This master class is designed for writers who have lost income due to the pandemic and are especially interested in the course’s invitation to examine our solitudes. Each week’s meeting will shift from brief discussion of short prose readings (from writers such as Natalia Ginzburg, Orhan Pamuk, William Trevor, and Lydia Davis) with an emphasis on craft elements, to writing from a prompt that relates thematically and/or structurally to the readings.
Most importantly, each meeting will represent an opportunity to expand our imagination beyond the limits of our physical confinements, as well as an occasion to celebrate writing, reading, and gathering as a community. The optional readings will focus on solitude in its various emotional frequencies, from loneliness to creativity, despair to calm.
You will also have the option to work on a final piece, either inspired by the weekly prompts or from your own experience of confinement, on which writers will receive two pages of critical feedback.
Participants are expected to have read “The Metamorphosis” before the first session. (Text will be provided.)
Writers must apply by June 1. Please upload a writing sample that confirms you have lost income due to the pandemic and that includes up to 100 words naming a text that is meaningful to you in terms of solitude, detailing that significance briefly. Spots will be offered first come, first served for all eligible applicants. There is no tuition cost for participating in this course.
Class meetings will be held over video chat, using Zoom accessed from your private class page. While you can use Zoom from your browser, we recommend downloading the Zoom desktop client so you have access to all platform features.
COURSE TAKEAWAYS:
- A chance to read great short stories and essays that investigate solitude and discuss with the instructor and your classmates
- A unique opportunity to think about the experience of the pandemic from a variety of perspectives
- Generate writing alongside peers with in-class prompts
- Gather as a community of writers and readers
COURSE EXPECTATIONS:
- Participants are expected to have read “The Metamorphosis” before the first session
- Participants are expected to read the assignments for class and to work on a writing prompt in the second half of class generated from the readings
COURSE SKELETON:
Week 1: Time
Week 2: Writing the Solitude of Objects
Week 3: Writing Secrecy and Solitude
Week 4: Writing Parallel Worlds
Ayşegül Savaş is a novelist, essayist, and short story writer based in Paris. She is the author of the novels Walking on the Ceiling and White on White. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, The Yale Review, among other publications.
