Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

“It’s like sculpting smoke. Smoke comes out, but then, of course, it is given form and shape and structure.”
 –the author Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy gives us one way to think about the writing process. And in this course, you'll do your own smoke sculpting. You'll be writing, workshopping, and revising your own short story. We'll use writing experiments to spark your creativity, and you'll both give and receive feedback in a focused workshop environment.

In the course, we'll also be closely reading a number of published short stories and essays about the fiction writing process. In order to construct stories of our own—our ultimate goal—we must learn to engage with the work of others as craftspeople. By the end of this course, you probably won’t be able to read a story without thinking about how it was constructed.

Note that we will be meeting in-person each week at the scheduled class time—and attendance at our meetings is required.

Know also that WR241 and WR244 are taught together as one combined class.  So, if you've already taken WR241 with me, I highly recommend taking WR244 with another instructor in order to gain a new perspective on the craft of writing. 

You'll need access to a computer, and a printer for this class—PCC libraries and Multnomah County libraries are excellent resources for these needs.