Advanced Fiction: Writing Science Fiction

This is an intensive workshop that explores the speculative worlds of science fiction. Science fiction tasks us with asking the question, what if? It is a genre that demands consideration of modern crises, injustices, and anxieties through the lens of future or imagined realities. In this course, we learn how to apply this lens and refract the ambiguity of human experience, and we seek inspiration from the writing of authors like N.K Jemison, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ted Chiang, and Karen Lord. Drawing lessons from close readings and discussions, students produce their own creative works and hone their craft in a supportive workshop environment. By the end of the course, students have produced at least two pieces of short fiction or two chapters of a longer work.