Instructor Rebecca van Laer is the author of two books: HOW TO ADJUST TO THE DARK (novella, Long Day Press, 2022), and CAT (memoir, Bloomsbury's Object Lessons series, forthcoming). Her fiction and essays appear in the New England Review, Joyland, TriQuarterly, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Brown University, where she studied queer and feminist autobiography.

Who is this class for?

This course is for fiction and nonfiction prose writers hoping to breathe new life into old or abandoned drafts.

What to expect:

Sometimes your best ideas are already dormant in unfinished, unpublished, or otherwise abandoned work. If you have half-finished or long-shelved short stories or essays, “Resurrection” presents an opportunity to get new eyes on your old writing and develop a clear direction for revision.

This course is also suitable for writers with unpublished or abandoned book manuscripts that they’d like to break into stories, essays, or anything in-between.

While we’ll read a few interviews and excerpts, the majority of our time together will be focused on workshop. In the first session, we’ll discuss revision strategies including switching genre, point-of-view, and form.

We’ll continue to consider these strategies—and others—as we focus our remaining time workshopping existing drafts with an eye toward radical reimagination.

What are the writing goals? 

In this course, students will radically revise 1-2 pieces of existing prose (up to 5000 words). They’ll emerge with a clear sense of what worked in the original and how to transform or develop it into a piece that’s ready for submission.

Rebecca will provide verbal feedback in all workshops as well as marked-up PDFs of all submitted writing.

Readings may include excerpts from Michael Clune, "Panic Attack" essay and "Pan" (first chapter); Naomi Washer, "Subjects We Left Out" (excerpts); Rebecca van Laer by Kate Doyle (BOMB Magazine)

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1: Finding the Kernel BOMB Interview, Washer, Workshops

Week 2: Switching Genres (Michael Clune) Workshops

Week 3: Workshop

Week 4: Workshop

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Deeper understanding of their own body of work: what makes a piece feel stale? Where is the heart in a stale piece, the kernel of character or theme that makes it tic?
• Concrete strategies for shifting writing from one context to another 
• Mastery of generative workshopping. Students will gain experience providing feedback with radical revision in mind(rather than suggesting tweaks or small areas for development) 
• A new draft of at least one prose piece

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE: