Have you ever wanted to become another person? Experience life as a plant or animal? Assume magical abilities? Live in a different place or time?  Fiction-writing allows us to do of these things and more. In fact, a storyteller is a kind of shapeshifter, continually trying on new identities and forms. This semester, we will work on developing our technical abilities, strengthening our imaginations, and expanding our sense of possibility. We will explore scientific storytelling with Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics and work on dialogue in conjunction with Suzan-Lori Parks’ play Father Comes Home from the Wars. We’ll write slipstream stories inspired, in part, by Kelly Link’s collection White Cat, Black Dog, and produce game stories modeled on those in the YA anthology Game On. We will look at the representation of time and history in Ben Shattuck's The History of Sound, the subject of a new movie starring Josh O'Connor and Paul Mescal. And we’ll review opportunities for publication with group reports on contemporary literary magazines.  Students will write five exercises then choose one for expansion, development, and revision.  We will also engage in several in-class exercises, a group report, and several collaborative writing projects.