In this team-taught, generative workshop, poet Caryl Pagel and fiction writer Madeline McDonnell will wage a battle for generic dominance, trying to win students over either to the side of poetry or fiction once and for all, because writing is a zero-sum game. Just kidding! In fact, Caryl and Madeline will help poets find their inner liars, and fiction writers their inner lyres. We will spend the weekend collaboratively reading poems and short works of fiction, exploring their correspondences and conversations in form and content, and then completing exercises engaging the strategies discussed. All the while, we will consider: How might we find plots in prosody and lyrics inside story arcs? What’s the difference between poetry and fiction, anyway? Does it matter? Students should expect to emerge with the starts of several new pieces—but will they be poems, stories? Stoems? Pories? We don’t know, but they will definitely be magic!

In this workshop, we will generate new writing through guided exercises and prompts; provide first impressions on writing you produce in our weekend together.