LLWRC 793 - Get Started: Introduction to Fiction

The making, or craft, of fiction and its several elements will be our focus during these six sessions. Specifically, we will concentrate on narrative arc and structure, characterization, setting, dialogue and the profound but sometimes thorny choice of narrative point(s) of view. Some of the course will be taught as a workshop, in which student work generated as part of the class will be constructively critiqued by class members. In-class as well as out-of-class exercises will be assigned to prompt new ways of thinking about fiction and its creation. Special fee covers the course text, John Dufresne's The Lie That Tells a Truth. Cass holds a BA from Stanford University in English and creative writing and a PhD in English and fiction writing from the University of Utah. Her short fiction has appeared in several literary journals including Cimarron Review, Quarterly West, Grain, Carve, and Nimrod International. She is the winner of the 1999 Writers@Work Fellowship as well as the 2002 Vice Presidential Fellowship in Creative Writing from the University of Utah. She has recently completed her first novel, entitled Handling Horses.