Fiction -writing offers us the opportunity to disguise or question our identities, dislodge received ideas, inhabit various subject positions, imagine new worlds, and experiment with form. So, a storyteller is always a kind of shapeshifter. This semester, we will work on developing our technical abilities and expanding our repertoires to meet the challenges of an ever-changing reality. We will explore narrative possibilities 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 new collection White Cat, Black Dog, and produce game stories modeled on those in the YA anthology Game On. And we’ll consider possibilities 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 a number of in-class exercises, a group report, and several collaborative writing projects.