55-5217 CRW: Novelists

This course examines the ways in which novelists read, respond to what they read, and incorporate their reading dynamically into their own fiction writing processes. In addition to their own written responses to reading, students work individually and in small groups researching the reading and writing processes behind selected novels (mainstream and non-mainstream), ranging from the beginnings of the form to the present day. Drawing upon authors’ journals, notebooks, and letters as well as upon more public writings, students explore the connection between these processes and the ways in which their own responses to reading may nourish and heighten and development of their fiction. The course will survey many of the principal novelists and novels and the development of the genre from its roots to contemporary fiction. Students should be writing fiction, but novel-length material is not required.

3 Credits
Requisites COREQUISITES: 55-5101 Fiction Writing I or 55-6101 Fiction Writing I or 55-5102 Fiction Writing II or 55-6102 Fiction Writing II or 55-5104 Prose Forms or 55-5105 Advanced Prose Forms or 55-5106 Fiction Writing: Advanced or 55-6110 Thesis Development or 55-4101 Fiction Writing I or 55-1101 Fiction Writing I