Requirements – English 492 – Advanced Fiction Writing - Passanante – Fall 2010

Reading and study of three-to-four books, including:

  Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage
Author: Munro, Alice
ISBN: 0-375-41300-6
BD/ED/YR: 2002
Publisher: Knopf

 Brief Encounters with Che Guevara
Author: Fountain, Ben
ISBN: 9780060885601
BD/ED/YR: 2007
Publisher: Harper Perennial Edition

 Burning Down the House
Author: Baxter, Charles
ISBN: 1-55597-270-5
BD/ED/YR: 1997
Publisher: Graywolf

Mandatory attendance: You will lose points for any unexcused absence. If your absence is to be excused, you will need to show me a record of your illness, etc. If you have more than three unexcused absences, you should drop the course since you may not pass.

 Point system grading: Your course grade is based on a 400-point total. A = 350 – 400*; B = 260 – 349; C = 160 – 259; D = 60 – 159.

 *TO EARN AN “A,” YOU MUST ALSO READ ANOTHER BOOK OF FICTION: i.e., Brigid Pasulka's A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True, ISBN 978-0-547-05507-7. YOU CANNOT EARN AN “A” UNLESS YOU READ THIS BOOK AND WRITE A CRITIQUE OF IT--EVEN IF YOU HAVE 350 – 400 POINTS.

 Three NEW short stories (about 15 – 25 pages each), one of the first two revised substantially, if possible within two weeks = 100 (for story #1); 100 (for story #2); 50 (for story #3). The revision’s grade will take the place of the original.

Written workshop critiques: (one single-spaced page of a professionally written critique for every story workshopped; although all critiques are required and will be recorded in my grade book, I will grade only 8 of them-- randomly) = 80 points collectively.

 Productive, well-focused participation in class = 50

Attendance at two campus literary events—either Pasulka’s or Fountain’s is required—and a one-page response to one of them = 20

You are to hand out copies of your story—pages numbered!—one week BEFORE your workshop. There are 9 of us in class, including the instructor. This number may change, of course, so stay tuned.

**Two copies of your written critique are due at the time the story is critiqued—one for the author, one for me.

All written assignments must be typed and proofread carefully.  An accumulation of editorial errors is not considered “average” for writers and will cause your grade to drop.

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 Joy Passanante’s office hours: Brink 203. Tuesdays/Thursdays 12:30 – 1:45.  Other times available by appointment. Email address is joy@uidaho.edu.  I check it often, but not usually late in the evening. If I’m not at school, you’re welcome to call me at my home office –882-1038—where I do most of my work for class and all my research.

 Our class website is http://www.class.uidaho.edu/eng492jp

For updates on readings, see http://www.uidaho.edu/class/english/studentopportunities/wristerseries.aspx

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Readings for Fall 2010

 September 22, Jen Hirt, nonfiction

 September 29, Robert Wrigley, poetry

October 6, Bridget Pasulka (2010 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award winner for fiction)

 October 20, Ed Hirsch, poetry

 November 10, Ben Fountain, fiction

 Either Pasulka’s or Fountain’s reading is REQUIRED.

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Assignment for Story Number 2 

Your second story will require some research and a great deal of imagination.

You will be basing a story on a historical figure. When I say “basing,” I mean just that: This historical figure should inspire your story. This means that you will use some of the details you discover in your research, but you will be inventing the specific situation your characters are in and the ways in which they act within and because of it. You will also use research details to imagine and portray your protagonist in the distant clime—and distant place—he/she inhabited.  (Both the story collections we are reading this semester provide fine examples of other places/other times here.)

You will develop your narration in the point of view either of the major historical figure or of a real or imagined person close to him/her.

Stretch yourselves in every way you can. I am looking for experimentation particularly  with point of view, characterization, and atmosphere.