CRWR 191 A-Z - Advanced Topics in Creative Writing

Semester Hours: 3

Current Special Topics

CRWR 191R - My Heart With Pleasure Fills: Poems of Delight & Discovery

The French novelist Henry de Montherlant coined the maxim “Happiness writes white,” which suggests that happiness is a blank that can’t be described. It doesn’t show up on the page the way misery and sorrow do. In this workshop course, students will respond to this idea, a common romantic prejudice, by showing that joy, delight and awe, too, can be written. Through extensive reading of published poems and creation of their own work, students will celebrate those moments of happiness that most of us do—in spite of everything life throws at us—experience.

Rest assured, this is not a Pollyanna poetry course: pain, suffering, loss, grief—and all the challenges of life—will not be ignored. They will have a seat at our poetry table, but we will intentionally focus our attention on the myriad positive aspects of the human condition: love, joy, peace, courage, hope, compassion, kindness, justice, persistence, gratitude, wisdom, truth, forgiveness, generosity, creativity, confidence, imagination, purpose, meaning, trust, wonder, faith, acceptance and on and on and on…

In addition to working on a new poem or prose piece every other week, each student will work towards a final project throughout the semester. Students will also be required to keep a writer’s journal. Writing prompts and exercises—both in and out of class—will be given periodically.

Prerequisites: CRWR 133  and either WSC 001  or WSC 002 , or permission of instructor. 

CRWR 191S - The Writer’s Voice: Fiction

What do we mean when we talk about the writer’s voice? The more we write, the more we move away from a generic sense of language towards a more specific one, and so create works of fiction written in our own particular manner. Every writer has their own idiosyncratic way of telling a story, with their own individual use of vocabulary, syntax, rhythm, sense of what to put in and what to leave out, sense of how to transition between moments. This individual way of storytelling develops both from making conscious, intellectual choices about the language, and other choices that spring organically from deep within, from our personal psychology and biography, the places we come from, the events we’ve experienced, the wisdom we’ve absorbed. These elements combine with a kind of artistic alchemy to form a unique literary personality: our writer’s voice.

In this advanced fiction workshop, through writing short stories, doing in-class exercises, and reading works from established authors, students will work to discover and develop their own unique sense of narrative voice.

Prerequisites: CRWR 133 , CRWR 135 , CRWR 137 , or the instructor’s permission

 

Prerequisite(s)/Course Notes:
May be repeated for credit when topics vary. As individual subjects are selected, each is assigned a letter (A-Z) which is affixed to the course number. Specific titles and course descriptions for special topics courses are available in the online class schedule.

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Fall 2025

January 2026

Spring 2026