Lilith’s Brood: Weird Women’s Writing; Writing Weird Women

In this class, we consider how the broad category of “genre fiction” has enabled a range of possibilities and weirdness in fiction written by women. Drawing from generic tropes including magical realism, speculative fiction, folklore, horror, and afrofuturism, in this hybrid seminar/workshop, we will investigate how women writers have explored and exploded generic limitations of the supernatural, spiritual, folkloric, and nonhuman. Using these works as models, we will draw on our own cultural myths, inspirations, and the creative wellspring of the natural world in order to experiment with short and longer form writing.