This class is centered around two main beliefs: 1) everyone is a storyteller and 2) creativity is not a solo sport. With these cornerstones in mind, this class will center around both collaborative worldbuilding and writer-centered workshops. For the first half of the semester, we will focus on a collaborative worldbuilding project where students will work in groups to build their own worlds and populate them with characters, which will later be used as a basis for writing individual solo stories. The rest of the semester will be focused on everyone creating their own solo-written stories featuring those characters in the same world. There will be frequent informal prompts and writing exercises to help facilitate your writing.   

In addition to doing your own writing, this course will require you to read both the assigned weekly reading and the work of your peers. As we move through the semester, we will transition to peer workshop, in which you will discuss your work as a group with the instructor as facilitator and guide. The peer workshops are student-led, in the tradition of Felicia Chavez’s The Anti-Racist Workshop. My hope is that you leave this class as citizens of the literary community and more confident writers, capable of analyzing elements of craft in the work of others’ and applying such techniques to your own work, in addition to understanding the significance of collaboration in the creative process.