Welcome to ENGL270 - Introduction to Creative Writing. Over the next dozen or so weeks, we will explore the fundamental of writing essays poems and stories: generating ideas, developing great characters, using language to bring landscapes, people and situations to life, selecting the right point of view, building toward great endings, and completing drafts in revision. While producing creative pieces will be the primary goal, reading is inextricably connected to the writing process. Therefore, you can expect to be doing a good deal of reading and writing both in and out of class. First and foremost, our purpose together will be to provide you the means of exploring and expanding your imaginative powers, and to learn methods of expressing those imaginative powers in language through the craft of storytelling. Writing creatively is the best way I know to learn about ourselves--about our hearts, our passions, our dreams, about what it is that motivates us, drives our emotions, makes us persevere against all obstacles, causes us to love or to hate--in short, what it is that makes us human.
START HERE!
Here's what you'll need to do to get started:
1) Send me an email, introducing yourself and telling me one details about yourself that will make you memorable. Use the email address that you'd like to use in our correspondence for the class. cahinrichs@alaska.edu
2) Make sure you have the correct books:
- Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
- The Poetry Repair Manual by Ted Kooser
- Poetry 180 by Billy Collins
- Building Fiction by Jesse Lee Kersheval
- The VIntage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories edited by Tobias Wolff
3) Read the syllabus, under "Resources."
4) Check out the course schedule - print or bookmark the page, so that you have easy access, and always now what your assignments are, and when they are due. Start on Week #1 Readings / Assignments!
