’s revolt against traditional plot, Woolf’s search for new ways to render the subtleties of consciousness, Stein’s experiments with language, and Garcia Marquez’s adventures in magical realism. In this lecture class, we’ll read short stories old and new, with the aim of learning both from those who’ve come before us and those who are working now. Writers we’re likely to encounter include Isaac Babel, Anton Chekhov, Percival Everett, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mary Gaitskill, Ernest Hemingway, Franz Kafka, D. H. Lawrence, Carmen Maria Machado, Katherine Mansfield, Lorrie Moore, ZZ Packer, Grace Paley, George Saunders, and Virginia Woolf. Though formally a lecture, this will heavily be a discussion-based class; so please consider registering for it only if you’re interested in sharing your thoughts about the readings every week.

Classes in which writing students read published fiction, rather than sharing their own work, are usually called craft classes. I don’t like the term, because I think it overstates the degree to which literary craft matters. Most of the time, it seems to me, when we fall in love with a novel, it’s not because it did clever things with chronology or setting or point of view but because it gave us that telltale tingle down the spine (in Nabokov’s words) or handed us an axe to break the frozen sea within us (in Kafka’s). Craft may be something that we can teach ourselves in a step-by-step manner; literary intelligence, a more elusive quality, is something that we can hope to develop only by writing as much as we can, reading as much as we can, and thinking and feeling as fully as we can. (”One good heartbreak will furnish the poet with many songs and the novelist with a considerable number of novels,” wrote Edith Wharton. “But they must have hearts that can break.”) I don't have a treasure chest of craft lessons to offer in this class; my hope is simply that, if we spend the semester reading ambitious novels and talking about them as fellow writers, we’ll all learn something by the end. We'll spend our time in class talking about novels by writers including Jennifer Egan, Henry James, Nella Larsen, Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, and Edith Wharton,  and excerpts of novels by George Eliot, James Joyce, Marcel Proust, and Leo Tolstoy. In conference, we’ll be looking at your writing. You’ll be asked to give me a finished short story or novel excerpt every two weeks.

If you're a young writer, these three habits are important to cultivate: the habit of writing a lot, the habit of reading a lot, and the habit of trusting your own imagination. The aim of this class is to help with all three. We will meet once a week to talk about published stories and essays (by writers including Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, James Baldwin, Toni Cade Bambara, Anton Chekhov, Kathleen Collins, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chester Himes, D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, James Alan McPherson, ZZ Packer, Delmore Schwartz, and Nafissa Thompson-Spires) and to share our work in an atmosphere of encouragement and support. Students won’t be criticizing one another’s work; instead, you’ll be helping one another identify your literary strengths and clarify your literary goals. We will also meet for one hour on each of the other four weekdays to write in one another’s company. I’ll be happy to provide prompts every day to help you get started; but if you don't want to use the prompts, you won’t have to. All you’ll need to do is show up and write. Although I hope that our classroom conversations will be fantastic, I have a hunch that the practice of writing together four days a week will be the part of the class that you’ll treasure the most when you think back on it years from now when, if you keep going, you’ll be deep into your life as a writer.

A novelist once began a lecture by asking how many people in the audience wanted to be writers. When almost everyone raised a hand, he said, “So why the hell aren’t you home writing?” The novelist was asking the right question. The only way to improve as a writer is to write a lot. You might have all the talent in the world. You might have had a thousand fascinating experiences. But talent and experience won’t get you very far unless you have the ability to sit down, day after day, and write. Accordingly, my main goal is to encourage you to develop or sustain the habit of steady writing. You’ll be expected to produce a short story every two weeks, which we’ll discuss in detail during our one-on-one conferences. In class, we’ll be talking about novels, short stories, and essays—learning from writers who have come before us. We’ll read a mix of classic and contemporary writers, including James Baldwin, Anton Chekhov, Jennifer Egan, Percival Everett, Henry James, Toni Morrison, Sigrid Nunez, Philip Roth, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, and Virginia Woolf. We’ll meet in conference every week during the fall semester and every other week in the spring.

