Starts Monday, August 4th, 2025

Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button (lower left) to talk with us. 

Instructor Amie Whittemore (she/her) is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Nest of Matches (Autumn House Press), and the chapbook Hesitation Waltz (Midwest Writing Center). She was the 2020-2021 Poet Laureate of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. Her poems have won multiple awards, including a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize, and her writing has appeared in Blackbird, Colorado Review, Terrain.org, Pleiades, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing at Eastern Illinois University.

Learn more about Amie in our Meet the Teaching Artist series. 

Are you a poet who loves science fiction but finds it challenging to transfer your poetic sensibilities to prose? In Science Fiction for Poets, we will read texts that blend poetic techniques, such as metaphor, lush language, and lyricism into science fiction.

Through discussion, we'll unearth what makes these stories work: how do these authors create engaging stories that are driven more by language and ideas than by plot?

During the first three weeks, we'll read a different short story or novel for each class session. We'll investigate the text from a craft perspective and the second half generating new work and sharing it.

In week four, students will be invited to share 1-3 page excerpts of their stories in progress for gentle, generative feedback, focusing on what we're curious about in this "story seedling" the writer has begun.

Assigned reading will include "When I was Miss Dow" by Sonya Dorman; excerpt from ORBITAL by Samantha Harvey; and "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang, among others.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS: 

• Students will be introduced to new authors.
• Students will identify how poetic techniques work in science fiction texts.
• Students will generate starts to three new stories.
• Students will gain a deeper understanding of the genre and genre-blending between poetry and science fiction.

COURSE OUTLINE:

• Week 1: Introductions & the Poetry of Sonya Dorman's "When I was Miss Dow".
• Week 2: Character & Setting in Samantha Harvey's ORBITAL.
• Week 3: Tense Shifts & Shifting Reality in Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life".
• Week 4: Work-in-Progress Share.

TESTIMONIALS:

“I was grateful to work with Amie for a couple of years, both as a class instructor and private mentor. She is inspirational and helpful in so many ways. I wrote a lot under her and she spent much time on feedback and questions, encouraging as well as finding ways to improve upon my writing. It’s hard to find instructors that are as productive and organized as she is. She is knowledgeable, her classes always creative and superior to many.” –Ellen Lager

“I highly admire her instructional style and her ability to really tease out the best in a piece of writing all the while meeting it on its own terms.”

“Amie’s feedback on my writing was the highlight of the class. It was insightful and helped me to improve my writing overall.”

“I appreciated Amie’s entire approach….Most of all I appreciated her quiet encouragement. I sensed her genuine enthusiasm for participants to learn as much as possible, on our terms. The mark of a great instructor!”

“I thought the instructor was, for the most part, excellent–especially in her very professional critiques, which were exceptionally nuanced, fair, and balanced. She beautifully modeled how to best phrase constructive critique of a poem, whether a first draft or revision. I thought her feedback, both to myself and my peers, was well thought out, thorough, perceptive, and clearly presented. She created a relaxed but focused atmosphere and was personable and added bits of humor here and there, but didn’t go overboard with it.”

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

This class is entirely asynchronous which means you complete the weekly assignments on your own schedule. There are no set meeting times in order to allow for greater participation; your cohort will consist of writers from across different time zones, which allows for a wonderful diversity of voices.

Along with your weekly deadlines there is plenty of interaction with Amie and your peers within Wet Ink, our dedicated online classroom. Craft materials, lectures, reading assignments, and writing prompts are all available through the online classroom. Students also post work and provide and receive feedback within the online classroom environment.

You can get the work done as you see fit week-to-week, so it is perfect for any schedule. There are discussion questions each week inspired by the assigned readings and topics in the lecture notes. Students are encouraged to take these wherever is most compelling and/or useful for them. Amie engages with these discussions throughout the week and you will receive feedback from all assigned writing activities.

HOW DOES WET INK WORK?

Wet Ink was built and designed specifically for online writing classes. Wet Ink is private, easy to use, and very interactive. You can learn more about the Wet Ink platform by Watching a Class Demo.

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

• Instructor: Amie Whittemore
• Class starts Monday, August 4th, 2025
• Course is fully ONLINE; students can work according to their own schedule within weekly deadlines. Once you have enrolled the instructor will send you a link to our online classroom, provided via Wet Ink.
• Tuition is $299.