Welcome

Welcome to English 491: Senior Portfolio in Creative Writing!

I'm Cynthia Hand, the instructor for the course. See the Professor page for more information about me and how you can get in contact with me.

Take a few minutes to maneuver around this website—this is the cornerstone of the class, and you should read every bit of it and continue to check it obsessively all semester. I often post little extras--articles and resources I think will be helpful to you, so please check back often to make the most out of this class.

Then take a minute to purchase the book Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. It will not be available at the BSU bookstore, (because this course was assigned for me to teach on Thursday) so buy it now by clicking on the book in the column on your right. You’ll be expected to have read Chapter One by January 23. I’d prefer you to purchase the paperback copy, because we’ll be flipping though it a lot during class.

So, a little basic information about the course. In this class we will:

•   Revise! This class is all about revising the stories and/or novels you’ve been working on in all of your fiction writing courses up to this point. While you are free to write entirely new stories for class if you feel the need to, this course is focused on revision. Over the next fifteen weeks you'll revise and workshop two or three literary short stories (or a thirty page novel excerpt), the goal being that at the end of the course you will have a high quality portfolio of your very best work.

•   Read. At the end of this class you'll have read two collections of short stories, a book on the craft, and a book on revision, not including the unpublished stories you’ll read for workshop. Happily, these will largely be books you’ve chosen for yourself to suit your particular needs as a writer.  (Have you always wanted to read John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction or Stephen King’s On Writing? Now’s your chance.) 

•   Learn a whole bunch of revision techniques. Because:

•   Did I mention that we’re going to be revising? Every week you’ll bring in your stories to work on making them better, both at the macro level (where the big, wrecking-ball kind of revision takes place) and at the micro level (where we focus on sentence structure and word choice). Think of it as boot camp for your fiction.

Check out the Syllabus and the Schedule for more information. Also, please fill out the Google form here, which will help me stay in touch with you throughout the semester.

I, for one, am excited to get started. See you tomorrow.