SHORTING THE CIRCUITS: A Short Story Workshop with Claire Oleson, October 1 — November 5, 2022
SHORTING THE CIRCUITS: A Short Story Workshop
taught by Cleaver Poetry Editor Claire Oleson
October 1—November 5, 2022
Asynchronous with optional Zoom meetings 11 am ET on Saturdays 10/8, 10/5, and 11/5
$250
Class Limit: 12
Questions: [email protected]
In this five-week generative short fiction workshop, writers from beginner to advanced will be invited to read and write work that pushes the bounds of the short story. Each week, participants will read an assigned story and have time and space to discuss its successes, failures, and fascinations. They will then be tasked with writing the beginning of their own story that borrows some stylistic element from the week’s reading. In small groups, writers will be invited to respond to one another’s work with constructive feedback. The instructor will respond to each writer’s work each week.
At its core, this is a workshop designed to support a writer’s voice while exposing them to the range of styles and goals the short story can take on. The readings we engage with will all contain a literary leaning, but will do so from completely different positions and perspectives. In the final week of class, participants will choose one of their stories to complete with class feedback in mind while prioritizing their own vision for the work.
The first two optional zoom sessions will serve as a place to absorb more work and engage in timed writing exercises engineered to break down our gut-reflexes in writing. The final zoom session will be a class reading and a space to share one another’s work. There will also be time held for participants to ask questions about the landscape and trials of contemporary publishing.
Claire Oleson is a queer writer and 2020 Emerging Writer Fellow at the Center for Fiction. Her work has been published by the Kenyon Review online, the University of Kentucky’s graduate literary journal Limestone, the LA Review of Books, and Newfound Press, among others. She is the 2019 winner of the Newfound Prose Prize and the Poetry Editor at Cleaver Magazine. Her chapbook, Things from the Creek Bed We Could Have Been, debuted May, 2020. She is represented by Eloy Bleifuss at Janklow and Nesbit.
Schedule (October 1—November 5)
New Modules posted on Mondays,
Pieces due by Friday, 11:59,
Feedback from All Due by Sunday, 11:59
Zoom sessions on Saturdays at 11 AM
- One on Oct 8, one on Oct 15
- Final zoom reading: Nov 5