Image 1 of 1
No Future
No Future, Tuesdays, March 10 - April 14, 5-7pm PST
On writing characters who cannot imagine a future.
cost: $300, $400, or $500 (sliding scale, you decide)
one free spot available
A fundamental tenet of this class is that characters who cannot imagine a future for themselves deserve to be fully imagined people on the page. Regardless of how they arrived in this position—whether through trauma, depression, alienation from loved ones or political imprisonment—the question of how to write without a future is one that can animate our writing through careful analysis. Are these characters without hope? How do we write suicide without judgment? Is a depressed character unlikeable? Does it matter? Does the inability to imagine a future mark one out as a pariah, a martyr, sick and in need of fixing? Does it signify some deeper unknowable truth about the world? Or is it simply another facet of being a human being in a time of increased fascism, paranoia, and violence? We will become comfortable discussing death and despair, something mainstream American society would rather ignore. We will resist the last minute saccharine turn toward hope for someone without a future, but we will also stay open to reversals, reprieve, and revelation that can come about from embracing the whole person on the page, in a time of desperation.
Please note that while we will do occasional writing prompts both in and outside of class, this is not a workshop. Students are invited to participate in a biweekly cowrite & chat session on alternating Thursdays, and will have the opportunity to schedule one-on-one sessions with me (Cal). Given the subject of this class, students should be prepared to confront difficult and potentially triggering material. You are always welcome to step away, sign out, turn your camera off, or recuse yourself from a specific class. Strategies will be shared for how to care for ourselves when reading & writing about trauma, suicide, and more.
Readings will pull from the following books, as well as one-off short stories and essays provided in PDF form:
Vi Khi Nao, Suicide: The Autoimmune Disorder of the Psyche
Rykki Ducornet, The Plotinus
John Edgar Wideman, Writing to Save a Life
Ghassan Kanafani, Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories
Nate Lippens, My Dead Book
All students are invited to participate in a biweekly cowrite & chat session on alternating Wednesdays from 5-7pm PST, for the following calendar year, beginning from the date of their first class.
No Future, Tuesdays, March 10 - April 14, 5-7pm PST
On writing characters who cannot imagine a future.
cost: $300, $400, or $500 (sliding scale, you decide)
one free spot available
A fundamental tenet of this class is that characters who cannot imagine a future for themselves deserve to be fully imagined people on the page. Regardless of how they arrived in this position—whether through trauma, depression, alienation from loved ones or political imprisonment—the question of how to write without a future is one that can animate our writing through careful analysis. Are these characters without hope? How do we write suicide without judgment? Is a depressed character unlikeable? Does it matter? Does the inability to imagine a future mark one out as a pariah, a martyr, sick and in need of fixing? Does it signify some deeper unknowable truth about the world? Or is it simply another facet of being a human being in a time of increased fascism, paranoia, and violence? We will become comfortable discussing death and despair, something mainstream American society would rather ignore. We will resist the last minute saccharine turn toward hope for someone without a future, but we will also stay open to reversals, reprieve, and revelation that can come about from embracing the whole person on the page, in a time of desperation.
Please note that while we will do occasional writing prompts both in and outside of class, this is not a workshop. Students are invited to participate in a biweekly cowrite & chat session on alternating Thursdays, and will have the opportunity to schedule one-on-one sessions with me (Cal). Given the subject of this class, students should be prepared to confront difficult and potentially triggering material. You are always welcome to step away, sign out, turn your camera off, or recuse yourself from a specific class. Strategies will be shared for how to care for ourselves when reading & writing about trauma, suicide, and more.
Readings will pull from the following books, as well as one-off short stories and essays provided in PDF form:
Vi Khi Nao, Suicide: The Autoimmune Disorder of the Psyche
Rykki Ducornet, The Plotinus
John Edgar Wideman, Writing to Save a Life
Ghassan Kanafani, Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories
Nate Lippens, My Dead Book
All students are invited to participate in a biweekly cowrite & chat session on alternating Wednesdays from 5-7pm PST, for the following calendar year, beginning from the date of their first class.