Georgetown University

In this class, you’ll answer the question “What Is a Story?” To do that, you’ll immerse yourselves in the art and discipline of story writing. Partly this means acquiring a writer’s critical eye for fiction, so you’ll study the basic elements of successful fiction (character, plot, description, etc.) and use these tools to read and analyze stories—from stories that serve as foundations for Western civilization (i.e., Biblical stories) to more contemporary Jewish short fiction. Of course, the writer above all learns through doing; you’ll therefore write a great deal of your own fiction—regular exercises as well as more fully developed and revised work. Much of this development will happen as a result of the workshop process, where you’ll give one another extensive feedback on work submitted to the class as a whole.