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The NYCWP’s Reading, Writing, and Teaching Program

December 14, 2020

Last Updated on by Jane Higgins

Pandemics on the Page

While living through the Covid-19 pandemic, we can look to fiction as a way of understanding our own experiences and those of our students. In this reading and discussion group, we will examine one novel per month and discuss how writers use fictionalized pandemics to address questions about society. Writing will bridge the space between imagined and real, allowing participants to unpack and address their own feelings about living during a pandemic through a variety of creative forms.

Meetings on Zoom: Once monthly, Saturdays, 10am-12pm

Five session dates: 2/13; 3/13; 4/10; 5/8; 6/12

Cost: $125

Participants must access their own copies of the following texts: 

  • The Transmigration of Bodies, Yuri Herrera
  • Severance, Ling Ma
  • Blindness, Jose Saramago
  • Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel
  • Zone One, Colson Whitehead

Reading Fiction Like a Writer

Writers read fiction not just for enjoyment, but also to examine closely the “tools of the trade” as they look in the hands of masters. This monthly reading and discussion group will focus on how various writers use different forms, styles, and techniques to draw their readers into fictional worlds. We will read one novel per month, with a focus on works in translation and marginalized voices, to explore the relationship between story, form, and craft with an eye to apply these techniques to our own creative projects, regardless of genre.

Meetings on Zoom: Once monthly, Saturdays, 10am-12pm

Five session dates: 2/20; 3/20; 4/17; 5/15; 6/19

Cost: $125

Participants must access their own copies of the following texts:

  • Slave Old Man, Patrick Chamoiseau
  • Human Acts, Han Kang
  • Weather, Jenny Offill
  • Pedro Páramo, Juan Rulfo
  • On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong

Deadline to register for both courses: February 3, 2020

Both courses provide CTLE credit.