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Writing YA Fiction Across Genres 8-Week Zoom Workshop with Molly Horan, Starts Tuesday, June 20th, 2023
Regular price
$495.00

Writing YA Fiction Across Genres 8-Week Zoom Workshop with Molly Horan, Starts Tuesday, June 20th, 2023


Unit price per

Class Starts Tuesday, June 20th, 2023

Class will meet weekly via Zoom (Tuesdays, 6PM EST - 8PM EST).

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

Led by Molly Horan, a lyricist, librettist, playwright, and novelist. Her debut novel, Epically Earnest, was published in 2022 by HarperCollins, and her first picture book, I Have Seven Dogs, will be published in 2023 by Penguin/Random House. She currently works as an adjunct professor teaching creative writing at NYU.

Get to know Molly in our Meet the Teaching Artist series.

Young adult fiction has become a rich literary classification covering all genres, from fantasy to literary fiction to magical realism. The one unifying theme across all YA is a sense of hope in the conclusion-for the protagonist, their community, or even humankind.

This class offers specific units which introduce sub-genres of YA through assigned readings and discussion. We will also workshop students' corresponding YA novel excerpts.

We will pay close attention to voice and dialogue, as well as study and practice the importance of world building. We will also discuss the importance of representation and the increased visibility of diverse characters in young adult fiction.

Assigned readings will focus on young adult literature from the last twenty years and be broken up into subgenres including:

  • Mystery (One of Us is Lying By Karen M. McManus)
  • Literary fiction (Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz)
  • Fantasy (The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton).

We will also explore form, looking at novels in:

  • Verse (Long Way Down By Jason Reynolds)
  • Graphic novels (Nimona By Noelle Stevenson)

COURSE OUTLINE:


Week One

Finding inspiration: As a class we will work through brainstorming activities and talk through where you get your ideas.

Week Two

Playing With Form: Looking at novels in verse and other inventive formats

Week Three

Building Other Worlds: Science Fiction and Fantasy in YA

Week Four 

Student Workshopping: As a class we will workshop students novel excerpts

Week Five

How to Develop Strong Characters: Examining Contemporary YA

Week Six

Establishing Suspense: Exploring YA Mystery

Week Seven

Student Workshopping: Round Two

Week Eight

Industry 101: During this session we will go over how to write a query letter, how to find an agent, ect.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

  • By the end of the course, students will have a thorough background on the current YA landscape from contemporary rom-coms to fantasy, and will understand the basics of world building and character development.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

This class meets weekly via Zoom. Come prepared for a super fun class with live interaction on Zoom each week and plenty of writing, reading, and talking!

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

You can pay for the course in full or use Affirm to pay over time with equal Monthly Payments. Both options are available at checkout.
  • Instructor: Molly Horan
  • Class Starts Tuesday, June 20th, 2023
  • Class will meet via Zoom on Tuesdays, 6PM EST - 8PM EST

Instructor Molly Horan is a lyricist, librettist, playwright, and novelist. Her debut novel, Epically Earnest, was published in 2022, and her first picture book, I Have Seven Dogs, will be published in 2023 by Penguin/Random House. She currently works as an adjunct professor teaching creative writing at NYU.

Her play The Patron Saint of Other Women won Georgia College Arts and Letters’ 2021 Drama Prize. She was selected as a 2021 Bethany Arts Center artist in resident and a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Governors Island resident, and was awarded a The Betsy Writer’s Residency for 2022.

She is a member of the BMI Musical Theatre Advanced Workshop and Librettist Workshop. She co-wrote an adaptation of Little Women for Brooklyn’s Hedgepig Ensemble in 2019, and earlier that year wrote the short play Not a Protected Veteran as a part of Rising Sun Performance Company Laboratorium Residency.