Instructor: T Kira Māhealani Madden
In this generative writing class, we’ll collectively wander and roam the landscapes of our imaginations. We’ll read and write across genres – nonfiction, fiction, poetry, drama, and all those electric, undefinable places in between – mining the homes, currents, and climates of our own memories and lives, while creating new ones entirely. We will read vigorously, and we will play. We’ll focus on isolation and compression, on finding narrative “heat” and the emotional potency, meaning, and purpose, behind our words. The scaffolding behind published works will serve as blueprints for both in-class and at home writing exercises. Too, we will read and discuss some craft essays; what does it mean to make art, to be an artist, in 2024? Writers will be challenged to interrogate all the literal and figurative places we inhabit and the responsibilities that come with that habitation. We will talk ethics, artistic compassing, and the ways in which we might reimagine classroom “critique” moving forward. You will each get the chance to hear back from your readers, and we will each provide oral, first impression feedback for each other’s work.