Strangeness & Surprise: Generative Fiction Workshop

In this intermediate-level fiction workshop, students will write five short fiction pieces over six class sessions. The focus on the class will be on generating new work via prompts, exercises, and discussion, with a special emphasis on inviting surprise and strangeness into the students’ writing. Whether in content, style, form, or all three, students will be expected to push their stories toward greater originality and imaginative heights. Published stories that exhibit these qualities will be studied as examples. Students will receive feedback on their work from their peers and from their instructor. 

Instructor: Anthony Tognazzini's recent work has appeared in Electric Literature, Guernica, Crazyhorse, and TriQuarterly, among other journals, as well as on NPR's Selected Shorts and in Norton's 2018 anthology New Micro. His fiction collection, I Carry A Hammer In My Pocket for Occasions Such As These, was published by BOA Editions. He has taught at New York University, the New School, the 92nd Street Y, Adelphi University, and the College of Wooster. Anthony has received fellowships from Yaddo, Millay, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Djerrasi Resident Artist Program, and the Ohio Arts Council. He currently lives in Ohio.