Starts Tuesday, January 9th, 2024

Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Tuesdays, 7:00PM - 8:30PM CST.

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Taught by Nan Cuba, author of Body and Bread, winner of the PEN Southwest Award in Fiction and the Texas Institute of Letters Steven Turner Award. Other work has appeared in Harvard Review, Columbia, Quarterly West, and Chicago Tribune’s Printer’s Row, LIFE, and Third Coast. As an investigator of the causes of extraordinary violence, she is featured in a Netflix documentary, The Confession Killer, and another by Hulu, Wild Crimes: Murder in Yosemite. Cuba has received a Dobie Paisano Fellowship, a San Antonio Artist Foundation Fellowship, and an artist residency at Fundación Valparaiso in Spain. She is founder and executive director emeritus of Gemini Ink, a nonprofit writing arts center in San Antonio.

Read an Interview with Nan on Writing Social Justice.

Artists are witnesses who create in order to share their reactions to beauty, but also to injustice and suffering. Art built around an idea, however, is like a lab experiment designed to produce a chosen result. Writing of this sort becomes didactic and defeats the artist’s hope to enlighten.

The great Russian humanist, Anton Chekhov, said, “The artist should be not the judge of his characters and their conversations, but only an unbiased observer.” In another letter he added, “…you confuse two things: solving a problem and stating a problem correctly. It is only the second that is obligatory for the artist.”

This workshop for fiction writers will share techniques for tackling political and social issues with honesty and insight in order to challenge and broaden the reader’s—and the writer’s—understanding.

We will read essays explaining theories and craft advice, and we will analyze stories for ways to write socially conscious fiction. Each student will receive critical feedback from the instructor and her classmates.

WEEK ONE: Watch then discuss video of Toni Morrison interview: Toni Morrison Refuses To Privilege White People, Toni Morrison Refuses To Privilege White People In Her Novels! - YouTube/  Read out loud and discuss Nan’s essay, “Writing Social Justice” (handout). Assignment: Read Boswell, Robert, “Politics and Art in the Novel” in The Half-Known World: on Writing Fiction. Boz-Politics (1).pdf/  Read “Monsters” by Scott Cheshire (handout).

WEEK TWO: Discuss Boswell essay and “Monsters.” Read and analyze Chekhov’s story, “The Darling.” chekhov_the_darling.pdf (shortstoryamerica.com)/ Exercise: Write a scene in which a character must make a decision between two options, but neither is clearly correct, and each would have a problematic outcome. Assignment: Read Brown, Rosellen, Daugherty, Tracy, and Meeropol, Ellen, “Writing Political Fiction.” The Writer’s Chronicle (March/April 2013). AWP: Writer's Chronicle Features Archive (awpwriter.org)/

WEEK THREE: Discuss “Writing Political Fiction.” Read and analyze Andy Weir’s story, “The Egg.” The Egg (galactanet.com)/  Exercise: Write a scene in which a fantastic element is used to distance the story from its social justice issue. Assignment: Read Mukherjee, Siddhartha, “Love in the Time of Numbness; or, Doctor Chekhov, Writer.” The New Yorker (April 11, 2017). Love in the Time of Numbness; or, Doctor Chekhov, Writer | The New Yorker/

Two students email copies of a story to the teacher and classmates. Everyone reads then writes summary comments in preparation for the workshop discussions.

WEEK FOUR: Discuss “Love in the Time of Numbness.” Workshop discussions of the two student stories. Everyone sends summary comments as email attachments to the authors. Assignment: Read Poddar, Namrata, “Is ‘Show Don’t Tell’ a Universal Truth or Colonial Relic?” Literary Hub. Is “Show Don’t Tell” a Universal Truth or a Colonial Relic? ‹ Literary Hub (lithub.com)/

Two students email copies of a story to the teacher and classmates. Everyone reads then writes summary comments in preparation for the workshop discussions.

WEEK FIVE: Discuss Poddar essay. Workshop discussions of the two student stories. Everyone sends summary comments as email attachments to the authors. Assignment: Read Orwell, George, “Why I Write.” George Orwell: Why I Write/ Two students email copies of a story to the teacher and classmates. Everyone reads then writes summary comments in preparation for the workshop discussions.

WEEK SIX: Discuss Orwell’s “Why I Write.” Workshop discussions of the two student stories. Everyone sends summary comments as email attachments to the authors. Assignment: Three students email copies of a story to the teacher and classmates. Everyone reads then writes summary comments in preparation for the workshop discussions.

WEEK SEVEN: Workshop discussions of the three student stories. Everyone sends summary comments as email attachments to the authors. Assignment: Three students email copies of a story to the teacher and classmates. Everyone reads then writes summary comments in preparation for the workshop discussions.

WEEK EIGHT: Workshop discussions of the three student stories. Everyone sends summary comments as email attachments to the authors. Closing remarks.

Instructor Nan Cuba is the author of Body and Bread, winner of the PEN Southwest Award in Fiction and the Texas Institute of Letters Steven Turner Award; it was listed as one of “Ten Titles to Pick Up Now” in O, Oprah’s Magazine and was a “Summer Books” choice from Huffington Post. Other work has appeared in Antioch Review, Harvard Review, Columbia, Quarterly West, and Chicago Tribune’s Printer’s Row. Journalistic pieces were published in LIFE, Third Coast, and D Magazine. As an investigator of the causes of extraordinary violence, she is featured in a Netflix documentary, The Confession Killer, and another by Hulu, Wild Crimes: Murder in Yosemite. Cuba is included in Texas Monthly’s “Ten to Watch (and Read)” and has received a Dobie Paisano Fellowship, a San Antonio Artist Foundation Fellowship, and an artist residency at Fundación Valparaiso in Spain. She is founder and executive director emeritus of Gemini Ink, a nonprofit writing arts center, and was Writer in Residence at Our Lady of the Lake University.