Writing Fiction from the Archives

Undergraduate

Working with university curators and librarians, students use Yale’s collections to generate material for their short stories. In weekly writing exercises, we consider how craft elements—setting, dialogue, descriptive detail, and characterization—can become vehicles for integrating this research into fiction. Close readings of contemporary research-based fiction supplement our conversations. We look at examples of historical fiction (Zadie Smith), new journalism (Tom Wolfe), autobiographical fiction (Isabel Allende), and speculative fiction (Colson Whitehead), alongside the sources their authors drew from. While curiosity is the only prerequisite for this course, students are encouraged to come to class with a sense of the research subject they would like to focus on throughout the semester. Formerly 438. W 4pm-5:55pm