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