After reading a story by an older writer, the young James Joyce wrote, “Is this as near as [he] can get to life, I wonder?” You could say that Joyce was pointing toward a goal that many great fiction writers strive for: the goal of bringing to the page one’s unique way of apprehending life rather than relying on formula and convention. Something like this striving lay behind Chekhov’s revolt against traditional plot, Woolf’s search for new ways to render the subtleties of consciousness, Stein’s experiments with language, Proust’s explorations of time and memory, and Garcia Marquez’s adventures in magical realism. In this lecture class, we’ll read short stories old and new, with the aim of learning both from those who’ve come before us and those who are working now. Writers we’re likely to encounter include Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Toni Cade Bambara, Anton Chekhov, Kate Chopin, Edwidge Danticat, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mary Gaitskill, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, D. H. Lawrence, Carmen Maria Machado, Katherine Mansfield, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Herman Melville, Lorrie Moore, ZZ Packer, George Saunders, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, and Bryan Washington. We’ll also read criticism, letters, and a little bit of theory. Although the understanding that writers learn from other writers is inscribed in the very nature of the class, we’ll be guided above all by the idea that imaginative writing is a domain of freedom—that the history of fiction is the history of writers shaping their work in ways that previous generations couldn’t have imagined.

This course is for students interested in writing essays about political and cultural questions. Each week in class, in addition to talking about your work, we’ll discuss two or three published pieces (some of them long, some not so long) that look at social questions from widely different points of view. Our aim will not be to arrive at a consensus as to which ideas have greater merit; rather, we’ll be examining the rhetorical strategies by which different writers seek to persuade. Writers we’re likely to read include James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Joan Didion, Ralph Ellison, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Jeannie Suk Gersen, Vivian Gornick, Irving Howe, Laura Kipnis, John McWhorter, Dwight Macdonald, George Orwell, Claudia Rankine, David Foster Wallace, and Zadie Smith, as well as a few earlier thinkers such as G. K. Chesterton, Frederick Douglass, William James, John Stuart Mill, and Virginia Woolf. Given the range of writers and opinions we’ll be reading, it’s safe to say that everyone in the class will be encountering many ideas they consider objectionable over the course of the semester. So, if you believe you can be harmed by exposure to points of view that differ starkly from your own, it would be best not to register for this class. Otherwise, it’s open to all interested students

This course is for students interested in writing essays set on the borderland where the personal essay and the essay of cultural opinion meet. Each week in class, in addition to talking about your work, we’ll discuss two or three published pieces that look at social questions from widely different points of view. Our aim will not be to arrive at a consensus as to which ideas have greater merit; rather, we’ll be examining the rhetorical strategies by which different writers seek to persuade. Writers we’re likely to read include James Baldwin, G. K. Chesterton, Joan Didion, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Vivian Gornick, bell hooks, Irving Howe, Laura Kipnis, John McWhorter, George Orwell, Zadie Smith, and Virginia Woolf. Given the range of writers and opinions that we’ll be reading, it’s safe to say that everyone in the class will be encountering many ideas that they consider objectionable over the course of the semester. So if you believe you can be harmed by exposure to points of view that differ starkly from your own, it would be best not to register for this class. Otherwise, it’s open to all interested students.

In this lecture class, we’ll look at the short story from the mid-19th century to today. Among the writers we'll read are Isaac Babel, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Kathleen Collins, Anton Chekhov, Percival Everett, Carolyn Ferrell, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mary Gaitskill, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, D. H. Lawrence, Carmen Maria Machado, Katherine Mansfield, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Lorrie Moore, ZZ Packer, Grace Paley, George Saunders, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, and Virginia Woolf. We’ll also read criticism, letters, and a little bit of theory. In our group conferences, students will share very short stories, written in response to prompts, in a supportive atmosphere.

If you're a young writer, these three habits are important to cultivate: the habit of writing a lot, the habit of reading a lot, and the habit of trusting your imagination. The aim of this class is to help with all three. We’ll meet once a week to talk about both published fiction and your own work in an atmosphere of encouragement and support. Students won’t be looking for weaknesses in one another’s work; instead, you’ll be helping one another identify your strengths and clarify your literary goals. We’ll also meet for one hour on each of the other four weekdays to write in one another’s company. Writers whose work we’ll discuss include Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Anton Chekhov, Percival Everett, F. Scott Fitzgerald, D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, R. K. Narayan, Z. Z. Packer, Grace Paley, Delmore Schwartz, and Nafissa Thompson-Spires. The only prerequisites for the class are an interest in writing a lot, an eagerness to read the work of your peers in a genuinely supportive way, and a willingness to get up early. (The four weekly writing sessions will begin at 8:30 a.m.)

The literary colloquium features events by SLC faculty members, visiting writers, editors, publishers, and literary agents and is designed to bring MFA students in contact with a wide array of ideas from the world of writing. Examples of regular events in the colloquium are: a residency in each genre, which includes a reading and a craft talk by a visiting author; conversations with writing faculty members and visiting writers; and panels and discussions focused on publishing, teaching, editing, or other career-related topics. By participating in forums related to both craft and professional development, students benefit from exposure to many voices, genres, and experiences.